COLONEL ISRAEL MOREY TO NEW-HAMPSHIRE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY.

GENTLEMEN: By Colonel Gerrish, I received yours of the 13th instant, wherein you acknowledge the receipt of mine of the 7th, and observe the surprise you mention. I am as sorry to occasion a discomposure of mind, as I am to tell you that yours is as alarming as the abruptness of your determination. In the first place, I am asked what should induce me to purchase medicines. Certainly not for private views, as I am no apothecary. Upon Colonel Bedel’s application for them, and having your particular orders to assist in providing for and forwarding the regiment with all speed, thought it necessary. And certainly the medicines will not be lost, nor do I think, at the particular charge of this Colony.

I am told that one hundred guns were supplied for the regiment. That number cannot answer for seven hundred men, as we must expect our adversaries will be all equipped with weapons of defence to a man. As to the prices, they were valued by an indifferent person, who is esteemed to be as complete a judge as any in this Colony. Many of them are King’s arms, with bayonets, of the best kind, valued at three pounds only, others in like proportion; which is twenty per cent., at least, under those purchased at Exeter, and free of transportation. Unless I had purchased guns, I never could have complied with my instructions, which are not to muster any until well accoutred. I am confident that not a single man has been detained by me, and every possible means has been used to despatch them. Had the honourable Committee taken into consideration the orders given to Major Bellows and myself, and the many articles ordered to be purchased for the use of the troops, for which there was no money advanced us, they never could have thought of an overplus paid for the fixing the regiment. The money wrote for was for articles not in any particular calculation by the Committee.

I shall (as I ever have) endeavour to follow my instructions; and as soon as I have paid as far as the money already received will allow of, make a return of my proceedings, with my accounts and proper vouchers; and if the publick business shall be retarded for want of sufficient supplies, the Court must abide by the consequences.

I am, gentlemen, your most humble Servant,

ISRAEL MOREY.

To the Honourable Meshech Weare, Chairman, &c.

JEREMIAH FOLSOM TO NEW-HAMPSHIRE ASSEMBLY.

New-Market, March 19, 1776.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOURS: I ask leave to inform you that it was just intimated to me by a member of the honourable Court, that it was expected I should attend on a Committee appointed to sit on Tuesday, 19th March, instant, at Exeter; but for what purposes, I have not been made acquainted. I therefore should not have been prepared to answer any matters, could I have given myself the pleasure of attending on the honourable Committee. But I have the misfortune, from receiving such violent colds in attending in the late storms, to be confined to my house and bed, which has put it out of my power to have obeyed your Honours’ citation, if I had received one, which I shall always esteem it my duty and pleasure readily to obey, although the complaints and allegations were as false and maliciously fabricated against me, as those that have lately been by a small number of disappointed, and, therefore, disaffected persons belonging to the Fifth Company, in Colonel Gillman’s Regiment, who have retarded and hindered the settlement of the whole regiment, and who, without your Honours’ interposition, will continue the same. Confiding, therefore, in the known knowledge and justice of your Honours, in justifying the innocent when falsely accused, think myself happy that I am at the tribunal, and in the protection of this honourable Court; to whose determination and order I shall render the steadiest and firmest obedience, when it is signified to me, if God in his Providence shall admit me health and opportunity to fulfil it.

I am, may it please your Honours, your Honours’ most humble servant,

JEREMIAH FOLSOM.

To the Honourable Council and House of Representatives for the Colony of New-Hampshire.

CAPTAIN JAMES OSGOOD TO NEW-HAMPSHIRE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY.

Oxford, March 19, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: I have been informed by two gentlemen belonging to the Court, that a certain gentleman of the House declared that he was informed I had only inlisted five men, four of whom had deserted. The affair must be wrongly construed, with an intent to hurt the character of a person unworthy of the same, and who does not deserve such treatment. I have with me at least sixty good men. Boys I scorn to engage, though I might have had a number of them; and I am pretty certain most Captains have had very bad luck in raising their men, by reason of other officers engaging men to inlist for Portsmouth, by offering them greater advantages in respect to furloughs, which they possibly could not have by going to Canada; which, of course, has been a great damage to our parties. I have had a great number deserted after paying them the bounty, and part of advance pay to support their families, and have sent to the Committees to apprehend them, but have not received any answer. A Captain of a company of the Militia in Henniker, (which can be proved in Concord,) told one of my men that if he would go to Head-Quarters only for two months, he would clear him from going to Canada.

We are all in good spirits, though we meet with such difficulties, and shall march to-morrow with what I have got, and shall have the remainder very soon.

I am, gentlemen, your most humble servant,

JAMES OSGOOD.

To the Honourable Meshech Weare, Esq., Chairman of the Committee, Exeter.

COLONEL BEDEL TO NEW-HAMPSHIRE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY.

Oxford, March 19, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: Your letter of the 13th is just received by Colonel Gerrish, wherein you mention the marching and inlisting my men goes on much slower than you expected. The reasons I can give. In the first place, the inlisting parties about here, (some for Cambridge, some for Canada,) were inlisting only for three months, and gave the same bounty and advance as those I inlist for a year. In regard to the expense for the Indians, I did not ask any money to be given; but by their sickness the money fell short; so I only wanted the money to be lent till I could settle the affair, and remit it back. In regard to the stores, I have not asked for anything but medicines, and something to help them along, as I do not think it prudent to send troops to such a distance without, and the medicines would then be of use to the Continent, as I am certain they were very rare last year in Canada, and suppose they are so now. Though the wages are to be paid monthly, the men are under the necessity to leave something for the support of their families, as the distance being so great, they have not an opportunity of sending anything home, only at some particular time; and the Army being chiefly made up with people who are not under circumstances to support their families while gone, therefore should have something to leave them.

You also mention you expect I will march as, soon as possible, That I should absolutely have done without any such directions. My orders from the Continental Congress and General Washington were to apply to you for any necessaries I might want, where they both mention you are to furnish me with the same, suitable for my march; but not one word mentioned about my applying to you for orders to march, or how I should conduct in the affair. So, if I have applied for anything of that kind, (as the copy of my letter which I have does not mention, though there might be a mistake in the copying,) I did not mean any such thing. When I was at Exeter, there were two gentlemen, (one by the name of Town, the other by the name of Peabody,) whom the Committee sent to me for orders to raise a company, which I did by your desire, though the gentlemen I was never acquainted with, but supposed they would have raised their men, but never heard from them till several companies had marched. I have had to send an express to Amherst to them, and found they had not raised one man; so had a company to raise after all disappointments. If they had raised their men, I should have had my regiment full by the time. I have six companies marched, and full, except four