Philadelphia, 19 March.
Yesterday I had the long expected and much wished pleasure of a letter
from you, of various dates from the 2d to the 10th March. This is the
first line I have received since I left you. I wrote you from Watertown,
I believe, relating my feast at the Quartermaster-general's with the
Caghnawaga Indians, and from Framingham an account of the ordnance
there, and from New York I sent you a pamphlet. Hope you received these.
Since I arrived here I have written to you as often as I could.
I am much pleased with your caution in your letter, in avoiding names
both of persons and places, or any other circumstances which might
designate to strangers the writer, or the person written to, or the
persons mentioned. Characters and description will do as well.
The lie which you say occasioned such disputes at the tavern was curious
enough. Who could make and spread it? I am much obliged to an uncle for
his friendship. My worthy fellow-citizens may be easy about me. I never
can forsake what I take to be their interests. My own have never been
considered by me in competition with theirs. My ease, my domestic
happiness, my rural pleasures, my little property, my personal liberty,
my reputation, my life, have little weight and ever had in my own
estimation, in comparison with the great object of my country. I can say
of it with sincerity, as Horace says of virtue, "To America only and her
friends a friend."
You ask what is thought of "Common Sense." Sensible men think there are
some whims, some sophisms, some artful addresses to superstitious
notions, some keen attempts upon the passions, in this pamphlet. But all
agree there is a great deal of good sense delivered in clear, simple,
concise, and nervous style. His sentiments of the abilities of America,
and of the difficulty of a reconciliation with Great Britain, are
generally approved. But his notions and plans of continental government
are not much applauded. Indeed, this writer has a better hand in pulling
down than building. It has been very generally propagated through the
continent that I wrote this pamphlet. But although I could not have
written anything in so manly and striking a style, I flatter myself I
should have made a more respectable figure as an architect, if I had
undertaken such a work. This writer seems to have very inadequate ideas
of what is proper and necessary to be done in order to form
constitutions for single colonies, as well as a great model of union for
the whole.
Your distresses, which you have painted in such lively colors, I feel in
every line as I read. I dare not write all that I think upon this
occasion. I wish our people had taken possession of Nook's Hill at the
same time when they got the other heights, and before the militia was
dismissed.
Poor cousin! I pity him. How much soever he may lament certain
letters,[131] I don't lament. I never repent of what was no sin.
Misfortunes may be borne without whining. But if I can believe Mr.
Dana, those letters were much admired in England. I can't help laughing
when I write it, because they were really such hasty, crude scraps. If I
could have foreseen their fate, they should have been fit to be seen,
and worth all the noise they have made. Mr. Dana says they were
considered in England as containing a comprehensive idea of what was
necessary to be done, and as showing resolution enough to do it.
Wretched stuff as they really were, according to him they have
contributed somewhat towards making certain persons to be thought the
greatest statesmen in the world. So much for vanity.
My love, duty, respects, and compliments wherever they belong. Virginia
will be well defended. So will New York. So will South Carolina. America
will erelong raise her voice aloud and assume a bolder air.