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His Excellency Abner Nash, Esq.
Sir:

The necessity I am under of addressing your Excellency is the only apology I can offer for the liberty I take in making you acquainted with some circumstances relative to my present Situation. I shall first premise that I have been an officer in the line of this State, and acted as Brigade Major from the first raising of Continental Troops till I had the misfortune to be (in an instant) struck speechless and motionless by the Palsy, at Valley Forge, in Pennsylvania, in the month of Febuary, 1778. I continued a considerable time in that situation. At length it pleased God to restore me in part to the use of my speech and Limbs, when application was made in my behalf to get me a Company in the Corps of Invalids, in which I still continue; but in that Corps I only draw the bare pay, without having any title to Cloathing and some other immunities, to which the Officers of the Pennsylvania State (in that Corps) are entitled and receive. Next I beg leave to observe that I am informed a corps of Invalids is to be

established in this State for the Support of such of their officers and Soldiers as have been disabled in the service, and humbly pray that your Excellency will be pleased to use your influence to have me appointed to the command thereof, being desirous of serving this State in preference to any other, even as an Invalid, but am still in hopes that I shall so far recover the use of my limbs as to have the happiness of serving again in the field.

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