I send you every newspaper that comes out, and I send you, now and then,
a few sheets of paper, but this article is as scarce here as with you. I
would send a quire, if I could get a conveyance.
I write you now and then a line, as often as I can, but I can tell you
no news but what I send in the public papers.
We are waiting, it is said, for Commissioners; a messiah that will never
come. This story of Commissioners is as arrant an illusion as ever was
hatched in the brain of an enthusiast, a politician, or a maniac. I have
laughed at it, scolded at it, grieved at it, and I don't know but I may,
at an unguarded moment, have rip'd at it. But it is vain to reason
against such delusions. I was very sorry to see, in a letter from the
General, that he had been bubbled with it; and still more, to see, in a
letter from my sagacious friend W.,[137] at Plymouth, that he was taken
in too.
My opinion is that the Commissioners and the commission have been here
(I mean in America), these two months. The Governors, Mandamus
Councillors, Collectors and Comptrollers, and Commanders of the army and
navy, I conjecture, compose the list, and their power is to receive
submissions. But we are not in a very submissive mood. They will get no
advantage of us. We shall go on to perfection, I believe. I have been
very busy for some time; have written about ten sheets of paper, with my
own hand, about some trifling affairs,[138] which I may mention some
time or other--not now, for fear of accidents.
What will come of this labor, time will discover. I shall get nothing
by it, I believe, because I never get anything by anything that I do. I
am sure the public or posterity ought to get something. I believe my
children will think I might as well have thought and labored a little,
night and day, for their benefit. But I will not bear the reproaches of
my children. I will tell them that I studied and labored to procure a
free constitution of government for them to solace themselves under, and
if they do not prefer this to ample fortune, to ease and elegance, they
are not my children, and I care not what becomes of them. They shall
live upon thin diet, wear mean clothes, and work hard with cheerful
hearts and free spirits, or they may be the children of the earth, or of
no one, for me.
John has genius, and so has Charles. Take care that they don't go
astray. Cultivate their minds, inspire their little hearts, raise their
wishes. Fix their attention upon great and glorious objects. Root out
every little thing. Weed out every meanness. Make them great and manly.
Teach them to scorn injustice, ingratitude, cowardice, and falsehood.
Let them revere nothing but religion, morality, and liberty.
Abby and Tommy are not forgotten by me, although I did not mention them
before. The first, by reason of her sex, requires a different education
from the two I have mentioned. Of this, you are the only judge. I want
to send each of my little pretty flock some present or other. I have
walked over this city twenty times, and gaped at every shop, like a
countryman, to find something, but could not. Ask every one of them what
they would choose to have, and write it to me in your next letter. From
this I shall judge of their taste and fancy and discretion.