[Private] Mount Vernon 7. April 1799 My dear Sir, When your letters of the 30^th & 31. Ult° were brought here, I was on a Survey of some lands I hold in the vicinity of Alexandria; on which as I was informed, & as the fact proved, considerable trespass had been committed. — To compleat this business, I was employed near three days; and my company did allow me to do but little more than to acknowledge the receipt of those letters. Two things, however, I shall not forbear mentioning at this time. The first is, that while I was at this [undecipherable], when I heard your consult an [undecipherable], towards having the augmented Force or [undecipherable] forces, & for the consequent delay in Recruiting; I did think, & on a[nother] proper occasion, declare that circumstances over which you had no control, were the causes thereof, & that no blame ought to be attached to you. — The other matter is, that if the [undecipherable] of Comm[ission]s to those who have accepted their Appointments, is to be suspended until you hear from all those who have not acknowledged the receipt of your Circular letter, or some missive if the Circular is not competent thereto, by which the accepting Officers may know what they have to rely on — be entitled to pay — and be authorized (when they have been instructed) to enter on the Recruiting Service, that it may be months — nay a year — before this will happen.— Those who live at Post Towns — near Post Offices — or who are in the habit of enquiring at these places for letters, would have been enabled to answer your address to them in time; but a number of others may be uninformed of your letter to them at this hour — a part also of many of them may have been sent to wrong offices, & perhaps only be heard of by the advertisement of them.— Let me ask then, if there would be any ineligibility in inserting in the Gazette of the respective States, the names & grades of those belonging thereto, who have returned no answer — requiring a yea — or nay — without further delay, assigning the reason for such a mode of application.— A notification of this kind would reach them through the medium of some [undecipherable] & if this does not see the Gazetters then [undecipherable], it [undecipherable] in a short time [what] may be [undecipherable] without.— I will add no more at present than that I am always Your Affec^te G Washington James M^cHenry Esq^r [Docket: 7 April 1799 / Gen. Washington / [undecipherable]]