I had the honor to address your Excellency from Corunna on the 26 of last month, in which letter I promised myself the pleasure of writing you more fully in a few days—but an opportunity offering unexpectedly for this place, from whence I propose embarking for America I embraced it. Our passage from Corunna has been uncommonly long owing to a continued contrary wind, which obliged us to make a second port. As the Vessel in which we shall go to America is a remarkable fast Sailer, quite new, well armed, (having cruised as a privateer on the English coast during the summer) and commanded by a very good Man, I purpose in compliance with your Son's very earnest request to take him with me, unless You should dispose otherwise. The Ship we shall sail in is the Cicero of 20 guns, Captain Hill, belonging to Mr. Cabot of Beverley.1 I hope this measure, which is dictated by the warmest wish of friendship will meet your Excellency's approbation. The Ship is indeed one of the very best I ever saw, and I do not conceive there is more risque, than there was in going on board the South Carolina. Charles is very anxious to go to America. He says his younger Brother will be greatly before him in his education if he remains in Europe, and he begs I will not by any means leave him.

As the Ship will not sail before the 16 or 18 of November I shall expect to receive your Excellency's orders.2 In the mean time I beg you will be persuaded that my best attention shall be bestowed upon { 236 } your Son. He writes and reads to me daily. I will give him every instruction in my power, and by an assiduous care endeavor to compensate other deficiencies as a preceptor. He is now reading, in english, Dr. Robertson's history of America.3 I have requested him by the next post to collect the general heads of the first volume, and make them the subject of a letter. Don Quixote is the book which he reads in french4—and I believe, if Sancho's principles of government equalled the Constitution of Massachusetts, Charles might soon emulate his Sire as a Law giver. Those two books being both elegant and entertaining he reads them with pleasure, and I believe will improve his english considerably, while he retains his french. His health is very good, and he takes sufficient exercise and moderate diet to preserve it so.

The recital of Mr. Gillon's unvaried villanies has already employed a great part of my time, and a minute detail of them requires infinitely more patience than the retrospect affords me. But it is proper and necessary that your Excellency should be informed of some circumstances, and I must beg leave to trespass on your leisure with a narration of them.

The violation of his contract with Colonel Laurens by refusing to carry in his own ship the cloathing purchased for the Continent, your Excellency is already acquainted with. The manner in which he pretended to remedy this breach of faith by chartering two other ships you are likewise informed of. I will therefore begin with the relation of his conduct from the 7 of August upon which day he weighed anchor in the Texel under a pretence of trying how the frigate sailed. But as soon as he had passed the Dutch-fleet and cleared the shoals he informed me that it was his intention to put to sea. I expressed my astonishment and exclaimed against the measure. He told me he meant to wait off the Texel for his Convoy, but it was necessary he should leave the port. I now found that his debts (notwithstanding the solemn assurances repeated in his contract) had accumulated far beyond his resources, and that he was resolved, in order to elude his Creditors, at once to prostitute the honor and sacrifice the dearest interests of America. I intreated and threatned him alternately with the consequences of his neglecting to convoy these Ships. Colonel Searle joined me in representing to him the fatal effects, which must ensue to America in the disappointment of this cloathing. Every argument was urged, every means tried, but all in vain. He even refused, as Mr. de Neufville may have informed you to execute the Charters for the Vessels which he had taken up, { 237 } and finally he resolved to leave the coast although his Officers had requested that the Ship might return, and they would wait for the Convoy. But this he evaded by ordering the Ship, when informed how the Texel bore from the mast-head, to be kept [on] such a course as brought us greatly to leeward of it, and then he gave directions to proceed to America. But this was by no means what he designed, for his baseness has been conducted upon a systematical scale, nor did it end here. He would not permit me to send a letter to your Excellency which I had wrote to request, as I now do, that you would be pleased to give such directions for the disposal of the Continental property as you should think best,5 and another to Messrs, de Neufville & Son, by a Neutral Ship which we spoke at sea, bound to Amsterdam—and by which Vessel he himself wrote to Holland.

After cruising four weeks on the coast of Ireland and near the Eng[lish] channel he put into Corunna, and there we experienced a treatment which even exceeded the common audacity that characterises this base Man. He positively refused Col. Trumbull, Col. Searle, and Myself permission to go on shore, and actually detained us prisoners upwards of twenty four hours, and had it not been for the interference of the Captain of a french Man of War then in port, with whom I was acquainted in America, it is my belief he would have continued us confined. He refused to deliver some trunks belonging to Colonel Searle, which obliged him to stay at Corunna, until Mr. Carmichael arrives, as Col. Searle had requested Mr. Jay to send that Gentleman. In short to enumerate all the base actions of Mr. Gillon sense we left the Texel would require a Volume. He has detained the Masters of Vessels who had escaped from Prison in England and embarked with him as Passengers for America, telling them that they should not leave his Ship while he commanded her. Some of them have escaped, and are now here; but they were obliged to abandon their clothes to obtain their liberty.

I shall do myself the pleasure to write your Excellency in a few days. I beg that you will present my best compliments to Mr. Thaxter, and that you will believe me to be with profound respect, and esteem, Dear Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient, humble Servant,

In my last I informed You of the Enemy's taking a Post in Virginia.1 At that Time they were in possession of Georgia and Charlestown and had overrun the greater part of S. Carolina. I have the Pleasure to inform You, That American Government is now again settled in Georgia, that the Enemy are confined to Charlestown in S. Carolina and that on the 18th. Inst. York Town and Gloucester the only places in Virginia the Enemy were in possession of there, surrenderd with the Army under Command of Genl. Cornwallis to our illustrious Genl. Washington. Count de Grasse commanded by Water with a Fleet of 36 Sail of Men of War. 1 Ship of 44 Guns, 1 of 32, some smaller Armd Vessells and 100 Sail of Transports were captured also 9000 Soldiers and Seamen composing the Garrison.—Count De Grasse arrived in the Chesapeak in the Beginning of September. The British Fleet consisting of 18 or 20 Ships of the Line followed De Grasse, attacked him, receivd a severe drubbing, lost one or more Ships and returned to New York sadly maimed. The particulars of this Engagement youll probably have before this reaches You.

I have not Time to give You particulars; arriving in Town this Afternoon and hearing that a French Frigate was under sailing orders, stole a Moment just to give You this Information (which may be relied on for Truth) and also to tell You that Your Family was this Morning well. Mrs. Adams received some Articles by Brown and Skinner who are arrived.2 Newman also has arrived and last Night Somes from Copinhagen came into port.

I am just come from Braintree, and hear a Vessell is to sail for France directly: I have only time to enclose you two Hand-Bills, on the Contents of which I heartily congratulate you.1—American Affairs { 240 } never wore a more agreeable Aspect than at present. I want to hear how this News will be relish'd at St. James's.

Captains Brown, and Skinner are arriv'd from Amsterdam last Week, and Capt. Newman about three Weeks ago. Hayden was parted within the North Sea soon after they sailed. Mr. J. Temple2 and Mr. Guild came Passengers in Capt. Brown who arriv'd at Cape Ann. Have seen both of them, but they bro't no letters to Town with them from you or Mr. Thaxter. Mr. Temple supposes there are Letters on board, but they are to be sent to Newbury to Mr. Tracy. A few Things for your Lady are come to hand by Capt. Skinner. We long to hear from Cousn. Charley who is suppos'd to be on board the Frigate.

Your Daughter is in town at Doctr. Welsh's. I saw her this Morning. Your dear Lady was well yesterday and Master Tommy also. I have only time to say that we are all well, and that I am with every sentiment of Esteem and Respect your affectionate Bror.,

By Capt. Haydon who arrived here the day before yesterday I received a Pacquet of News-Papers and Pamphlets from you, also I received two other Pacquets by Capt. Brown a few Days ago, for which I thank you. I had however the mortification of not finding a Line in either of them from you or Mr. Thaxter. I have wrote you often but have not had the Happiness of receiving a Letter from you since you left America. I have just now heard of a Vessell at Newbury that is now waiting for a Wind to sail for Holland, I shall endeavour to send this by her.

I heartily congratulate you on the great and important Event, the taking of Lord Cornwallis and his whole Army. They surrender'd Prisoners of War on the 18th. of October. Though we have not yet { 241 } received the News under the Signature of Charles Thomson, yet we have it from publick Officers of distinction by Express. One Letter in particular from Coll. Cobb Aid de Camp to his Excellency Genl. Washington, dated at York-Town, the very Place where the Army surrender'd, mentions that Lord Cornwallis is to return to England on his Parole not to serve in the War untill he is exchang'd, that the Officers had their private Baggage given them, and were with the Army to remain Prisoners of War untill an Exchange shall take place. —How will this News relish at St. James's?—Genl. Green as you will see by the inclosed Paper, has done Wonders in South Carolina. As soon as Lord Cornwallis had surrender'd, Genl. Washington (as I am inform'd) sent off on Horsback a strong Reinforcement of light Troops to strengthen Genl. Green, so that the Remains of the broken British Army in that Quarter will probably soon melt away.

I suppose you have heard that Paper Money, which has made such a Noise in Europe, and from the Depreciation of which England has expected such great things, is now done with in this Commonwealth. We have a Tax now gone out sufficient to draw in the whole of the Bills of the New Emission that have been issued by this State, and which are not to be re-issued, but to be destroy'd. And another Tax for three hundred Thousand Pounds in hard Money to be collected in Lieu thereof for the Purposes of Government. This is a great Effort, but I think we shall be able to bear it; for, it appears by the new Valuation which pass'd this present Session, that the Property and Polls in this Commonwealth are much increased since the last Valuation in 1778 notwithstanding the great Expences of the War: particularly we find that we have now in this State many thousand Horn'd Cattle more than we had in 1778 when the last Valuation was taken, notwithstanding the amazing Quantities of Beef supply'd for the Army. And the Harvests in the United States this Year have been perhaps the plentyest ever known.—May our Hearts be duely affected with Gratitude to the great Ruler of the World for his unspeakable Favours!

I have received by Capt. Haydon a Letter and an Invoice of Merchandize sent to my Care by Mr. Joseph Mandrillon.1 I have wrote him a Letter by this Conveyance, directed to the Care of Messrs. De Neufville and Son. I should be glad you would please to inform him that I shall take the utmost care in disposing of the Goods for him to the best advantage, and shall make the Returns as soon as possible. The Goods are not yet out of the Ship. I am much oblig'd to you for this beginning of Commission-Business, as I learn by his { 242 } Letter that I am indebted to your Friendship for it.—Your Character and Connexions might be of most essential Service to me and my Family, by your only mentioning my Name to such Gentlemen as may have publick Business to transact here respecting publick Supplies for this State or for the Continent; or to such Gentlemen in Trade as may be disposed to send Effects here to be sold on Commission. My Connexion with the General Court and the Court of Common-Pleas keeps me almost constantly in this Town on publick Business, Committees &c, and Uncle Smith's Warehouse is always ready for taking in any Merchandize that may be sent to me. I shall spare no Pains to give Satisfaction in making the best and quickest Returns.

In Capt. Brown came Passengers John Temple † Esqr. and Mr. Guild. We hear by a Passenger that came in Capt. Skinner that your dear Little Charley is on board the Frigate Capt. Guillon, and are anxious to hear from him, as the People who came in the Ships lately arriv'd mention a dangerous Storm having happen'd on the Coast of Holland while Capt. Guillon was out on a short Cruise a few Days before they sailed. I hope Providence has preserved him and will preserve him. We long to hear how Master John likes the Northern Regions. He will be the greatest American Traveller of his Age. Your amiable Daughter is at present at Mr. S. A. Otis's in this Town.2 Your Lady and Master Tommy, and your Mother and Brother were all well last Monday when I left Braintree, as were also our other Friends at Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham &c. Please to give my kindest Regards to Mr. Thaxter and tell him that I have wrote him several Letters, and should think my self happy in receiving a Line from him. I fear many of our Letters on both sides have miscaried. I hope you will excuse the tedious Length of this Letter, and believe me to be with the highest Esteem your affectionate Bror.,

Last night I had the Honour of your Favour of 26 of October1 and congratulate you on your Arrival at Bilbao and your agreable Prospect of a Passage to America. I thank you sir, for your kind Attention to my Son, and wish you to take him home with you. Mr. Guardoqui will be so good as to furnish Charles with Stores, and draw upon me.

What can be done with the Continental Property I know not, unless Dr. Franklin will advance Money to charter Vessells to send them along to take their fate, at all hazards. We shall do the best We can, but it is a melancholly and affecting Dissappointment.—I presume, you will be saild, before this reaches Spain, or I should be more particular. I have the Honour to be, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

Do you know a Man by the Name of More[?] What is his character?1

I have never replied to your favour of october 9th. I felt a reluctance at writing. Yet I love your Letters when they are not too sausy, or do not border upon what I never will pardon or forgive. I cannot withdraw my esteem from the writter, yet if his Friends do not tell him how much his character suffers, they do not act the part of Friends in that particular. Massachusets air can alone purify it. I never meant to have touched so dissagreable a string again. There is but one thing wanting to have put a final stop to it, a conviction of the cause'es realy existing. If ever that takes place do not recollect that you ever knew Portia, for she will blot from her memory every vestage of a character in which she has been so much deceived.2

At length Sir I have heard [of] Gillion after many terrors on account of the storm which took place after he saild. A vessel from Bilboa last night arrived brings word that he put into Corruna in Spain—no further particulars yet come to hand. She is certainly bound to your port. Mr. Guile who arrived in Brown about 3 weeks ago embarked on Board the frigate, but went on shore for one Night. She saild and left him, from him I learnt her orders were to go to Philadelphia, from whence I hope to hear of her arrival soon, and of my dear Boys safety.

I congratulate you Sir upon the Capture of Cornwallis and upon every other important and favorable event which has taken place since I wrote you last. There may possibly be some opportunity opened by water for a safe conveyance of the articles about which you have already taken much trouble. If there should I would rather risk the Box of china that way than by land.—I will subscribe myself what I now am and ever wish to be your real Friend,

I shall have an excellent Opportunity to send those Articles of yours, which have been long under my Care, by a Waggon of Genl. Lincoln going in a few days to Boston and perhaps also to Hingham. I feel a Sort of Mortification, at the Air of Negligence which seems to be thrown over my past Endeavors to serve you, by this early Execution of the Promises which our good Friend Lincoln made to you or Mr. Cranch not long ago. The Articles will now go by one of the very best Conveyances both as to Honesty and Carefulness in the Waggoner.

You will be quite particular in making out Invoices of the Contents of the Case as they come to Sight. I doubt not you will find my first Suspicions of a Loss confirmed, when you get Invoices from Europe. All I can say is that while the Boxes were open in my Room, I always turned the Key and pocketed it, when I went out.

P.S. The Goods are gone. I shall write to Col. Crafts to give you notice of the Arrival of the Waggon in Boston, if it should not proceed to Hingham.

My Almanac says that I wrote to you on the 9th. of October, but your Favour of Sepr. 26.1 received the 8th. of Octr. is not endorsed answered. Is this the Reason of your Silence? Or, Heaven forbid it! are you sick? At best, I fear you are in Distress.—Mr. Adams was well late in Augst., but I cannot conceal my anxieties about your second Son, who was to take Passage with Gillon. That Frigate which was to bring him was forced out to Sea without taking the Merchantmen under Convoy, which had been loaded with a View of having her { 246 } Protection. 13 Weeks have elapsed since. I do not however despair of her Arrival. I only deal justly by you in giving the real State of the Case that your Hopes may be duely regulated.

I do not now answer your Letter. I write for Post Conveyance and am not in the Humour to use Cyphers.

I find by a Letter of Sepr. 13th. from Doctr. Franklin that Mr. Adams had received our Proceedings of June before the Doctor's Communication of them:2 I mean those Proceedings to which you refer in your Letter now before me. I wish much to learn the Effect upon his Philosop[h]y. I feel Satisfaction in thinking him a much calmer Man than myself. Whatever he determines will be well weighed. He is practised in sacrificing his personal Feelings and Interest to his Country.

I have received some Gazettes from him without a Line of Epistle. This is not the only Reason I have for thinking that my Letters Via France do not reach his Eye.

We beg leave to Trouble you above with duplicate of our last Respectts to you,1 and as have had since the very high pleasure and satisfaction of seeing with us your worthy Amable little Son Mr. Charles Adams under the Care of Major Jakson Intending boath to Returne home on Board the Armed Ship the Cicero Capt. Hugh Hill, have with the Majors advice Taken the liberty of altering your dispositions, accordingly have Instead of shipping the order you was pleased to give us on Board the Boston Packett Capt White, Embarkt the same under the Immediate care of your little Dear Son on the above Vessell the Cicero as you will see per the within Invoice and bill of loading which Request the favour of your ordering it to be Examined and if without Errors to place its ammount to our Credit In Riales 914 & 10 mrs. of Vn.2 We most affectionately wish that your dear little Darling may present you in full health the Articles contained { 247 } in the Invoice after a safe prosperous and pleasing Passage of 30 days, which will be the highest Satisfaction to those who have the honour of subscriving with the most profound Respectts of Esteem Madam your mt. obt. hble. Serts.,

The last post brought me your Excellency's letter of the 14. I hope Doctor Franklin will be fully in sentiment with you respecting the disposition of the Continental property, and I am happy in anticipating the pleasing close, which may still attend this hitherto unfortunate business.

Previous to the receipt of your last letter I had drawn upon Messrs. de Neufville & Son for a sum of money to supply Colonel Trumbull and Doctor Browne,1 and I apportioned two hundred & fifty guilders for Charles's use. This is considerably more than was necessary to defray his expences, but in case of accident at sea it would be proper he should have a little money. When we arrive I shall do myself the honor to wait upon Mrs. Adams, and I will then pay her the surplus.

It is no compliment paid to Charles when I assure your Excellency that his behaviour is unexceptionably good. He reads as much as I wish him to do both in french and English. His writing is considerably improved and his spelling tolerably correct.

I shall continue to give him every instruction in my power. During the passage we propose to read latin.

I felicitate your Excellency upon the very acceptable news of Cornwallis's capture, which we celebrated here yesterday with singular satisfaction.

I most sincerely wish you a perfect restoration of health and the full enjoyment of every blessing which can render life estimable. Your Excellency will do me justice by believing me at all times to be, with the most perfect esteem and profound respect, your most obedient, humble Servant,

Last night I received yours of the 12 Novr. and am very sorry to find, that you were not likely to sail as you expected.1 My dear Mrs. Adams has heard that Charles is coming home in Gillon and has a Thousand Anxieties about him which will increase every Moment untill his Arrival, but when We trust ourselves to Winds and Waves We must be patient under their Caprices.

I thank you for the good News, by this Time you will have learned better. I give you Joy of it, all, Coll. Trumbull, Capt. Hill, Messrs. Gardoqui and every one who has Feelings for America, and for injured Innocence, not forgetting my dear Charles, from whom I have received two or three very pretty Letters.2 I thank you for your kind Care of him. Beg Mr. Gardoqui to let him have any Thing he may want and draw upon me for it.

The Infant Hercules will go through all the twelve Labours, as tryumphantly as he has strangled the two serpents Burgoine and Cornwallis.

The continental goods are left in such a Situation, that I see no Possibility of getting them to America, this Season. I am doing all I can to get them sent or sold, or any Way disposed of, to prevent a total Loss, but they are detained for freight, Damages and nobody knows what. Very unjustly, and I have no Money to make the dull Jacks go.

This is the first opportunity I have had since my Journey of congratulating you upon your dear Sons safe arrival in Spain, and hope { 249 } it will not be long before you have the happiness of seeing him. The frequent arrivals lately from Europe have I hope made you happy in letters from Mr. Adams. Mr. Dana I hear nothing of by letter. Mr. Guild informed me that he left Amsterdam for Russia in July and your Son with him which I was much pleased with hearing.

Before I went to Portsmouth I heared that I was to be so highly favored as to have a visit from you this fall. I was very sorry that my Journey deprived me of that pleasure, but flattered myself that upon my return I should have seen you. But Miss Dana1 lying dangerously ill of the Throat distemper when I returned prevented my writing to you. She is now better and the season pleasant Must hope that Miss Nabby and you will make us a visit. The Judge2 and young ladies respect [request?] my love to Miss Nabby and Master Tom. Your affectionate friend and Sister,

Your favours of September 29 and Oct. 21. are before me. I avoided saying any Thing about Charles, to save you the Anxiety, which I fear you will now feel in its greatest severity a long time. I thought he would go directly home, in a short Passage, in the best Opportunity which would probably ever present. But I am dissappointed. Charles is at Bilbao with Major Jackson and Coll. Trumbull who take the best care of his Education as well as his Health and Behaviour. They are to go home in Captain Hill in a good Vessell of 20 Guns. Charles's health was so much affected by this tainted Atmosphere, and he had set his heart so much upon going home in Gillon that it would have broken it, to have refused him.—I desire I may never again have the Weakness to bring a Child to Europe. They are infinitely better at home.—We have all been sick here, myself, Mr. Thaxter, Stephens and another servant, but are all better. Mr. Thaxters Indisposition has been slight and short, mine and Stevens's long and severe.

I beg you would not flatter yourself with hopes of Peace. There will be no such Thing for several years.

Dont distress yourself neither about any malicious Attempts to injure me in the Estimation of my Countrymen. Let them take their Course and go the Length of their Tether. They will never hurt your Husband, whose Character is fortified with a shield of Innocence and Honour ten thousandfold stronger than brass or Iron. The contemptible Essays made by you know whom, will only tend to their own Confusion. My Letters have shewn them their own Ignorance <and Folly>, a sight they could not bear. Say as little about it as I do. It has already brought them into the true system and that system is tryumphant. I laugh, and will laugh before all Posterity at their impotent <, despicable, ridiculous folly> Rage and Envy. They could not help blushing themselves if they were to review their Conduct.

Dear Tom thy Letter1 does thee much honour. Thy Brother Charles shall teach thee french and Dutch, at home. I wish I could get time to correspond with thee and thy sister, more regularly, but I cannot. I must trust Providence and thine excellent Mamma for the Education of my Children.

Mr. Dana and our son are well, at P[etersburg].

Hayden has some things for you. Hope he is arrived. I am sorry to learn you have a sum of Paper—how could you be so imprudent? You must be frugal, I assure you. Your Children will be poorly off. I can but barely live in the manner that is indispensibly demanded of me by every Body. Living is dear indeed here.

My Children will not be so well left by their father as he was by his. They will be infected with the Examples and Habits and Taste for Expensive Living, without the means. He was not.

My Children, shall never have the smallest soil of dishonour or disgrace brought upon them by their father, no not to please Ministers, Kings, or Nations.

At the Expence of a little of this my Children might perhaps ride at their Ease through Life, but dearly as I love them they shall live in the service of their Country, in her Navy, her Army, or even out of either in the extreamest Degree of Poverty before I will depart in the smallest Iota from my Sentiments of Honour and Delicacy, for I, even I, have sentiments of Delicacy, as exquisite as the proudest Minister that ever served a Monarch. They may not be exactly like those of some Ministers.

I beg you would excuse me to my dear Friends, to whom I cannot write so often as I wish. I have indispensible Duties which take up all my time, and require more than I have.

General Washington has done me great Honour, and much public { 251 } service by sending me, authentic Accounts of his own and Gen. Greens last great Actions.2 They are in the Way to negotiate Peace, it lies wholly with them. No other Ministers but they and their Colleagues in the Army can accomplish the great Event.

I am keeping House, but I want an Housekeeper. What a fine Affair it would be if We could flit across the Atlantic as they say the Angels do from Planet to Planet. I would dart to Pens hill and bring you over on my Wings. But alass We must keep house seperately for some time.

But one thing I am determined on. If God should please to restore me once more to your fireside, I will never again leave it without your Ladyships Company. No not even to go to Congress at Philadelphia, and there I am determined to go if I can make Interest enough to get chosen, whenever I return.

I would give a Million sterling that you were here—and could Afford it as well as G. Britain can the thirty Millions she must spend the ensuing Year to compleat her own Ruin.

Farewell. Farewell.

'Tis a pleasing Reflexion to one absent, that his Correspondence with his friends meets with no untoward Accidents, even though the subject matter of his Scralls should be in a stile little interesting or entertaining. But I am deprived of even this satisfaction, for almost all my Letters are on board the Indian.1 It is needless for me to add an Apology after this, especially as Newman, Brown, Skinner, Hayden &c. were to have sailed under Convoy of this same Indian. I had the honor to write You by a Brig bound to Philadelphia commanded by Capt. Reeler, which sailed in Septr. or October. I also answered a polite Letter from Miss N[abb]y by the same Opportunity.2 I hope they will arrive safe. If they do not, I hope my dear friends will pardon my [not] attempting any thing further against so decisive a fatality.

With the most unfeigned Joy, I congratulate You at this late period on the glorious News of the surrender of Cornwallis. It is an Event { 252 } that has acquired much Reputation to our Arms in Europe; nor has the humidity of this Climate prevented its Inhabitants from exhibiting some symptoms of Life and Warmth on the Occasion. Indeed I must say that this is a peculiar People; but whether zealous of good Works or saved of the Lord, is not for me to determine.

I believe I promised You, Madam, in a former Letter to transmit You some Account of this Country. What Demon of Madness or Folly seized me at that time, to precipitate myself into so rash an Engagement I know not. I am totally unequal to the Task. I was certainly mad or in Love or something quite as distracted as either, to promise an undertaking of this kind. I beg You to have the Goodness to excuse me, and to apply to your dearest friend, who will throw more light on this subject in one Line, than I could do in many pages of my flummery.

Thus much I must say for this Country, that upon this Occasion (I mean the last Surrender) they have discovered much Joy and satisfaction. Some are affected to America upon principles which a Love of Liberty and an attachment to the Dignity and Rights of Humanity alone can inspire. These are few in number. Others would love Us if they had less Money in the English funds. Some are too rich to trouble their heads about America—others too poor, tho' perhaps well disposed, to aid her. Some would trade if they dare. Others are governed by the immense profits in view. As to national Affection, extended one Jot or tittle farther than an Idea of Gain, it is a mere Chimera. Nations collectively are not capable of this noble Sentiment, and Policy is often employed to smother and extinguish the first dawnings of it. The History of the Policy of most Governments seems to be little else than a portrait of the worst passions of the human Heart, a Compound of the Intrigues, Subtleties, Subterfuges and Caprices of the weak, the wicked, and the great, and the Blood and Treasure of poor miserable Mankind must flow in Torrents to support their nefarious System. Such is the Lot of Humanity. Who can mend it? I know not.

I have not as yet seen my dear Friend Mr. Storer. I am impatient to see him, and not less so to enquire of him, which of the Betsy's it is that belongs to me, as all parties are agreed, You inform me, Madam, that it is one of that Name. I beseech You to gratify my Curiosity in sending me her Name: otherwise I shall be fidgeting for six Months and perhaps fall in Love with some one of that Name upon the Strength of it.—Are none of the young Ladies of B[raintre]e about entering into Wedlock or courted? For Heaven's sake what do { 253 } the young Gentlemen mean? Are there not five Suitors to be found, possessed of Accomplishments and Virtues sufficient to render themselves agreable to the amiable five, who live at the foot of Penns Hill, by the Church, down a Hill and on the Farms? If I saw the least possible Chance for myself; if I was not so old and advanced in life as to be indifferent; if I had not set my Heart upon living in the Woods upon my Return, I would begin to make Propositions at least to one. My best Love to them all. God bless them with good Husbands. Much Duty and Respect where due. With the most perfect Esteem, I have the honour to be, Madam, your most humble Servant,

In answer to some Questions contained in your Letter of Sepr. 261 you may know that Mr. Laurens might ||pay any sum up to five hundred po[unds]|| s[terling] therefore the same is now to be done at discretion. ||F. Dana is||accompanied under somewhat similar discretionary stipulations. Indeed you are mistaken about the Scales. I should be happy to be sure of what you only conjecture. I mean that ||J. Jay goes.||

The Boston Papers first and afterwards your Letter of Novr. 15 made me yesterday very happy after eight and forty hours of most painful Condolance with your Family upon information given to Genl. Lincoln by his Son from Cambridge under date of the 17th.2 I will permit my dull Thoughts under a former date3 to go on that you may the better judge of my present Joy. You will yet embrace your dear Charles whom I had buried under the Waves without daring to tell you the whole of my Imaginations.

I have already mentioned the Goodness and Punctuality of Genl. Lincoln by which my honest tho ineficacious Endeavours to serve you are intirely eclipsed. You will look to Col. Crafts for what has been long under my Care.4

There is in this City a Gentleman by the Name of Philmore.5 I know not that I have ever seen him; but I have been accustomed on hearing his Name mentioned to suppose it Philip More. Mr. Osgood6 tells me he spoke with a Man at a Tavron here by the Name of More, and if I recollect right I sought the same Person to be the Bearer of some Letters to Boston but found he was gone to Baltimore. As to his Character Mr. O supposes him to be one of the Chiefs of that honest industrious Class who have made the Roads smoke for two or three Years by their Changes and Exchanges. If I saw him, I have forgot it. But, my esteemed Friend, what is he more or less to me than any other of his Tribe or Name?

