it, I am laid under
the disagreeable necessity of returning my answer through the same
channel, lest any member of that honourable body should harbour an
unfavourable suspicion of my having practised some indiscreet means to
come at the contents of the confidential letters between you and
General Conway.

I am to inform you then, that ----, on his way to congress in the
month of October last, fell in with Lord Stirling at Reading: and, not
in confidence that I ever understood, informed his aid-de-camp, Major
M'Williams, that General Conway had written thus to you, "heaven has
been determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad
counsellors[106] would have ruined it." Lord Stirling, from motives of
friendship, transmitted the account with this remark. "The enclosed
was communicated by ---- to Major M'Williams; such wicked duplicity of
conduct I shall always think it my duty to detect."

[Footnote 106: One of whom, by the by, he was.]

In consequence of this information, and without having any thing more
in view, than merely to show that gentleman that I was not unapprised
of his intriguing disposition, I wrote him a letter in these words.

"Sir, a letter which I received last night contained the following
paragraph.

"In a letter from General Conway to General Gates, he says, heaven has
been determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad
counsellors would have ruined it. I am, sir, &c."

Neither the letter, nor the information which occasioned it, was ever,
directly, or indirectly, communicated by me to a single officer in
this army (out of my own family) excepting the Marquis de Lafayette,
who having been spoken to on the subject, by General Conway, applied
for, and saw, under injunctions of secrecy, the letter which contained
this information; so desirous was I of concealing every matter that
could, in its consequences, give the smallest interruption to the
tranquillity of this army, or afford a gleam of hope to the enemy by
dissensions therein.

Thus, sir, with an openness and candour, which I hope will ever
characterize and mark my conduct, have I complied with your request.
The only concern I feel upon the occasion, finding how matters stand,
is, that in doing this, I have necessarily been obliged to name a
gentleman, who, I am persuaded, (although I never exchanged a word
with him upon the subject) thought he was rather doing an act of
justice, than committing an act of infideli