Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO GOVERNOR TRUMBULL. - The Writings of George Washington, vol. V (1776-1777)

Return to Title Page for The Writings of George Washington, vol. V (1776-1777)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO GOVERNOR TRUMBULL. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. V (1776-1777) [1890]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. V (1776-1777).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO GOVERNOR TRUMBULL.

Sir,

I was yesterday evening favored with a call by the gentlemen appointed Commissioners from your State to arrange your officers, and to adopt some line of conduct for recruiting the quota of men, which you are to furnish. In discussing this subject, the gentlemen informed me, that your Assembly, to induce their men to enlist more readily into the service, had passed a vote advancing their pay twenty shillings per month, over and above that allowed by Congress. It is seldom, that I interfere with the determinations of any public body, or venture to hold forth my opinion contrary to the decisions, which they form; but, upon this occasion, I must take the liberty to mention, especially as the influence of that vote will be general and Continental, that, according to my ideas and those of every general officer I have consulted, a more mistaken policy could not have been adopted, or one that, in its consequences, will more effectually prevent the great object, which Congress have in view, and which the situation of our affairs so loudly calls for, the levying a new army. That the advance, allowed by your State, may be the means of raising your quota of men sooner than it otherwise would, perhaps may be true; but, when it is considered, that it will be an effectual bar to the other States, in raising the quotas exacted from them, when it is certain, that, if their quotas could be made up without this advance coming to their knowledge, the moment they come to act with troops, who receive a higher pay, jealousy, impatience, and mutiny will immediately take place, and occasion desertions, if not a total dissolution of the army,—it must be viewed as injurious and fatal point of light. That troops will never act together, in the same cause and for different pay, must be obvious to every one. Experience has already proved it in this army. That Congress will take up the subject, and make the advance general, is a matter of which there can be but little probability, as the addition of a suit of clothes, to the former pay of the privates, was a long time debated before it could be obtained. I am, &c.