“You had not replied to mine of Oct. 9. You had felt a Reluctance at Writing.”7 You do not say at answering or noticing it. Yet your following Expressions excite an Idea of the Kind, and have in them a sort of Asperity which I own I never expected to experience again after the date of some of your former Letters. I have not a Copy of any one Line that I have ever written to you; nor do I recollect that I have at any Time made a Copy; so that I know not whether the Scrawl of Octr. 9th. was a simple one or whether it had any Thing about it that you could conceive was intended as a “Border.” Be assured of my settled deliberate Resolution not to waste a drop of Ink or injure the Fibre of a Quill in that Way.—I presume you can turn your Eye upon what is before me of Novr. 15. You have said too little or too much: I think the former. I must know More, or you will “not act the part of a Friend in that particular.” I have a Right to conclude that some Circumstances have retarded the Progress of your (friendly) Pen if “only one is wanting to put a final Stop to it.” I am very uneasy at this same Letter of yours of Novr. 15th. And my present Circumstances make that Assertion convey the most respectful Compliment that I have ever paid you. For you are to know that I am so far pressed with what I call real substantial Misfortune, the End of which I do not foresee, that a Letter verbatim like yours from any other Pen but one on Earth would not have been read a second Time over, much less would it have found Room to have operated in my Head or Breast. Your good Sense and your Friendship make the second Claim to my Attention after that Sovereign one which Mrs. Lovell secures by an avowed, uniform, unabating Love and a prudent Confidence which is sure not to be abused.

Must I become the Slave to Opinions? You betray me Madam. You have almost brought me to think that the Breath of a Villain is an Object for my Resentment.

I hear the Alliance is again going to France with the Marquis Fayett and the Count de Noiales.1 I will not envy the Marquis the pleasure of Annually visiting his family, considering the risk he runs in doing it. Besides he deserves the good wishes of every American and a large portion of the Honours and applause of his own Country.

He returns with the additional Merrit of Laurels won at York Town by the Capture of a whole British Army. America may boast that she has accomplished what no power before her ever did, contending with Britain—Captured two of their celebrated Generals and each [with] an Army of thousands of veteran Troops to support them. This Event whilst it must fill Britain with despondency, will draw the union already formed still closer and give us additional Allies; if properly improved must render a negotiation easier and more advantageous to America.

But I cannot reflect much upon publick affairs; untill I have unburthend the load of my own Heart. Where shall I begin my list of Grievences? Not by accusations, but lamentations. My first is that I do not hear from you. A few lines only dated in April and May, have come to hand for 15 Months. You do not mention receiving any from me, except by Capt. Caznew, tho I wrote by Col. Laurence, { 256 } by Capt. Brown, by Mr. Storer, Dexter and many others. By Babson to Bilboa by Trash, and several times by way of France.2 You will refer me to Gillion I suppose. Gillion has acted a base part, of which no doubt you are long e'er now apprized. You had great reason to suppose that he would reach America, as soon or sooner than the Merchant vessels and placed much confidence in him, by the treasure you permited to go on Board of him. Ah! how great has my anxiety been, what have I not sufferd since I heard my dear Charles was on Board and no intelligence to be procured of the vessel for 4 months after she saild. Most people concluded that she was founderd at Sea, as she sailed before a voilent Storm. Only 3 weeks ago did I hear the contrary. My unkle dispatchd a Messenger the Moment a vessel from Bilboa arrived with the happy tidings that She was safe at Corruna, that the passenger[s] had all left the Ship in consequence of Gillions conduct, and were arrived at Bilboa. The vessel saild the day that the passengers arrived at Bilboa so that no Letters came by Capt. Lovett but a Dr. Sands reports that he saw a child whom they told him was yours and that he was well. This was a cordil to my dejected Spirits. I know not what to wish for. Should he attempt to come at this Season upon this coast, it has more Horrours than I have fortitude. I am still distresst. I must resign him to the kind protecting Hand of that Being who hath heitherto preserved him, and submit to what ever dispensation is alloted me.

What is the matter with Mr. T[haxte]r, has he forgotten all his American Friends, that out of four vessels which have arrived, not a line is to be found on Board of one of them from him?

I could Quarrell with the climate, but surely if it is subject to the Ague, there is a fever fit as well as the cold one. Mr. Guile tells me he was charged with Letters, but left them with his other things on Board the frigate, She gave him the Slip, he stept on Board Capt. Brown and happily arrived safe. From him I have learnt many things respecting my dear connexions, but still I long for that free communication which I see but little prospect of obtaining. Let me again intreat you to write by way of Guardoca, Bilboa is as safe a conveyance as any I know of.—Ah my dear John, where are you— in so remote a part of the Globe that I fear I shall not hear a Syllable from you.—Pray write me all the intelligence you get from him, send me his Letters to you. Do you know I have not a line from him for a year and half.—Alass my dear I am much afflicted with a disorder call'd the Heartach, nor can any remedy be found in America, it must be collected from Holland, Petersburgh and Bilboa.—And now { 257 } having recited my Greifs and complaints, the next in place are those of my Neighbours. I have been applied to by the parents of several Braintree youth to write to you in their behalf, requesting your aid and assistance if it is in your power to afford it. Capt. Cathcart in the privateer Essex from Salem, went out on a cruise last April into the Channel of England, and was on the 10 of June So unfortunate as to be taken and carried into Ireland, the officers were confined there, but the Sailors were sent prisoners to Plimouth jail 12 of whom are from this Town, a list of whom I inclose. The Friends of these people have received Intelligence by way of an officer who belonged to the Protector, and who escaped from the jail; that in August last they were all alive, several of them very destitute of cloathing, having taken but a few with them, and those for the Summer, particularly Ned Savils and Jobe Feild. There request is that if you can, you would render them some assistance, if not by procuring an exchange, that you would get them supplied with necessary cloathing.

I have told them that you would do all in your power for them, but what that would be I could not say. Their Friends here are all well, many of them greatly distresst for their Children, and in a particular manner the Mother of Jeriah Bass.

I wish you to be very particular in letting me know by various opportunities and ways, after the recept of this, whether you have been able to do any thing for them, that I may relieve the minds of these distresst parents. The Capt. got home about 3 months ago, by escapeing to France, but could give no account of his Men after they were taken.3

Two years my dearest Friend have passd away since you left your Native land. Will you not return e'er the close of an other year? I will purchase you a retreat in the woods of Virmont and retire with you from the vexations, toils and hazards of publick Life. Do you not sometimes sigh for such a Seclusion—publick peace and domestick happiness,

May the time, the happy time soon arrive when we may realize these blessings so elegantly discribed by Thomson, for tho many of your country Men talk in a different Stile with regard to their in• { 258 } tentions, and express their wishes to see you in a conspicuous point of view in your own State, I feel no ambition for a share of it. I know the voice of Fame to be a mere weathercock, unstable as Water and fleeting as a Shadow. Yet I have pride, I know I have a large portion of it.

I very fortunately received by the Apollo, by the Juno and by the Minerva the things you sent me, all in good order.

They will enable me to do I hope without drawing upon you, provided I can part with them, but Money is so scarce and taxes so high, that few purchasers are found. Goods will not double, yet they are better than drawing Bills, as they cannot be sold but with a large discount. I could not get more than 90 for a hundred Dollers, should I attempt it.

I shall inclose an invoice to the House of Ingraham Bromfild,4 and one to de Neufvilla. There is nothing from Bilboa that can be imported with advantage, hankerchiefs are sold here at 7 dollers & half per dozen. There are some articles which would be advantageous from Holland, but Goods there run high, and the retailing vendues which are tolerated here ruin the Shopkeepers. The articles put up, by the American House were better in Quality, for the price than those by the House of de Neufvilla. Small articles have the best profit, Gauze, ribbons, feathers and flowers to make the Ladies Gay, have the best advance. There are some articles which come from India I should suppose would be lower priced than many others—bengalls,5 Nankeens, persian Silk and Bandano hankerchiefs, but the House of Bromfeild & C[o]. know best what articles will suit here.

I have been fortunate and unfortunate. The things which came in Jones remain at Philadelphia yet.

Our Friends here are all well. Your Mother is rather in better Health, and my Father is yet sprightly. Believe me with more affection than Words can express ever Ever Yours,

I do not take up my pen by way of reply to any Letter of yours— that is not in my power. 15 Months have elapsed since the date of your last.1 I must take you a little to task to give you an opportunity of justifying yourself. Here are no less than 3 of the Heathen deities arrived from your port without a single Syllable from You. Minerva— surely it is her peculiar province to communicate Wisdom, yet she is as silent as Apollo whom I consulted upon the occasion, but both of them affirm that they know nothing of you. Juno indeed produced your Hand writing, as a cover to some Newspapers and pamphlets which is all that could be obtained from her. I cannot reconcile this with your former punctuality. It is true I have no more reason to complain, than your other Friends, but we all look sober about it, I assure you: and the more so for hearing that you are not well; and that your wishes are to return to America. I hope you are not so uneasy as to opperate upon your Health; if that is the case, loth as I know my dear Friend would be to part with you, he would not detain you, if you once made known your desires; I have not told your Friends all I have heard upon this subject as I fear it would give them uneasyness.

You will have heard before this reaches you of the strange part Gillion has acted; my dear Charles is at Bilboa, and must exchange September for Jan'ry or Febry., a dreadful Season to come upon this { 262 } coast. The Letters which were put on Board of him must be still with him, if any were committed to his care. I do not think he means to come to America soon.

I hope you have been made very happy by the agreable tiding from America. The aspect of our affairs is Brightned, an other British Army is added to our Glorious exploits and conquests, with an abhored, because a merciless and cruel Captive General to swell our triumphs. The Month of October is a memorable one to America, and a fatal one to Britain. Will she can she still persist in her wanton cruelties, in her mad projects of domination, whilst she is crumbling to attoms? Will not the united provinces be proud to allye themselves to our vallient states—will they not acknowledge our Independance and claim kindred with us? Is there any prospect of peace? May a Glorious one incircle us with its blessings before an other year Elapses, but I fear from certain movements to which I suppose you are no Stranger that it may not be all we wish. Yet the Capture of Cornwallis must opperate in our favour.

Most of the Ladies of your acquaintance still remain Single. Several whom you left just rising into notice now figure with Eclat. You are not forgotten amongst them. I often hear your name mentiond with much esteem, an Epethet well suited to the tempreture of the low Countries.

Master Tommy desires me to remember to insert his affectionate regard to you, and Miss Nabby looks it, tho not articulated.

Your Friends were all well last week when your Brother was here. Your Sister Celia spent a fortnight here in the last month, and Miss Nancy2 is expected this Week to spend a month or two. Your Friend Abel Alleyne is sailed for Antigue and from thence designs for Barbados. Provisions plenty here, money a scarce commodity indeed, taxes, exorbitant. Luxery still prevailing in Building, furniture, Equipage, and dress. The scarcity of cash will Lessen it with some, but many realized their enormous sums of paper.

Your Letter of 21 Aug. O.S.1 the first I have received, reached me only two or three days ago.

I am pleased to see, your hand Writing improve, as well as your Judgment ripen, as you travel. But I am above all happy to find that your Behaviour has been such as to gain the Confidence of M[r]. D[ana] so far as to employ you in copying. This Employment requires a great degree of Patience and Steadiness as well as care. It will be of vast Use to you, to be admitted thus early into Business, especially into Business of such Importance.

Make it a Rule, my dear Son, To loose no Time. There is not a moral Precept, of clearer Obligation, or of greater Import. Make it the grand Maxim of your Life, and it cannot fail to be happy, and usefull to the World.

You have my Consent to have any Masters, which Mr. D. thinks proper for you. But you will have none, upon whom I shall depend so much as upon him. He will form your moral and political Principles, and give you a Taste for Letters as well as Business, if you can but be so wise and happy as to continue to deserve his Confidence, and be admitted to assist him, in Copying his Business.

I have Letters from your Mother who sends you her Blessing and your youngest Brother who sends you his Love.2

Charles writes me from Bilbao 24 Nov.3 expecting to sail the next Week, he desires his Love to you, and his affectionate Respects to Mr. D.

Write me often. Let me know the State of Education and Letters in St. Petersbg. Pray do you hear any Thing of a Passage by Land, from Russia to America? What Discoveries have been made?

This day Mr. Sayre arrived,1 with your Letter of the 12/23 of October. Yours of August I answered, Yesterday.

You have not informed me whether the Houses are built of Brick, Stone or Wood. Whether they are seven stories high or only one. How they are glazed, whether they have chimneys as in Spain. What publick Buildings, what Maison de Ville or state house. What Churches? What Palaces? What Statuary, what Paintings, Musick, Spectacles, &c. You have said nothing of the Religion of the Country, whether it is Catholick or Protestant. What is the national Church. Whether there are many Sectaries. Whether there is a Toleration of various Religions &c.

I think the Price for a Master is intolerable. If there is no Academy, nor School, nor a Master to be had, I really dont know what to say to your staying in Russia. You had better be at Leyden where you might be in a regular course of Education. You might come in the Spring in a Russian, Sweedish or Prussian Vessell, to Embden perhaps or Hamborough, and from thence here, in a neutral Bottom still. I am afraid of your being too troublesome to Mr. D[ana].

However, I rely upon it that you follow your Studies with your wonted Assiduity. It is strange if no Dictionary can be found in French nor English.

I dont perceive that you take Pains enough with your Hand Writing. Believe me, from Experience, if you now in your Youth resolutely conquer your impatience, and resolve never to write the most familiar Letter or trifling Card, with2 Attention and care, it will save you a vast deal of Time and Trouble too, every day of your whole Life. When the habit is got, it is easier to write well than ill, but this Habit is only to be acquired, in early life.

God bless my dear Son, and preserve his Health and his Manners, from the numberless dangers, that surround Us, wherever We go in this World. So prays your affectionate Father,

I have Letters from Mr. Dana and his young Attendant, at St. Petersbourg. Both well and in good Spirits. Letters to Mrs. D. and to you go by Captn. Troubridge and by Dr. Dexter.

I have no certain News, as yet of Charles's Sailing from Bilbao, but I presume he is sailed. You will have suffered great Anxiety on his Account, but I pray he may arrive safe. I acted for the best when I consented he should go in Gillon, little expecting that he would be landed in Spain again. Keep him to his studies and send him to Colledge, where I wish his Brother John was.

My Health is feeble, but better than it was. I am busy, enough, yet not to much perceptible Purpose as yet. There is no Prospect at all of Peace. Let our People take Care of their Trade and Privateers, next year. They have not much of a Land War to fear.

General Washington, has struck the most sublime stroke of all in that Article of the Capitulation, which reserves the Tories for Tryal by their Peers. This has struck Toryism dumb and dead. I expect that all the Rancour of the Refugees will be poured out upon Cornwallis for it.1

Our Ennemies now really stand in a ridiculous Light. They feel it but cannot take the Resolution to be wise.

The Romans never saw but one caudine Forks in their whole History. Americans have shewn the Britains two, in one War.—But they must do more. Remember, you never will have Peace, while the Britains have a Company of Soldiers at Liberty, within the United States. New York must be taken, or you will never have Peace.—All in good time.

The British Army Estimates are the same as last Year, the Navy less by several ships of the Line. What can these People hope for.

I fancy the southern states will hold their Heads very high. They have a right. They will scarcely be overrun again I believe, even in the hasty manner of Cornwallis. Burgoine dont seem to be affronted that his Nose is out of Joint. He is in good Spirits. Experience has convinced him.—So I hope it has Cornwallis, that the American War is { 266 } impracticable. The flour, the Choice of the British Army was with him.

The K[ing] of Eng[land] consoles his People under all their Disgraces, Disasters, and dismal Prospects, by telling them that they are brave and free. It is a pity for him that he did not allow the Americans to be so Seven Years ago. But the great designs of Providence must be accomplished. Great Indeed! The Progres of Society, will be accellerated by Centuries by this Rev[olution]. The Emperor of Germany is adopting as fast as he can American Ideas of Toleration and religious Liberty, and it will become the fashionable system of all Europe very soon. Light Spreads from the day Spring in the West, and may it shine more and more until the perfect day.

Duty to Parents, Love to Brothers, sisters and Children. It is not in the Power of Worlds2 to express the Tenderness with which I bid you farewell.

I send you a Volume of Politics. A Second Volume will be ready in 6 or 7 Weeks.—You will hear more about this Paper, in time.1

I have received several kind Letters from you. Pray continue to write me, altho you should be disappointed of my Answers. I have noted your Desire, in one of them and have taken such measures as I could, but fear you have received nothing as yet, although some have been sent.2 Little can be done in this Way. This Country begins to think seriously of Us but they must think a long time, you know.

There is no Prospect of Peace. Let our Country men look to their Trade and Privateers, for I suspect the English will strain every Nerve, to hurt them in this Way finding so many Caudine Forks in { 267 } the Land War. The English are amuzing the Dutch with insidious Proposals of a seperate Peace. But I am perswaded no such Thing can take Place. A Quadruple Alliance would be much more for the Honour and Interest of this Rep[ublic] but whether they will think so time must discover.

The Emperor has acceeded to the armed Neutrality: so that all the Powers of the World, are either at War with England or pledged to be Neutral. The King of Prussia acceeded sometime ago.

The Brit[ish] Ministry seem to give over the Ideas of Conquest. By their Speeches in Parliament, their Hopes are extinct. Yet perhaps this may be a feint. It is impossible however, that they should do much. The People are meeting and making a Bustle, but all will evaperate in a few frothy Speeches, and fruitless Remonstrances.

Our Allies have at last found the true Method of obtaining Tryumphs. If they pursue the Plan the War will be easy.

The British Navy will be much weaker next year than this. Their Army is not proposed to be stronger, and they will not find it in fact, near so strong.

Let Dr. Cooper read the Politique Hollandais, and tell him that I will send him his sermon and the Governors Speech and the Massachusetts Constitution, translated into Dutch, as soon as I can. The Translation is published with an elegant Comparison between the Mass[achusetts] Constitution and that of this Rep[ublic].3

By the last Mails came the King's Speech, the Address of the two Houses in answer, and the debates in Parliament. His most gracious Majesty is sorry, that the Americans and French have catched one of his flying Generals with an Army, because the Rectitude of his Cause entitled him to better luck. He tells his Parliament the Rebellion is still fomented, and that his Subjects continue in that state of delusion, that the Bravery of his fleets and Armies was to have removed seven Years agone. He seems to be anxious about America, and wishes to bring them back to that happy state which their former Obedience placed them in. Never mind it, my Lords and Gentlemen, to be sure it has been rather a bad season for Us, and I am sorry for it, but next Year, if You will keep the Purse full, I will rely with a firm Confidence upon the Assistance of divine Providence, the Justice of my Cause, and the Bravery of my fleets and Armies, and do great things. What solemn Mockery coupled with a most ridiculous Farce? This, Madam, is the Language of a Monarch, who has had seven Years Experience of the most pointed Indignation of Heaven against his despotic Projects; seven Years experience of the Iniquity of his Cause, and an equal peri[o]d of the most convincing proofs, that neither the Bravery or Skill of his fleets and armies are adequate to the Task of subduing a People determined to assert the Rights and Dignity of human Nature, and to be free. Yet with this Torrent of Evidence, he means to go on, as if abandoned by that Providence on which he affects to rely. He is now flattering his People with the Epithets of “brave and free.” America will hear much of large Armies — perhaps 20 or 25,000 men—large fleets &c. &c. being to be sent out next Spring by England. But these Men are all to be raised by the way, which will take six or seven Years at least. They cannot fit out a larger fleet than last Year: and this Fleet must be divided in proportion to their Objects and Number of Places to guard and relieve, which have increased much. In the debates of Parliament their fleet is stated to be only seventy nine Ships of the Line—this is not contradicted. France alone has seventy-one, Spain near sixty, and Holland between twenty and thirty. The fleet of England is not in general well manned—many of their ships very old—their standing Army is very small. Supposing the whole regular Army of the three Kingdoms were sent out, it would not replace the losses they sustained last Year in America, the West Indies &c. Altho' We need be { 269 } under no apprehension at all of any force they can send out next Spring, (which cannot but be small) yet We ought not to relax in the least in our Exertions by Sea and Land, and more especially by Sea; for these Gentry have been so buffetted in this War, so baffled and disappointed in their Expectations, that they will never make Peace 'till they can no longer make War. Commerce is the Heart of the Kingdom, and Blood drawn from this Source will create sensations that will bring them at least to Reflection. Nothing like Privateering for this purpose.

I have become acquainted with an amiable Circle of Ladies in this City. I pay my Respects to them now and then, for the pleasure of their good Company, an improvement in the French Language, and to divert a little Gloom and Melancholy, which this horrible Climate casts over me at times. Three or four of them are handsome, and the rest very agreable, but make no pretensions to Beauty. I find much formality and Ceremony in families that are most intimate, which gives an appearance of an introduction to their most familiar Visits. However they are very sociable and one finds a display of good humour in their Company. The Ladies always salute each other upon entering and parting when they make Visits: And where I dared, I have endeavoured to introduce the practice of Gentlemen's (as far as respected me) making Use of the same feeling Expression of Respect towards the Ladies.

I knew not untill half an hour ago that Mr. Guile intended for Europe, he did not know it himself, it was a suden movement. He has not been able to come [up?] as the vessel is expected to sail tomorrow, the Marquis and Count are already gone on Board. I have written by them,1 but should have been more full and particuliar by Mr. Guile if I had sooner known of his intention.

He can give you a full and particular account of our Situation at present.2 I need say nothing on that Head. He can tell you how anxious we have all been for my dear Boy, of whom I hear nothing further since his arrival at Bilboa. He can tell you how much dissapointed I was that he should have [had] all his papers on Board Gillion so that not one line reachd me. I have not a syllable of a later date than May. It seems as if a fatality attended all our exertions for cloathing, and for intelligence. I have so short warning that I have not a line for my Russian vissiter, have you heard from him? When O when shall I?

I hope you enjoy your Health. I am anxious for you. My own I find infirm enough, my Nervous System is too easily agitated. I am frequently confined by slight indispositions to which I was always subject. I hope you have not experienced so much anxiety for our dear little Boy, as I have. It is not over. I fear the Dangers of our coast, every Storm agitates me least he should be comeing upon the coast.

I have written to you already that the things you orderd me all came safe to hand by the Minerva, by the Apollo and the Juno.

I have inclosed by the Count an invoice but have not written to any Body but to you about the articles.

I also inclose to you a coppy of a Letter, said to have been published abroad. You may have seen it before, but if you have not, it is a curiosity.3 There is a great scarcity of Money here, and will be a greater I believe when our taxes are paid. I shall not draw upon you if you can continue to make me remittances as you have done. I enter not into the present stile and mode of living. The whole of your Sallery would be inadequate to the expence in which some live now, in furniture, equipage, cloathing and feasting, who were not worth ten Spanish milld Dollors when the war commenced. But this rant cannot last long, they must again descend to their nothingness.

Excuse this hasty Scrawl. I would not that Mr. Guile should go without a line. Believe me at all times most assuredly yours.

Inclosed is a letter. You will understand more about it when you receive my Letter by the Count de Noiales.4

My Health is returning to me by degrees, and I hope to be fully reestablished by the Help of constant Exercise, and great Care, but I want the Consolations of my family.—Alass! When shall I have it.

Charles I presume is sailed in the Cicero from Bilbao, and John is well with Mr. D[ana] at Pete[r]sbourg.

The political Questions here are, a seperate Peace with England and the Mediation of Russia on one Hand and an Alliance with France, Spain and America on the other. The Deliberations will be as long as possible—and the Result nobody can guess.

My Blessing to my Children, Duty to Parents, Affection to Friends, &c.

I hope, Charles is at home by this time or that he will be in a few days. I presume he sailed from Bilbao in the Cicero, with M[ajor] { 273 } Jackson and Mr. Trumbul, one of the first days of december yet I have no certain news of his sailing at all. John is well with Mr. D[ana] at Petersbourg.

I cannot tell you any News—there are great questions upon the Tapis here, but how they will be decided, I know not.—This Rep[ublic] is a Jilt. When you think you have her Affections, all at once you find you have been deceiv'd.

There is not so much as a Talk of a general Peace, nor is there any one who believes in a seperate Peace bet[ween] England and Holland.

Take Care of the War of Ports which the English talk of. Perhaps Falmouth, perhaps Rhode Island. Look to Privateers and trade.

Let not a Bow be unstrung. There will be, there can be no Peace.

I hope Hayden, who had some things for you, is arrived.

I shall not be able to send any thing more I am afraid untill next summer.

My Blessing to my Daughter and Son, my Duty to Parents and Affection to Brothers and Sisters.

Pray send me, half a dozen, N.E. shillings by different Opportunities, if you can find them.1

Yes I have been Sick confined to my chamber with a slow fever. I have been unhappy through anxiety for my dear Boy, and still am apprehensive of our terrible coast should he come upon it, besides the tormenting cruizers infest our Bay with impuinity and take every thing. You have heard I suppose that the passengers all left the Ship and went to Bilboa upon Gillions abusive treatment of them. My Son was arrived there the day the vessel which brought the News sailed, since which time have heard nothing from thence. The sympathetick part you took in my suposed loss, bespeaks a feeling Heart. I thank Heaven I have not yet been called to taste the bitter cup.

Your kind endeavours have at last happily succeeded and the Boxes have arrived in safety, all the articles in much better Situation than I expected. The contents agree with your former invoice tho not with Mr. A——s memorandom—the china came all safe, one plate and Glass { 274 } excepted, which for such a journey is trifling indeed. I shall acknowledge General Lincolns kind attention by a few lines to him.2

You Query why Portia has not written to you as usual. The real reason was that she was perplexed. The character which she supposed she had in former times corresponded with, was that of a Man of Honour in publick and in private Life, sincere in his professions a Strickt observer of his vows, faithfull to his promisses—in one word a Moral and a Religious Man. Shall the cruel tongue of Slander impeach and abuse this character by reporting that the most sacred of vows is voilated, that a House of bad fame is the residence, and a M[istre]ss the Bosom associate. Truth is the one thing wanting to forever withhold a pen.3

An infamous falsehood I would believe it. My reason for inquiring a character was founded upon the report. Sure I am I sought it not. Since the recept of your last, I have endeavourd to come at the report in such a manner as should give you Satisfaction, this is the reason why I have delayed writing but as I did not chuse to inquire but in a transient manner, I have not been able to obtain it. I observed to you in my last that Massachusets air was necessary for you. I still think so, as it would be the most effectual way to silence the abuse which for near a year has circulated. I know your former reasons will recur and perhaps with more force than ever. Indeed I pitty you. If cruelly used, my Heart Bleads for your troubles, and for your real and substantial misfortunes. I suppose I know your meaning.

Post conveyances are so doubtfull and have been so dangerous that I cannot write freely neither upon publick or private affairs.

You had as good be in Europe as Pensilvana for all the intelligence we have from Congress. No journals, no news papers and very few Letters pass. Deans is taking great Latitudes, one would think him a pensioned hireling by his Letters. Would to Heaven that the whole of his Letters could be proved as false as the greater part of them, but are there not some Sorrowfull Truths?

Whilst I acknowledge your kind attention to a couple of Boxes in which I was interested and which you was kind enough to forward with Safety by your waggon to Boston, I would not omit congratulating you upon your late honorable appointment which gives universal Satisfaction in your native State at the same time that it demonstrates the Sense which your Country entertain of your meritorious Services. It gives a pleasing prospect to those who wish her prosperity to see { 275 } those advanced to office whos virtue and independant Spirit have uniformly shone from the begining of this unhappy contest.4

Last night I received your letters of the 14th and 15th. You make me a great number of questions at a time, but I will answer them as well as I can.1

The Houses are for the most part built of Brick, and plastered over. They are from two to four Stories high. They are glazed with large panes as in France, and in the winter they have double windows which are taken down in the Spring, that is, in the Months of May or June. They have no Chimneys, but Stoves of which I have given a description to Mr. Thaxter.2 I dont know anything about their State-house, but I beleive it is nothing extraordinary. Voltaire says there are thirty-five Churches here, but I believe if anybody had set him about finding them out he would have found it very difficult; there is a church building here upon the plan of St. Peter's at Rome; It was to be entirely finish'd in fifteen years, has been already work'd upon twenty five, and is far from being half done. There are two Palaces in the city, in one of which her Majesty resides in the winter, and is call'd the summer3 Palace. The Empress stays all summer at a palace called { 276 } Czarskozelo about twenty five English Miles from the city. There is no famous Statuary or Paintings, that I know of. There are concerts once a week in several places. There is a German, an Italian and a French Comedy here. The last is in the Empress's Palace.

The Religion is neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, but as Voltaire has in his history of Peter the great, treated upon that subject, I will give you what he says about it.

“La Religion de L'Etat, says he, fut toujours depuis le onzieme siecle, celle qu'on nomme Grecque, par opposition a la Latine: mais il y avait plus de pays Mahometans et de Payens que de Chrétiens. La Sibérie jusqu'a la Chine etait idolatre; et dans plus d'une province toute espece de Religion etait inconnue.

“Le Christianisme ne fut reçu que trés tard dans la Russie, ainsi que dans tous les autres pays du Nord. On prétend qu'une Princesse nommée Olha l'y introduisit á la fin du dixieme siécle. Cette princesse Olha ajoute-t'on, se fit baptiser à Constantinople. Son exemple ne fit pas d'abord un grand nombre de proselytes; son fils Stowastoslaw qui regna long terns ne pensa point du tout comme sa mere; mais son petit fils Volodimer, né d'une concubine, ayant assassiné son frere pour regner, et ayant recherché l'alliance de l'Empereur de Constantinople Basile, ne l'obtint qu'a condition qu'il se serait baptiser; c'est a cette époque de l'anneé 987. que la Religion grecque commenca en effet a s'etablir en Russie.

