Letter Signed

Instructions for Armed Enforcement of U.S. Harbors' Neutrality Among Warring Europeans

Informs Huntington that a recent case which required "the interposition of the general Government" took place, and seeks to lay out principles governing similar cases which might occur. In the case in question, a European power seized the vessel of another in Delaware Bay, violating U.S. neutrality; pressure has been brought to bear on the minister of the offending power to have the ship returned, but Knox acknowledges this might not always be possible in every case. States that the power of the U.S. is in its militia; directs Huntington, as the commander of the Connecticut militia, to use that force to prevent any hostilities between belligerent Europeans in U.S. harbors. He asks that any such incidents be reported to the president.

1793

05

23

War Department

Connecticut

Cited in Knox to Huntington, 08/07/1793.

DEII Candidacy: shows U.S. policy on neutrality, and the lengths taken to enforce it, from a very early period; this would be sorely tested during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Also shows the faith of the period in militia troops.

Cited document sent from the War Office

Sam Huntington

Henry Knox

Connecticut

War Department

1793052300501

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