1. The enclosed letter from Capt. Moses Cleaveland to Heath was written at West Point on 9 April: “The Officers of the Corps of Sappers and Miners have in compliance with General Washington’s Order Issued Septr 3d 1780 muster’d all the Men drafted from the Line into sd Corp from the 1st of August 1780 and many of those from the Massechusetts Line (as I am inform’d) are still continued on the Muster Rolls in the Regiments from which they were drafted … they will draw Pay in two Seperate Corps.

“By late Resolves of the State of Massechusetts all the Troops belonging to sd State are to be pay’d by It up to the 1st of January 178c[.] I could wish to be inform’d whether those Men drafted from that Line are to be continued on the depreciation Rolls up to January 1st 81 in the Regiments from which they were drafted or whether (as their Pay is higher in the Corps of Sappe[r]s then in the Regiments) they are to be made up seperate from the Time of their being drafted or receive their Pay from the Miletary Chest without having reference to any State.

“The mode being determin’d I can persue it without injuring the publick or any Individual untill it is I am at a loss which to persue” (DLC:GW; see also the general orders for 3 Sept. 1780). For GW’s decision, see General Orders, 22 April 1781.

2. Heath presumably enclosed The Royal American Gazette (New York) for 3 April, which published on Tuesdays (see also n.3 below). The Royal Gazette (New York) printed an issue for 28 March.

3. Capt. John Pray had written Heath from Nyack, N.Y., on 9 April: “With a great deal of difficulty I mad out to git a York Papper Last night 3d Apl.” Pray then explained “the occation of the firing at York which I mention’d to you” (MHi: Heath Papers; see also Heath to GW, 7–8 April, postscript, and n.5).

The New-York Gazette: and the Weekly Mercury for Monday, 9 April, detailed the firing incident: “The first Rebel Privateer that has appeared on our Coast this Spring, was the Schooner Eagle, Captain Hindman [House], belonging to the Province of North-Carolina, but last from New-London, of 8 Guns and 20 Men: She took the Harlequin Pilot Boat last Thursday, off Sandy-Hook, and fired into another that escaped; but his Majesty’s Frigate the Medea falling in with them next Day, ran the Privateer and her Prize ashore: They were both soon got off again; and the Prisoners brought to Town last Friday at Noon.—The Vessels came up Yesterday” (see also the entry for 6 April in Mackenzie Diary description begins Diary of Frederick Mackenzie Giving a Daily Narrative of His Military Service as an Officer of the Regiment of Royal Welch Fusiliers during the Years 1775–1781 in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1930. description ends , 2:500–501).

4. Heath wrote in his memoirs for 9 April: “Intelligence was received from the commanding officer on the lines that the enemy were out towards White Plains, said to be about 90 horse and 50 foot” (Wilson, Heath’s Memoirs description begins Rufus Rockwell Wilson, ed. Heath’s Memoirs of the American War. 1798. Reprint. New York, 1904. description ends , 295). Maj. Amos Morrill explained when he wrote Heath from Crom Pond, N.Y., on the same date, 6:00 a.m.: “I think they are rather on a plundering then Fighting expedition” (MHi: Heath Papers). In his second letter to Heath on 9 April, Morrill sent intelligence on an intended enemy excursion to the vicinity of Bedford, N.Y., “to take off Forrage, Cattle, Horses, &c.” and then maneuver to capture his Continental detachment. “I shall keep the hole party together, and in perfect readyness to act as occation may require, untill I am convinced they have return’d” (MHi: Heath Papers).