“Il y eut toujours, depuis la naissance du Christianisme en Russie, quelques sectes, ainsi que dans les autres etats; car les sectes sont souvent le fruit de l'ignorance, aussi bien que de la science pretendue. Mais la Russie est le seul grand etat Chretien où la Religion n'ait pas excité de guerres civiles, quoiqu'elle ait produit quelques tumultes.

“La secte de ces Roskolniki composée aujourd'hui d'environ deux mille males, est la plus ancienne; elle s'etablit dès le douzieme siècle par des zélés qui avaient quelque connaissance du nouveau testament; ils eurent, et ont encore la pretention de tous les sectaires, celle de le suivre à la lettre, accusant tous les autres Chrétiens de relachement, ne voulant point souffrir qu'un pretre qui a bu de l'eau de vie, confere le bâteme, assurant avec Jesus-Christ, qu'il n'y a ni premier ni dernier parmi les fideles, et surtout qu'un fidele peut se tuer pour l'amour de son Sauveur. C'est selon eux un très grand peché de dire alleluja trois fois, il ne faut le dire que deux, et ne donner jamais la bénédiction qu'avec trois doigts. Nulle societé, d'ailleurs, n'est ni plus regleé, ni plus severe dans ses moeurs: ils vivent comme les Quakers, mais ils n'admettent point comme eux les autres Chrétiens dans leurs assem• { 277 } bleés, c'est ce qui fait que les autres leur ont imputé toutes les abominations dont les Payens accuserent les premiers Galiléens, dont ceux-ci a chargerent les Gnostiques, dont les Catholiques ont chargés les Protestans. On leur a souvent imputé d'egorger un enfant, de boire son sang, et de se mêler ensemble dans leurs ceremonies secrettes sans distinction de parenté, d'age, ni même de sexe. Quelquefois on les a persecutés: ils se sont alors enfermés dans leurs bourgades, ont mis le feu à leurs maisons, et se sont jettés dans les flammes.

“Au reste, il n'y a dans un si vaste Empire que vingt huit Siéges Episcopaux, et du terns de Pierre on n'en comptait que vingt deux: ce petit nombre etait peut-être une des raisons qui avaient tenu l'Eglise Russe en Paix. Cette Eglise d'ailleurs etait si peu instruite, que le Czar Fédor frére de Pierre Le Grand, fut le premier qui introduisit le plein chant chéz elle.

“Fédor et surtout Pierre, admirent indifféremment dans leurs armées et dans leurs conseils ceux du rite Grec, Latin, Luthérien, Calviniste: ils laisserent a chacun la liberté de servir Dieu suivant sa conscience, pourvu que l'etat fut bien servi.

“Il n'y a jamais eu en Russie d'etablissement pour les juifs, comme ils en ont dans tant d'etats de l'Europe depuis Constantinople jusquà Rome. De toutes les Eglise Grecques la Russe est la seule, qui ne voye pas des Synagogues à coté de ses temples.”4

I don't wonder that you find it Strange that there is no good Dictionary to be had, but there is nobody here but Princes and Slaves; the Slaves cannot have their children instructed, and the nobility that chuse to have their's send them into foreign countries. There is not one school to be found in the whole city.

In Haveing an Opportunity by Via Bilbao, I have the pleasure of communicating to you the Arrival of your son Charles, after a passage of 45 days from Bilbao.1—The ship Robinhood that Charles Storer &c. went in is Arrived from Gottenburgh, in 45 days likewize a Brig att Providence from france by which we here the News of the Capture of Cornwallis had reacht there.

The Congress has past an Act prohibiting any british goods of any kind being imported after the first March, and in case the Owner cannot prove them (not to be british) they are forfeited, let them come from any ports whatever, or by any Neutral power whatever— which is a pitty was not done sooner.

As there is a person in Town that has considerable of goods from his father in London.2—I hope the recapture of St. Eustatius will put some New life into the Dutch. The British frigates have done more damage to Our trade the last season than any time since the War. That confounded Penobscot is a handy resort.—Your family and { 280 } friends are well. Itts very happy the Cicero Arrived as she did as the next day came On a very bad snow storm and has continued two days, which has prevented Charles from coming to Town.

As to News we have had nothing from Genl. Green for some Months. A reinforcement is gone from York to Carolinia.

I have the happiness to inform you that your Son Charles arriv'd at Beverly from Bilboa last Week, in the Ship Cicero, after a Passage of 51 Days.1 He is in fine Health and behaves himself with such good Breeding as gives pleasure to all his Acquaintance. He return'd to Braintree the day before Yesterday where he found his joy full Mother and Brother and Sister all well. His Trunk and Things are not yet got to Braintree so that I have not the pleasure of knowing what Letters you have sent, but hope I may have one, as I have not yet received a Line from You or Mr. Thaxter since you left us. I wrote you just after the taking of Genl. Cornwallis, but the Vessell after several weeks absence put back again.2 I put the Letters afterwards into the Hands of a Gentleman who expected to sail for Holland by way of Virginia, and as he is not yet gone I take the freedom of desiring him to wait upon you with them (tho' they are something antiquated) and with this also; knowing that you must be anxious for your dear little Boy untill you hear of his arrival. I long to hear from Master John, how he likes his Tour to Petersbourg &c. Your Mother, Brother, Father Smith, Uncle Quincy, Uncle Thaxter, Uncle Smith &c. &c. { 282 } and their Families are all well. I wrote to Cousin Thaxter by the Count De Noailles, which I hope he has received. We have no News since the retaking of St. Eustatia by the French. This was a brilliant Coup De Main. The General Court are now sitting here, and now batteling of it whether an Excise Act pass'd last Session shall be repeal'd or not. “Much may be said on both Sides.”

I received by Capt. Hayden the Things consign'd to me by Monsr. Mandrillon, they all came safe except the Glass-ware which was much broken. I have not yet sold them, as I could not get a Price that suited me. I hope soon to make him a Remittance. Hayden arriv'd so long after the other Ships that the Market was supply'd for that Season before the Goods came to hand. I have wrote to him, and shall write to him again by the first Oportunity. I have never received the Letters that he mention'd to me as being sent by Commodore Guillon. Should be glad you would please to present my most respectfull Compliments to him and let him know that I shall do every thing in my Power to serve his Interest. We have been very anxious on Account of your Health, having heard that you have been very Sick, but Master Charles has reliev'd us by informing us that he had received Letters from you of a later Date, and that you was recover'd.

Mr. Sherburn, who has been so obliging as to promise to deliver this and the other Letter to you if he arrives safe to Holland, is a Gentleman who has signalized himself in behalf of his Country, and lost a Limb in the Expedition on Rhode Island.3 I have heard a good Character of him, but have not the pleasure of a Particular Acquaintance with him. He says he is going on board directly, so that I have only time to add that I am with every Sentiment of Esteem and Friendship, your affectionate Bror.,

Yesterday I received your Letter of Jany. 1/12, and thank you for your account of the Place where you are.

I will send you a Dictionary, as soon as I can, but it will be a long { 283 } time before you can have it. I am very anxious for your Studies. Write me what Books You can procure there, and what others you want.

I am much pleased with your Letter to Mr. Thaxter,1 but it is a Mortification to me to find that you write better, in a foreign Language than in your mother Tongue. Your Letters discover a Judgment, beyond your Age, but your Style is not yet formed in french or English.

You must study accurately the best Writers in both, and endeavour to penetrate into their Spirit, to warm your Imagination with theirs, to inkindle the flame of Wit by their Fires and to watch the Delicacies in the Turn of Phrases and Periods which constitute the Charms of style.

I have a Letter from your Mamma, 23d Jany.2 All friends well.

With her Blessing to you, She sends her Wishes to hear from you, as often as you can write.

Your Brother was not arrived, on Christmas day when the Alliance Sailed.

Your Account of the Difference in the Air, in and out of your Chamber, allarms me for your Health but more especially for Your Patrons.3 You must take Care, not to make the Air of your Chamber too hot, and to change it often, otherwise your Friends Health will suffer immediately and yours after a little time, perhaps more than his.

Pray, what is the Language of the Russians?

Do you find any Company? Have you formed any Acquaintances of your own Countrymen, there are none I suppose. Of Englishmen you should beware; Frenchmen probably many. It must be an unsociable dull Life to a young Man, if you have not some Acquaintances. Alass! I regret that the Friendships of your Childhood cannot be made among your own Country men. And I regret your Loss of the glorious Advantages for classical studies at Leyden.

“Mr. Lovell, do let me entreat you, this thirtieth time, to write a few Lines to Mrs. Adams. Are you not clearly convinced that it is { 284 } in vain for you to determine, as you have done, day after day, that you will go to see her? You are betrayed, by a thousand Interruptions, not merely into Unpoliteness, but really into Ingratitude to that Lady. If you do not feel for yourself, I pray you to convince her that I am not insensible to her repeated kind Invitations and other Proofs of her friendly Thoughtfulness of me.”

Stop, prithee, stop, Mary. I will write, this moment. Thou art indeed a good Woman. What Pity 'tis, as Some Folks think, that you have not a better Husband!1

And now, my esteemed Friend, do you not willingly conceive that it is very difficult for me to seize Hours sufficient to secure the great Pleasure of seeing you at Braintree.

Be assured that I am not yet so quit of pressing Business as to have found Leisure to visit at the South West or North parts of this Town many Friends of my early Love or my later Gratitude.

I have many Things to tell; many also to ask about. I will not omit any possible Opportunity of doing both within the next Fortnight.2 In the mean time, be assured of the Reality of that Regard which is now jointly professed by, Madam, Your obliged Friends,

I yesterday received a congratulatory Letter from you,2 upon the safe arrival of my dear Charles, an event which has relieved me from many anxieties and filld my Heart with gratitude to that gracious Being who protected him from the perils of the deep, and from the hostile foe, who raised him from Sickness and has restored him to his Native Land, undepraved in his mind and morals, by the facinating allurements of vice, decked in Foreign garbs—and this I assure you I esteem not among the least favours with which his absence has been distinguished.

The fond Mother would tell you that you may find in him the { 285 } same solid sober discreet Qualities that he carried abroad with a modesty bordering upon diffidence, no ways inclined to relate his adventures but as you question him concerning them—perfectly attached to the modest republican Stile of Life, as tho he had never experienced any other. As to any alteration in his person, I perceive none but growth which has not been rapid. If no unforeseen disaster prevents I hope to bring him to visit you in the course of the Spring. He desires his duty to you, and love to his unknown cousins.

I wrote you a long Letter a months ago,3 but thought to coppy it as it was very carelessly written. I was that Night calld to attend the Sick and I greatly feared dying Bed of our worthy Brother Cranch. For ten days I beheld him in this critical state. Encompassed with my own anxiety, and the anguish of his whole family, I was greatly distresst. Gracious Heaven has restored the good Man to his family and Friends who were trembling least he should cease to be and the faithfull faill4 from among the children of Men. Whilst I attended round his Bed, I could not avoid often looking abroad and in imagination beholding my dearest Friend laid upon his sick Bed unattended by the wife, the sister or daughter, whose constant and solicitous care and attention might mitigate the riggour of the fever, and alleviate the pain—but with strangers and in a foreign Land my dear Friend has experienced a most severe sickness. In November he wrote to Charles in Bilboa5 that he was recovering from a fever which had left him very weak and lame, and this is the latest intelligence I have received.

You may well suppose me anxious. My Heart sometimes misgives me. I long yet fear to hear. I have one only confidence to repair to. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right and have I not experienced signal favours—shall I distrust his providentiall care?

I am sorry to hear you complain as the Spring approaches. You have but a slender constitution. I would advise you to a free use of the Bark and a journey. I hope you are not in the increasing way, as I think your Health ill able to bear it. We have none of us nursing constitutions—twice my life was nearly sacrificed to it.

Is our intelligence true that you are like to have cousin B——y6 for a Neighbour. I hope it will prove for her happiness and then I shall most sincerely rejoice in it. Mrs. Gray is like soon to confirm the observation that there scarce was ever any such thing under the Sun as an inconsolable widow. Grief is no incurable disease; but time, patience and a little philosophy with the help of humane fraility and address will do the Buisness. She is however like to be { 286 } joined to one of the most amiable of Men, which is too great a temptation to be over balanced by the Sum total of 5 children.7

Let me hear from you oftner my Sister. I really am conscience smitten at my neglect. A Good example will awaken my future attention and produce the consequent reformation of your ever affectionate Sister,

I receiv'd three days agone your favour of Feby. 5th. I have found a good Latin and french Dictionary, but I should be glad to have one Latin and English, because I am obliged at present to translate every thing into French, unless I translate the words twice; by which, (besides it's being very troublesome), the sense of the Latin will be often lost. I can get any Latin books here that I want. I have finished Cornelius Nepos, and have translated Cicero's first oration against Catilina.

I have not made many acquaintances here, but there is a subscription Library of English books, to which Mr. D[ana] has subscribed, so that I have as much as I want, to read. I have lately finished Hume's history of England and am at present reading Mrs. Macaulay's.1 In the third volume of Hume's history I find an exact description of the present state of this Country in these few lines.

“If we consider the antient state of Europe, we shall find that the far greater part of the society were every where bereaved of their personal liberty and lived entirely at the will of their masters. Everyone that was not noble was a slave. The peasants were sold along with the land. The few inhabitants of cities were not in a better condition. Even the gentry themselves were subjected to a long train of subordination, under the greater barons or chief vassals of the { 287 } crown, who tho' seemingly plac'd in a high state of splendor, yet, having but a slender protection, of the law, were exposed to every tempest of state, and by the precarious condition in which they lived, paid dearly for the power of oppressing and tyrannizing over their inferiors.”

Please to give my duty to Mamma whenever you write. I will write to her as often as I can.

We have had here lately some days exceeding cold. Reaumur's Thermometer has been as low as 32 degrees below the degree of freezing but it thaws at present, and it is likely we shall not have again this winter such severe cold weather. We open a window every morning for about a half an hour, so that we always have fresh air in our chambers.

You ask me in your letter, what is the Language of the Russians? Voltaire says, “Un Grec fut premier Métropolitain de Russie ou Patriarche. C'est déla que les Russes ont adopté dans leur langue un alphabet tiré du Grec; ils y auraient gagné si le fond de leur langue qui est la Slavone, n'était toujours demeuré le même, à quelques mots pres, qui concernent leur Liturgie et leur Hiérarchic.”2 To this may be added that their alphabet is composed of 36 letters. But all the nobility speak French and German.

Your favor of the 9th. of December last informs me of the Arrival of the Apollo, Minerva, and Juno, three of fabulous Divinity who know nothing of me You observe. I do not wish to altercate even with Gods, much less with Goddesses: but I have a Right to quarrel with the Destinies, or bad Men, and there is but little benefit, I fear, arising from Contests of this kind. What am I to do with such respectable Evidence against me? Conscious of an exact Punctuality in my Correspondence, I have no Occasion to have Recourse to the miserable Subterfuges of the Lovers of Apology for my Justification.— In one Word, all my Letters to You, Madam, and all my Friends were put on board Gillon, who was to have convoyed Minerva, Apollo, Juno and several other Vessels from this Port. I thought that Ship was the safest opportunity, and therefore put all my Letters for eight or nine Months on board of her. I pray You to be assured, Madam, that I have omitted no opportunity in writing to You, and that I am too sincere an Admirer of every Trait of your Pen, which never fails of Instruction or Improvement, to be ever culpable in this Respect. I am doubly obliged by your last favor, as it flowed from a Principle of Benevolence, which has ever distinguished and done Honor to the Heart of Mrs. A. Indeed, Madam, I confess You had Reason to suspect me of Inattention or Indolence; but your Goodness has spared me the Reproach.

I wish to return to America, as You have heard: but this does not affect my Health, and I apprehend You have heard more respecting my Health than is true. I have enjoyed as great a share of this Blessing as most Foreigners do. This City I believe is the most unhealthy Spot of the seven Provinces: but We shall soon go to the Hague to live, which is infinitely more healthy. It is not however the pure Atmosphere of America.

The News of the Surrender of Cornwallis produced an agreable Sensation here. I have the honor to congratulate You, Madam, upon the entire Reduction of the Island of Minorca, which is another humiliating Event for poor old England, for they have puffed a long time about its Impregnability, its excellent State of Defence &c. &c. à la mode Angloise. The few wise men of that Country see their Kingdom crumbling to Atoms and lament it: but Wisdom and Virtue are too feeble to stem the overbearing Torrent of Corruption and { 289 } Venality. All the noble Virtues which formerly distinguished that Kingdom are lost in the infamous Vortex of ministerial Bribery.

Genl. Conway has moved in the House of Commons, that they should resolve to pursue the American War no longer by Force, and his Motion was carried by a Majority of nineteen against the Minister —a grand Triumph for Opposition. The House have resolved to wait upon his Majesty with an Address, shewing that an offensive War in America, to the End to reduce to submission the revolted Colonies by Force, tends only to weaken the Efforts of this Country against its European Enemies, and in the present Circumstances to increase the mutual Enmity, so fatal to the Interests of Great Britain and America.1

The Lord Mayor, Alderman2 and Common Council of London presented a Petition to the House of Commons, to pray them to interpose to put an End to the American War—a most deplorable, lamentable, dismal, ghastly Petition it is—full of Horror and Spleen. It was presented before the Resolution passed, and perhaps contributed much to the Success of Conways Motion. Peace with America, Peace with America is said to be the universal Cry at present in England. It is said there has been Illuminations, Bonfires &c. &c. on the Occasion of the Success of Conway's Motion. What a Nation! Crucify and pacify almost in the same Breath. There is nothing too absurd and inconsistant for them. In one moment rending the Sky and confounding Heaven and Earth in their mad Acclamations of Joy for burning a poor defenceless American Village and massacring its Inhabitants, and in the next cursing and consigning their Ministry to Perdition for carrying on the American War.—And what is to become of Conway's Motion for Peace with America? Quit the American War, to fight France, Spain and Holland, their European Enemies. This seems to be the drift of the Motion, and perhaps America is to be again insulted with Peace making pardoning Commissioners. A seperate Peace is their Object. Nothing can be more insidious than this, and I rest happy in the Persuasion, that there is too much Wisdom in our Councils and Rulers to be duped by such a semblance of friendly Policy, and too sacred a Regard to the Virgin Faith of America to ever suffer it to be spotted by the Intrigues of a British Court, or the still more dangerous Efforts of those who, apparently opposed to the Court and under the Mask of Friendship to America, are secretly and perhaps more surely pursuing the same villanous Policy of a seperate Peace.

Whether Conway's Object was to get rid of the present Ministry, to make Room for Opposition to wriggle themselves in, or to make a { 290 } seperate Peace, or to prepare the Minds of the People to a general Peace, by holding up the Idea of seperate Peace as some think I am not able to say. The Situation of the Kingdom is deplorable enough to make them wish for general Pacification; but they love France and Spain too well to quit them yet, and I cannot help thinking they mean to try for a seperate Peace. America ought to be upon her Guard and not to relax one Iota, but to dispise such an offer. Let them acknowledge the Independence of America and invite her to assist in making a general Peace, and not pursue a mean, dirty tricking Policy. But to quit a Country which no American has any Occasion to love, and to return to this. They begin to think somewhat in this Country of acknowledging our Independence. Friesland has taken the Provincial Resolution to acknowledge it and to admit your dearest Friend to an Audience, and have instructed their Deputies in the States General to move it. Guelderland is thinking about, and Holland is seriously deliberating upon it.3 Things look well at present and perhaps a few Weeks will decide what Character America is considered in in this Country. I am not sure of it, for every thing is fluctuating here, and Fear does more in five Minutes than all the Rhetorick and Oratory of Demosthenes could do in as many Years. There cannot be a more excellent Opening than the present. If they do not make a Bargain now, it is impossible to foresee when they will. England can't hurt them now, for their Lion has lost too many of his Teeth and is too old. For my own Part, I am an Infidel. I pray they may help my Unbelief.

I hope You have had the Happiness of embracing your dear Charles long since. He is an amiable little fellow and has left a charming Character and many admiring Friends in Europe. My most affectionate Regards to him, your equally dear and amiable Nabby and Master Thommy.

I am grieved that so many of the young Ladies of my Acquaintance remain single. You observe that most of them are so, and that several who were first rising into Notice when I left home now figure with Eclat. I am charmed to occupy a Place in their Esteem, for I love and esteem them most sincerely, and the first Wish of my Heart is to conduct one of them to the sacred Altar, and pledge an everlasting Affection and Fidelity to her: a pretty loving warm Speech indeed for so cold and humid a Country as Holland. I am not quite out of the Reach of the Influence of this same Passion of Love neither. My tenderest Regards to them all if You please, and to any one [in] particular that You choose. It will do her nor me any harm at this { 291 } distance.—Duty and Respects as due.—With the most perfect Respect & Esteem, I have the honor to be, Madam, your most obedient & most humble Servant,

I designedly left my Letter unclosed, in expectation of some Event worth communicating; for the Occurrences of every day are more or less interesting at present in this Country. I had no Idea however of so soon congratulating You upon so pleasing an Event, as the Acknowledgment of American Independence by the Province of Holland. Ten out of eighteen Cities declared in favor of the Measure last Thursday, and the remaining eight will give their Opinion on Wednesday next perhaps. The Reason for their not coming to a decision on the day with the other ten, was, that they had not recieved their Instructions at that time. Altho' ten Cities are a plurality of Voices, yet it is expected that the other Cities will conform to the Resolution of the ten, which were the most opulent and respectable. I wish ardently for Unanimity, for this Spirit in a good Work is a source of pleasing Sensations.

The Merchants of several Cities have contributed much to the Acceleration of this Business by their Petitions to their Regencies, the States of Holland and the States General. Amsterdam, besides petitioning their Regency, joined with Haerlem and Leyden in a Request to the States of Holland and the States General. Never was more Ardor and Zeal discoverd than in signing the Petitions. Between four and five hundred merchants &ca. signed that to the States of Holland and the States General.4 Twice as many would have signed if necessary. (When the Deputies of this City in the States of Holland acquainted the great Man of this Country of the Resolution their Regency had taken respecting American Independence, he said, “Gentlemen, I have still some difficulties on my Mind, but I shall not attempt to oppose You.”)5 But this by the Bye. This answer You will be pleased to communicate only to a few discreet Friends. The Grand Pensionary of Holland6 promised to promote the Business all in his Power, which is another Secret. Thus have I given You, Madam, a short Sketch of the state of Affairs in this Country. You will doubtless conclude, that Mr. A. will soon be admitted to an Audience, and a Treaty formed. But there are five other Provinces in the Rear, who have not yet explained themselves upon the great Question. However the general Opinion is, that they will follow without much Hesitation, and indeed several of them have discovered good disposi• { 292 } tions, Guelderland in particular, who delayed on account of the Maritime Provinces not having declared themselves in favor of a Measure, in which they were more immediately interested. This Objection is now removed. Be not too sanguine in your Expectations. An Event at present unforeseen may still prevent the friendly Embrace—some Northern Blast, or some Demon of Discord from Britain may yet disappoint our well grounded Expectations. I will hope for the best: but to wait the Issue with Dutch Patience would be a progress in this Virtue as yet unattained to by him, who is with all possible Respect & Consideration, Madam, your Most Ob. & very Hbl. Servt.,

Altho I know not of a single opportunity by which I can convey to You my constant anxiety and solicitude for your Health; or obtain from you any knowledge of your present situation, yet I cannot refrain writing my sentiments upon the knowledge I have been able to obtain concerning you here. There has been a motion in C[ongre]ss to recall all their M[inisters] and s[ecretaries] except at V[ersaille]s but it did not obtain.

I have been in daily expectation for months past, that Letters would arrive from you requesting leave to resign your employments; and return again to your Native Land, assured at least of finding one Friend in the Bosom of Portia, who is sick, sick of a world in which selfishness predominates, who is sick of counsels unstable as the wind, and of a servility to which she hopes your mind, will never bend.

Most sincerely can she unite with you in the wish of a sequestered Life, the shades of Virmont, the uncultivated Heath are preferable in her mind to the servility of a court.

Some writer observes “that censure is a tax that a Man pays the publick for being eminent.”1 It is in the power of every Man to preserve his probity; but no man living has it in his power to say that he can preserve his reputation. Is it not in your power to withdraw yourself from a situation in which you are certain, no honour can be obtained to yourself or Country? Why Letters have not reached America from you as well as from the minister at Versails, and Madrid since the extrodonary revocation of former powers, I cannot devine— unless purposely stoped by Intrigues and Cabals. The minister at Madrid has done himself and country Honour by refuseing to take a part in the New instructions.2

What changes may have taken place in the cabinets abroad since the Capture of Cornwallis, we have not yet learnt. If America does not improve it to her own advantage, she is deficient in that Spirit of Independance which has on former occasions distinguished her.

It is true that her Finances are rather in an unpleasent state. Her Faith has been so often pledged, and having no stable funds, it has been so often forfeited to the undoing of those who confided most, that their is a distrust amongst her best Friends; C[ongres]s have not been able to obtain an impost of 5 per cent which was recommended to be laid upon the importation of all Foreign articles, salt and military { 294 } stores excepted, for the purpose of raising a revenue to be at the sole disposal of C[ongre]ss.

Thus far I wrote and laid by my pen untill I could hear of an opportunity of conveyance. By a Letter last evening received from my unkle I was informed of a vessel soon to sail for France.3 I reasume my pen, but my trembling anxious Heart scarcly knows what to dictate to it. Should I discribe all that has passd within it, since I heard of your illness, you would pitty its distresses. I fear the anxiety you have felt for the disgracefull concequences which your [country]4 was about to involve itself in, have affected your Health and impaired, your constitution. I well know how Essential the Honour and dignity of your country, its Independance and safety is, to your peace of mind and your happiness; if that cannot be promoted under present circumstances, let me intreat you to withdraw. Let me beg of you to resign; your Health suffers; my Health suffers from a dejection of Spirits which I cannot overcome—

It is this hope, this distant Idea that cheers my languid spirits and supports me through domestick perplexities. I mentioned to you that I had received no Letters from you of a later date than July, and in a former Letter I acquainted you that our dear Charles arrived here in January in good Health,5 and by him I first learnt that you had been sick. My Friends were not Ignorant of it, having some months before been made acquainted with it; by Letters from Mr. Ingraham to Mr. Daws, but they had carefully concealed it from me, knowing the distress it would give me, and supposeing it would be long before I should hear again from you. Your Letter to Charles in Bilboa greatly alarmed me.6 God Grant that you may have recoverd your Health, and preserve a Life essential to the happiness of Portia. What a cordial, what a comfort would a Letter, with the happy tidings of { 295 } your returned Health prove to the distressed Bosom of Portia. Heaven grant it speedily.

Charles is perfectly happy in his safe return, to his dear Native Land, to which he appears the more attached from having visited foreign climes. May the promiseing dawn of future usefullness grow with his Growth and strengthen with his Strength whilst it sweetens the declining Life of those to whom he is most dear.

Major Jackson to whose care you intrusted him, was high in his praises'es and commendations. As I did not know in what situation he was placed, I inquired of Major Jackson. He informd me that when he arrived at Bilboa he drew a Bill upon you for money to answer his expences, that he had kept an account of Charles's which together with a small Balance he would leave at Col. Crafts where he lodged in Boston for me; he was a second time at Braintree, but said he had forgot his papers. Soon after he went for Philadelphia, and I heard no more of him; or his papers—which after a reasonable time I thought proper to inquire for, at his Lodgings, but was assured nothing was ever left for me. With regard to Charles passage the Captain and owners demand 25 guineys for it, which my unkle thinks very extravagent as he is well acquainted with passages, having both paid and received them from Bilboa, 80 dollors being the extent, he ever gave or received even when the Captain found stores,7 which was not now the case, but the Capt[ain] says the other passengers gave that, and he expects the same for him.8 I must therefore be under the necessity of drawing upon you for it, as I cannot answer it without dissapointing myself of a favorite object; I mean a Lot of Land of 300 acers for each of our children in the New State of Virmont, for which I have been very assidiously collecting all I could spair from taxes. They sell only 300 acers in a share and will not admit of one persons purchaseing more, so that the deeds must be made out in each childs or persons Name who is the purchaser. Several of our Friends have been purchaseing in the same Township, which is well situated upon two Rivers. I wish it was in my power to purchase 12 hundred for each instead of 3, but I dare not run ventures.9 The Goverment is like to be amicably setled and in a few years it will become a flourishing place.—Land here is so high taxed that people are for selling their Farms and retireing back. I can Instance to you one tax Bill which will shew you the difference of the present with the former. There are two acers and half of salt medow which you know you own in Milton, it formerly paid 3 shillings tax, and this year 36.—Mr. Alleyne has Burried his Mother { 296 } and sister. He now wishes to sell his Farm and has accordingly put it upon sale. It is a place I should be fond of, but know it must still be my castle in the air.

You are loosing all opportunities for helping yourself, for those who are daily becomeing more and more unworthy of your Labours and who will neither care for you or your family when their own turn is served—so selfish are mankind. I know this is a language you are unwilling to hear. I wish it was not a truth which I daily experience.

I do not recollect through all your absence that I have ever found the person who has been inclined to consider me or my situation either on account of my being destitute of your assistance or that you are devoteing your time and talents to the publick Service (Mr. Tracy excepted who has twice refused the freight of a few articles from Bilboa).10 It is true my spirit is too independant to ask favours. I would fain believe you have Friends who would assist me if I really stood in need, but whilst I can help myself I will not try them. I will not ask a person to lend me money who would demand 30 per cent for it. I never yet borrowed for my expences, nor do I mean to do it. Charles passage I must draw upon you for, if they will not take a Bill. They may wait your return for borrow I will not. I shall add a list of a few articles which I wish you to send me, or rather Bring—as you will I hope whatever you have in the House keeping way, when ever you return.

