May it Please Your Excellency:
The President of Congress charged me in a particular manner, among a number of dispatches, with the enclosed letter for your Excellency, which I was directed to hand or forward you by a quick and safe conveyance. I fully intended having the honor of presenting it myself, but after I left Philadelphia circumstances obliged my rout through Richmond, in Virginia, where I
should meet with the Troops on their march Southwardly, commanded by B. Genl. Woodford, to whom I had immediate public business. From that place, to have fallen into the lower road would oblige me to make my stay from Georgia (on whose business I was ordered to Congress) much longer than it was proper. I have therefore lodged the letter in the care of Col. James Saunders, whom I have wrote pressingly to forward it by all dispatch, which I hope will reach you as soon as possible. Excessive badness of weather, with the great floods, unavoidably stopt me a few days on the road in Maryland. I am hurrying on to Augusta in Georgia, with all possible hurry, having Express to the Governor of So. Carolina and Georgia, also to Gens. Lincoln and McIntosh, with a number of others.