Home / O'Callaghan, E.B., ed. The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. II. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1849. / Passage

Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. II

O'Callaghan, E.B., ed. The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. II. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1849. 307 words

The Pay set down for me, their Proportion of ^yhich youi Province is to be answerable for, I submit to, but surely your Government doth not intend or suppose these Wages (as they term it) is to supply me with Equipage, with necessarys, charge of servants and the various other Expences which the Command will subject me to. I am far from intending or desireing a support for a vain or useless Ostentation, but they will I presume think it necessary that I sustain the honour conferred upon me with a Decent Dignity j the Troops will naturally expect to see it, the officers to feel it, neither my Policy nor my spirit will allow me to disgrace the Character I am placed in. The Province of New Jersey have agreed to give Coll". Peter Schuyler who commands

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but 500 men £300. Currency for his Table &«». Is not a Secretary, are not Aid de Camps necessary about me, is there to be no Establishment for them 1 they must be always of my Table.

I supposed, these matters would naturally occur to the Gentlemen of your Legislature, and I thought it would with more propriety come from them then be proposed by me. Perhaps thro hurry it may have been omitted in the Report you send me -- for the Wages allowed me are I suppose considered only as a compensation for my Time & Fatigue : tho I make no objection on that head, yet I must on this occasion say, that no pay which even a lavish Generosity might have given me would be adequate to the loss & prejudice I shall sustain in my own private affairs, and if publick spirit had not prevailed with me above all other motives, I should have declined the honour which was offered me.