Philadelphia, 25 August, 1776.
The day before yesterday, and yesterday, we expected letters and papers
by the post, but by some accident or mismanagement of the riders no post
is arrived yet which has been a great disappointment to me. I watch with
longing eyes for the post, because you have been very good, of late, in
writing by every one. I long to hear that Charles is in as fair a way
through the distemper as the rest of you.
Poor Barrell is violently ill, in the next chamber to mine, of an
inflammatory fever. I hear every cough, sigh, and groan. His fate hangs
in a critical suspense. The least thing may turn the scale against him.
Miss Quincy is here, very humanely employed in nursing him. This
goodness does her honor. Mr. Paine has recovered of his illness, and, by
present appearances, is in better health than before. I hope it will not
be my fate to be sick here. Indeed, I am not much afraid of these acute
disorders; mine are more chronical, nervous, and slow. I must have a
ride. I cannot make it do without it.
We are now approaching rapidly to the autumnal equinox, and no great
blow has yet been struck, in the martial way, by our enemies, nor by us.
If we should be blessed, this year, with a few storms as happy as those
which fell out last year in the beginning of September, they will do
much for us. The British fleet, where they now lie, have not a harbor so
convenient or safe as they had last year. Another winter will do much
for us too. We shall have more and better soldiers. We shall be better
armed. We shall have a greater force at sea. We shall have more trade.
Our artillery will be greatly increased, our officers will have more
experience and our soldiers more discipline, our politicians more
courage and confidence, and our enemies less hope. Our American
commonwealths will be all completely formed and organized, and
everything, I hope, will go on with greater vigor.
After I had written thus far, the post came in and brought me your favor
of the 14th of August. Abby by this time, I conclude, is well, and
Charles, I hope, is broken out. Don't you recollect, upon this occasion,
Dr. Byles's benediction to me when I was inoculated? As you will see the
piquancy of it now, more than ever you could before, I will tell the
story.
After having been ten or eleven days inoculated, I lay lolling on my bed
in Major Cunningham's chamber, under the tree of liberty, with half a
dozen young fellows as lazy as myself, all waiting and wishing for
symptoms and eruptions; all of a sudden appeared at the chamber door the
reverend Doctor with his rosy face, many-curled wig, and pontifical air
and gait. "I have been thinking," says he, "that the clergy of this town
ought, upon this occasion, to adopt the benediction of the Romish
clergy, and, when we enter the apartment of the sick, to say in the
foreign pronunciation, '_Pax tecum_.'" These words are spoken by
foreigners, as the Dr. pronounced them, _Pox take 'em_. One would think
Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of the system of gravitation did not
require a deeper reach of thought than this frivolous pun.
Your sentiments of the importance of education in women are exactly
agreeable to my own. Yet the _femmes savantes_ are contemptible
characters. So is that of a pedant universally, how muchsoever of a male
he may be. In reading history, you will generally observe, when you
light upon a great character, whether a general, a statesman, or
philosopher, some female about him, either in the character of a mother,
wife, or sister, who has knowledge and ambition above the ordinary level
of women, and that much of his eminence is owing to her precepts,
example, or instigation, in some shape or other. Let me mention an
example or two. Sempronius Gracchus and Caius Gracchus, two great though
unfortunate men, are said to have been instigated to their great actions
by their mother, who, in order to stimulate their ambition, told them
that she was known in Rome by the title of the mother-in-law of Scipio,
not the mother of the Gracchi. Thus she excited their emulation and put
them upon reviving the old project of an equal division of the conquered
lands (a genuine republican measure, though it had been too long
neglected to be then practicable), in order to make their names as
illustrious as Scipio's.
The great Duke who first excited the Portuguese to revolt from the
Spanish monarchy was spurred on to his great enterprise by a most artful
and ambitious wife, and thus indeed you will find it very generally.