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.