I should be glad the List may be given to the House of Ingraham &c. They best know what will suit here and do Buisness with more judgement and exactness as I found by what they once put up before. I shall depend wholy upon the remittances you may make me from time to time in the same way you have done. As to draughts I can make none but with loss. Goods are dull, but do better than Bills. Not a word from John since he went to Russia, not a Line from Mr. Thaxter. If I have not time to write to him, let him know that his Friends are well and his Sister Loring has a daughter.11

Mrs. Dana was well this week. Her Brother and sister dined here to day. So did our Milton Friends who desired to be rememberd to you. Mrs. Gray is this week to be married to Mr. S.A. Otis. Are you not too old to wonder? Mr. Cranch is recovering from a very dangerous Sickness in which his Friends all dispaired of his Life. My regards to all my Friends abroad. Nabby, Charles, Tom send duty to Pappa and long again to see him.

When o when will the happy day arrive that shall restore him to the affectionate Bosom of

Some days agone I received a letter from you dated May last. The true reason why I have not written to you since I have been in Europe, is, that as you expect that my letters would be very entertaining, by the variety of the subjects, that I have had to write upon, I do not wish to disappoint you by writing letters that would give you no pleasure. But as you have begun, I can no longer excuse myself, and must do as well as I can.

I am at present distant 2000 of our miles from my father, but my being with Mr. D[ana] compensates if any thing can, for my loss.

Perhaps you would be glad to hear something about this country; I will give you briefly what I know about it.

The Empire of Russia is supposed to be the largest in the world but it was formerly of no consideration in Europe. It was indeed plunged into the lowest degree of barbarism, when Peter the first { 298 } very justly surnamed the Great came to the throne. He was born in 1672. At twenty five years of age he went into Holland to the village of Saardam, and there enrolled himself as a common ship-carpenter, until he had learned the art of ship-building. He applied himself by turns to every sort of the mechanicks, and in the mean time reformed his country. The following is an eulogy of this prince by Thomson in his Winter.

The famous Voltaire has written a history of the Empire of Russia, under Peter the great, which altho' it is very partial towards this country, yet it is well worth reading, as it gives an idea of what, that extraordinary prince was.

Please to present my best respects to your Pappa and Mamma and love to your brother and sister.

Your humble Servant has lately grown much into Fashion in this Country. Nobody scarcely of so much importance, as Mynheer Adams. Every City, and Province rings with De Heer Adams &c. &c. &c. and if I were to judge of things here as We do in other Countries, I should think I was going to be received, at the Hague in awfull Pomp in a few Weeks.1 But I never can foresee one hour what will happen.

I have had however, great Pleasure to see, that there is a national Attachment to America, in the Body of this nation that is well worth cultivating, for there are no Allies more faithfull than they, as has abundantly appeared by their long Suffering with England.

Our Friends at Petersbourg are well. Pray God Charles may be with you.

I cant conceive what the English will do. They are in a strange Position at present. They cannot do much against America. But I hope, America will take their remaining Armies Prisoners in N.Y. and Charlestown. We must not relax, but pursue our Advantages.

The Proceedings of Rotterdam, will shew you, in the inclosed Paper, the Substance of what all the great Cities in this Republick are doing. Let Mr. Cranch translate it, and print it in the News { 301 } papers. It is good News. You will have an Abundance of more, which will shew you, that We have not been idle here, but have sown Seeds for a plentifull Harvest. Some Folks will think your Husband, a Negotiator, but it is not he, it is General Washington at York Town who did the substance of the Work, the form only belongs to me.

Oh When shall I see my dearest Friend.—All in good Time. My dear blue Hills, ye are the most sublime object in my Imagination. At your reverend Foot, will I spend my old Age, if any, in a calm philosophical Retrospect upon the turbulent scaenes of Politicks and War. I shall recollect Amsterdam, Leyden and the Hague with more Emotion than Philadelphia or Paris.

By direction of Mr. Adams We have Consignd to Isaac Smith Esqr. a Case of Merchandize for you, which is Ship'd in the Enterprize Capt. Daniel Deshon for Boston. This encloses the Invoice for it, the Amount being f428:1. H[ollan]d Curr[enc]y. We wish the goods may arrive Safe, and to your Approbation. Presenting our Respectful Compliments, We are Madam.

The states of Holland and West Friesland have resolved, 28 March to admit Mr. Adams to an Audience.

The inclosed Papers will shew what is going on here. You will { 302 } [hear?] much more of it.1—I have yet no news of Charles's Arrival. John is well—&c.

British Ministry changed.2

I should have written to you by Mr. Felleisen, who will doubtless have arrived before this comes to hand, but I did not know that he was going until it was too late to write. Mr. D[ana] thinks that I had better not write every post; because the postage of the Letters would soon amount to a very considerable sum.

I have lately begun to learn German, I have a master who gives me three lessons per week, at about a Guinea a month.1 I have finished three of Cicero's Orations against Catiline and have begun the fourth. And I have finished reading Mrs. Macaulay's history of England.

Mr. D. begs that you would be so good as to send to England for the best history of New England that is to be got; for Hutchinson's if you think there is no better. And that Mr. Thaxter would desire Messrs. Sigourney and Ingraham to send him a piece of Linen of the same sort with that which he has already had. It can come in the Secretaire or Scritoire that he has sent for, and which he says he must have by all means. He wishes also to have sent in it all the Amsterdam Gazettes from the time we left Holland to the first of April, when his year expires so that he may have them compleat: and Mr. Cerisier's Tableau de l'Histoire Generale des Provinces Unies des Pays-Bas. Mr. Thaxter will be so good as to write by the Post a list of every thing that will be sent, with their prices, because, so much per cent, is paid for the entrance of every thing here.

We hear that you have bought a house at the Hague.

Mr. D. is every day complaining of Mr. Thaxter's negligence in not writing him the news, especially so important a thing as the { 303 } resolution of Friesland. He says that it is of importance that he should know all such news, and not be obliged to wait for them till the Newspapers give them; and he wishes to know what is intended to be done as well as what is already done, as far as may be.

The weather here, has been for some days very fine. The thermometer has been this day at 9 degrees above the degree of freezing.

The States of Holland and West Friesland have followed the Example of Friesland, in acknowledging American Independence. <I received> The American Minister received Yesterday officially, from the Grand Pensionary of Holland a Copy of their Resolution.

We have not yet the Mail, with an Account of the new British Ministry, tho the last informed Us of a Change. Whether for the better time will shew.1

I have yet no News of Charles's Arrival.

The French Ambassadors House at the Hague, has been burnt, which I regret very much, more on Account of the Interruption to his Thoughts and Exertions in these critical Moments, than for the Value of the Loss which is however very considerable. The Due de la Vauguion is an able Minister and my very good Friend.2 I have bought an House at the Hague to which I shall remove the 1st. May.3 Will you come and see me?

How great was my joy to see the well known Signature of my Friend after a Melancholy Solicitude of many months in which my hopes and fears alternately preponderated.1

It was January when Charles arrived. By him I expected Letters, but found not a line; instead of which the heavy tidings of your illness reachd me. I then found my Friends had been no strangers of what they carefully conceald from me. Your Letter to Charles dated in November2 was the only consolation I had; by that I found that the most dangerous period of your illness was pass'd, and that you considerd yourself as recovering tho feeble. My anxiety and apprehensions from that day untill your Letters arrived, which was near 3 months, conspired to render me unhappy. Capt. Trowbridge in the Fire Brand arrived with your favours of October and December and in some measure dispeld the Gloom which hung heavy at my heart. How did it leap for joy to find I was not the misirable Being I sometimes feared I was. I felt that Gratitude to Heaven which great deliverences both demand and inspire. I will not distrust the providential Care of the supreem disposer of events, from whose Hand I have so frequently received distinguished favours. Such I call the preservation of my dear Friend and children from the uncertain Element upon which they have frequently embarked; their preservation from the hands of their enimies I have reason to consider in the same view, especially when I reflect upon the cruel and inhumane treatment experienced by a Gentleman of Mr. Laurences age and respectable character.

The restoration of my dearest Friend from so dangerous a Sickness, demands all my gratitude, whilst I fail not to supplicate Heaven { 306 } for the continuance of a Life upon which my temporal happiness rests, and deprived of which my own existance would become a burden. Often has the Question which you say staggerd your philosophy occured to me, nor have I felt so misirable upon account of my own personal Situation, when I considerd that according to the common course of Nature, more than half my days were allready passt, as for those in whom our days are renewed. Their hopes and prospects would vanish, their best prospects, those of Education, would be greatly diminished—but I will not anticipate those miseries which I would shun. Hope is my best Friend and kindest comforter; she assures me that the pure unabated affection, which neither time or absence can allay or abate, shall e'er long be crowned with the completion of its fondest wishes, in the safe return of the beloved object; the age of romance has long ago past, but the affection of almost Infant years has matured and strengthend untill it has become a vital principle, nor has the world any thing to bestow which could in the smallest degree compensate for the loss. Desire and Sorrow were denounced upon our Sex; as a punishment for the transgression of Eve. I have sometimes thought that we are formed to experience more exquisite Sensations than is the Lot of your Sex. More tender and susceptable by Nature of those impression [s] which create happiness or misiry, we Suffer and enjoy in a higher degree. I never wonderd at the philosopher who thanked the Gods that he was created a Man rather than a Woman.

I cannot say, but that I was dissapointed when I found that your return to your native land was a still distant Idea. I think your Situation cannot be so dissagreable as I feared it was, yet that dreadfull climate is my terror.—You mortify me indeed when you talk of sending Charles to Colledge, who it is not probable will be fit under three or four years. Surely my dear Friend fleeting as time is I cannot reconcile myself to the Idea of living in this cruel State of Seperation for [4] or even three years to come. Eight years have already past, since you could call yourself an Inhabitant of this State. I shall assume the Signature of Penelope, for my dear Ulysses has already been a wanderer from me near half the term of years that, that Hero was encountering Neptune, Calipso, the Circes and Syrens. In the poetical Language of Penelope I shall address you

You will ask me I suppose what is become of my patriotick virtue? It is that which most ardently calls for your return. I greatly fear that the climate in which you now reside will prove fatal to your Life, whilst your Life and usefullness might be many years of Service to your Country in a more Healthy climate. If the Essentials of her political system are safe, as I would fain hope they are, yet the impositions and injuries, to which she is hourly liable, and daily suffering, call for the exertions of her wisest and ablest citizens. You know by many years experience what it is to struggle with difficulties —with wickedness in high places—from thence you are led to covet a private Station as the post of Honour, but should such an Idea generally prevail, who would be left to stem the torrent?

Should we at this day possess those invaluable Blessings transmitted us by our venerable Ancestors, if they had not inforced by their example, what they taught by their precepts?

Why should I indulge an Idea, that whilst the active powers of my Friend remain, they will not be devoted to the Service of his country?

Can I believe that the Man who fears neither poverty or dangers, who sees not charms sufficient either in Riches, power or places to tempt him in the least to swerve from the purest Sentiments of Honour and Delicacy; will retire, unnoticed, Fameless to a Rustick cottage there by dint of Labour to earn his Bread. I need not much examination of my Heart to say I would not willing[ly] consent to it.

Have not Cincinnatus and Regulus been handed down to posterity, with immortal honour?

Without fortune it is more than probable we shall end our days, but let the well earned Fame of having Sacrificed those prospects, from a principal of universal Benevolence and good will to Man, descend as an inheritance to our ofspring. The Luxery of Foreign Nations may possibly infect them but they have not before them an example of it, so far as respects their domestick life. They are not Bred up with an Idea of possessing Hereditary Riches or Grandeur. Retired from the Capital, they see little of the extravagance or dissipation, which prevails there, and at the close of day, in lieu of the Card table, some usefull Book employs their leisure hours. These habits early fixed, and daily inculcated, will I hope render them usefull and ornamental Members of Society.—But we cannot see into futurity. { 308 } —With Regard to politicks, it is rather a dull season for them, we are recruiting for the Army.

The Enemy make sad Havock with our Navigation. Mr. Lovell is appointed continential Receiver of taxes and is on his way to this State.3

It is difficult to get Gentlemen of abilities and Integrity to serve in congress, few very few are willing to Sacrifice their Interest as others have done before them.

Your favour of december 18th came by way of Philadelphia, but all those Letters sent by Capt. Reeler were lost, thrown over Board. Our Friends are well and desire to be rememberd to you. Charles will write if he is able to, before the vessel sails, but he is sick at present, threatned I fear with a fever. I received one Letter from my young Russian to whom I shall write—and 2 from Mr. Thaxter.4 If the vessel gives me time I shall write. We wait impatiently for the result of your demand. These slow slugish wheels move not in unison with our feelings.

Adieu my dear Friend. How gladly would I visit you and partake of your Labours and cares, sooth you to rest, and alleviate your anxieties were it given me to visit you even by moon Light, as the faries are fabled to do.

I have not had the pleasure of a line from you since your arrival in Philadelphia, but I have had the satisfaction of hearing from abroad and finding that the situation of my Friend was not so dissagreable as I feard.1 You have had publick dispatches and probable private Letters. Have you not some intelligence which you may communicate?

There is not a prospect of peace I think. Thus my Friend expresses himself. “Do not flatter yourself with the hopes of peace. There will be no such thing for several years.

“Do not distress yourself about any malicious attempts to injure me in the estimation of my countrymen. Let them take their course and go the length of their Tether, they will not hurt your H[usband], whose character is fortified with a sheild of Innocence and Honour ten thousandfold stronger than brass or Iron. The contemptible Essays made by you know whom will only tend to their own confusion. I have already brought them into the true system and that system is triumphant. They could not help Blushing themselves if they were to review their conduct.”

By this I am led to think that matters are in a different train from what I apprehended. You may be better able to judge by your publick dispatches.

This Letter will go by a Gentleman whose name is Perkings, who has been preceptor to my children and Mr. Cranchs for more than a year.2 He is going at the desire of Mr. Ganet and in compliance with the request of a Gentleman in Virginia to keep a private school there. He is a young genteleman of a fair character and good abilities. As he is quite a Stranger in Philadelphia to every person except General Lincoln and Mr. Partridge,3 any notice you will please to take of him, or any civilities you may shew him will be gratefully acknowledged by Sir your old Friend & Humble Servant,

Shold Estem a fever to Ordr Som of your frends to pay me for your Son Charls Pasheg from bilbao to America Mr. Smith I heare had Som altication on the matr and thinck it is too much, but Madam Shold thinck a great Desrespet Cast on a son of Mr. Adames not to Charge him the Saim as Other Gentelmen ples to ordr it Payd to Captn. Joab Prince I am Madam most Respetfoly your most homble Servt

The day after my Son reachd home I wrote to you2 and requested you would inform me what I was indebted to you for my Sons passage. I had inquired of Major Jackson, who said he made no particular agreement respecting him; but that if I would write he would take charge of the Letter, and deliver it himself. I accordingly wrote and requested you to direct a Letter to me; to be left at Isaac Smiths Esqrs Boston but I never heard any thing from you; untill your favour of April 10th. Mr. Smith inquired respecting the other passengers, and found that 25 Guineys was the price you had demanded of them which he thought very high and much more than was given by other passengers who came from the same place at the same time.

With regard to myself I am wholy Ignorant of the customs and useages in such cases, but neither Mr. Adams or myself would wish to do otherways than was customary and reasonable nor should we have been offended if a distinction had been made between the passage of a Man and a child. It would oblige me if you would take a Bill of exchange upon Mr. Adams for the Money, as it is not in my power to pay it without inconveniency. If you will leave a Letter for me at Mr. Smiths I will send the Bills there or to Capt. Prince as you direct. Your Humble Servant,

Yours I reseved this morning and I asner you madam that twenty five Guines is the Costomry Pasage that is payd too or from uerap I apeled to Captn. Dixey that Comanded a ship of Mr. Treaseys in bilbao wher I was: You will ples to Draw me a set of bils at the present Discount Which is fiften pr cent and fored them to Captn. Job Prince: four Sets1 the Som is thirty Nin pounds at ten Dayes Sight2 now mor at present from your very homble Sert

I have the honor to congratulate You on the final Resolution of the Generality, the News of which I received last Evening.1 This Step makes an agreable Impression here, and they pride themselves in the Unanimity and Rapidity, and I may add Velocity with which it has been carried thro'. It will indeed make a memorable Epocha in the Annals of this Country, and stand as an eternal Monument that the Vox Populi is the——.

I shall be extremely happy to hear that the Credentials are delivered. If You have time to drop hint You will oblige me exceedingly and many Friends. I received a Letter last Evening from Mr. Jenings for You, and he thinks very justly of the present Ministry, that is, { 312 } that they are as wise and as good as their Predecessors. He professes that he is ashamed of them.2 You will do me a favor in acquainting me whether that tumor in your Neck is less troublesome than when You left me. Mr. Barclay desires his Respects to You, and is rejoiced with the News.3

Whenever any difficulty encompasses me, my first thought is how would my Friend conduct in this affair. I wish to know what his mind would be and then to act agreable to it. If I err in my conduct it is an error of the judgement, not of the Heart. Wholy deprived of your aid, and even advice in domestick occurences, my next resource is in that of my Friends. My present difficulty arrises from the demand upon me for C[harle]s passage Home.

I have once written to you respecting it,1 but least you should not receive it, I repeat several things already written together with what has since occured. When Mr. J[ackso]n arrived and came to B[raintre]e to see me, I inquired of him what measures he had taken with regard to C——s expences after he left Gillion, where I presumed you had provided for him. I had received no Letters from you, so that I was wholy Ignorant. He replied that when he arrived at Bilboa he drew a Bill upon Mr. de Nuffville a part of which he appropriated to C——s use, of which he had informd you, that he had not his accounts with him, a memorandum excepted of a few articles, that he had not paid the expences from Beverly, where they first arrived, but as soon as he had done it, he would make up the account and send it, together with a balance which he had left, of a few dollors. He then Shew me the Mem'dum, which containd as near as I can recollect a charge of 57 dollors for Stores, one peice of linnen of an ordinary Quality, the price I forget (this he thought necessary as C——s had lost half his shirts together with one pair of sheets, stockings &c. stolen from him), 2 yard of Cambrick, 2 Barcelona hank[erchie]fs and a Hat which was charged 4 dollors, C——s having his in Mr. Guiles Trunk with some { 314 } other articles and that I suppose you know before this time was on Board Gillion. A Sailors Baize Jacket and trousers compleated the mem'dum. With regard to the expences of living there, you are better acquainted than I am, and must judge for yourself, as I have not a single paper that will enable me to do it. After waiting some time I sent to Col. Crafts where Major J. lodged for the papers, but he was not at home, and there was none left. The same Week he went to Hingham to see General L[incol] and caild upon me. He then told me that he had left a Letter at Col. Crafts together with the papers which belonged to me but comeing unexpectedly he forgot to take them. He returnd in a day or two from Hingham and immediately set of for the Army since which I have neither heard of him or his papers, for upon applieing for them, I received for answer that there was not any thing left for me, if there had have been, the earliest opportunity would have been taken to have forwarded it. I have stated facts. You know this Gentleman much better than I do, so I shall not comment. After he had informd me with regard to the Bill he drew, I inquired what had been done with regard to the passage. To this he replied that no agreement had been made with Capt. Hill respecting C——s, but that the other passengers paid 25 Guineys. Supposeing that they would not make the like demand for the passage of a child, I wrote to Capt. Hill desireing to know what I was indebted to him, but I heard not a word from him untill some time this Month I received a Letter a coppy of which I inclose together with my unkles Letter, my reply to Hill and his answer2. Upon my unkles hearing what the other passengers gave, he said it was an unreasonable demand, and that advantage was taken of the situation of the passengers. He went to the Agent and then to Capt. Hill, but to no purpose, as you see by the inclosed. Hill says, they were a month in passing from Corunna to Bilboa and that they then lived at the expence of his owners, that the other passengers agreed to give it,3 and that he will not take less. I think you would not advise me to enter into an altercation with him which would give me much trouble, and very little if any relief. You see by the inclosed that I requested him to take Bills and by his reply that he wanted a discount of 15 per cent. I sent him word that I would draw Bills, but that I would not discount. He said if he had the money he could Buy Bills at 20 per cent discount, and he would not take them at a [word omitted] less than he had offerd. I went to Town to see if I could not do better, I tried one and then an other. Some had no money, others did not want Bills. At last a cousin of mine in whose favour it is probable I must draw the Bills, offerd to { 315 } pay the money for me, and take the Bills at 10 per cent discount, if I could not do better. I might try and if I could dispose of them to better advantage he should be content, he accordingly paid the money, and I am still trying to get them accepted, but cannot yet effect it. I could pay the Money myself but I must then relinquish the object I have in view, of purchaseing an original Right in the State of Virmont and I have brought that matter so near a close that I think you would not advise me to do it. I expect the deeds in a week or two for 16 hundred and 20 acres of Land when I must pay the money. As it is in the Neighbourhood of some of our Friends who are purchasers, and I have set my Heart upon it, I am loth to relinquish it. The Town is called Salem, laid out in lots of 300 & 30 acres, no one person permitted to own more than one Lot in the same township, but you may purchase in the Names of yourself and children. I have engaged one for my best Friend and each of our children. The 5 lots will amount to 200 Dollors. At the expiration of 5 years there is a House to be built of 18 feet square and a family setled, or 5 acres of Land cleared upon each Lot. No taxes to be paid untill the expiration of 5 years. I shall soon be able to be more particular. Every person of whom I have inquired agree, that it is a fine Country, and will daily become more and more valuable. This Town is situated upon two navigable Rivers. There internal affairs are in a good way, and they are now sending delegates to congress. If you approve of what I have done, and should like to purchase further I shall have more opportunities.4 Remittances in Goods, tho they will only double the sterling cost, are preferable to Bills in which I am under a necessity of becomeing a looser. I told you before that I had very seldom met with any person who either considerd my situation or yours, any other than to make a proffit if they could. Our Brother C——h would help me if it was in his power, and is every ready and willing to do for me what ever he can. About six months ago I placed a hundred pounds Sterling in the hands of a Friend but I am loth to break upon it, as I know it to be in good hands and promised not to call for it without giving them 3 months warning.

I have endeavourd to make the best of what ever remittances you have made me. The necessary repair of Buildings, the Anual Call for 3 years Men, and the very large taxes which are laid upon me oblige me to the strickest frugality. I cannot but think I am hardly delt by, being rated in to 20 shillings as much as Mr. Alleyne of this Town, who has 3 polls, and I none. He estimates his place at 3000 sterling, whilst I believe you would take half the money for yours, { 316 } but he cannot find a purchaser for his. The rage for purchaseing land ceased with the paper currency, and the taxes are felt severely enough. I complain but without redress.

With regard to remittances calicos answer well especially chocolate ground, as they are calld Blew ground or Green ground. They should be coulourd stripes or flowers; ribbons are still more profitable gauze tape fine threads [Menting?]5 hankerchiefs Bandano hankerchiefs coulourd tamies or Calimincos, black serge denim Bindings either shoe or Quality.6 The House of Sigourney Bromfield &c. best know what will answer here. I close this Letter being wholy upon Domestick Matters with assureances of the affectionate regard of your

Yours of March 20/31 I have received.

I am well pleased with your learning German for many Reasons, and principally because I am told that Science and Literature flourish more at present in Germany than any where. A Variety of Languages will do no harm unless you should get an habit of attending more to Words than Things.

But, my dear Boy, above all Things, preserve your Innocence, and a pure Conscience. Your morals are of more importance, both to yourself and the World than all Languages and all Sciences. The least Stain upon your Character will do more harm to your Happiness than all Accomplishments will do it good.—I give you Joy of the safe Arrival of your Brother, and the Acknowledgment of the Independance of your Country in Holland. Adieu.

Knowing your benevolent heart is ever gratified by hearing of the wellfare of your friends, and feeling a disposition to scrible, you Eliza first claim my attention. I hope ere this your health and spirits are perfectly restored and every one of the family to their usual chearfulness. Do not my Dear Girl dwell too long on the dark side of affairs, it impairs your health and sinks your spirits. Was it in the power of your friend to remove the causes of your anxiety it would be the happiest moment of my Life but alas I feel my inability even to offer that consolation that a sweet but feble friend requires. I will attempt { 318 } to give you some idea of the manner my time has past hear. I arrived late in the afternoon, we were received in the usual manner, some sociable, others reserved. Mamma drank tea and returned home. Some retired for a short time. We chatted and as Yorick somewhere expresses himself in his letters to Eliza (thou was the star that conducted our discourse) for some time, the evening passed in a reserved manner, at ten I retired to my room. Then my friend I more preticularly wished for your company. I was soon lost in sleep and not one idea presented to my imagination till seven in the morning. To day Miss H O and my friend Polly Otis dined here, some other company. Mr. S. Otis and Lady passed the afternoon, our good Cousin O. appears to have obtained as great a share of happiness as I think consistent with the Lot of mortals, may she long continue as pleased as at present she appears to be with her new partner. I must confess I can have no idea that a heart wounded by grief should be healed by aney one event in so short a space of time, perhaps my ideas may be romantick.1

I had wrote thus far and laid aside my pen with a secret impulce that I should receive a letter from you on monday but did not beleive you would pass and not ask your friend one word, you were in a hurry and are very excuseable. Your Letter2 gave me the pleasure that I ever feel from hearing from you. I need not add it was great. Your observations are just, but from what cause our attachment increases to a greater degre to those of our friend[s] who have felt the severe hand of affliction I cannot determine. Experience has often convinced me of the truth of the sentiment.—Your anxiety for your parent has been great but what would it have been had you been seperated from the best of parents as is the case of your friend. A wide Atlantick rolls between us and we know not wheather we shall be made happy or miserable by the much wished for inteligence. It is one of the most unhappy situations in Life to be thus seperated from those friends that claim the greatest share of our Love by the ties and bonds of natural affection, and are doubly deserving our hiest esteem by their good conduct th[r]ough this Life so far as they have past. Their future conduct no one can answer for.

I have given you some idea in what manner my time has past hear. I am sometimes gratified by the company of a friend—the gentlemen you mention are as sociable as usual. Mrs. W[arren?] passesses the happy tallent of ever rendering herself pleasing to all. My happiness is not greatly augmented by this visit neither will it be greatly de• { 319 } creased—a proof of the depravity of my taste perhaps you will say. I cannot help it I answer. I veryly beleive I possess too large a share of that same indiference that some persons attribute to me. If I do possess it, it is natureall. This is some consolation I think. Do my Dear put your friend into some way to avoid the appearance of this detested disposition. I have endeavoured all in my power to erase it but find it impossible, perhaps your segasity can point out some remedy. Your benevolence will direct you to give your friend all the assistance you are capable of. I dont know wheather a person who is not possessed of the least degree of it can have aney idea of it.

Adeiu for the present. If I do not see you tomorow I may make some addition to this scroll. It is not necesary you will think ere you have perused half of it. As it is from a friend who sincerely loves you it may perhaps be acceptable.

I am conscious my dear Brother that I have appeared deficient in my duty and affection by neglecting to write you often. I have very little encouragement to continue a correspondance without any return from you. I do not believe you deficient in writing; it is a disagreable circumstance that we receive so small a part of the letters that are written. Mamma has receiv'd letters from Pappa and Mr. Thaxter as late as December and from yourself so late as October from Petersbourg. I was not made happy by one line, have you forgot your Sister. No such an idea shall ever dwell in my mind. We lament the loss of the letters, Gillon had in his possession. You will no doubt hear of his conduct ere this reaches you. Charles after many distresses and dangers has safe landed on his native shore. The anxiety we suffered from an apprehension of his danger was great: it is now fully { 320 } recompensed by his safe return to those friends that dearly love him. He was ever a favourite you know, and still continues to possess the amiable qualities that in his younger years gained the affection of his friends. You, my Brother are far, very far removed from your friends and connections: it is a painfull reflection to those that have parted with a son and a Brother. It is not the person that goes abroad in quest of any object whether Knowledge, business, or pleasure that is pained by the seperation. Every object they meet imprint[s] new ideas on their minds; new scenes soon engage their attention, still looking forward they have but little time to reflect on their past time, the pleasure they receive is so much more than a balance for the pain that their time passes in almost an uninterrupted course of happiness. On the contrary the friends they leave are still dwelling on the painfull event that deprived them of much happiness; no pleasing scenes present to the mind, the imagination pained with a repetition of past pleasures and present pains seeks a new source in anticipating future events.

You are I hope sensible of the peculiar advantages you are receiving. Very few at any age of life possess so great a share. It is your own fault if you neglect to make a right improvement of the talents that are put into your hands; your reflections in a future day will be brightened if you can look back on your past conduct conscious of not having deviated from the path of your duty. I will not draw a contrary supposition.

