Philadelphia, Tuesday, 19 August, 1777.
Your obliging favor of the 5th[178] came by yesterday's post, and I
intended to have answered it by this morning's post, but was delayed by
many matters, until he gave me the slip.
I am sorry that you and the people of Boston were put to so much
trouble, but glad to hear that such numbers determined to fly. The
prices for carting which were demanded were detestable. I wish your
fatigue and anxiety may not have injured your health. Don't be anxious
for my safety. If Howe comes here, I shall run away, I suppose, with the
rest. We are too brittle ware, you know, to stand the dashing of balls
and bombs. I wonder upon what principle the Roman senators refused to
fly from the Gauls, and determined to sit with their ivory staves and
hoary beards in the porticoes of their houses, until the enemy entered
the city and, although they confessed they resembled the gods, put them
to the sword. I should not choose to indulge this sort of dignity; but I
confess I feel myself so much injured by these barbarian Britons that I
have a strong inclination to meet them in the field. This is not
revenge, I believe, but there is something sweet and delicious in the
contemplation of it. There is in our hearts an indignation against wrong
that is righteous and benevolent; and he who is destitute of it is
defective in the balance of his affections and in his moral character.
As long as there is conscience in our breasts, a moral sense which
distinguishes between right and wrong, approving, esteeming, loving the
former, and undermining and detesting the other, we must feel a pleasure
in the punishment of so eminent a contemner of all that is right and
good and just, as Howe is. They are virtuous and pious passions that
prompt us to desire his destruction, and to lament and deplore his
success and prosperity. The desire of assisting towards his disgrace is
an honest wish.
It is too late in life, my constitution is too much debilitated by
speculation, and indeed it is too late a period in the war, for me to
think of girding on a sword. But if I had the last four years to run
over again, I certainly would.