April 9, 2017

Dear General Washington,

I have returned safely back to New York. I am indebted to you and your men for finally permitting my entrance into your camp this Wednesday last and was pleased to be again in the company of your Excellency.

Your army maintains a healthy spirit. However, I am pained beyond expression to inform you that your aide de camp, L’Adrian is a wretched hindrance, engaging in ciphering in your absence at a level that is contrary to the military constitution. Though he claims to possess rhymes that are contagious, and to employ a flocabulary that is both profane and outrageous, what he considers nasty verse is not merely disadvantageous to the bitches trying to shame us, as he rightly notes, but as well to any disciplined maneuver by a professional army. I owe it to the service to say that every part of this gentleman’s conduct is marked with negligence and poor beats, and gives general disgust.

I therefore ask that you consider me in the role of aide in this man’s stead. I have heretofore served capably in the role and am superior in all manner of military strategy. In my present position as Uber Driver I have also proven to exceed all other metropolitan chauffeurs at providing the appropriate climate and musical accompaniment for any length of journey.

I trust you agree that the current condition of our nation mandates necessity be henceforth ever married to expertise. We are compelled to insist on intolerance for ignorance and incompetence. Thus I have accumulated sufficient skill for whatever you desire. Finance or war, or rap, if required. I have acquired a writer, a rider, and admirer, a squire with taste, who says too I should be hired—with haste.

But I am in no position to instruct your Excellency. Understand that there is a sort of love of country that can only be felt by an immigrant, so I hope that the goodness of my intention will excuse the candor of my approach. I am saddened to see that for those in need, we have been closing our doors. The cannons of war should be fixed not upon nations, but upon the plague of ignorance and lies. If the honor of a nation is its life, we have fallen ill and may soon die.

Alexander Hamilton