From George Washington to Officers of the Second Maryland Brigade, 7 September 1778
To Officers of the Second Maryland Brigade
Head Quarters [White Plains] 7th Sepr 1778
Gentlemen
I was just now favd with your letter of yesterday.1
Tho’ I would willingly grant a request coming from so respectable a number of Officers, yet in the instance of your present application, I cannot do it, without incurring a charge of impropriety, and staying the course of Justice. Captain Norwood has been arrested by General Smallwood for an injury done his character—He has pursued the constitutional mode of redress—the matter has never been tried—nor the prosecution relinquished by the party. I am sorry that he should have been longer in arrest than what is customary, but it has proceeded from the new and peculiar difficulties that have occurred in his Case.2 I am Gentlemen with great Respect and Esteem Your most obt Servt
Go: Washington
LS, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, PHi: Dreer Collection; Df, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. This letter has not been found.
2. At this point on the draft, Robert Hanson Harrison wrote and crossed out a sentence reading: “I have not the smallest enmity or charge against him, and as far as my Judgement directs me, he shall have equal & ⟨strict justice⟩.”