Philadelphia, 4 June, 1777.
I wish I could know whether your season is cold or warm, wet or dry,
fruitful or barren whether you had late frosts, whether those frosts
have hurt the fruit, the flax, the corn or vines, etc. We have a fine
season here and a bright prospect of abundance.
You will see, by the inclosed papers in a letter from my friend Parsons,
a very handsome narration of one of the prettiest exploits of this war,
a fine retaliation of the Danbury mischief. Meigs, who was before
esteemed a good officer, has acquired by this expedition a splendid
reputation. You will see by the same papers, too, that the writers here
in opposition to the Constitution of Pennsylvania are making factious
use of my name and lucubration; much against my will, I assure you, for
although I am no admirer of the form of this government, yet I think it
is agreeable to the body of the people, and if they please themselves
they will please me. And I would not choose to be impressed into the
service of one party or the other, and I am determined I will not
enlist. Besides, it is not very genteel in these writers to put my name
to a letter[174] from which I cautiously withheld it myself. However,
let them take their own way; I shall not trouble myself about it.