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Sir:—

It now from the following circumstances becomes our duty to inform your Excellency that the Prisoner under the condemnation of death and reprieved by your Excellency and your Council 'till the meeting of the next General Assembly, as well as many others now confined in our jail charged with criminal offences, many of them have been found guilty by the grand Jury for this District, of Misprison of Treason, who from the ill repair the said jail is now in and the impossibility of making it at any rate safe, without a Guard may with the utmost ease make their escape, at what ever

time they please, and bid defiance to the Laws they have violated by the determination and verdict of their Country. Our County and Town have hitherto guarded the jail and Magasine which the commanding officer in concert with them thought necessary, never doubting but the charge would be made a general one, as equally interesting to the whole State. But as some Reports have lately prevailed that the charges already due and arisen for keeping a guard for the purposes before mentioned, will not be allowed without a sanction from your Excellency and Council, the guard refused to do any further duty, and the Magasine which is of the utmost consequence, as well as the jail, are now for want of a Guard exposed to the bad designs of any Villain. We conceive by the Constitution you have full power of and the ordering the Militia vested in you, we think it proper to desire of your Excellency that you would with the advice of your Council, give orders to the commanding officer of the Militia to order such a guard to be kept as he may think sufficient for the preservation of the Magasine & the safe keeping the jail, and we do assure your Excellency that the stores at present in the Magasine in this Town are of too much consequence to be neglected.

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