Some persons Lives are scarcely clouded by any event unfavourable to their happiness, fortune seems to court their favour and pour liberally her blessings on their wishes. We see another character struggling with events through life: all their intentions appear to be frustrated, and every wish is clouded by a disappointment. To judge from the few years you have passed in Life the former seems descriptive. But do not be deceived by appearances; she may yet have in store for you, trials and troubles unthought of; neither distress yourself with events that may never take place but learn this necessary lesson neither to be too much elated with prosperity nor depressed with adversity. Could I anticipate your soon return it would give me much pleasure. The pleasure we shall receive from a mutual exchange of friendship and sentiments when the happy period shall arrive will I hope be increased greatly by so long a seperation. I know of no opportunity of conveyance soon, but whenever this reaches you, let it remind you of the pleasure you ever give your Sister by answering her letters. May you my Brother return and answer the expectations { 321 } of your Friends is the sincere wish of your affectionate friend and sister.

I have sent to Mr. Hodshon1 since your Departure to send the Packer, but he cannot come 'till Monday, which I suspected as this is a busy day all over the World. As soon as he comes on Monday, I will set him to work and give all the Assistance that depends on me. There is between twenty and thirty Tons of Turf, and a few Bushels of Coal, which Stephens seems very desirous of having. He does not ask it as a Gift, but imagine it would not be unacceptable.2 This lays with You, and it shall be sent forward if You choose or left to be sold. —There will be some empty Bottles, which the Wineseller had better take, paying the ordinary Price. However as You please. The Baskets will take them all I believe.

I have seen Mr. Barclay, and he is much better—desires his best Respects and wishes You better Health.

Best Compliments to Mr. Dumas and Family.

We have made a serious Beginning this morning, and have already completed the packing of the Books, and shall finish packing to night I hope the Decanters, Wine Glasses, and China. The looking Glasses will require Time and Care, as well as the great Cabinet. We shall be ready to load Thursday Morning, perhaps Wednesday Afternoon, not later however than Thursday. I find the Eye can pack much faster than the Hands. We shall make all possible Expedition, and if the Boat is ready, which is already applied for, She may be loaded in a short time.1

If You can find a Leisure day this Week, would it not be most advisable to return to settle the Accounts? Will there not be much Trouble and Inconvenience in delaying it, 'till after all the Things are removed? People might be apt to grumble, and would not know where to go for their Money, and You would be tormented hereafter with little and great Accounts for a long time. I only mention this Matter as it strikes me.

The Arrival of Mr. Dumas last Evening at 10. o Clock brought my Heart to a Spot where it often was when Dr. Osterdyck was so well acquainted with You: however the old Gentleman soon quieted the Alarm.

I hope the Treaty goes on well, as my Penchant for returning home increases daily perhaps much faster than the Business goes forward.

I have the Pleasure to inform you, that Yesterday I removed into this House, and am now employed in setting it in order. You will see by the Gazettes, that I have been received in Character, that I have laid before the States a Plan of a Treaty, which they have now under Consideration, and I suppose will be soon finished.

The Bearer of this, Coll. Vallentin, will deliver it. Perhaps he may be serviceable to you. I am however, very uneasy on your Account. I want you with me. Mr. Thaxter will probably leave me soon, and I shall be alone. I want you to pursue your studies too at Leyden. Upon the whole, I wish you would embark in a Neutral Vessell and come to me. If there should be a Treaty, to send, Mr. Thaxter perhaps will carry it.

Your Studies I doubt not, you pursue, because I know you to be a studious Youth: but above all preserve a sacred Regard to your own Honour and Reputation. Your Morals are worth all the Sciences. Your Conscience is the Minister Plenipotentiary of God almighty in your Breast. See to it, that this Minister never negotiates in vain. Attend to him, in Opposition to all the Courts in the World. So charges, your affectionate Father,

On the Twelfth, I removed into this House which I have purchased for the United States of America. But, it will be my Residence but a little while.1

I must go to you or you must come to me. I cannot live, in this horrid Solitude, which it is to me, amidst Courts, Camps and Crowds. If you were to come here, such is the Unsteadiness of the Foundation that very probably We should have to return home again in a Month or six Weeks and the Atlantick is not so easily passed as Pens hill. I envy you, your Nabby, Charly and Tommy, and Mr. Dana his Johnny who are very well. A Child was never more weary of a Whistle, than I am of Embassies. The Embassy here however has done great Things. It has not merely tempted a natural Rival, and an imbittered, inveterate, hereditary Ennemy, to assist a little against G[reat] B[ritain] but it has torn from her Bosom, a constant faithfull Friend and Ally of an hundred Years duration.

It has not only prevailed with a Minister or an absolute Court to fall in with the national Prejudice: but without Money, without Friends, and in Opposition to mean Intrigue it has carried its Cause, by the still small Voice of Reason, and Perswasion, tryumphantly against the uninterrupted Opposition of Family Connections, Court Influence, and Aristocratical Despotism.

It is not a Temple forming a Triple Alliance, with a Nation whose Ruling Family was animated as well as the whole Nation, at that time, with even more Zeal than De Witt in the same Cause.

But you will hear all this represented as a Thing of Course, and of little Consequence—easily done and not worth much.—Very well! Thank God it is done, and that is what I wanted.

Jealousy is as cruel as the Grave, and Envy as spightfull as Hell— and neither have any regard to Veracity or Honour.

I find that the Air of the Hague, and the Return of warm Weather, tho later than was ever known, is of great Service to my Health. I mount on Horseback every Morning, and riding is of Use to me.

I have not escaped the “Influenza,” as they call it, which began in Russia and has been epidemical, in all Europe. Mr. Thaxter too has at last submitted to this all subduing Climate and had a Fever, such as Charles had, but is growing well.

You can scarcely imagine a more beautifull Place than the Hague. Yet no Place has any Charms for me but the Blue Hills. My Heart will have in it forever, an acking Void, in any other Place. If you and { 325 } your Daughter were here! But I must turn my Thoughts from such Objects, which always too tenderly affect me, for my repose or Peace of Mind. I am so wedged in with the Publick Affairs that it is impossible to get away at present. I would transmit a Resignation of all my Employments but this would occasion much Puzzle and be attended with disagreable Consequences. If I thought it probable I should stay in Europe two or three Years, I would certainly request you to come here, but this is opening a scaene of Risque and Trouble for you that I shudder at.—But all is uncertain. I am not properly informed of what passes in Congress, and I know not their Designs. If they would send out another in my Room it would be the most happy News to me, that ever I heard.

The American Cause has obtained a Tryumph in this Country more signal, than1 it ever obtained before in Europe. It was attended with Circumstances, more glorious than could have been foreseen. A Temple, a D'Avaux, a D'Estrates, had more masterly Pens to celebrate their own Negotiations, and Hearts more at Ease, to do it with Care.2 Your Friend will never have Leisure, he will never have the Patience to describe the Dangers, the Mortifications, the Distresses he has undergone in Accomplishing this great Work. It is better that some of the Opposition and Intrigues he has had to encounter should be buried in Oblivion.

After all, it will be represented in America as a Thing of Course and of no Consequence. Be it so. It is done—and3 it is worth as much as it is.

My dear Nabby and Tommy how do ye? Charles you young Rogue! You had more Wit than all of Us. You have returned to a happy Spot. Study earnestly, go to Colledge and be an Ornament to your Country. Education is better at Cambridge, than in Europe. Besides every Child ought to be educated in his own Country. I regret extreamly that his elder Brother is not to have his Education at home. He is well [and] so is his Patron.

There is not any thing in this Life, now my Dear Friend is seperated from me, that can communicate equal delight and pleasure to that which I feel upon the Sight of Letters written in the well known Hand of my Friend. My Heart Leaps forward to meet them, whilst the trembling Hand uncloses the Seals, and my eager Eyes devour the contents; tho unwilling to reach the close.

Capt. Deshon had the good fortune to arrive safe and brought me Letters only six weeks old;1 these were a cordial to my Spirits; since your first residence in Holland, I have not experienced the happiness of hearing from you in so short a space of time.

The prospect which was opening before you, and the Success with which I hope before this time your negotiations have been Blessed, has communicated a pleasure to my mind, which no one can feel in an equal degree with her, whose happiness is so nearly connected with all you Hope, and all you wish.

What tho old ocean rolls between these vehicles of transitory duration, the immortal Spirit can unite with its kindred mind, and participate in its pains and pleasures.

My dear Friend will feel the truth of what I have now asserted, and mingle the sorrowing tear with Portia, and with a distressed family over the almost departing Spirit of our Dear Brother Cranch.

I wrote you some time ago an account of the severe fit of Sickness with which he was visited, during the winter, but it then pleased Heaven to restore him to some degree of Health.2 His eager desire to be upon his duty in the publick Service, overpowerd the advice of his Friends: and he went to Town, before he had sufficiently recoverd his Health, where he was: only a few days, before he was seized with a pain in his Breast and Side, which terminated in a fever upon his Lungs and immediately threatned his Life. He struggled through the fever, but is now apprehended by his phisicians and Friends to be in a Hectick, accompanied with dropsical Symptoms. He however, as is common in such cases, flatters himself that he shall get well, tho tis 7 weeks since he was taken, and he can scarcly walk his room. He rides out, but cannot bear food equal to an Infant, whilst a cough and swelling of his Stomack, bowels and Legs indicate a speedy dissolution. For him we need not heave an anxious Sigh—but his family { 327 } —his Friends.—You who know his worth can feel their, and your own loss. I dare not flatter myself—my Hopes and fears are at varience. The anxious distress of an afflicted Sister Bears a load of Sorrow to my Heart, whilst I supplicate Heaven that I may not be called to experience a like overwhelming calamity. “O! Spair him, Spair him, Gracious power: O! Give him to my latest Hour” is the constant prayer of Portia.

I reassume my pen, and would tell you that I last evening received from Philadelphia a Letter written May 29, 1781 written Immediately after you took a House in Amsterdam;3 I suppose it to be one of those which was put on Board Gillion—as he has at last arrived at Philadelphia, having been commodore at the taking of Providence by the Spaniards.4 Our poor Charles would have had a fine time of it, if he had continued on Board. I wrote you by the Fire Brand, that I had drawn a Bill upon you for C—s passage,5 but finally finding I could not do it without a discount of ten per cent, and failing in an object which I then had in view, making a purchase in Virmont, on account of the dissagreable turn which affairs took at that time, relative to that state, when it was in the fairest way of being setled, I was advised not to purchase for the present, upon which I paid the passage. I shall not pretend unless upon a pressing necessity, which I do not at present see, to draw any Bills. The Remittances which you have from time to time made me, and which I have been very fortunate in receiving, assist me much better than Bills upon which I must pay a discount. I shall inclose a List of Articles upon which the best profit arrises, and which have the quickest sale. I have a Friend or two, into whose Hands I put what I do not want for my own family, who dispose of them for me. Accept my thanks for those received by Deshon. They came in good order.

Mr. L—l not long since favourd me with the sight of two Letters from you dated in February.6 With regard to the cypher of which you complain, I have always been fortunate enough to succeed with it.7 Take the two Letters for which the figure stands and place one under the other through the whole Sentance, and then try the upper Line with the under, or the under with the upper, always remembering, if one letter answers, that directly above or below must be omitted, and sometimes several must be skiped over. The contents of those Letters gave me a clearer Idea of the difficulties you have had to encounter, than I before had conceived of. But it must be a pleasing reflection to you that your Labours are at last like to be crowned with { 328 } Success. I wish there was as fair a prospect of an Honorable peace. I hope the late Naval disaster of our Allies will not have a dissagreable Effect upon the united provinces.8

The english will puff and vaunt their Dear Bought victory, without once recollecting that pride commeth before Humility and a haughty Spirit before a fall. The Cabinet counsels of Britain are held in detestation here, and to be insulted by the New Ministry is considerd in a more contemptable Light, than the same offers would have been from the old. America cannot but consider the virtues as all fled from that devoted Island. The different States are instructing their delegates to consider every offer as an insult from Britain (which should give a new edge to their Swords) if Independance is not made the Basis. Ardently as I long for the return of my dearest Friend, I cannot feel the least inclination to a peace but upon the most liberal foundation. Patriotism in the female Sex is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honours and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Goverment from having held a place of Eminence. Even in the freeest countrys our property is subject to the controul and disposal of our partners, to whom the Laws have given a soverign Authority. Deprived of a voice in Legislation, obliged to submit to those Laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the publick Welfare? Yet all History and every age exhibit Instances of patriotick virtue in the female Sex; which considering our situation equals the most Heroick of yours. “A late writer observes that as Citizens we are calld upon to exhibit our fortitude, for when you offer your Blood to the State, it is ours. In giving it our Sons and Husbands we give more than ourselves. You can only die on the field of Battle, but we have the misfortune to survive those whom we Love most.”

I will take praise to myself. I feel that it is my due, for having sacrificed so large a portion of my peace and happiness to promote the welfare of my country which I hope for many years to come will reap the benifit, tho it is more than probable unmindfull of the hand that blessed them.

Your Friends complain that you do not write to them. I say all I can in excuse, but I wish you to notice them all, and in a particular manner to continue your affectionate Regard and attachment to

I had no intention that the Fire Brand should sail without my replying to your repeated kind favours; I have been happy in receiving several Letters from You; the intrinsick value of which lead me most pathetically to mourn the loss of those which have failed.

The time which I meant to have appropriated in writing to you, was most melancholy employed in attending the sick and I feared dying Bed of our dear and worthy Friend Mr. Cranch who was seized with a repeated Sickness, before he had recoverd his Strength from a former illness—by which means the vessel sailed without a line to testify the sense I had of your goodness. It will greatly aflict you I know to hear, that this worthy Friend of ours, is in so great a decline as to Baffel the Art of the physicians, and to have the most allarming Symptoms of a speedy dissolution. Your sympathetick Heart will enter into the Distresses of a family for whom you have ever entertaind an affectionate Regard. They are great indeed. Heaven support them through them all.

I hope my dear Sir that your situation is more agreable by this time, and that your residence is at the Hague rather than in Amsterdam. But you sigh for America. You had better become a Captive in America, than an American Captive in any of the British dominions. A British prison has many horrors, their tender mercies are cruelties. The advantages to be derived by a return, in the present State of things will hardly compensate the risk. The young Gentlemen of the present day scarcly know what to do with themselves. Trade is so hazardous having no protection, and Money so scarce that there is little encouragement in that Branch. Our Staple, our fishery, we possess not, and we have no other. Divinity, you know what encouragement that meets with, and have no appetite to become a preacher. Phisick, that swarms—we have been Blessed with a large portion of Health throughout the State, and have had but small employ for the faculty. Law, upon that you fix your Eye. Some get Bread, some have made fortunes, but that time is passed away with the destruction of our Navy. But methinks I hear you say, I am spending the best of my days, I am advanceing towards 30, I could wish to settle down in my own Country in some reputable Buisness, this I shall have to do when ever I return. How can I connect myself untill this is done, and a Batchelor I do not wish to live. All the dear Girls for whom I have a Friendship will get married—even my fair American does not know how highly I value her.—Softly Sir, and I will tell you for your consolation, not one of all the number for whom you have particularly expressd a regard, have the least present prospect of being united—even your Sally is far distant from the Alter, and the triumvirate of Betsys are yet single, the solitary Hannah has lost her Grandmamma and Aunt, her cousin is gone to Barbados, and she still wears the appearence of a young Nun. The widowed Betsy is a widow still.

Matrimony is not in vogue here. We have Ladies, but not a gentleman in the whole Town, and the young Gentlemen of the present day, are not intirely to the taste of those Ladies who value a virtuous Character. Licentiousness and freedom of Manners are predominate. Rosseau observes, that the manner of thinking among Men in a great measure depends upon the taste of the Ladies. If this is true, the manners of the present day are no complement upon the fair Sex. The { 331 } Manners of the two Sexes, I believe keep pace with each other; and in proportion as the Men grow regardless of character, the women neglect the Duties of their Sex. Of how much importance then are Manners to a young [Esquire?]. Tis Luxery my dear Sir which ruins and depraves our Manners. We are ready imitators of the Nations with which we are connected, and it is much to be feared if the days of American simplicity and virtue are not already passed.

Fordyce, to whom our Sex are much indebted for the justice he has done them, observes that the company of virtuous and well bred women is the best School for Learning the most proper demeanor, the easiest turn of thought and expression and right habits of the best kind, that the most honorable the most Moral the most conscientious Men, are in general those who have the greatest regard for women of reputation and talents.1

I have nothing new to write you of the political kind, but what will be old e'er it reaches you.

We mourn the naval defeat of our Allies, and dispise the offers of the British Cabinet. Infamy and disgrace be their portion and the inheritance of their childrens children.—I fear the fate of this Letter. Scarcly any thing can pass we are so infested with British cruizers.

“I can tell you no secrets about Peace—a Mr. Forth, a Mr. Aswald [Oswald] and a Mr. Greenville1 have been at Paris, to sound the Dispositions, but I cannot learn that they have sufficient Powers, or that they have made any serious Propositions. The work of Peace is very difficult to accomplish. The pretentions of so many Nations, are to be adjusted, that my Hopes are faint. It serves the Stocks to keep up the Talk, but I fear the English Nation is not yet sufficiently humbled, to satisfy Spain, Holland, France, the armed Neutrality and America.

“Pray how is the News received of the new Alliance with the Dutch? —Is it represented as of no Importance? At least it will be allow'd of importance to prevent this Nation from taking Part against us. Their Fleet would have been much more powerfull against us than it is for us. As it is, it makes a Diversion in our favour.

“We shall however feel the Benefit of this new Connection in every part of the World. I hope the World will one Day see, when my Head shall be in the Dust, the Measures that have been taken to accomplish it, and the Intrigues from England, Russia, Denmark &c. &c. &c. to prevent it—I should be very sorry to add—but “Suum cuique Decus Posteritas rependit.”2

“It is a Protestant, a Republican and a commercial Nation. The Hand of Providence was never more visible, than in bringing this Business to a Conclusion. A number of Circumstances have conspired, in a very remarkable manner. We shall see the Consequences of it, which will not soon come to an End.—Men and Nations have Reason to seek Assistance sometimes against the extravagant Pretensions of Friends, as well as against the Malice of Enemies. While we stood acknowledged only by one Power, a Branch of the House of Bourbon and a Catholick, we stood exposed to the Jealousy of the Enemies of that House and that Faith. This Passion will be at least diminished by this Alliance. It is our Policy to seek and obtain the Friendship of all the Powers of Europe if possible; by which means we may be neutral. We may even keep England in Awe and at Peace with us by this means but by no other. I confess it is the Object I have had most at Heart; and, it being accomplished, I wish most ardently to come home.

“I have been desired to write a Word concerning Mr. Amory. He has lived long at Brussells and wishes to return; I have never seen him, but I believe if any one has a Claim, it is he. You know his amiable Character, and that he was never properly a Tory. He was rather a moderate Whig. I cannot advise in this matter, but I really wish he could be admitted. He has not done any thing I believe against us“.3

Since my last an important Revolution has taken place here respecting our Country. A formal Acknowledgment of our Sovereignty and Independence in the Admission and Reception of your dearest Friend is what I allude to. But You will have heard of the Event long before this reaches You, with many of its Circumstances. At present I am too feeble to enter into a detail of Matters, being upon my Recovery from the vile Fever and Ague. Ask your dear Charles if he remembers the tertian Fever at Leyden? I had the same at the Hague, (where We now live), with a Touch of the Rheumatism. However it went off with the Fever. I was never so sick and weak, and could any thing have been necessary to add to my disgust to this Country, this last Bout would have effectually done it. I hope to quit it in six or eight Weeks and take my Passage for Boston or Philadelphia. I pray You, Madam, not to mention this, as it may be longer before I embark, and my Friends might be uneasy if I did not arrive according to their Calculations. I have not hinted any thing of it to my Father in my Letter to him. I hope in a few days to be completely established in my Health. My Friends will excuse my not writing to them—indeed I have not strength enough as yet. Remember me particularly to your Family and to all Friends.

I am now most happy to felicitate you and our Parent Country on the fortunate Event which has attended your unwearied efforts for obtaining the Dutch accession to the American Independency and that you are accepted by them as fully empowered for the final accomplishment of this glorious Aera.

Indeed when I reflect on the injustice and savage cruelty of the late Administration I much wonder that all Europe have not united in chastising such vindictive measures. However that Being to whom Vengeance belongs appears to have been greatly displeas'd by involving them in such a labyrinth of difficulties from which no human Agency can extricate them; Yet deeply penetrated as I am with a sense of the injuries done my Native Land I most ardently wish for a happy peace, but nothing short of an intire independency.—Observing in the publick Papers that you are solliciting a Loan for A[me]rica I would willingly contribute my Mite thereto provided that I might be secure of Receiving my interest in Europe as at my Period of 72 it is rather too late to cross again the Atlantick, although I might the British Channel for the pleasure of seeing and conferring with you on some personal affairs which cannot be as well discuss'd by letter.

I was much mortify'd in not receiving by my most worthy Friend the Honble G. W. Fairfax one Line in answer to what [I] wrote you sometime since relating the American Prisoners,1 but with the greatest pleasure now find my wishes answer'd in their embarkation for their native homes.—In some of the late London Papers I find myself highly dishonour'd in being class'd by some malevolent Knave among a List of Amer[ican]refugees said to be printed at Boston but which has fail'd of giving me the least disquiet conscious that it is well known there, that I have ever been constantly and invariably attach'd to the cause and interest of my native Country for which have incurr'd the Odium of great Numbers here and expended near One hundred Guineas for the releif of our distress'd Captives.

The favour of a Line address'd for me at Messrs. Maitlands Esqr. Colman Street London will much oblige me. I shall remain here about fourteen days before my return to Bath.

That all happiness may attend you and Heaven prove propitious to your endeavours for procuring a happy and lasting peace is the sincere and ardent wish of, Dr. Sr. Yr. Most Obt. Servt,

I have not heard a word from B—1 since Wedensday last. I want much to know how you all do. I wrote you last Saturday. Mrs. Quincy took my letter yesterday.2 Hope you have received it. You will not complain of my not writing you I bleive, my letters can give you little pleasure only as they are dictated by a heart that rearly3 loves you. My affection for you is an inducement for my writing you at this time more particularly. I have my friend been in company with many persons since I have been in town who were formerly acquainted with the gentleman that lately has resided in your family. Every one expresses great surprise at the event, these persons say [that]4 he is practicing upon Chesterfeilds plan, that [he] is the essence and quintessence of artfulness and fear he will in some way or other ingratiate himself into the good opinion of your self. You are not acquainted with his character they say. I have told them I have not a fear about the matter, that I think you are too well gaurded against art in aney shape and that you would despise the attempt, and detest the action. But my friend I dont know but a word by way of caution is nesesary. Perhaps you will laugh at me as I have at others who have made the supposition but I know your heart is at present uncommonly softened by affliction and should he learn your disposition and find a way to sooth your sorrows I will not answer for you, that you will not at least esteem him. His character and his conduct are not deserving the least degree of your friendship and I dare say you will discover it soon if you have not at present. I was told the other day that I could not see him and not become acquainted with him. I am determined to avoid the least degree of acquaintance if anything short of affrontery will answer his whole study, his dissimulation; our sex cannot be too carefull of the characters of the acquaintance we form.5

I passed the day yesterday with Mrs. Mason. She was pleasing and he as agreable as ever. His pappas family dined with us, Mr. Ben Mason and a sister of his.6 He was very particular in his enquireyes about Miss Cranch, whether she was married or like to be. I liked him better than ever I asure you. Indeed my Dear I answer many about { 336 } [you.] “She is a lovely Girl, I was much pleased with her,”7 and the like questions from persons whose esteem is valluable. And those I have to answer you may suppose I ever join them in their opinion. Indeed I do. It would be at the expence of my sincerety was I to join otherwise. But I should not have said aney thing about these things as it is I beleive more agreable to persons to imajine these civil things said of them then to heare them, dont you think so. A lively imagination can embellish to their own satisfaction.—But your heart is too much affected to receive such a letter from aney one as this. I have wished much to hear from your pappa in the week past but the fates have denied me. I will hope he is better, may I not be disappointed. Adeiu till I hear of an opportunity of conveiyance to you.

Your charming Letters of April 10 and 22d1 were brought me, Yesterday. That of 22d is upon Business. Mr. Hill is paid I hope. I will honour your Bill if you draw. But be cautious—dont trust Money to any Body. You will never have any to lose or to spare. Your Children will want more than you and I shall have for them.

The Letter of the 10 I read over and over without End—and ardently long to be at the blue Hills, there to pass the Remainder of my feeble days. You would be surprised to see your Friend—he is much altered. He is half a Century older and feebler than ever you knew him. The Horse that he mounts every day is of service to his Health and the Air of the Hague is much better than that of Amsterdam, and besides he begins to be a Courtier, and Sups and Visits at Court among Princesses and Princes, Lords and Ladies of various Nations. I assure you it is much wholesomer to be a complaisant, good humoured, contented Courtier, than a Grumbletonian Patriot,2 always whining and snarling.

However I believe my Courtierism will never go any great Lengths. I must be an independent Man, and how to reconcile this to the Character of Courtier is the Question.

A Line from Unkle Smith of 6. of May3 makes me tremble for my Friend and Brother Cranch! I must hope he is recoverd.

I can tell you no News about Peace. There will be no Seperate Peaces made, not even by Holland—and I cannot think that the present English Ministry are firm enough in their Seats to make a general Peace, as yet.

When shall I go home? If a Peace should be made, you would soon see me.—I have had strong Conflicts within, about resigning all my Employments, as soon as I can send home a Treaty. But I know not what is duty as our Saints say. It is not that my Pride or my Vanity is piqued by the Revocation of my envied Commission. But in such Cases, a Man knows not what Construction to put. Whether it is not intended to make him resign. Heaven knows I never solicited to come to Europe. Heaven knows too what Motive I can have, to banish my self from a Country, which has given me, unequivocal Marks of its4 Affection, Confidence and Esteem, to encounter every Hardship and every danger by Sea and by Land, to ruin my Health, and to suffer every Humiliation and Mortification that human Nature can endure.

What affects me most is the Tryumph given to Wrong against Right, to Vice against Virtue, to Folly vs. Wisdom, to Servility against Independance, to base and vile Intrigue against inflexible Honour and Integrity. This is saying a great deal, but it is saying little more than Congress have said upon their Records, in approving that very Conduct for which I was sacrificed.—I am sometimes afraid that it is betraying the Cause of Independence and Integrity or at least the Dignity, which they ought to maintain, to continue in the service. But on the other Hand I have thought, whether it was not more dangerously betraying this Dignity, to give its Ennemies, perhaps the compleat Tryumph which they wished for and sought but could not obtain.

You will see, the American Cause has had a signal Tryumph in this Country. If this had been the only Action of my Life, it would have been a Life well spent. I see with Smiles and Scorn, little despicable Efforts to deprive me of the Honour of any Merit, in this Negotiation, but I thank God, I have enough to shew. No Negotiation to this or any other Country was every recorded in greater detail, as the World will one day see. The Letters I have written in this Country, are carefully preserved. The Conversations I have had are remembered. The Pamphlets, the Gazettes, in Dutch and French, will shew to Posterity, when it comes to be known what share I have had in them as it will be, it will be seen that the Spanish Ambassador expressed but the litteral Truth,5 when He said

Pardon a Vanity, which however is conscious of the Truth, and which has a right to boast, since the most Sordid Arts and the grossest Lies, are invented and propagated, by Means that would disgrace the Devil, to disguise the Truth from the sight of the World. I laugh at this, because I know it to be impossible. Silence!

We had the Honor to write you 23d. March by the Ship Enterprize, Capt. Danl. Deshon and then sent an Invoice of Articles to Amount of f428.1— Hol[lan]d Cur[renc]y.

By Direction of Mr. Adams we now enclose a like Invoice of Goods ship'd on his Account on the Brig Sukey, Capt. Grinnel for Boston— the Bill of Lading for which we forward to Isaac Smith Esqr. Wishing that they may reach you safely, We remain, with sincere Respect Madam, Your most obedient, Humble Servants,

“I am among a People, whose slowness puts all my Patience to the Tryal, and in a Climate which is too much for my Constitution: I { 340 } love this Nation however, because they love Liberty.—You will have learn'd the Progress of our Affairs here, which has been slow but sure. —This Dutch Legation has very nearly cost me my Life, and has taken away forever much of my Strength, and some of my Memory. Tomorrow the States of Holland assemble and go upon my Project of a Treaty.—A Mr. Greenville is at Paris about Peace, and is authorised to treat with all the belligerent Powers, but England has not acknowledged us to be a Power, and therefore I fear it will end in Chicane.1 Certain Persons of the Courts of Petersbourg and Copenhagen are intriguing, to favour England a little, but they can do no great things. Holland will not make a seperate Peace.

“I believe that the Acknowledgement of the Sovereignty of no Nation was ever made with such solemnity, and made so particularly the Act of the whole Nation, and of all the Individuals in it, as ours has been here.2—What say the Clergy to their new Allies, Protestant, Calvinist, Antiepiscopalians, Tolerant, Republican, Commercial. How do they pray and give Thanks? Into whatever Country I go, I listen to the Sentiments of the Clergy, because it is a good Index often of the sense of the People. The Clergy here, are in this War, generally well disposed in our favour and against England. I hope our Dutch Friends of all sorts will be treated with Respect and Affection, as well as the French—tho' we are under greater Obligations to the latter.

“It has been a critical Business to conduct this Nation right, amidst their Connections with England, the Influence of their Court, the Intrigues of foreign Courts &c. &c. It has required all the Patience, all the Skill, Address and Capacity, of their own Patriots, aided by the Duke de la Vauguion, not to mention any more, to prevent them from joining England; and it never would have been done but by appealing to the Nation, and arrousing their long dormant Bravery and love of Liberty.—Thanks to Heaven it is done, and we have nothing to fear from them, if we have not room to hope very much.”

