Patrick Henry to Wythe, 11 November 1777
Letter text, November 11, 1777
WmsBurg, November 11th 1777
Sir: Pay rolls for the Militia of Kentucky have been laid before the auditors, in order to obtain warrants for payment. The Auditors have scrupled to allow this militia the pay fixed by the law for those on actual duty, because they were obliged for their own personal safety and the security of their wives and children, to keep themselves in forts, and remain on the defensive against parties of Indians continually infesting that country, too numerous to permit the inhabitants to return to their plantations. The pay rolls are properly authenticated by the commanding officer under whose orders the men acted. In this state of the case, the advice of the Executive power is requested, and as I am in doubt on the subject, I am to pray Sir, to take the sense of the assembly on it. I am sensible that many instances have occurred similar to this, in which pay has been allowed, and I wish to put a stop to such a practice if it is wrong, and that no doubt of its rectitude may remain if it is proper. It may be observed, that 250 men have been ordered by the government from the more interior counties to that place for its protection, the time of whose arrival there I cannot ascertain. I have the honor to be.
Sir Yr. Most humble Servant,
P. HENRY.
The Honble George Wythe, Esq.,
Speaker of the House of Delegates.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ "Gov. Henry to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, George Wythe, (From W. W. Henry's Henry, III, 116)" in Official Letters of the Governors of the State of Virginia, vol. 1, The Letters of Patrick Henry, ed. H. R. McIlwaine (Richmond: Superintendent of Public Printing, 1926), 203.
