To George Washington from Brigadier General Henry Knox, 5 February 1781
From Brigadier General Henry Knox
New Windsor 5 Feby 178[1]
Dear Sir
I send your Excellency the volume of pamphlets belonging t[o] Governor Trumbull.1 I have taken the liberty to retain for two or three days the single pamphlet written by Governor Pownall, and shall be oblig’d by the perusal of the Volume when your Excellen[c]y has done with it.2
I wish to go to West point to day the weather & sleighing bei[n]g favorable which obliges me to postpone making my report to your Excellen[c]y untill tomorrow or next day.3 I have am with greatest respe[c]t and attachment your excellency Most Obedt st.
ADf, NNGL: Henry Knox Papers. Knox dated his draft 1780, but internal evidence indicates a date of 1781.
2. Thomas Pownall (1722–1805), a member of Parliament, had been colonial governor of Massachusetts from 1757 to 1760. He authored numerous pamphlets during his long career. The one mentioned by Knox was likely Pownall’s A Memorial, Most Humbly Addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe, on the Present State of Affairs, Between the Old and New World (London, 1780). The essay discussed how an independent United States would affect world trade.
3. For the report, see Knox to GW, 7 February.