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

TO MAJOR-GENERAL GREENE. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. VIII (1779-1780) [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. VIII (1779-1780).

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 MAJOR-GENERAL GREENE.

Sir,

I have received your Letter of yesterday, and am extremely concerned to find that you meet with such difficulties in quartering the officers, whose rank and situation require they should be lodged in the houses in the vicinity of the army. I regret that the inhabitants should be unwilling to give shelter to men, who have made and are still making every sacrifice in the service of their country; and that the magistrates should refuse to give you effectual aid in a matter to which, in my opinion, by a liberal and necessary construction of the law, their authority is fully competent.

The dilemma is perplexing. On one hand, nothing I wish so much as to avoid the least deviation from the line prescribed by the law; on the other, it is impossible that the officers can remain without proper covering. If the obstacles cannot be removed, so as to satisfy the law, necessity decides that you must proceed in quartering the officers yourself in such houses, as the good of the service may require, having all possible regard to the circumstances of the Inhabitants, that none may be distressed or incommoded more than is unavoidable. To this I am persuaded your own disposition will induce you to pay the strictest attention. But before you have recourse to this step, you will make one more application to the magistrates, which you will be pleased to do in writing, and request their answer also in writing. You will expose to them the reasonableness and necessity of their concurrence, and inform them what we shall be compelled to do, if they decline giving their assistance with cordiality and efficacy. Should they again refuse, you will then have no alternative but to do as I have mentioned.

I am, Sir, &c.

1780.