Letter from General Sullivan to the New-Hampshire Committee of Safety

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Winter-HiII, March 14, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: I enclose you a list of the regiment under Colonel Waldron, with the arrangement of the officers, and desire you to forward the commissions as soon as possible. I have the satisfaction to inform you that Colonel Waldron' s was the first complete regiment on the spot; and is by far the largest and best that came from either Colony. His Excellency consented to keep the nine companies, rather than break them. They are allowed, by all who do duty with them, to be excellent officers and soldiers — always willing to do their duty with the utmost cheerfulness. They are quiet, peaceable, and obedient; and though much fault was found with my proceedings in selecting the officers, I must now take the liberty of boasting of my judgment in the choice, and can call the whole brigade to witness in my favour.

I hope, gentlemen, the cruel and ungenerous reflections upon my conduct, thrown out by some persons among you, did not proceed from that envious disposition, which too often proves the destruction of an Infant State struggling for freedom. I sincerely wish that those zealots, who thought I had taken too much upon myself, had exerted themselves to fill up the Canada Regiment with as many good men as I have got in this, and not have left us to lament the want of assistance to our distressed friends in Canada, and to view with concern a regiment not half completed, which ought to have marched three weeks ago. I am now ordered to march for New-York in a few days: those persons will then have no more fear of the destruction of their liberties from a person who has spent more money, undergone more fatigue, and oftener risked his life, than any other person in your Province; and all this to secure that freedom which those gentlemen would persuade the world I am endeavouring to destroy. Gentlemen, I wish your. Colony all possible happiness, and would do everything in the power of man to secure its freedom, and even feel a disposition to serve those few inveterate foes of mine that yet remain among you, and convince them that no person would do more in the cause of freedom than your most obedient servant,

JOHN SULLIVAN.

To the Honourable Committee of Safety.