Most respectfully sheweth,

That your Excellency having been pleased to promote Ensign William FRAZER of the same Regiment to a Lieutenancy, and your Memorialist having always conceived himself an older Ensign than Mr. FRAZER begs your Excellency's Indulgence while he lays before you the Pretensions whereon he founds his Claim to Seniority.

He was a Year and six months a Prisoner with the Rebels before he was an Officer; he was then Ten Months a Lieutenant in Allen's Pennsylvania Loyalists, from which your Excellency had the Goodness to remove him at the Suit of Colonel STERLING to an Ensincy in the 42d Regiment, a year & nine months since; his Promotion, it is true, bore the same Date with Ensign FRAZER's, but from the Circumstance of his longer Service, your memorialist's Name has always been precedent to Ensign FRAZER's in the Regimental Returns, in the Roster of the Regiment, and in the List of the Army:

Your Memorialist therefore having heretofore taken Rank of Ensn. FRAZER of Consequence expected to have been Promoted before him: Of his Disappointment he means not to complain; but presumes to hope your Excellency will not think him guilty of Arrogance in soliciting a Lieutenancy in some other Regiment of the Line, which your memorialist prays your Excellency to bestow on him.

[John YOUNG]

Camp before Charles Town
     30th April 1780

University of Michigan, William L. Clements Library, Sir Henry Clinton Papers, Volume 95, item 44.

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