[22] “The words, as reported by the committee to Congress, were, ‘It,’ i.e., the arming of the citizens to suppress the mutineers, ‘was not to be expected, merely from a repetition of the insult which had happened.’”—Note by Col. Pickering.
[23] “Mr. Ellsworth was the other member of the committee.—T. P.”
[24] Your Excellency will recollect, that, in our private conversation, you urged this consideration, and appealed to my military experience; and that I made, substantially, the observations which follow.
HAMILTON TO MADISON.
Princeton, June 29, 1783.
Dear Sir:
I am informed, that, among other disagreeable things said about the removal of Congress from Philadelphia, it is insinuated, that it was a contrivance of some members, to get them out of the State of Pennsylvania, into one of those to which they belonged; and I am told, that this insinuation has been pointed at me in particular.
Though I am persuaded, that all disinterested persons will justify Congress in quitting a place where they were told they were not to expect support (for the conduct of the Council amounted to that), yet, I am unwilling to be held up as having had an extraordinary agency in the measure for interested purposes, when the fact is directly the reverse. As you were a witness to my conduct and opinions through the whole of the transaction, I am induced to trouble you for your testimony upon this occasion. I do not mean to make a public use of it; but, through my friends, to vindicate myself from the imputations I have mentioned.
I will therefore request your answers to the following questions:
Did that part of the resolutions, which related to the removal of Congress, originate with me, or not?