I had the honour of receiving by Mcloski the 5 Inst. your favor of the 10th Ulto. including a late correspondence with Lieutt General Burgoyne,(1) these were immediately reported to Congress & transmitted to the Board of War, from whence a report has not yet ascended, therefore I have no particular Commands relative to your said dispatch. I may however with propriety & pleasure intimate that your conduct towards the British General & his dependants receive the continued approbation of Congress if I may be permitted to make this conclusion from the general sentiments of Members.
Inclosed with this you will receive an Act of Congress of the 3d Inst. for obliging persons who hold Commissions or appointments under Congress to qualify themselves by taking & subscribing to certain Oaths therein prescribed, which Sir, you will be pleased to publish throughout the department of the Army under Your Command.(2)
1 The January 13, 1778, letter to Laurens from Gen. William Heath, the Continental commander in Boston, dealt with "some Riotous behaviour" by a few of Gen. John Burgoyne's troops in that city as well as problems related to the maintenance of Burgoyne's captured army. Enclosed with it were letters of January 4 from Burgoyne to Heath and of January 10 from Heath to Burgoyne concerning the unruliness of the British prisoners mentioned above. PCC, item 57, fols. 135 46. Laurens obviously confused Heath's January 13 letter to him with the general's January 10 letter to Burgoyne.
2 In his presidential letterbook Laurens made the following summary of a letter he wrote this day to Gen. Benedict Arnold: "Acknowledged the Receipt of two Letters from him Committed to Board of War-that I had received no Command from Congress." PCC, item 13, fol. 181. See also JCC, 10:74, 139.