Philadelphia, 22 May, 4 o'clock in the morning.
After a series of the severest and harshest weather that ever I felt in
this climate, we are at last blessed with a bright sun and a soft air.
The weather here has been like our old easterly winds to me and
southerly winds to you. The charms of the morning at this hour are
irresistible. The streaks of glory dawning in the east, the freshness
and purity in the air, the bright blue of the sky, the sweet warblings
of a great variety of birds intermingling with the martial clarions of a
hundred cocks now within my hearing, all conspire to cheer the spirits.
This kind of puerile description is a very pretty employment for an old
fellow whose brow is furrowed with the cares of politics and war. I
shall be on horseback in a few minutes, and then I shall enjoy the
morning in more perfection. I spent last evening at the war office with
General Arnold. He has been basely slandered and libeled. The regulars
say "he fought like Julius Caesar."[173] I am wearied to death with the
wrangles between military officers, high and low. They quarrel like cats
and dogs. They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and
pay like apes for nuts. I believe there is no one principle which
predominates in human nature so much, in every stage of life from the
cradle to the grave, in males and females, old and young, black and
white, rich and poor, high and low, as this passion for superiority.
Every human being compares itself in its imagination with every other
round about it, and will find some superiority over every other, real or
imaginary, or it will die of grief and vexation. I have seen it among
boys and girls at school, among lads at college, among practitioners at
the bar, among the clergy in their associations, among clubs of friends,
among the people in town-meetings, among the members of a House of
Representatives, among the grave councillors on the more solemn bench of
justice, and in that awfully august body, the Congress, and on many of
its committees, and among ladies everywhere; but I never saw it operate
with such keenness, ferocity, and fury as among military officers. They
will go terrible lengths in their emulation, their envy, and revenge in
consequence of it.
So much for philosophy. I hope my five or six babes are all well. My
duty to my mother and your father, and love to sisters and brothers,
aunts and uncles. Pray how does your asparagus perform? etc. I would
give three guineas for a barrel of your cider. Not one drop is to be had
here for gold, and wine is not to be had under six or eight dollars a
gallon, and that very bad. I would give a guinea for a barrel of your
beer. The small beer here is wretchedly bad. In short, I can get nothing
that I can drink, and I believe I shall be sick from this cause alone.
Rum, at forty shillings a gallon, and bad water will never do in this
hot climate in summer, when acid liquors are necessary against
putrefaction.