Your Excellency will be informed by the enclosed Act of the third Instant of the Measures Congress have adopted for the Removal of the Convention Troops into the State of Pennsylvania.(1) The like Information is transmitted to Governor Lee, & the President of Pennsylvania.
I have also informed Governor Lee, that should your Excellency find it necessary to order the Prisoners taken at the Cowpens to move Northward through Virginia, as intimated in your late Advice to me, He (Governor Lee) must consider them as included with the other Prisoners and give Orders accordingly.
It is necessary that the Executive of Maryland, or the Commanding Officer have seasonable Notice that they may be prepared to receive the Prisoners when they arrive on the Borders of Maryland.
I have the Honor to be, with very great Respect, your Excellency's most obedient & most humble Servant,
Sam Huntington President
(1) This resolve was adopted in response to a Board of War complaint of its inability to implement Congress' February 24 order for removing the Convention Army prisoners from Virginia, which had been referred to committee on February 26. The resolve herewith transmitted to Governor Jefferson contained details of how responsibility for the removal should be shared by Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania officials, which had been worked out by the committee and drafted by chairman Joseph Jones. See JCC, 19:195-96, 229-30; Huntington to Jefferson, February 25; and the following entry.
For the unsuccessful effort of the Pennsylvania Council to prevent the removal of these prisoners into the state, in part from concern that the "very great Proportion of disaffected People already among us...will...greatly increase by an Intercourse with the Prisoners," see Pa. Archives, 1st ser. 8:745, 757-58.