8519. TREASON, Suspected.—
Having
received information that divers citizens of this
Commonwealth [Virginia], in the counties of
James and York, have lately committed acts
some of which amount to high treason and others
to misprision of treason; and that some,
though they may have been able to disguise
and conceal their transactions as that legal evidence
cannot be obtained by which they may be
subjected to prosecution, * * * yet have so
conducted themselves as to furnish the most
pregnant circumstances of suspicion that they
have been guilty of those offences, or are disaffected
to the Independence of the United States,
and will, whenever they shall have opportunity,
aid or advise the measures of the public enemy,
which persons, in the critical situation of this
Commonwealth, it is indispensably necessary to
punish for their crimes by way of example to
others and to disable from doing mischief; I
must, therefore, * * * desire and authorize
you to make enquiry into the premises, and
where you shall have probable cause to believe
that any persons have been guilty of treason, or
misprision of treason; that there is legal evidence
to commit them thereof; and that an examining
court can be had on them in the county
where the offence was committed before there
shall be any danger of rescue by the enemy, you
have them delivered to the warrant of a justice
of the peace, in order that they may be
prosecuted in the usual forms of law; and that
you aid in their safe conveyance to the public
jail in Richmond, if they be ordered to be conveyed.
But where you shall be of opinion that
legal evidence cannot be obtained, that an examining
court cannot be procured in the county
before there will be danger of a rescue by the
enemy, and that there are pregnant circumstances
of suspicion that they have been guilty
of the offences of treason or misprision of treason,
or where there shall be pregnant causes of
suspicion that persons in these counties are disaffected
to the Independence of the United
States; and when occasion serves, aid or advise
the operations of the enemy; that in those cases,
you apprehend such persons, and send them in
safe custody to the jail of Richmond county.
* * * They shall be treated by those into
whose hands they shall be committed with no
insult or rudeness unnecessary for their safe
custody.—
To Colonel James Innes.
Ford ed., iii, 27.
(R.
May. 1781)
