Letter from the General Court of Massachusetts to General Washington

v4:191

Watertown, December 7, 1775.

SIR: We enclose to your Excellency an attested copy of the resolve passed by the General Court on the first instant; upon the subject-matter of which resolve a Committee of both Houses had yesterday the honour of a conference with your Excellency. We are clearly of opinion that the words of the resolve will not admit of such a construction as was suggested to your Excellency by General Heath? but that they plainly put the officers and soldiers of the militia, now to be raised, upon the same footing, in all respects, as the rest of the American army under your Excellency' s command, and that they were so intended by the Court. We could have wished that Gen˙ Heath had deferred giving the information he did to your Excellency, unless he had been possessed of fuller evidence than he appears to have had. We trust this account of the matter will be fully satisfactory to your Excellency, and prevent any difficulties from arising upon this head.

His Excellency Gen˙ Washington.