I have received your kind Letter of the 28 June, and thank you for your Congratulations.

British Politicks, it is true, are in a Labyrinth. There is never the less, one clue, and but one, which is to acknowledge American Independence, by an express Act of Parliament. This, once done, they would not find it difficult to make Peace.

Those who lend Money to the United States of America in this Country, receive their Interest, in Europe, and will ever receive it here, and much more certainly I suspect, than British Creditors will receive theirs, after some time.

I should certainly have answered your former Letter, if I had known of your Friends return, but I never knew till now, by whom the Letter came.

I am sorry they have put you in a List of Refugees because I have long known your Sentiments to be favourable to your native Country, as well as to Liberty in General.1

If you should cross the Channell I should be glad to see you here. Pray have you any News of our Relation your Name Sake. Ask him, if he has given all his fortune to Harvard Colledge, as he promised me he would. Tell him I am afraid he will forget to make his Will— if he will come over here I will make it for him, without a Fee.2

I am extreamly happy to hear, that the present Ministry have the Magnanimity and Wisdom to send home my Country men the Prisoners, and to treat them kindly. This is not only the Way to do themselves Honour, but to do real Service to their Country. If Great Britain ever excites a Sentiment in her favour, either in Europe or America, it must be, by such Measures as these.

But nothing will ever compleatly answer the End, but a frank Acknowledgment of American Independence. The United States will Support their Sovereignty, with Dignity, and their Alliances with Honour and good Faith, without ever being diverted from either, by Severity or by Flattery. The Man who now flatters the British King or Nation, with a Hope of the Contrary, is a worse Ennemy to both, than was a North or a Grenville, fifteen or 20 years ago. Delusions now will be fatal. Mistakes now will have worse Fruits than bad Intentions could have in the Beginning.

I wish for Peace, as ardently as you, or any Man. But in my opinion, our Country is less interested in it, than any Power, at war. The more is embroiled, and the longer it is embroiled the better it will be in the End for America, which is a Country so circumstanced and situated as to turn every Thing That happens to her own Advantage. People on your Side the Water, [are] exceedingly deceived in their opinions, that America sighs so ardently for Repose. But why do I scribble upon such Subjects? My Business is to preach to my Friends the Dutch.

I am &c.

I have delayed writing till the vessel is near ready to Sail, that my Letters may not lay 3 weeks or a month after they are written, as is commonly the case. Mr. Rogers and Lady1 are going passengers in this vessel; and tho I have only a slight knowledge of them I shall commit my Letters to their care. I have not heard from you since the arrival of Capt. Deshon. Your last Letters were dated in March. I replied to them by the last vessel which saild for France dated about a month ago2 tho she has not sailed more than a fortnight. I again grow impatient for intelligence. From the last accounts which reachd us by way of Nantys we learn that the Dutch are acquiring a firmness of conduct, that they have acknowledged the independance of America, and are determined to turn a deaf Ear to that prostituted Island of Britain. If this is true, and I sincerely hope it is, I congratulate you upon the Success of your negotiations, and hope your Situation is more eligible than for the time past. If I know you are happy, it will tend to alleiviate the pains of absence.

The Count de Grasse misfortune in the West Indias, we sensibly feel. The British will feed upon it for ages, but it will not save their Nation from the destruction which awaits them.

The Season has advanced thus far without any military Exploit on either Side. We want the one thing necessary for persueing the War with Vigor. Were we less Luxurious we should be better able to support our Independance with becomeing dignity, but having habituated ourselves to the delicacies of Life, we consider them as necessary, and are unwilling to tread back the path of Simplicity, or reflect that

By the Enterprize I gave you a particular account of the dangerous Situation our dear Brother Cranch is in. He still continues, but we have little to build our hopes upon of his long continuance with us. Heaven be better to us than our fears. The rest of our Friends are well. Charles has been to see a publick Commencement; and has returned to night much gratified with the exhibitions.3 He has followed his Studies with attention, since his return, under the care of a Mr. Thomas4 of Bridgwater; who appears well calculated for the instruction of youth; and is said by good judges, to be an admirable proficient in the Languages. But with him we are obliged to part immediately, as he is going into Buisness. I know not what to do with my Children. We have no Grammer School in the Town, nor have we had for 5 years. I give this Gentleman 2s. 6 pr week a peice, for my two. I must (could I find a School abroad to my mind) Board them at 18 Shillings pr week which is the lowest. In Boston 6 and 8 dollers is given by Gentlemen there for Board, formerly a Gentleman Boarded as well for 12 Shillings, but such is the difference. I know not how to think of their leaving Home. I could not live in the House were it so deserted. If they are gone only for a day, it is as silent as a Tomb.

What think you of your daughters comeing to keep House for you? She proposes it.5 Could you make a Bridge she would certainly present herself to you, nor would she make an ungracefull appearence at the Head of your table. She is rather too silent. She would please you the better. She frequently mourns the long absence of her Father, but she knows not all she suffers in consequence of it. He would prudently introduce her to the world, which her Mamma thinks proper in a great measure to seclude herself from, and the daughter is too attentive to the happiness of her Mamma to leave her much alone, nor could repeated invitations nor the solicitation of Friends joined to the consent of her Mamma, prevail with her to appear at commencement this year. But much rather would the Mamma and daughter embrace the Husband and Father in his Native Land than think of visiting foreign { 345 } climes. Will the cottage be sweet? Will Retirement be desirable? Does your Heart pant for domestick tranquility, and for that reciprocation of happiness you was once no stranger to. Is there ought in Courts, in Theaters or Assemblies that can fill the void? Will Ambition, will Fame, will honour do it. Will you not reply—all, all are inadequate, but whether am I led? I cannot assume an other Subject—the Heart is softned. Good night.

Sol rises this morning with great splendor. I had much rather have seen his face overspread with clouds dispenseing their fruitfull drops to the thirsty earth. It is very dry. Our Corn suffers. Should we be cut of or shortned in our crops we should more sensibly feel it, as our celebrated Siberian wheat is universally blasted, and much of the Rye. Our Success with a little last year led my Tennant to sow 3 acres this year, which we were obliged to mow for foder. Col. Quincy succeeded last year, and raised a hundred and sixty Bushels of as fine wheat as I ever saw, but his Has shared the same fate, and it is so where ever I hear of it. My favorite Virmont is a delightfull Grain Country. I cannot tell why, but I feel a great fondness for the prosperity of that State. I wrote you in my last that I had laid aside the thoughts of being an adventurer there for the present—but soon after Col. Davis of Woster to whom the township was granted, with his associates, brought me the Charter, and the proceedings of Congress with Regard to Virmont by which it appears that Virmont had complied with the requisitions of Congress and the committe to whom, the Matter was committed, report that having complied they consider Congress as obliged to set them of and ratify their independance. This Gentleman has taken pains to have every propriater persons of character and property and that they should all belong to this State. He says it is one of the best situated townships in the State, and will rise in value daily. Salem is the Name it bears. As he had got the deeds all drawn and executed I recollected the old adage Nothing venture nothing have; and I took all the Lots 5 in number 4 of which I paid him for, and the other obligated myself to discharge in a few months. You are named in the Charter as original propriater, so no deed was necessary. Each lot is to contain 300 and 30 acres at about 11 pounds a Lot. This payment has reduced my purse pretty low; having a little before paid Charles passage and repaird Buildings to the amount of a hundred dollers. My taxes I might mention as a heavy load, but as every Body complains, I will be silent, tho I might with as much { 346 } reason; my continental tax which I am calld upon to pay next week, and is only a half year tax, amounts to 50 dollers. 19 pounds 15 & 10 pence I paid about a Month ago for a State tax and 7 pounds 10 & 2 pence for a town tax and 6 pound some shillings for a ministerial tax, to make up paper money deficiencies, besides 9 pounds 13 & six pence for Class number 7 towards hireing a Man for 3 years. All this I have discharged since April, as will appear by my Receits.

I have not drawn any Bills and will not if I can possibly help it. I shall have no occasion to, if I can get black and white Gauze and Gauze hankerchiefs. It may not be to the Credit of my country but it is a certain fact, that no articles are so vendible or yeald a greater profit. It was with difficulty I could keep a little for my own use of what I last received. I inclosed a list of articles by the Enterprize6 which I wish you to direct Ingraham and Bromfield to forward, and should they meet with the same Success my former adventures have, and arrive safe, they will be much more benificial than drawing Bills upon which I must discount. I shall inclose a duplicate of the articles with an addition of 5 yard of scarlet Broad cloth of the best kind and 3 yard of Sattin of the same coulour which I want for my own use leaving it at all times to you to determine the Quantity which you think proper to remitt.

You have heard I suppose that Gillion arrived at Philadelphia in June. Only two Letters have come to hand. Dr. Waterhouse left him at the Havanah but was unfortunately taken upon his passage home and carried to New York, by which means the rest of the Letters perished.—I wrote you by the Alliance respecting the Braintree prisoners, but have not received a line in which you make mention of them. That you took measures to relieve them several have testified to their Friends, but it would be more satisfactory if you had mentiond them yourself.7 There is in Boston a Mr. Marstins' who belonged on Board Gillion who paid yesterday to Charles in Boston a Jo8 which he said you lent him. I mention this to his Honour and justice. Of all the money due to you, upon Book or note, I have not received a copper since your absence and must have been distresst but for the remittances you have made me.

I long to receive Letters from all my dear Friends. I wish you would write by way of France and send your Letters to Mr. Warren. He would be particularly carefull of them. Two vessels have just arrived in 30 days passage from Nants. Your Friends here make great complaint, that you do not write to them. Uncle S[mith] says he will not write you any more, yet believe he does not keep his word, for he { 347 } writes by every vessel. Genrll. W[arre]n says you have forgotten him and Dr. T[uft]s complains. You see how important a line from you is considerd.

I say all I can for you, but wish you would find leisure to notice those Friends who write to you. Uncle Q[uinc]y desires his regards to you. Your aged Mamma wishes to see you, but fears she never shall. My Father injoys as Good State of Health as his years will admit. My most affectionate regards to my Dear John from whom I have received but one Letter since his visit to P[etersburg].

Black and white Gauze

Spotted and striped Gauze hankerchiefs

tapes Quality bindings low priced 7/8ths9 linnen

Black caliminco[]red tamies[]fine thread[]low

priced dark grounded calicos[]Ribbons—10 yd of

blew and white dark striped cotton

Nabby has just been giving me a Letter for you. I read it, and really beleive the child thinks herself serious; but you can give her better advice.10 Mr. Foster has just sent me word that he designs to wait upon me to morrow for Letters so that I shall give them to Him as he is kind enough to come out to see me. You will not fail to take notice of him.11

6 lb. best Hyson Tea

2 China Cooffee Pots

1 doz: handled Cups & Saucers—China

2 doz Soup Plates & a Tureen

doz: flat do.

doz small long dishes

2 pr Pudding do.

<2 or 3 Brushes>

3 or 4 house Brushs

Mrs. Warren has left this memorandom with a request that she may have these articles and she will pay the money to me or send to her Son for any thing I may want from France, but at present I know of nothing, so that I should be glad if they are sent they may not be put with any thing which belongs to me, but invoiced and put up by them selves.

Aya—Eliza1—and is it thus you honour the bare resemblance, thus place round your Neck the Ideal Image, the unanimated form of one, whom if he were present would not be thus distinguished. Virgin Modesty and conscious honour would then forbid this publick mark of affection unless it were sanctified by choise.—But why Sir has the { 349 } painter been so deficient—it is barely a likeness of you—he has not taken that Manly jesture, that dignity of air and address which should have been the distinguising lines in the portrature?2

Sweet Sensibility Source of all that is pleasing in our joys or painfull in our Sorrows—to thee is the portrait indebted for a favour that would kindle a fervour in the Breast of the original in any climate, less unfriendly to the tender passion than the Humid Batavian.

Let me comfort you with the pleasing intelligence that you are kindly rememberd by all the Fair circle of your Female acquaintance since it appears by all your Letters that you consider there regard as Essential to your happiness—and who that knows Humane Nature but must acknowledge that the Social affections between the Sexes where purity of sentiment and politeness of Behaviour are preserved constitutes the principal felicity of Life. It is in the company of the virtuous Fair that Rusticity and asperity are softned and refined into Benevolence and philanthropy. There the Graces may be acquired without sacrificeing the virtues.

I have been interupted by company, my thread is Broken. I will take an other Subject. You have heard I suppose that Gillion arrived at Philadelphia some time in June but not a line of all the Letters you put on Board have yet come to hand or ever will I suppose, for Dr. Waterhouse left Gillion at the Havanna, but his ill fortune persued him, for he was captured upon his passage Home and all his Letters thrown over.—Major Jackson has been fighting a duel with Gillion and was wounded in the thigh, not dangerously I believe.3 This detestable practise I abhor and hold it inconsistant with the principals of Religion, in no sense better than Murder or Suiside. Can the fault of an other contaminate the Honour of a Man who is noway accessary to it? And is there any speicies of honour repugnant to virtue? The Man whose life is uniformly virtuous will be in no danger of the imputation of cowardice for abstaining from Murder, but on the other hand he who is not invariably restrained by the fear of evil will hardly be thought to refuse a challange from moral restraints, since his virtue is more than suspicious whose conscientious Scruples accompany only those Sins which are attended with danger. But he who has a due sense of religion will not willingly bid defiance to his Creator by ungratefully disowning a Blessing in mercy bestowed, or robbing it from an other. I have hopes my worthy Friend that however custom may have sanctified this Breach of the Laws of God and Man, your virtue and good Sense will deter you at all times, and upon all occasions, from so immoral and absurd a custom. It is a philosophick observation, { 350 } that he who deserves an affront has no right to resent it, and he who is base enough to affront an other without cause is unworthy of any thing but contempt.

Adieu my dear Sir I am hurried to close my Letters least the vessel sail without them. Your Friends propose writing by this opportunity, but I fear they will be too late.

Mrs. Dana was well yesterday. Our dear and worthy Friend Mr. Cranch is in a poor way. I wrote you particularly by the Enterprize concerning him.4

Yesterday was celebrated a publick and Brilliant commencement. I will forward a catalogue by the first opportunity.5 With regard to politicks, we have a perfect tranquility. We sensibly feel the loss of our Allies, but we shall not be induced to listen to any terms which haughty Britain may offer short of independance. Congress refused a passport for Morgan Carltons Secretary,6 and the different States are by their resolutions in their different assemblies renouncing the Idea of treating, and scorn a National Breach of Faith. Thus I see no prospect of the desireable object peace—but if we cannot make peace, at least make War.7 But once more adieu. I have so many last words that tis with reluctance I bring myself to that of

Near the dusk of last Evening, I was Honored with your Favor, by the hand of the amiable Master Charles Adams, but was unhappy in not having a light ready to know the Contents. The Young Gentleman Seeming in hast, having Company in waiting, prevented my detaining Him.1

I regret my not having His Company to lodge and the Young Ladies who were with Him, as it would have greatly amusd me in my Solitude. And I should have had an opportunity to pay them the Attention, I should wish to pay any of Your Family and of making particular inquiry, after a Gentleman and Lady, for whom I always had the highest Esteem, and for whom I have felt the tenderest Sympathy in their Temporary Seperation, and I make no doubt, I have shard in their Sensibilities, in my Fatal Seperation, and Dissolution of the most endearing Tie! You Madam are yet Blessd with that Anchor of the Soul, the pleasing hope of a reunion with the Dear partner of all Your joys. There is No one I Believe Can enter more fully into the feelings of a Divided Heart, than myself. It is certainly an unhappy Situation. But Your Consolations in the Services His Excellency is rendering His Country, the prospect of His return, and the Dear Pledges You hold, must greatly relieve your Anxieties. Shall I wish him a Speedy return? For the Happiness of Domestick Life, I will. But my Faith in the Sovereign Disposer of those great Events, The Arrangements of Nations, and kingdoms, for peace or War, and the Selectment of proper instruments to Negotiate those Weighty Affairs, would induce me to wish His Excellency Prosperity Abroad, and to You my Friend, a joyful Acquiescence in the will of the Supreme Till the happy Period arrive that will Bless you with mutual joy, by the happy Sight of each other.

I shall think my Self happy in Seeing Mrs. Adams at Braintre or Milton, and will improve every opportunity. You would give me very great pleasure if you would Visit me in my Solitude at Cambridge. Pray present my Compliments to your little happy Circle, and accept of the Sincerest Sentiments of Esteem from Your Humble Servant,

In this Country, as in all others, Men are much Addicted to “Hobby Horses.” These Nags are called in the Language of the Dutch “Liefhebbery,” as they are called in French “Marotte.” I had rather ride a Dutch Hobby Horse than an English one or a French. It is the wholesomest Exercise in the World. They live to great Ages by the Strength of it.

My Meaning is this. They pitch in early Life upon some domestick Amusement, which they follow all their days at Leisure hours. I shall give you the History of several.

I Yesterday made a Visit to one, a Mr. Lionet, a venerable old Man of 75, in full Health, Strength and Vivacity, respectable for several Offices which he holds, but more so for vast learning in various Kinds, and great Ingenuity. His Hobby Horse has been natural Knowledge. We went to see a Collection of marine Shells. We were two hours, and had not got half through. The infinite Variety of Figures and Coulours, is astonishing.

But his Curiosity has not been confined to Shells. It has extended to Insects, and he has had it in Contemplation to write as full an Account of these as Buffon has written of Birds, Beasts and Fishes. But beginning with Caterpillars, he has filled a Folio upon that Species—and drew, and engraved the Plates himself.

Thus he rode his Hobby Horse and lived. Without it, he would have died fifty Years ago.

Have you an Inclination to read and inspect Cutts of the Anatomy of Caterpillars—their Nerves, Blood, Juices, Bones, Hair, Senses, { 354 } Intellects &c. &c.—Their moral Sense, their Laws, Government, Manners and Customs.

I dont know whether he teaches the manner of destroying them, and Saving the Apple tree.

I doubt not the Book is worth studying. All Nature is so.—But I have too much to do, to Study Men, and their mischievous Designs upon Apple Trees and other Things, ever to be very intimate with Mr. Lionet, (whom I respect very much however) or his Book. Adieu.1

Soon after writing You at Amsterdam,1 I was unfortunate enough to have a Relapse, after I thought that the Fever had entirely quitted me. I was confined there about a fortnight, and then came to this place. I am at present perfectly recovered I hope—for another Turn would fret me out of Existence, which would be no great loss except to my “fair American,” who might whimper and sigh a day or two perhaps, but it would be soon over: whereas if She should put on Mortality and discharge the last great debt, I should get a broken Heart by it I suppose, be tormented a Year or two with ridiculous Visions and Spectres, and be ready every two or three days to commit some act of Violence upon my Life out of mere Despair. I pray therefore She may live, if it is only to save me all this Trouble; as it is I have Torment enough, being twenty or thirty times a day disturbed with her Image passing across the Brain.—This is not to be remedied.

I was much disappointed in not being honored with a Line from You by Return of Trowbridge in the Firebrand. Not a single Letter by this Vessel, tho' directly for this Country. However, Patience as { 355 } the Dutch say—a heavenly Balm for every Wound. I am much in the Practice of this Virtue. I hope I am not forgotten.

You will see by the Date of this, that We are removed from Amsterdam here into the Hotel des Etats Unis. Mr. Dumas, with his Wife and Daughter, are in our Family. Madam Dumas takes exceeding good Care of the House and I hope will save much Expence. She is a great Ceconomist. Her Daughter is a very pretty young Lady of about 16 or 17. Years old,2 and I am very well satisfied that She makes a part of the Family, being no Enemy to the fair Sex. I hope it will be unnecessary to make any Apology here to my “fair American,” or any Protestations to cure any little troublesome Jealousies that may spring up on Account of my being under the same Roof with this young Lady. I mentioned the young Lady's age on purpose to keep my lovely American quiet. She will see I am old enough to be her Father. Pray tell my Flame to make herself quite easy.—But I beg Pardon, Madam, for taking up so much of your time with these Trifles.

The World is in all the Anxiety of earnest Expectation, all on Tiptoe, for News from the combined Fleet. Lord Howe is out with the English Channel Fleet, and an Action is momently expected, tho' the combined Fleet is much superior. The Dutch Fleet is in the North Sea. It is expected the Jamaica and other merchant fleets will fall into the Hands of the French and Spaniards or the Dutch. God grant it, and if a Naval Battle takes place, Success to our Friends and Allies. Fox, Burke, and another of the new Ministry have quitted Administration, because the System they agreed to pursue, and upon which their Administration was founded has been departed from and a new one adopted. Fox is for granting absolute, unequivocal and unconditional Independence to America. Shelburne, who has become first Lord of the Treasury since the Death of the Marquis of Rockingham, is for making the Acknowledgment of our Independence a Condition of Peace, which is tantamount to declaring, We will not acknowledge it at all, for he knows a Condition of this Nature would involve Us in a seperate distinct Negotiation, contrary to good Faith and solem Treaties not only, but repugnant to our Interest. And this is Shelburne's rascally design, to detach Us from France, which would be seperating our Interests from those of the belligerent Powers. The King is determined not to grant unconditional Independence to America, but with his Crown and Life. Bravo.—America is ready to meet the Monster on that Ground. We do not stand in need of his Acknowledgment to make Us independent. The Work is done, and { 356 } he will sacrifice a tottering Crown and forfeited Life to no purpose. Shelburne, infamously deserting his Colleagues, has become the Premier upon Condition of supporting the King in this mad Project. Is there not some chosen Curse, some hidden Thunder &c.? Fox has taken his stand upon the only foundation that can save his Country. If he is not under the Influence of unwarrantable Ambition or mean Jealousy, but has adopted his plan upon mature Reflection and a Conviction of its Utility, and pursues it with firmness and Resolution, he may be as illustrious a Character in the British Annals as a Pitt. But it is Time for another Revolution in that Country, and to add another Martyr to the Rubric, and a few more Ornaments to Tyburn. The Liberties of the Kingdom are gone past Redemption if some bold Spirit does not check this formidable Combination against their freedom.

I know not any pleasure equal to that which arises from feeding the Hungry, cloathing the Naked and making the poor prisoners Heart sing for Joy. All the Honours which your Country has conferd upon you has never excited in my mind half the Satisfaction which your Benevolent exertions and generous aid to the poor prisoners which I recommended to you, has given me. I am sorry not to have learnt any thing from your own pen with regard to them, but they have not been deficient in manifesting their gratitude to you, and making mention of your kindness, to their Friends here by every opportunity, nor could I help feeling the Lamentation of a Milton prisoner to his Friends, that it was his misfortune not to be a Brain• { 357 } tree Man. Your Benevolence would lead you to do all in your power for the releaf of all those unhappy persons who are in confinement, yet those who were your towns Men and Neighbours have a particular claim to your attention.1 I expect a Letter to inclose from the Father of Lewis Glover. If you could forward it to him they will consider it as an additional favour and further let them know that all their Friends are well, which I suppose may be done through the commissary of prisoners. They frequently send Letters to their Friends here, but how I know not.

I yesterday saw Mr. Foster, as I hope he will tell you in a months time, I gave him Letters which he has promised to deliver safe. You so seldom acknowledge the recept of any Letters from me, that but for many of the vessels arriveing safe, I should suppose they never reachd you. There are Letters in Boston from Mr. Ingraham I am told so late as May, by the Ship Thomas from Nants. How happy would it have made me to have learnt by a line from you that you was well. What greater hazard would your Letters meet with by way of France than mine, especially coverd to the Consul Le Etomb.

You will find in one of the Letters a memmorandom for [i.e. from] Mrs. W[arre]n the articles of china which she has mentiond she supposes may be purchased for 20 dollors.2 I think she must be mistaken. She has given a different direction as you will see per the inclosed. I should like to prog3 a little too if I thought you could afford it. I will not disown having already done it in some things, but tis but a little. I sent for a compleat set of china for a dining table some time ago, I know not whether you received the Letter and if you did whether you will know what a set is. Now I take it to consist in a doz. of dishes 6 different sizes, 3 doz. of table flat plates and 2 of Soup, 6 pudding dishes, 2 pr. Butter Boats, to which I should like 2 pr. of double flint cut Salts—all to set my table “neat and trim” when dear Collin returns.4 Perhaps you are house keeper enough allready to know what is necessary but I fancy you must have been often imposed upon before you got your Learning. They tell me you have purchased a House at the Hague and some have gone so far as to say you have sent for all your family. I wish you were with your family. I hear Mrs. Jay5 is unhappy. Is Mrs. A[dams] happy? No. Is Mrs. D[ana] happy? The world say she is, but I believe she would say no. She is younger than Mrs. Adams and does not think it so necessary to domesticate herself6 nor has she learnt a lesson the World will soon teach her.

Thus far I wrote with an intention of sending by the Amsterdam { 358 } vessel, but she has given me the slip. I laid by my paper but tho I do not know of a present opportunity I feel a new Inducement to write. Dr. Waterhouse yesterday made me a visit. He tell[s] me he has written to you by the late vessel7 so it will be unnecessary for me to say any Thing concerning his Situation. The pleasure which I received from his company and conversation was next to that of seeing my dear absent Friend. He has lived in so much Friendship and intimacy with you, with Mr. T[haxter] and my dear Boys, related so many anecdotes, appeard to enter into all your feelings even of the tender domestick kind that he attached me more to him in a few hours than he could otherways have done in half a year, tho his manners are of that frank, open, unreserved kind which are universally pleasing. He wished me exceedingly to go to you. He was sure it was necessary to your happiness and he could see no prospect of a peace. Even if one took place you certainly was the most suteable Man to reside at the Hague, the Dutch had a Friendship for you and a confidence in you, you was on every account the best calculated to do essential Service to your country there. Your character was high throughout Europe, even the tories respected it, but you was not happy abroad. You sighd for domestick tranquility, you longed for the peacefull shades of Brain tree and the kind softningfostering care of Portia.

Thus did this gentleman run on whilst I had not a wish to stop the musick of his tongue for the sweetest of all praise is that which is given to those we best love. Had my dear Friend been half as earnest with me to have taken passage with him as this Gentleman has been that I should go to him, he would have prevaild over my aversion to the Sea. But great as I feel the Sacrifice is I believe he8 judged best that I should remain where I am.

But will you can you think of remaining abroad? Should a peace take place I could not forgive you half a years longer absence. O there are hours, days and weeks when I would not paint to you all my feelings—for I would not make you more unhappy. I would not wander from room to room without a Heart and Soul at Home or feel myself deserted, unprotected, unassisted, uncounseld.—I begin to think there is a moral evil in this Seperation, for when we pledged ourselves to each other did not the holy ceremony close with, “What God has joined Let no Man put assunder.” Can it be a voluntary seperation? I feel that it is not.9

Yours of 22d ulto. arrived a few days agone. I acknowledge myself much in Arrears, tho' I have by no means forgotten you. For three Months past I have been miserably tormented with the Tertian Ague, and have been a more useless being than common. However I hope the Game is nearly up at present. I had no Idea that your Climate was so bad—but you must remember that this has been an uncommon Season throughout Europe. At this Moment I am writing by a good Fire. I have had one for many days past both on account of my Indisposition and the cold. Curious Dog-Days these. We have incessant Winds and Rains: When they will end I know not. Patience, Patience. —You tell me you are home-sick. I can easily conceive of it, and that you are very anxious about your future Education. A young Gentleman of your studious, thoughtful turn of mind cannot be otherwise than anxious considering the disadvantage of Education in your City. This Sentiment does you much honour, and shews that you put a just Value on Time. But you must not consider your Boreal Tour as lost Time. It was an Opportunity few young Gentlemen enjoy, and you travelled with a Gentleman from whose Observations and Instructions you must have derived great Advantage. When you return to our dear Country, you will be in a Situation to make Comparisons, and run your Parallels between the Advantages of the old and new World. { 360 } If your European Travels have produced the same Effects upon you that mine have upon me, You are much more attached to your own Country than when you left it. I have seen much in mine that I hope will never be transplanted into America. We have Vices enough in our own Country without aping or adopting those of the old World: However there are many valuable things in Europe which I wish to see in America. Many Improvements in Mechanism, but few in Government or Laws. Such however is the unfortunate Condition of human Nature, that in attempting to acquire what is good and valuable from other Countries, We open a Communication to all their vices and Defects—that is, we are quite as apt to adopt the latter as the former, and perhaps rather more. But I must not be uncharitable.

My best respects to Mr. D[ana] and believe me to be your very sincere friend and Humble Servant.

Mr. Thaxter is getting better and Mr. Charles Storer is now with me, and We may be all now said to be pretty well. Our northern Friends are well too.

You will hear a great deal about Peace, but dont trust to it. Remember what I have often said “We shall not be able to obtain Peace, while our Ennemies have New York and Charlestown or either of them.” I know the Character and Sentiments of the King of England, and while he can hold a Post in the United States, he will have it in his Power to make the People of England believe that the People of America love him and them, and keep up their hopes of some turn of Affairs in their favour.

Lord Shelburnes System is equivocal. Fox has seized the right Idea. But the former will run down the latter for sometime. Yet the Plan of the latter must finally prevail. It is deeply laid and well digested. If he has Perseverance he will be the Man to make Peace.

By frequent Exercise on Horseback and great Care, I seem to have recovered my Health, strength and Spirits beyond my Expectations. And if the Company of Princes and Princesses, Dukes and Dutchesses, Comtes and Comptesses could make me happy, I might easily be so— but my Admired Princess is at the blue Hills, where all my Ambition and all my Wishes tend.

