Guilford, May 24th, 1782.
Sir:
Your Letter respecting Dragoon Horses addressed to Governor Burke was handed me by Colonel Middleton, which I did myself the honor to present the General Assembly, they have according to the requisition therein, ordered thirty horses to be procured, and have authorized Colonel Long and Colonel Lockhart to procure the same with the utmost dispatch, which I shall send forward in Parcels as they shall be collected.
The Assembly have rose but have not finished many important objects before them, as I could have wished, however as I wrote you last every twentieth man is to be drafted to fill the Continental Battalions, which is supposed to raise 2,000 men exclusive of deserters and former delinquents who as soon as collected are to be sent forward, and by their calculation with the present drafts will complete our quota; how far their expectation will be answered I shall not promise, but the drafts shall be made and every exertion made use of to get them into the field as soon as prescribed by the Law. They are to rendezvous in the respective districts by the 1st of August next, two classes or forty men have their choice to send a good waggon and team or two soldiers for the time aforesaid not to exceed so many for a County.
The Assembly have given no answer respecting our discharged Soldiers enlisting into the South Carolina Service, and am not authorized to say anything on that measure in public Character, but as a Citizen I yield my approbation. As these men are exempted from all military Service for one year after the expiration of their
present time, we cou’d derive no immediate benefit from them but at their pleasure to be substitutes; if they are in the Southern Army it answers the grand purpose as if immediately in the Service of this State.I do myself the pleasure to enclose you a message to the General Assembly respecting our Officers’ and Soldiers’ Lands, to be ascertained with precision, and recommending a similar provision for the Officers and Soldiers of the States of Maryland and Delaware the first part of which they have complyed with, and ordered agents and surveyors to lay off these lands in concert with those who shall be appointed by the Officers, on Cumberland River and its Waters; where they also complimented you with 25,000 Acres as a testimonial of the high sense they entertain of your Military merit, and the obligations this State is under to you, for its present existence, however inadequate these may be to your services rendered us, & my expectations of their liberality, as it is, you will please to accept thereof. They conceived that making donations of Land to the Maryland and Delaware Troops would be deemed affrontive to those States without their consent.
One of the Houses agreed notwithstanding and directed me to inform those States on that Subject, but the whole matter is postponed until the next Assembly.