'T is true, my dearest friend, that I have spent an anxious three weeks,
and the sight of a letter from you gave me joy beyond expression. I had
sent every post day, and every post was disappointed. I could not learn
one word with certainty. Nor can I now determine whether you are
eighty-eight miles nearer to me, or farther off than you were before.
I was greatly surprised when I heard that the enemy was in possession of
Philadelphia, without any engagement on our part. If men will not fight
and defend their own particular spot, if they will not drive the enemy
from their doors, they deserve the slavery and subjection which awaits
them. There is much, I think, comprised in that short sentence, "I shall
avoid all history and make no reflections." I think I can construe a
volume from it. I will follow the example, lest a miscarriage of this
should give triumph to an enemy.
Our affairs at the northward wear a more pleasing aspect. The sunshine
from the north gilds the dark clouds of the south, or the storm would
look dismal indeed.
It is a New England observation that in some late general orders, when
many motives and stimulatives were set before the men to excite them to
action, they were assured of conquest without once acknowledging the
superintendence of Divine Providence.
Our favorite Dr. Tillotson observes that "in all our concernments we
ought to have a particular regard to the Supreme Disposer of all things,
and earnestly to seek his favor and blessing upon all our undertakings,
but more especially in the affairs of war, in which the providence of
God is pleased many times in a very peculiar manner to interpose and
interest itself, because all war is as it were an appeal to God, and a
reference of those causes to the decision of His providence which
through pride and injustice and perverse passions of men can receive no
other determination."
'T is not more than three weeks since I thought our affairs looked in a
more prosperous train than they had done since the commencement of the
war. Though they have not taken the turn I hoped for, yet I doubt not
they will finally terminate in our favor. Providence for wise purpose
has oftentimes since the commencement of this war brought about our
deliverance by ways and means which have appeared to us the most
improbable and unlikely; has given into our hands those things which we
were destitute of, and in the greatest necessity for. So true it is,
Acknowledge Him in all thy ways and He shall direct thy paths.
To you, my dear friend, I need not excuse these moral reflections. I
have ever considered it as a happiness to be united to one whose
sentiments in religion were not only agreeable to my own, but to what I
have ever esteemed the truth.