1To George Washington from John Hancock, 22 August 1776 (Washington Papers)
The enclosed resolutions of 21 Aug. concern Basil Bouderot’s trial for murdering Samuel Holden Parsons’s brother, capital punishment for persons “found lurking as Spies in, or about the Fortifications or Encampments of the Armies of the United States,” appropriation of $500,000 for the army at New York, procurement of cannon for Gates’s army...
2From George Washington to Colonel Lewis Nicola, 5 February 1780 (Washington Papers)
I have however since on account of the frequency of capital punishments and from General Woodford’s representation that this was the first offence the prisoner had been guilty of,). GW remained concerned about the frequency of executions and the resulting loss of the “good effects” of capital punishment (
3To George Washington from Samuel Huntington, 16 November 1780 (Washington Papers)
...equal establishment with the Officers of the line” or reduction. Another resolution “recommended to the legislatures of the respective States by whom it hath not already been done to inflict capital punishment on all such persons as shall directly or indirectly supply the enemy with provisions or military or naval stores; And that the most effectual measures be adopted by the respective...