I have taken the liberty to enclose to your Excellency a letter addressd to Genl Carleton on acct of two Valuable Servts who iloped from me in the month of May 1781 who are both as I am informd in New York, and as I have been told in the Service of some officers of the British Army—shd Yr Excellency concieve the smallest impropriety in the application which I leave open for your perusal I shall cheerfully desist from prosecuting it and request that you will suppress it—if Yr Excelly shd think otherwise—I must sollicit your goodness to give it an introduction—and shd it be attended with success—that you will be pleased to order the negroes to be secured untill I can be advertized of their being returned when I will immediately send for them. I must add that nothing but the sanction of a solemn treaty, would ever have induced me to think of such an application not withstanding the Multiplied losses I have sustaind of that kind during the Invasion of the State of Virginia—I need not repeat my entire confidence in your Excellencys prudence as well as goodness or that I am Yr most obedt Servt