1. Parsons’s aide-de-camp Capt. Joseph Walker apparently delivered GW’s letter to Parsons dated 3 May that discussed Parsons’s health and prisoner issues.

2. These prisoners had been detained in Connecticut on charges of aiding the enemy (see Parsons to GW, 14 March; see also n.5 below).

Parsons had written Col. Samuel Blachley Webb from Redding on 7 May: “I have received the Proceedings of the Court in the Trials of Beardsly, Turner, Newman & Collier, but the last Trial is imperfect, the Letter on which the Conviction Seems to be founded, not being inserted in the Proceedings or sent with them, that the Evidence on which you have convicted him does not appear; this you will Supply by sending the Letter.

“To Morrow when the Provisions are ready to move you will please to order an Escort for them, how large you will judge; a guard with the Prisoners to Litchfield & Symsbury must be sent to Morrow if possible, and a Guard retained at Danbury with the Prisoners, until the remaining Part of the Prisoners are ready to be mov’d when all the Guard will escort the Provisions on, together with such Prisoners as remain in the Guard House” (Ford, Webb Correspondence and Journals description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed. Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb. 3 vols. New York, 1893–94. description ends , 2:336–37; see also GW to Parsons, 30 April, found at Parsons to GW, 20 April, n.4).

3. Thomas Langley Collyer (1742–1812), a native of Membury, England, settled in Weston, Fairfield County, Conn., in 1769. By the early 1770s, he operated a cloth manufactory in New Haven (see Collyer to GW, 27 May). Collyer married at least three times and was buried in Westchester County, New York.

4. Nathaniel Towner (born c.1740), a native of Haddam, Conn., and a practicing physician, later owned a house and farm in New Milford, Connecticut.

5. Parsons enclosed court-martial proceedings involving Bennet Beardsly, Collyer, and Towner, all dated 7 May (DLC:GW).

The court-martial that tried Beardsly found him guilty and sentenced him to death for “Inlisting & forewarding Recruits to the British Army” as well as aiding Loyalists “in thier way to and from the Enemy” and forwarding “dispaches of the Enemy to and from Canady to New York.” Affidavits that reported on Beardsly’s activities included one that claimed that “Beardsly frequently declared he always had been a friend to King George & he hoped the glorious day would arrive when the tories might triumph over the Rebbels as much as the Rebels had done over them & that he was sertain the day would come.”

Collyer’s court-martial proceedings recounted testimony from James Darby that Collyer had been sent to Long Island with intelligence for the enemy. Collyer refuted Darby’s testimony and threw “himself upon the Mercy of the Court.

“The Court after Considering the Evidence and Circomstances are of oppinion that the Prisoner is Guilty of a Breach of the 19th Article 10th [13th] Section of the Articles of War—& do therefore Sentence him to Suffer Death more than two thirds of the Court Agreing therein.” The nineteenth article of the thirteenth section of the articles of war reads: “Whosoever shall be convicted of holding correspondence with, or giving intelligence to the enemy, either directly or indirectly, shall suffer death, or such punishment as by a court-martial shall be inflicted” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 5:799; see also Parsons to Webb, 7 May, in Hall, Life and Letters of General Parsons description begins Charles S. Hall. Life and Letters of Samuel Holden Parsons: Major General in the Continental Army and Chief Judge of the Northwestern Territory, 1737-1789. Binghamton, N.Y., 1905. description ends , 359–60, and n.2 above).

Towner’s court-martial concluded that he “was a Spy Imployed by sd Brittish Army” to enlist Connecticut residents. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

John Laurance, judge advocate general of the Continental army, wrote GW from West Point on 17 May: “I have perused the Papers delivered me, Yesterday, by Lieut. Colonel Humphrys, who informed me that the Persons, mentioned in them, were Subjects of the State of Connecticut; and resided in that State when apprehended. I am therefore of Opinion that A Court Martial could not properly take Cognizance of the Facts they are charged with; unless the Court acted under a Law of the State, in which Case it should be mentioned in the proceedings” (LS, DLC:GW; the docket reads: “Vide M. Genl Parsons⟨’s⟩ Letter of 8th May”). For Connecticut laws that authorized courts-martial to try persons accused of abetting the enemy, see Parsons to GW, 14 March, and n.5.

John Morin Scott, New York secretary of state and state senator, wrote an opinion about Collyer’s case from Fishkill on 28 May: “Thomas Langly Collier is represented to Me as having attempted a treasonable Correspondence with the Enemy on Long Island by a Letter intercepted in its passage thither on the Sound—There is little Reason to doubt that the aforesaid Letter was of a treasonable Nature; tho I have neither seen it or a Copy of it. I am informed that at the Time of writing and intercepting the said Letter Collier had, as well as for some Years before, his fixed Residence at Fairfield in the State of Connecticut and that he is not charged with having gone over to the Enemy or come from them in the Character of a Spy. That he has been apprehended tried and convicted on the aforesaid Letter, by a Court martial of which Major General Parsons was president & is now under Sentence of death & in Irons in the provost at Fishkill And my opinion is asked on the following I Question vizt.

“Whether as Collier’s Case is above Stated, he was legally amenable to and triable by a Court martial?

“Answer—It is my Opinion that any person taken in disguise or secretly lurking about an Encamp[m]ent Cantonment Garrison or other military post occultly attempting to make discoveries, or to practise with the Troops for the Benefit of the Enemy is by the practise of Nations & the Law martial triable by a Court martial as a Spy. But I am also of opinion that an Inhabitant & Subject who from the place of his fixed abode, & where the Law of the Land will reach him maintains or attempts to maintain a treasonable Correspondence with the Enemy, is amenable for the Crime only before a Court of Law in the State where the Crime was committed and not before a Court martial; unless there should be a particular legal provision for the purpose by a Law of the State” (DLC:GW; see also David Hawley et al. to GW, 22 May, and Collyer to GW, 27 May).

6. Parsons participated in a board of general officers that convened at GW’s headquarters on 12 June (see Document V with The Wethersfield Conference and Aftermath, 14 May–16 June, editorial note).