I know not the Reason but there is some Strange Attraction between the North Parish in Braintree and my Heart. It is a remarkable Spot. It has vomited Forth more Fire than Mount Etna. It has produced three mortals, Hancock and two Adams's, who have, with the best Intentions in the World, set the World in a blaze. I say two Adams's because the Head of the Senate2 sprung from thence as his father was born there.—Glorious however as the flame is, I wish I could put it out.—Some People say I was born for such Times. It is true I was born to be in such times but was not made for them. They affect too tenderly my Heart.

I love the People where I am. They have Faults but they have deep Wisdom and great Virtues—and they love America, and will be her everlasting Friend, I think. I would do a great deal to serve this nation, I own.

If Spain should acknowledge Us as I think she will soon, the two great Branches of the House of Bourbon, Holland and America, will form a PHALANX which will not easily be shaken. I hope and believe We shall continue Friends. If We do, whenever England makes Peace She will be afraid to quarrell with Us, how much soever she may hate Us. And I think the other Powers of Europe too will prefer our Friendship to our Enmity, and will choose to excuse Us from meddling in future Wars. This is the Object of all my Wishes and the End of all my Politicks. To this End and for this Reason I look upon my success in Holland as the happiest Event, and the greatest Action of my Life past or future. I think that no Opportunity will present itself for a Century to come, for Striking a Stroke so critical and of so extensive Importance, in the political system of America. How critical it has been few Persons know. It has hung upon a Thread, a Hair, a silken Fibre. Its Consequences will not be all developed for Centuries. I know there are [those]3 who represent it a Thing of Course and of trifling moment. But they have not seen the Diary of Mr. Van be[r]ckel,4 nor mine, nor the Minutes of the Cabinets of Orange and Brunswick. Nor have they seen the History of future Wars in Europe. A future War in Europe will shew the Importance, of the American Negotiation in Holland.—Be discreet in the Use you make of this. Be cautious. I want to know how our Success here is relished with you.

I am to express my Acknowledgments to You for your kind favor of the 17th. June last, with which I was honoured this day. I expressed my Chagrin in not recieving a Letter by the Firebrand in mine of the 27th. July, which accompanies this. Little did I think that in that moment the tender sympathetic Heart of Portia was sharing, and participating in the Cares and Agonies of her dear Sister, who was waiting in aweful Suspense the Issue of her dear Mr. Cranch's Illness. We know not yet the Event, but hope that the Change was favorable. The Gazette of July 1st. makes no mention of his Death, and We flatter ourselves still with Hopes of his Recovery. May he who directs righteously all Events graciously grant it, and continue him still in Existence for the sake of his Family and Mankind. He is indeed an Ornament to human Nature, and has discharged the Duties of his several Relations in Life with a Fidelity that will ever distinguish his Character and point him out as an illustrious Pattern and Example to those, who wish to be great and good. My Heart bled at the pathetic Recital You gave me of his Sickness; and who is there that knows the Man that can withhold the sympathetic Tear? I venerate his Character, for he is indeed a venerable Man. I am impatient and tremble at the Idea of recieving the next Letter from home. May kind Heaven be propitious.

My Situation in this place is on many accounts more eligible than that at Amsterdam was. The Air is purer and We are much nearer the Sea. But You tell me, Madam, I sigh for America. It is true indeed, and so I should if I dwelt in any Paradise that Nature or Art has formed in the old World. I am not homesick neither for I should { 363 } be happy (had I the means) to pass two Years in France before my Return, to see a little the face of that Kingdom and to acquire more perfectly the Language. I should be happy to a certain degree I mean. However this cannot take place, and I must run the hazard of a British Prison sooner or later. I perfectly agree with You, Madam, that it is better to become a Captive in America than a Captive in a British Prison. The former Captivity I have been long accustomed to and am perfectly reconciled to it. I love the Toils the busy God has made. They are the first Webs which gently hold the willing Swain. I wish extremely to be fixed down in some reputable business but I fear it will be a long time first. Patience however sufficient unto the day is &c. I am a Batchelor to day, I may be tomorrow, and shall be I believe ten Year hence. If I do not cease to be tormented with Reveries, Visions and Dreams about this said subject of Matrimony, I shall be a Batchelor from Choice. I have been in the fidgets this Week past with a confounded Dream about being married and my Wife having three Children at a Birth, all born crying and yelping as if possessed. I cried out, oh Lord deliver from this Bondage thy miserable ruined Servant. Twice before I have dreamt of being connected with two young Ladies I love and esteem very much—as often repented and wept bitterly. I have almost taken the Vow of Celibacy, and nobody would care for that I believe. I fancy these are hints (pretty broad ones too) to remain even as I am. I intend to consult St. Paul upon the Matter and make up Judgment after a full hearing on both sides. You see what Sylphs are about me.

As to the dear Girls for whom I have expressed a particular Regard, I am very sorry that no young Gentlemen are to be found to their Taste. They are indeed virtuous and deserving, and merit Partners of the same Character. They possess all the Virtues and Accomplishments necessary in that Relation of Life, and whoever renders himself agreable to either cannot be otherwise than happy. I had thought the amiable Sally already connected. She is another of the deserving ones, and I wish her most sincerely happily fixed.

Mr. Guild, who takes my Letters, has just arrived here, and leaves me but little time to add: I hope he will be more fortunate this Passage.

I am not able to write all my friends by this Opportunity. I have not as yet Strength sufficient. The repeated Attacks of the Fever have weakend my Nerves, but I shall soon get over that.

Mr. Guild will be able to give You so good an Account of Politicks as to render it unnecessary for me to say any thing. The English are as much disposed to tricking and Chicane as ever. They want Peace, but have either not Virtue, Honor or Sense enough to make it. The American Pill is yet a little unpalatable. It will however go down in time. Patience, Perseverance and Firmness are the only requisites.

My Friend Storer is with me at present, which makes me very happy. He means to remain here sometime, and is learning French—is very well. Please to remember me to all Friends—to the dear Girls particularly. I long to embrace them.

Your Favour of June 17. arrived this Day and gave me, all the tender and melancholly Feelings of which my Heart is susceptible.

How shall I express my solicitude for my amiable, my venerable Friend and Brother? This World contains not a wiser or a more virtuous Man. Just now placed in a situation, too where all his great Talents and excellent Virtues might have their full Effect!—But it is but a Part that We see. I tremble for his Family. Possibly he may still be spared. But We must all expect.—I have been within an Hairs Breadth, and although recovered to tolerable H[e]alth and Spirits, I am still feeble, and shall never be restored to all my former Force.

Before this Time, you will have learned our full Success here. The Treaty is not yet compleated but it is in a fair Way. This Nation cannot depart from its Forms, and it takes a long time for a Treaty to undergo the Examination of so many Provinces and Cities. But this Nation will stand firm. I am now happy in the Intimacy of many leading Characters and know their Views and Designs very well and We may depend upon their steady Attachment to Us and to the good System.

You have not yet an Idea of all the Difficulties I have had to encounter. Some of them ought not to be committed to Paper. They were cruel, but I bore them and they are over. I am now as agreably situated as I can ever be without my Family.

It is to me an insipid Life, this of an Ambassador, and I wish it at an End....2

The naval Disaster you mention, has no ill Effect upon this People.

My dear Children are never long out of my Thoughts. Where is Charles's Pen? I hear sometimes of Miss Nabby in Boston. How is Mr. Tommy?

Our Northern Friends are well.

The Situation of my dear Brother, at the date of yours 17. June, has allarmed me so much that I dread to hear any further News of him. An Affection for him has grown old with me as it commenced very early in Life and has constantly increased. Mr. Smiths Letter of 6 of May1 did not surprise me so much because I had often known him in great distress in the Lungs but these disorders are new. The World has scarcely a worthier Man to loose.

My Friends may think strange that they dont receive Letters from me oftener. I believe they think I have a great deal of Leisure. I wish I could change Situations with them, and then they would see what a pretty Thing it is to be an American Minister.

I am not idler than I used to be. My whole Time is spent in necessary and unavoidable Services. The Silk Machine is not more complicated nor more delicate than the System of Politicks of the United States.2 It extends its Branches into every Court and Country of Europe. In order to know what it is they must come and see and try the Experiment.—I am weary of it.—I am no more able to maintain all the Correspondences I have than to remove mountains. I am obliged to sacrifice my Friendships as well as my other Affections to my Duty. Mr. T[haxter] has been sick this 2 or 3 months, which has made the Burthen heavier for me, indeed too much for my feeble Frame. He is now pretty well. If I should be obliged to go to Paris or Vienna, to talk about Peace, another Scaene of Pleasure and Amusement would open upon me, such as I have had a long succession of. Such Pleasure and Amusement as millions of Perplexities, and millions { 366 } of Humiliations and Mortifications aford. All of them however have not yet subdued my proud heart.

I have nothing to do but pray for the abundant Outpowerings3 of Patience, Patience, Patience.

A good Peace would be a Reward for all. I dont know how it is— I suppose it is my Vanity. But I was under no Fears of a bad Peace, while I was alone. I was very sure of my own Firmness or call it Obstinacy, if you will. I had no Jealousies, no Suspicions, no Misgivings. I cannot say the same now. I have a good Opinion, however, of one of my Colleagues, and wish I could have of the other. Yet if I had known that Mr. Jefferson would not have come and Mr. Laurens resigned, I would have refused to share in the new Commission.4 I shall do the best I can.—Adieu.

It is with Pleasure that I enclose this amiable Letter from your Sister, which breaths a very commendable affection for You and solicitude for your Welfare. There is nothing more tender than these Correspondences between Families, as there is nothing more sacred than the Relations of Brother and sister, except that of Parent and Child. It is your duty to answer her.

I say again, it is a moral and a religious duty to cultivate these amiable Connections by constant Correspondence, when We cannot by Conversation. But I need not recur to any Thing so austere as the Idea of Duty. The Pleasure of corresponding with a sister so worthy of you ought to be Motive sufficient. Subjects can never be wanting. Discriptions of Cities, Churches, Palaces, Paintings, Spectacles, all the Objects around you, even the manners and Dress of the People will furnish ample materials.

It is a long time since you have written to me. You should think of your Fathers Anxiety, for the Success and Progress of your Studies.

You study I hope among other Things to make yourself as Usefull and agreable to your Patron as possible.

You have no doubt had the Opportunity to see the Empress upon some publick Occasions. I had that of supping, at Court, at the Maison du Bois with the Comte and Comptess du Nord.1 Your Patron will see in the Courier du Bas Rhin and in the Gazettes of Leyden and the Hague, a Projet or a Speculation, calculated to favour some of his Views.2 How does he like it? and how is it taken where you are? or is it not talked of.

I long to see you. You should be at Leyden or at Cambridge. A public Education you must have. You are capable of Emulation, and there alone you will have it.

Adieu.

I Sigh every day, in whatever Scaene I am in for a walk down to your House and a Day by your Fireside.1—I hope the Time will come, but not so soon as I wish.

It would amuze you, as it does me to wander about in scaenes once frequented by the great Princes of Orange, by Brederode, Barnevelt, Grotius, De Witts, Erasmus, Boerhave, Van Trump, De Ruyter and a thousand others, and I can assure you, that I dont think the Nation essentially changed from what it was in those days.—But it is too rich and loves Money too well. If however the present P[rince] of Or[ange] had the Genius and Enterprise of the 1st or 3d William or of Frederick Henry this Nation would now display as great Virtues and Resources as ever, provided it was directed in the Way the Nation wishes. The nation is discontented with the Management of Affairs, and is struggling to amend it. They will be steady and persevering tho slow.

I will inclose to you a Curiosity—a Pamphlet severely reprobated { 368 } by the Gov[ernmen]t, but which has made a deep Impression upon the Nation, and certainly contributed a great deal, to accelerate the Acknowledgment of the United States here. It arroused the People and allarmed the Court. When you have read it, lend it to the President of the Senate.2 Dont let it become publick. The Author is not known. In the original Dutch it is said to be a finished Composition.3 There is an astonishing Multitude of such free Writings here.

Surely this is the Court and Country where Liberty and Independence ought to be popular. But Courts change sooner than nations.

Cant you resolve to write to me for once? A Letter from you would do me great good. I want to be again Select Man with you4 and I intend to be, sooner or later.

All well.—You will send these Papers to some Printer when you have done with them.

We have found that the only Way of guarding against Fevers is to ride. We accordingly mount our Horses every day. But the Weather through the whole Spring and most of the Summer has been very dull, damp, cold, very disagreable and dangerous. But shaking on Horseback guards pretty well against it.

I am going to Dinner with a Duke and a Dutchess and a Number [of] Ambassadors and Senators, in all the Luxury of this luxurious World: but how much more luxurious it would be to me, to dine upon roast Beef with Parson Smith, Dr. Tufts or Norton Quincy—or upon rusticrat Potatoes with Portia—Oh! Oh! hi ho hum!—and her Daughter and sons.

I have only time to inclose a few Papers and to pray for your Health and Prosperity.

I am much distressed for my Brother Cranch as the last Accounts were allarming. So pleasing a Friendship of near 30 Years standing is a Blessing not to be replaced. I cannot give up the Hopes that I may yet see him in good Health.

My worthy Father Smith must be greatly afflicted at this Sickness. The sorrows however, as well as the Joys of his Age, are either fatal, or soon over.

I long to be with you, even to share in your Afflictions. The Life I lead is not satisfactory to me. Great Feasts and great Company, the Splendeur of Courts and all that is not enough for me. I want my Family, my Friends and my Country. My only Consolation is, that { 370 } I have rendered a most important and essential service to my Country, here, which I verily believe no other Man in the World would have done. I dont mean by this, that I have exerted any Abilities here, or any Actions, that are not very common, but I dont believe that any other Man in the World would have had the Patience and Perseverance, to do and to suffer, what was absolutely necessary.—I will never go through such another Scene. Happily, there will never I believe be again Occasion for any body to suffer so much. The Humiliations, the Mortifications, the Provocations, that I have endured here, are beyond all description; yet the Unravelling of the Plot, and the total Change in all these respects make amends for all.

My Situation is at present as agreable as it ever can be to me, Out of my own Country and Absent from my family.

I cannot flatter you with Prospects of Peace. There are some Essays towards it, but their Success is too uncertain to be depended on. Yet England is too inadequate to her European Ennemies to hurt Us much. The Refugees are turning every stone to provoke fresh Hostilities against America, but I think they will be disappointed.—What a forlorn Situation those Wretches are in!—Yet I am told they modestly hope at least to be invited home, by their Countrymen. I suppose they think that America has not wit enough to govern itself without them.

It is now almost five Years since I left Congress, and what a Series of horrid scaenes have I got through. What storms, what Chases, what Leaks, what Mountains and Valleys, what Fatigues, Dangers, Hair Breadth scapes, what Fevers and Gouts, have I seen and felt!

If after all it should please God to preserve me home, I will leave the Splendid Pursuits of Fame, Fortune and Ambition to those, who have them in View and who may easily obtain them without the Pains, Achs and Dangers that I have run, from other Motives. My little Farm will be as extensive as my Expectations. My poor Boys must work—they have seen a little of their Fathers Pleasures in this Life, and knowing the Object he had in View, they will not reproach him for having neglected their Interests.

If my Letters have been as successfull as I wish them, you must have heard many times from me since I received a single line from your Hand. This is the sixth time I have written to you; since I received your last Letters, which were dated in March.1 From that time up to this 3d of September not a syllable has come to Hand. A few vague english News paper Reports, respecting a negotiation for a peace. I find your Name mentiond so late as June. Not a vessel has arrived from Holland since Capt. Deshon. We cannot account for so long a space of times elapsing: since it is said the United provinces acknowledged the Independance of America, without receiving any official account of it.

The enlargement of the prisoners from Mill prison, together with the intelligence they brought of the proposed acknowledgment of our independance, coincideing with the general wish for peace, the specious Letters sent out of New York by Carleton and Digby about the same time,2 so facinated all Ranks of people that a General Joy pervaded every class; I hardly dared to oppose, to the congratulatory addresses I received upon the occasion, the obstinate persuasion I had; that it was only a tub to the Whale.3

I ventured to say in some companies, where my unbelief appeared very singular, that altho I ardently wished for peace, I could not conceive that an object, of so great Magnitude, could be the Work of a few weeks, or Months; and altho the acknowledgment of our Independence, was an indispensable preliminary, yet there were many other important articles to be adjusted by the contending powers. I thought it would be better to suspend those warm expressions of joy; which could only be warranted by an assureance that an honorable peace had taken place. If any real foundation existed for such reports, a week or two would give us official assureances of it, and I must beg to suspend my belief untill that period.

It really pained me to see the sanguine hopes of my Country perish like the baseless fabrick of a vision. Yet in less than ten days they reflected, and doubted, the elated joy subsided, and they spurned the Idea of a seperate peace.

The Marquis de Vaudreuil arrived in Boston harbour about a fortnight ago with 13 ships of the Line. His intention is to repair the damaged ships.4

The two Armies have past an inactive Summer. When when shall { 372 } I receive any Letters from my dear Friend? Instead of being more and more reconciled to this seperation, every day makes it more painfull to me. Can I with any degree of calmness look Back and reflect that it is near 3 years since we parted, and look forward without seeing, or being in the least able to form an Idea of the period which is still to take place.

In my last Letter I made you a serious proposal. I will not repeat it at present. If it is accepted one Letter will be sufficient. If it is rejected, one Letter will be too many.5

We have had a most uncommon Season. Cold and dry—not one rainy day since the begining of June, and very few showers. The drought has been very extensive, and our corn is near all cut of.— Scarcly a spire of green Grass is to be seen. The B[osto]n prisoners have all reachd home except the 3 who were exchanged. There have been 3 of the Number to see me—to thank me for writing to you, and to acknowledge your kind attention to them. Beals and the two Clarks have offerd to repay the money you advanced to them; which they say was four pounds sterling a peice, but as I never received a line from you respecting them, or what you had done for them I am at a loss what to do.6 Some of them are able enough, others are not.

I have the very great pleasure to acquaint you that our dear and worthy Brother C[ranc]h is raised in a manner from the dead. His dropsical Symptoms have left him and he has for a month past surprizingly mended. His Cough still continues, but we have great hopes now of his recovery. He is not able to attend to any buisness nor will he be for many months, even tho he should get no relapse.

Let me beg you my dear Friend to be particularly attentive to your Health. Do not practise so indiscriminately lieing with your windows open, it certainly is a bad practise in a country so damp as Holland. My Notice of this opportunity is so short that I cannot write to Mr. T[haxte]r or my Son from whom I long to hear.

Mrs. D[ana] was well when I last heard from her. She has been at Newport ever since July. Our Friends are all well and desire to be rememberd. They make great complaints that you do not write to them, and will in Spight of all I can say, think themselves neglected.

I feel in my Heart a disposition to complain that when you write, you are so very concise. I am sorry I cannot prevail with you to write by way of Spain or France, but you must have reasons to which I am a Stranger.

What pleasing Sensations does a Packet from the other side of the Atlantic produce? Every part of the human frame sympathizes and is in Unison. This Truth I have most sensibly felt this day, in recieving three Letters from America. I was at Peace with myself before I opened them. The Superscriptions, in informing me from whence they came, saved me a Turn of the Fever, which threatened before. In opening that of Portia's of the 18th. July, I read these Words, “Ay, Ay—Eliza—is it thus You honor the bare Resemblance—thus place round your Neck the Ideal Image” &c. Heaven! said I, to my dear Friend Storer, with a deep Blush, (I have not forgot how to blush yet—horrible Misfortune to me) what can all this mean? There is a Mystery wrapt up in these Words. Read on, said he, and perhaps the Riddle will be unravelled. Half frightened I begun to read again, till I came to the Words, “why has the Painter been so deficient—it is { 374 } barely a Likeness of You.” The Mystery was developped—the Word Painter helped me thro' in an instant. I had flattered myself this miserable Portrait had been sent to bottom with the Letters by Dr. Waterhouse. I sent it away merely to get it out of my sight, and wished it at bottom an hundred times, but it was accompanied with Letters to my Sisters containing very particular Charges to be locked up. The Letters are sunk. I wish the Portrait in Holland again. But who this Eliza is, I don't know. I know not any one of the Name in whose good Graces I am so far initiated, as to do me so much honor as to wear my Portrait, except my dear Sister Betsy. Storer says he does not know who the Eliza is, and I have concluded that You are not serious. Upon my honor, Madam, if my Letters by Gillon, had arrived, it would have never been worn by anybody. You say, Madam, that “a manly Gesture, a Dignity of Air and Address should have been the distinguishing lines in the Portraiture.” In thanking You for the Compliment, You will permit me to observe at the same time, that those Traits would have rendered it still less a Resemblance. Unfortunately they are Accomplishments that do not belong to me, and the Painter was cautious not to flatter me in that Respect. That the fair Circle of my female Acquaintance kindly remember me, is a Circumstance not more flattering than pleasing to me. I never expect to be acquainted with a more amiable, virtuous and sensible Circle. I was ever happy in their Company. To have been ambitious of their Esteem was no fault I hope. It was ever an Object of mine, and in no Instance have I carried this Ambition to an undue length. To seek the Partiality or Affection of a young Lady, merely for the sake of it, and without intending to meet that Affection with an unequivocal proof of Sincerity, is an Object unworthy a Man of Honor and Virtue, and is as unjustifiable in itself, as the means which are often employed to attain this point. 'Tis the Ambition of a Knave, who is hostile to that Confidence and pleasing social Intercourse which Nature and Heaven designed should take place between the Sexes.

I am very happy to learn that our dear and worthy Friend, Mr. Cranch is still in being, but sincerely lament that his Health is yet precarious. May kind Heaven restore him, and be better to Us than our Fears. 'Tis hard parting with so invaluable a Character, with one in the midst of Usefulness. Your Letter concerning him in the Enterprize is not yet arrived. 'Tis hardly time to expect her yet.

I have read with extreme satisfaction your Observations occasioned by the Duel between Jackson and Gillon. They are excellent indeed. I have often reflected seriously on this Subject, but I am almost afraid { 375 } to come to a Conclusion or a Resolution upon it. How extremely difficult is it to recieve with Indifference the Sneers, Contempt and Imputations of Cowardice of the World, even of the base and abandoned part of it. It is a Practice most certainly against Reason and Common Sense, and the trivial ridiculous Incidents that often give rise to it, one would think should have exploded it long ago. 'Tis neither a proof of Bravery, nor is its Issue a Criterion of the Justice of the Cause. The greatest part of Mankind perhaps are agreed in the Folly of its Institution, but yet don't condemn the practice of it, or if they do, they consider him who is challenged as a Coward if he declines. Charity obliges me to say, that I believe a dread and fear of Contempt has induced many a well disposed Man to challenge, or accept one. How much stronger oftentimes is the Sense of this than of the Obligations of Religion or Morality? I have much more to say upon this Subject, considered in the Light of an Appeal to Heaven, and the Absurdity of such an Appeal, but I have not time at present. I cannot justify the Measure, yet it is difficult to foresee the part one would act, (who has his doubts) when called upon. Gustavus Adolphus took the most effectual Way to prevent it—cutting off the Head of the Victor is a short Method.

Your dearest Friend is much better in Health here than at Amsterdam. Dines to day with the Spanish Minister, a great friend—sups this Evening at Court, and tomorrow gives an Entertainment to the French Ambassador and some Members of the States General. A bad Example this to Us young Lads. However Storer and I are two sober Lads, and keep to our Business. But, Madam, all this and many things which preceeded are Triumphs over British Folly and Impolicy, the Crowns and Laurels of Patience and Perserverance which he is gathering who most deserves them from his Abilities and Integrity. The Treaty of Commerce will soon be finished I hope—another Triumph. The Resolutions of our States respecting a seperate Peace do them infinite honor in Europe. Oh! perfidious Britain. I would write another Sheet willingly, but should not be in time for the Vessel. Mr. Storer joins me in Respects to You and Family. Remember me as usual if You please. I have the honor to be with an invariable Esteem & Respect, Madam, your M. H. Servant,

Your kind favours of May 14th and June 16th came to Hand last Evening; and tho I have only just time to acknowledge them, I would not omit a few lines; I have written before by this vessel; which is Bound to France. Mr. Allen your old fellow traveller is a passenger on Board, and promises to be attentive to the Letters. In my other Letter I mention a serious proposal made in a former; but do not inform you of the Nature of it, fearing a rejection of my proposal and it is of so tender a Nature I could scarcly bear a refusal; yet should a refusal take place, I know it will be upon the best grounds and reasons. But your mention in your two kind favours, your wishes with more seariousness than you have ever before exprest them, leads me again to repeat my request; it is that I may come to you, with our daughter, in the Spring, provided You are like to continue abroad. In my other Letter I have stated to you an arrangement of my affairs, and the person with whom I would chuse to come; I have slightly mentiond it to him; and he says he should like it exceedingly and I believe would adjust his affairs and come with me. Mr. Smith is the person I mean, I mention him least my other Letter should fail.1

I am the more desirious to come now I learn Mr. Thaxter is comeing home. I am sure you must feel a still greater want of my attention to you. I will endeavour to find out the disposition of Congress, but I have lost my intelligence from that Quarter by Mr. Lovels return to this State. I have very little acquaintance with any Gentleman there. Mr. Jackson and Mr. Osgood are the only two Members there from this State.2 Mr. Lovell has lately returnd. I will see him and make some inquiry; as to peace you have my opinion in the Letter referd to by this vessel.

The acknowledgment of our Independance by the United provinces is considerd here as a most important Event, but the Newspapers do not anounce it to the world with that Eclat, which would have been rung from all Quarters had this Event been accomplished by a certain character. Indeed we have never received an official account of it untill now. Let me ask you Dear Friend, have you not been rather neglegent in writing to your Friends? Many difficulties you have had to encounter might have been laid open to them, and your character might have had justice done it. But Modest Merrit must be its own Reward. Bolingbrook in his political tracts observes, rather Ironically (but it is a certain fact,) that Ministers stand in as much { 377 } need of publick writers, as they do of him. He adds, “in their prosperity they can no more subsist without daily praise, than the writers without daily Bread, and the further the Minister extends his views the more necessary are they to his Support. Let him speak as contemptuously of them as he pleases, yet it will fare with his ambition, as with a lofty Tree, which cannot shoot its Branches into the Clouds unless its Root work into the dirt.”

You make no mention of receiving Letters from me, you certainly must have had some by a vessel which arrived in France some time before the Fire Brand reachd Holland. She too had Letters for you.

Accept my acknowledgement for the articles sent. As the other arrived safe, I could have wished my little memorandom by the Fire Brand had reachd you before this vessel saild; but no Matter, I can dispose of them. My Luck is great I think. I know not that I have lost any adventure you have ever sent me. Nabby requests in one of her Letters a pair of paste Buckles. When your hand is in you may send a pair for me if you please.

Adieu my dearest Friend. Remember that to render your situation more agreable I fear neither the Enemy or old Neptune, but then you must give me full assureance of your intire approbation of my request. I cannot accept a half way invitation. To say I am happy here, I cannot, but it is not an idle curiosity that make me wish to hazard the Watery Element. I much more sincerely wish your return. Could I hope for that during an other year I would endeavour to wait patiently the Event.

Coll. Vallentin having been detained some time at Amsterdam by the arrival of the Grand Duke there, and having been sick on the road, did not arrive with your letters of the 13th. of May last1 until the day before yesterday.—As to my return; if I can go with a French Courier from Hence as far as Frankfort on the Mayne, and from thence down the Rhine it will be the best course I can take; but if that is impracticable Mr. D[ana] proposes that I should go from hence to Lubeck in some neutral vessel and from thence to Amsterdam by land. I can indeed go directly from hence to Amsterdam by water; but as the season is so far advanced, I might very possibly be obliged to pass the whole winter in Norway or at Copenhagen.

But as soon as I shall be gone Mr. D will write you by the post, to let you know the course I shall have taken so that you will know when to expect me.

I Yesterday received your long lookt favor being the Only One I have received for two Years.1 I dont know that I am intitled to any particular Notice, more than many of your friends but thought I might claim some share. I received a letter from Mdm. the Widow Chabenel incloseing some letters to be forwarded to her relations att the southward. Billey lately returnd from Philadelphia were he saw her Nephew that came in the Carolina ship. Any service I can do for any of your friends, shall be readily complyd with.

I have gave Mr. Jer. Allen who goes by this Conveyance a letter from Mrs. Adams since which I have forwarded yours by Grinnel. This Vessell was built in Town, under the direction of Mr. John Peck of the moddle of the Hazard and Bellesarius, but she is too deep loaded to Answer the end of sailing. She is in the room of a french Kings Brig [ . . . ]2 condemnd You will have heard of Admiral Vaudrell: lieing here with 13 ships of the line to refit. One of which in coming { 379 } up through carelesness is got a ground and itts feared will not be got of again.

Whilst now writing I have received another letter from Mrs. Adams which I forward.—Our friend Mr. Cranch is greatly recoverd, contrary to Our expectations.—As to political Affairs itts likely some of your friends more Verst in those matters have wrote you. General Carltons proclimation of Independancy, which was never supposd to be real has turnd Out so. The Continental Armies lay silent.

