Philadelphia, 27 July, 1777.
If it should be the design of Providence that you should live to grow
up, you will naturally feel a curiosity to learn the history of the
causes which have produced the late Revolution of our Government. No
study in which you can engage will be more worthy of you.
It will become you to make yourself master of all the considerable
characters which have figured upon the stage of civil, political, or
military life. This you ought to do with utmost candor, benevolence, and
impartiality; and if you should now and then meet with an incident which
shall throw some light upon your father's character, I charge you to
consider it with an attention only to truth.
It will also be an entertaining and instructive amusement to compare our
American Revolution with others that resemble it. The whole period of
English history, from the accession of James the First to the accession
of William the Third will deserve your most critical attention.
The History of the Revolutions in Portugal, Sweden, and Rome, by the
Abbot de Vertot, is well worth your reading.
The separation of the Helvetic Confederacy from the dominion of the
House of Austria is also an illustrious event, that particularly
resembles our American struggle with Great Britain.
But above all others I would recommend to your study the history of the
Flemish Confederacy, by which the seven United Provinces of the
Netherlands emancipated themselves from the domination of Spain.
There are several good histories of this great revolution. Sir William
Temple's is short but elegant and entertaining. Another account of this
period was written by Puffendorf, and another by Grotius.
But the most full and complete history that I have seen is one that I am
now engaged in reading. It is entitled "The History of the Wars of
Flanders," written in Italian by that learned and famous Cardinal
Bentivoglio, Englished by the Right Honorable Henry, Earl of Monmouth.
The whole work illustrated with a map of the seventeen Provinces and
above twenty figures of the chief personages mentioned in the history.
Bentivoglio, like Clarendon, was a courtier, and on the side of monarchy
and the hierarchy. But allowances must be made for that.
There are three most memorable sieges described in this history, those
of Haerlem, Leyden, and Antwerp.
You will wonder, my dear son, at my writing to you at your tender age
such dry things as these; but if you keep this letter, you will in some
future period thank your father for writing it.