We are dayly expecting 25 or 30 sail from Jamaica and the Continent. G.W.3 writes he has some Advises as though designd this way. About 3,000 Troops lately Arrived att Halifax, said to be Hessians &c. from Ireland. We had a Town Meeting Yesterday and came into some spirited resolves in order to stop the Illicit Trade in runing goods into the states from N. York &c.4 There has lately Two Vessells been taken with about £4000 sterling carried into Rhode Island and Connecticut designed to be smuggeld this way, (all kind of British [goods]5 in Neutral bottoms liable). Several parcels have been seizd in coming on the Road, so that I beleive there will be a stopt put to itt. The Nantucket gentry have been exempted from having Taxes collected, who have in return been carrying on a Neutral trade with New York.

Itts said a ship with Continental Clothing came Out with Grinnel. Itts6 the most dangerous place on the Continent. I dont think Insurance could be had even att .60 PC. Capt. David Phipps is here a prisoner being taken by the french, (in a cruising ship from Penobscut, he being Comodore there).

Mrs. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Otis, with all your friends in general are well. Our DC7 time is chiefly taken up with Accompanying the F[rench] Officers &c.—I am with Respect Your hum. servt.,

When I was at Braintree I mentioned to you that I was pretty certain I had a letter from Mr. Adams to you, among my papers which I left behind at N. York and that when my trunk arrived I would carefully examine it and send it to you. I have done so, but without success. I therefore conclude if there was one, the Goths have taken it.

We hear there is a Vessel arrived at Boston from Amsterdam; if so you undoubtedly have news from Mr. Adams and Mr. Thaxter and as it is possible I may not have a letter, in which case I hope to have some account of them from you. Did you know how much I honor and respect the one, and what friendship and regard I have for the other you would not wonder at my solicitude for their wellfare. Altho' I wish to hear from them politically, yet I am more anxious to hear from them personally.

Common report would lead one to believe that our prospects of a peace were vanishing. I fear that obstinate, miserable Man, Pharoah the 2d, is not yet sufficiently humbled to do a just thing—and that he will pursue afresh his abominable measures, untill the measure of his iniquity is quite full.

Please to present my best respects to your venerable Father—also to Mr. Cranch who I hope is better. My compliments to Dr. Tuffs. My most respectfull Compliments to Miss Adams, not forgetting my good friend Master Charles, who, if you have any good news from his father, will I hope stand scribe to save his Mama the trouble.

I have transmitted Money to the young Men, whom you mentioned to me, and have expected every day for a long time to hear of their Sailing in a Cartel for America. They have been better treated since the Change of Ministers. My Respects to their Parents.

It is now five Months since my publick Reception here but We have not yet learned, that any News of it, has arrived in America.1

The Refugees in England are at their old Game again. Andrew Sparhawk has published in the Morning Post, that his Brother has received a Letter from New York, that Massachusetts and several other States were upon the Point of overturning the new Government, and throwing off the Authority of Congress, and returning to the Government of G. Britain. Their blood thirsty Souls are not yet satiated. They are labouring to bring on again an offensive War. But I think they cant succeed.2

I suppose the unhappy Affair of the County of Hampshire, is the Thing which gave Occasion to this Representation.3 Our Countrymen, must be very unreasonable if they cant be easy and happy under the Government they have. I dont know where they will find a better— or how they will make one. I dread, the Consequences of the Differences between Chiefs.

If Massachusetts gets into Parties, they will worry one another, very rudely. But I rely upon the honesty and Sobriety as well as good sense of the People. These Qualities will overawe the Passions of Individuals, and preserve a Steady Administration of the Laws.

My Duty to my Mother, and to your Father. I hope to see them again. Love to the Children and all Friends. What shall I say of my Brother Cranch? I long and yet I dread to hear from him.

I hope to sign the Treaty, this Week or next or the Week after. All Points are agreed on, and nothing remains but to transcribe the Copies fair. This Government is so complicated, that Months are consumed in doing what might be done in another in an hour.4

I dont know what to do with the Lists of Articles you send me. It would be better for you to write to Ingraham & Bromfield. I will pay.

The Lyars Stick at nothing. The Paragraphs in the enclosed Paper, which respect me, are impudent Forgeries. So far from thinking that the French never meant to treat, I have been long of opinion that the English never meant to treat, and that the French, from the Sincerity of their Desire to treat, have given a too ready Attention to Maneuvres of the English which have been only insidious Hypocrisies. There have been many other Paragraphs in the London Papers respecting me, equally false, shameless and abominable—and probably will be many more.

You see too, they begin to abuse G. Washington, more than they used to do, for his just Friendship to France.

Billy Walter and the two Sparhawks have made themselves ridiculous enough, by their Attempts to propagate an Opinion, that the Massachusetts was wavering.

It is a long time indeed, since We have any News from America. We have not yet learnd that you had any News of our Acknowledgment here, on the 19 of April, now more than five Months.

Dont be too sanguine in your Expectations of Peace. I see no Probability of it, before 1784. We shall not find it, this Winter. The English will have another Campain, unless there should come from the East and West Indies, North America, and Gibraltar, better News for Us, and more disastrous for them, than I expect.

There is nothing, but their Finances, which will dispose them to Peace, and I fancy, they will find Ways to get Money for one feeble Campain more. I call it feeble for such it must be, with all their Exertions.

We read in the Gazettes of Motions in Poland, and upon the Frontiers of Turkey and Russia, but I dont see a Probability of a War breaking out. If there should, I dont see how it can hurt Us. The English however seem to flatter themselves with Hopes, that by persevering, they may give an Opportunity to Time to ripen into Existence, conjunctures, now only in Embrio. They talk of a different Posture of Things on the Continent, which may cutt out Work, for the Bourbon Family nearer home.1

These however are only the Ravings of the Refugees in Dissappointment and Despair. Such Conjunctures are to give Time to England to blott out the Navies of France and Spain, and after that bring { 383 } America to Reason. How many Years will this require. And how are their Taxes to be paid and Supplies to be raised?

In short if our Country men are Steady, the British Delusion cannot last much longer. If Americans go to playing Pranks, and furnishing their Ennemies in Europe, especially in England, especially the Refugees, with Arguments, and Hopes, it may be protracted some Years. The People of England is now so much awakened, the American War is so unpopular, and there is so strong a Party for Acknowledging our Independence without Conditions, that a little ill Success would turn the Scale. The Loss of Gibraltar, the Loss of Jamaica, the Loss of a naval Battle, any remarkable Disadvantage in the East Indies, the Loss of the Jamaica or Balic2 Fleet. The Difference between the State of the English and their Ennemies is this—any unfavourable Event would compleat their Discouragement and unite a Majority in an Acknowledgment of our Independence. Whereas many great Disasters would not induce their Ennemies to give it up.

I have received your charming letter, which you forgot to date, by Mrs. Rogers.1 Your proposal of coming to Europe to keep your papa's house and take care of his health, is in a high strain of filial duty and affection, and the idea pleases me much in speculation, but not at all in practice. I have too much tenderness for you, my dear child, to permit you to cross the Atlantic. You know not what it is. If God shall spare me and your brother to return home, which I hope will be next Spring, I never desire to know of any of my family crossing the seas again.

I am glad you have received a small present. You ask for another; and although it would be painful for me to decline the gratification of your inclination, I must confess, I should have been happier if you had asked me for Bell's British Poets.2 There is more elegance and beauty, more sparkling lustre to my eyes, in one of those volumes, than in all the diamonds which I ever saw about the Princess of Orange, or the Queen of France, in all their birth-day splendour.

I have a similar request under consideration, from your brother at P[etersburg].3 I don't refuse either, but I must take it ad referendum,4 and deliberate upon it as long as their H[igh] M[ightinesses] do upon my propositions. I have learned caution from them, and you and your brother must learn patience from me.

If you have not yet so exalted sentiments of the public good as have others more advanced in life, you must endeavour to obtain them. They are the primary and most essential branch of general benevolence, and therefore the highest honour and happiness both of men and Christians, and the indispensable duty of both. Malevolence, my dear child, is its own punishment, even in this world. Indifference to the happiness of others must arise from insensibility of heart, or from a selfishness still more contemptible, or rather detestable. But for the same reason that our own individual happiness should not be our only object, that of our relatives, however near or remote, should not; but we should extend our views to as large a circle as our circumstances of birth, fortune, education, rank, and influence extend, in order to do as much good to our fellow men as we can.

You will easily see, my dear child, that jewels and lace can go but a very little way in this career. Knowledge in the head and virtue in the heart, time devoted to study or business, instead of show and pleasure, are the way to be useful and consequently happy.

Your happiness is very near to me. But depend upon it, it is simplicity, not refinement nor elegance [that]5 can obtain it. By conquering your taste, (for taste is to be conquered, like unruly appetites and passions, or the mind is undone,) you will save yourself many perplexities and mortifications. There are more thorns sown in the path of human life by vanity, than by any other thing.

I know your disposition to be thoughtful and serene, and therefore I am not apprehensive of your erring much in this way. Yet no body can be guarded too much against it, or too early.

Overwhelmed as I have been ever since you was born, with cares such as seldom fall to the lot of any man, I have not been able to attend to the fortunes of my family. They have no resource but in absolute frugality and incessant industry, which are not only my advice, but my injunctions upon every one of them.

Yours of July 2d.1 I received being the first, since you left America. I rejoice at the Success of Your Ministry, but am sorry to hear that Your Constitution has been shock'd by a nervous Fever. Our Friend Mr. Cranch has been in a most critical Scituation. In the close of last Winter, after repeated Colds, he was seized with frequent Faintings. His Perspiration and Expectoration almost entirely Suppressed; a severe Pain in his left Side extending to his shoulder Blade with slight Deliriums and a want of Heat sufficient to give any Vigour to the Circulation came on and threatned him with speedy Dissolution. In this State he lay for some Days, at length he recovered so far as to attend Court in April Sessions. On May the 2d. AM. a Debate of great Importance came on in the House of Representatives, the Room was somewhat crouded, the Members being enjoind not to leave the House; the external Air was warm the Wind being at South and the Air of the Room much more so by the Breath of those present. The Wind changed just before the House broke up to N.E. [and] became cold and damp. By this Change of Air he was soon affected—about 4:00 PM. being then in Court he found himself so unwell as to retire. I found him with all the Symptoms of an approaching Fever. Before the next Morning a large spitting of Blood came on. In a few Hours his old Pain in his Side reaching to the Shoulder Blade, and Danger seem[ed] to be near at hand. However in a fortnight or Three Weeks his Fever somewhat subsided and he recoverd to so much Strength as to return Home tho' in a very languid State and with a low state of Bowells. I soon observed an Enlargement of his Legs which dayly encreased untill his Bowells were greatly distended and a general Anasarcous Swelling appeared. By the Assiduity uncom• { 386 } mon Care and judicious Management of his tender Consort and a succesful Operation of medicines, His Health is in a great Measure restored. He is now on a Journey to Haverhill, Newbury Port, Kittery &c. Heaven I trust has reserved both You and Him for further Services and may Gracious Heaven keep You both in Health.

We have suffered much in this State by a severe Drought. The smallest Quantity of Rain has fallen for Three Months, that has been remembered. The Water above the Bridge at the Iron Works in Braintree has been dried up for near Three Weeks. Our Crops of Grass were great. Our English Grain much blasted, and Syberian Wheat almost entirely cut off. Our Indian Corn is estimated at 2/3ds of a common Crop. The Drought was extended as far as Philadelphia at the Southward. It began later than with us. Their Crops of English Grain were very good.

A Medical Society is now established amongst us under the name of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the present President Edward Augustus Holyoke Esq. of Salem.2 We wish for the Aid and Communication of the Gentlemen of the Faculty in Europe. And as You are acquainted with some of the most eminent, would pray You to mention in your next, some Gentlemen both in France and Holland or elsewhere with their Titles &c. that You should judge would be for the Interest and Honor of the Society to elect as Members.

J[ohn] T[emple] Esq. since his Return to America from his last Tour to England has been questioned with Respect to his Designs &c. Pains were taken to induce the Legislature to make Enquiry into his Conduct. The Legislative Body considered it as belonging to the Executive, the supreme Executive at length directed the State Attorney to take it up, he presented a Bill, the Grand Jury returned Ignoramus, previous to this he had been laid under heavy Bonds, these he requested to be cancelled, still they are detained. At length he petitioned to the General Court that he might be released from his Bonds and have an Opportunity to lay before them Proofs of his Attachment to his Country, the Uprightness of his Intentions, the Services he had done &c. His Petition was sustained—a Committee appointed—they report in his Favour, the Consideration of it however was refered to the next Session after this. J[ames] S[ullivan] Esq. (lately one of the Justices of the Superior Court who not long since resigned his Seat and returnd to the Bar) attacked J.T. charging him with Falsehood, Toryism &c. This brought on a Paper War, which seems to be disagreable to the Friends of both. J.T. supposes his Antagonist to be the Tool of a certain Great Man and is not alone in his supposition. { 387 } Should he be proved a Tory it would be a favourable Circumstance—to [project?] in the Minds of People a Jealousy against his Rival. By the People I mean Populace to secure whom every little Art is to be practised.—After all it is generally thought that the Toryism of J.T. has been nothing more than Don Quixotism.3

Sir Guy Carlton and Admiral Digby in a Letter to General Washington Dated Aug. 2d. said to be written in Consequence of Directions from England, write as follows. “We are acquainted Sir by Authority, that Negociations for a general Peace have already commenced at Paris and that Mr. Grenville is invested with full Powers to treat with all the Powers at War and is now at Paris in the Execution of his Commission. And We are further Sir made acquainted that his Majesty in order to remove every Obstacle, to that Peace which he so ardently wishes to restore, has commanded his Ministers to direct Mr. Grenville, that the Independency of the Thirteen Provinces should be proposed by him in the first Instance instead of making it a Condition of a general Treaty; however not without the highest Confidence that the Loyalists shall be restored to their Possessions and a full Compensation made them for whatever Confiscations may have taken Place.”—This insidious Letter was published. People in general were amused for a while with the Ideas of a full Acknowledgement of American Independency and a speedy Peace. But the Eyes of People are now generally open, being pretty well satisfied that Carltons Independence is a Dependance on the King and Independance on the Parliament, &c. which is inadmissable with Americans.

On the 10th, of August Marquiss de Vaudreuil arrived here with 14 or 15 Ships of the Line from the West Indies; unfortunately the Magnifique of 74 Guns in entring the Harbour ran a ground near Lovells Island (in the Seamens Phrase) broke her Back and is ruined. Congress informed of this Event, immediately voted to present to Monsr. Lucerne for his most Christian Majesty the America a 74 now laying at Portsmouth, which seems to [be] very pleasing to People and I make no Doubt will be so to the French Nation.4 Admiral Pigot arrived sometime since at New York from the West Indies with 22 Sail of the Line. We have Accounts from thence of Embarkation, some say of Troops, some of Refugees. Some say the former destined here or to Rhode Island and the Latter to Hallifax. However a more probable Opinion is that they will bend the whole of their Force to the West Indies. Accounts from the Southward inform us that General Leslie has announced to the People of Charlestown S.C. the speedy Evacuation of that Place, and some of the Inhabitants have { 388 } made Application to be received into the Favour and Protection of their Country in consequence of it.

It gives me great Pleasure that Your Address has baffled the Arts of the British Court and that Your Patience and Perseverance has triumphed over every Opposition to Hollands Acknowledging our own Independence. This is an Event that will raise the Importance of America among the Nations in Europe, will secure her many commercial Advantages and render her Independance more compleat. As a Member of the United States I could wish Your Continuance in Europe till the Grand Object of our Wishes was obtained. As a Member of this Commonwealth and as a Friend I wish Your Presence here. Our Policy and Manners &c. are not improved of late Years. Were You to return, Your Talents would find full Exercise. But I must forbear and explain myself hereafter.

Mr. Thaxter would have received a Line with this, did I not suppose him to be on his Voyage here, if he is still with You be pleas'd to present my Regards to him. Your Connections are in Health.

I received a few days agone your favour of the 14th. of August. You say you have had a Fire for several days. I believe there has not been a week together through the whole summer without our having one. For some flakes of Snow fell, one morning in the middle of July. It is true, this has been an Extraordinary summer, but it freezes every year in the month of August here: and sometimes in the month of { 389 } June. I think upon the whole that the climate of Holland is the most agreable of the two.

I am afraid I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you before you return to America. The season is at present too far advanced to think of going by water, and I believe I shall not be able to get away from here before the snow comes, so that I shall probably not arrive before the latter end of January, in Holland.

Mr. D[ana] desires me to tell you that he has receiv'd your letter; and does not answer it because, as he has heard that the treaty is signed; you will perhaps be gone before the letter would reach you: and because he is at present indisposed: he desires you would send him a copy of the Treaty if possible, and that you would let him know whether you have bought him a scrutoire. If so he begs you would put all his papers in it but send nothing forward, for he says he expects to set of himself in the month of May.

Mr. Robbins1 dined with us to day and has just now told me he intends to make you a vis this afternoon. I hope he will find you quite recovered, and wish you were to return with him. I shall want the pleasure of your company a Wedensy very much—and wish I could offer a sufficient inducement for you to return, tomorrow or next day. I know of nothing to write that will either amuse or give you pleasure. My head is quite barren, my heart is warm. Could you look there you would find it full of good wishes for your health, happiness and pleasure. You are pleased with your visit I know, I wish I was with you. My good my amiable aunt is doing every thing to amuse you, her endeavours will not fail of suckcess I dare say—I hope the dignity of my Eliza will have a good affect upon her cousin.2 If he knew that his conduct was exaggerated much, and heard the speach of every one, I think he woul[d] never have given the cause—but—I can say nothing in vindication of him. You are expected at Milton this week. I dont know how the disappointment will be survived—by—the good folks—whose hearts beat with expectation—for the approach of—Miss { 390 } ——C[ranc]h. I want to say something to you, to provoke you to answer this, if my wishes will not induce you to write me. Five letters in three days and not one line, or one thought, of Amelia. It is mortifiing Betsy how shall I help it. Do as you aught, Miss, says yourself and you will be thought of.—Ah—ah—ah—ah.—I am going to write to Miss Watson; have you aney thing to say to her. Mr. T——r3 goes tomorrow morning. Adieu my Dear I will release you from aney more nonsence, by subscribing your friend,

The earliest instance so far located in the Adams Papers in which a passage in cipher appears is in a letter from James Lovell to JA of 14 Dec. 1780, a copy of which (also in the Adams Papers) Lovell enclosed in his letter to AA of 19 December.1 The presumption raised by the absence of any accompanying key or explanation that there had been some earlier communication in reference to the cipher, and perhaps use of it, is borne out by two letters of Lovell written six months before.2 In the letter to JA, Lovell had written that the cipher was one which had already been “communicated to Doctr. Franklin and which will serve great numbers with equal safety.” Lovell's letter to AA informed her that the cipher was being communicated to her both for her own use in letters to JA and so that she would be able to decode letters written to her in it. No instances have been found in the Adams Papers in which JA or AA employed the cipher themselves, and both continued to experience difficulty in decoding it.

A reluctance to employ the cipher and even to attempt to decode it is attributable to an aversion or hostility to the clandestine implications and attendant ambiguities of secret writing. AA had been clear on the point, and associated her husband with her view, in declining to give her attention to the cipher proffered by Lovell: “I . . . thank you for your alphabeticall cipher tho I believe I shall never make use of it. I hate a cipher of any kind and have been so much more used to deal in realities with those I love, that I should make a miserable proficiency in modes and figures. Besides my Friend is no adept in investigating ciphers and hates to be puzzeld for a meaning.”3

AA, however, with time became “more reconciled to ambiguity and ciphers, than formerly”4 when confronted by repeated instances of intercepted letters and by Lovell's affirmation in his letter of 19 Dec. 1780 that information of importance to JA and to her was being denied her because Lovell judged it safe to communicate it only in { 394 } code: “If you had not bantered me so more than once about my generally-enigmatic manner, and appeared so averse to cyphers I would have long ago enabled you to tell Mr. A some Things which you have most probably omitted, as well as to satisfy your Eve on the present Occasion.”5

Lovell responded to the modification in AA's dislike of ciphers “from the necessity of them” by enclosing another “Alphabet [i.e. key] for your use” in his letter to her of 30 Jan. 1781.6 Some months afterward, when faced with the cipher in a letter, she managed to read it with substantial help from Richard Cranch.7 Much later, upon having sight, through Lovell, of JA's letter of 21 Feb. 1782 to Secretary Livingston,8 and learning from it that JA continued to be unable to crack the code, AA undertook to induct her “dearest Friend” into its mysteries, reporting, “I have always been fortunate enough to succeed with it.”9

Lovell seems to have been the deviser of the cipher, which he employed in writing to Franklin, to Dana, and to others, as well as to the Adamses. At least it was called “M. Lovell's Cypher,” and Edmund Randolph and Madison acknowledged him as their instructor. The cipher's first recorded use was in a letter from Lovell to Horatio Gates, 1 March 1779; it had currency at least until 1784 in private communications among those in government, and seems to have been at least informally adopted for official use.10 The President of Congress, Samuel Huntington, wrote to JA in the cipher, as did R. R. Livingston after he became Secretary for Foreign Affairs.11 There were variations of Lovell's cipher, other than changes in the key-word, in use among America's representatives abroad. Dumas employed one with which Franklin was familiar, and Francis Dana sent a more complicated system based upon the same principles as Lovell's to JA from Russia.12

Lovell's cipher was of the type built upon the substitution of numerical equivalents for agreed-upon letters from a key-word or phrase. { 395 } Each of the letters adopted for use served in turn as the initial element in alphabets arranged on a sheet in parallel vertical columns. A column of corresponding numbers placed alongside these columns of alphabets provided the equivalents for the letters of encoded words, the substitutions being made alternately from two alphabets, or if more than two then in strict rotation, forward or backward as desired. Since the alphabets normally included the ampersand as a final element, the numbers used in substitution were from 1 to 27. In the cipher's purest form the numbers 28 and 29 were used at the beginning of a passage as indication that the substitutions were being made in the normal or in a reverse order, and the number 30 was used as a blind. However, more frequently all three numbers (28–30) served as blinds. Any uncoded word or words broke the continuity, the next succeeding coded passage beginning with that alphabet used at the outset of the first encoded passage, unless 28 or 29 signaled reversal.

The key letters which Lovell used and instructed others to use in communications with JA, Franklin, and Dana were the letters c and r, which he derived from and clued to (at least for JA) the name Cranch. In writing to Elbridge Gerry, Lovell used as key letters e and o, representing the second and third letters “of the maiden Name of the Wife of that Gentleman from whom I sent you a Little Money on a Lottery Score.”13 Other keys, all employing more than two alphabets, were used in ciphers of the same type by Madison and Randolph (Cupid), Jefferson and William Short (Nicholas), and Lovell with other correspondents.14

The difficulties in decoding experienced by JA, as well as by Franklin and Dana, can be attributed in part to their receiving instruction in the cipher exclusively from a distance. What was easy for domestic users by explanation and demonstration close at hand proved formidable when communicated by mail, which had to conceal as well as explain. This may account for Lovell's adopting for his tutees abroad a simplified form of the cipher in which only two letters were used as the key.

A more serious hazard was that Lovell, the expositor, was gifted with neither precision nor lucidity, and having once formulated his directions, was given more to repetition and even playful variation than to real clarification. Lovell was frequently chided, particularly by AA, for his natural bent toward obfuscation: “If Mr. L——I will { 396 } not call me Sausy I will tell him he has not the least occasion to make use of them [ciphers] himself since he commonly writes so much in the enigmatical way that nobody but his particular correspondents will ever find out his meaning.” She followed this statement with a sentence she decided not to include in the recipient's copy, attributing to JA similar sentiments about Lovell's style: “I have seen my friend sometimes rub his forehead upon the receipt of a Letter, walk the room —What does this Man mean? who can find out his meaning.”15

Lovell's first instructions to JA, communicated in May 1780, were that the “Mode ... is the Alphabet squared . . . and the key Letters are the two first of the Surname of the Family where you and I spent the Evening together before we set out from your House on our Way to Baltimore. . . . Make use of any of the perpendicular columns according to your key Letters.” To this he appended a vertical column of numbers, 1–27, a second alphabetical parallel column beginning with a and ending with &, a third and fourth column beginning with b and c respectively and carried only through the fourth letter, the rest of the “Alphabet squared” indicated by dots of elision. Aside from indicating that the key letters or key-word could be altered at will and suggesting the means to communicate the new key, there was nothing more. Explaining the cipher just afterward to AA, Lovell, less fearful of interception, added no help beyond using for his illustrative columns two alphabets in which the first letters were c and r. When AA six months later asked for help, he responded only by enclosing the same two alphabetical columns.16 His instructions to Franklin in Paris, which Franklin on request sent to Dana, differed in no essential, concentrating on the selection of the key-word or letters.17 Not until June 1781, when he wrote to JA, “I suspect that you did not before understand it from my not having said supped in Braintree,” did he undertake clarification. This time his column of numbers extended to 30, the numbers 28, 29, and 30 “to be used as Baulks in the Beginning and End or within your Words”; and apparently for the { 397 } first time explained the “rule of Sequence”: “Make 2 Columns of Letters. . . . Begin your 1st Column with the first letter and your second Column with the 2d letter of the Family Name formerly referred to. Go on to &, then follow a b &c. &c. &c. Look alternately into the Columns.”18 When Secretary Livingston unhappily concluded that JA had not understood his earlier letters in cipher, written without awareness of the difficulty, he had Lovell enclose still another explanation: “You are to form Alphabets equal in number and of the same commencement and Range, as the Letters of the first sixth part of the family Name where you and I supped last with Mrs. Adams, and you are to look alternately into these constructed Alphabets opposite to my figures, for the Elements to spell with, some figures however I may have used as Baulks.”19 Nearly a year later Lovell tried again, but in the same language.20 Livingston, meanwhile, had apparently decided to resolve the problem by adopting a different cipher: “I am sorry for the difficulty the cypher occasions you, it was one I found in the Office, and is very incomplete. I enclose one that you will find easy in the practice, and will therefore write with freedom.”21AA, during the same period, in a brave but misguided moment had decided to try her hand at explaining: “Take the two Letters for which the figure stands and place one under the other through the whole Sentance, and then try the upper Line with the under, or the under with the upper, always remembering, if one letter answers, that directly above or below must be omitted, and sometimes several must be skiped over.”22

More than two years after his first attempt at explication, Lovell wrote to JA: “I have not to this day Information that you comprehend the Cypher which I have very often used in my Letters.”23 Livingston, noting JA's lack of response, concluded earlier that JA did not comprehend “the cyphers. ... I had them from the late committee of foreign affairs, tho' they say they never received any letters from you in them.”24JA's own allusions to the cipher not only confirm fully the doubts felt in Philadelphia, but also convey an unconcern that must have had an effect there: “Your Plan of a Cypher I cannot comprehend—nor can Dr. F. his”;25 “I have Letters from the President and { 398 } from Lovell, the last unintelligible, in Cyphers, but inexplicable by his own Cypher—some dismal Ditty about my Letters of 26th July—I know not what.”26 “I am on this Occasion as on all others hitherto utterly unable to comprehend the Sense of the Passages in Cypher. ... I have been able sometimes to decypher Words enough to show, that I have the Letters right; but upon the whole I can make nothing of it, which I regret very much upon this Occasion, as I suppose the Cyphers are a very material part of your letter.”27

The frustrations attendant upon the efforts of Congress' committee and of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs to have their representatives abroad master and use the cipher derived not from JA alone. Almost a year after JA reported Franklin's inability to comprehend it, Franklin himself wrote to Dana, “If you can find the Key and decypher it, I shall be glad, having myself try'd in vain.”28 Dana, in turn, seems to have had his own difficulties. To him Livingston wrote, “I need not tell you how impatient I shall be to hear that this has reached you, since I cannot use my cipher, till I receive a line from you written in it, nor can I write with freedom to you, till I have a cipher.”29

As for JA, while it is true that he gave an impression of insouciance in reporting his inability to comprehend the encoded messages, evidence exists that he made some effort to master Lovell's instructions. To Lovell's iteration of the clue to the key letters as the source of his difficulties, JA, with asperity, wrote, “I know very well the Name of the Family where I spent the Evening with my worthy Friend Mr.—— before We set off, and have made my Alphabet accordingly. . . . The Cypher is certainly not taken regularly under the two first Letters of that Name.”30 In the Adams Papers in JA's handwriting and endorsed “cypher” by him, undated, is a complete “Alphabet squared” with a vertical numerical column, 1–27, at left. The square is without indication that the columns in which c and r are the initial letters are more important than any others. A second attempt in JA's hand, also surviving in the Papers, and illustrated in the present volume, suggests one reason why he remained unenlightened. Across the top of the sheet is an alphabet including the ampersand, at the left is a vertical column of numbers, 1–30, paralleled by three columns of alphabets with initial letters a, c, and r. Failing to understand or to heed { 399 } Lovell's belated explanation that the numbers 28–30 were “baulks,” JA utilizes these numbers in the c and r columns to begin a new alphabetical cycle. Thus, in the one column the equivalent of c is not only 1 but 28, that of d is 2 and 29, of e, 3 and 30; in the second column the same holds true for r, s, and t. The application of such a system to the material in code could only produce results unsatisfactory to all.

A further account of the kinds of difficulties that recipients experienced in decoding the Lovell cipher is presented in the Descriptive List of Illustrations in the present volume, Nos. 3 and 4. The discussion there should be read in conjunction with what has been developed here, and the pertinent facsimile illustrations themselves examined.

Examples of other ciphers constructed on systems other than numerical substitution do exist in the Adams Papers. On the various types in use during the Revolutionary period, the discussions of the subject by Burnett and Boyd should be consulted.31