Boston, 25 October, 1777.
The joyful news of the surrender of General Burgoyne and all his army,
to our victorious troops, prompted me to take a ride this afternoon with
my daughter to town, to join, to-morrow, with my friends in thanksgiving
and praise to the Supreme Being who hath so remarkably delivered our
enemies into our hands. And, hearing that an express is to go off
to-morrow morning, I have retired to write you a few lines. I have
received no letters from you since you left Philadelphia, by the post,
and but one by any private hand. I have written you once before this. Do
not fail of writing by the return of this express, and direct your
letters to the care of my uncle, who has been a kind and faithful hand
to me through the whole season, and a constant attendant upon the
post-office.
Burgoyne is expected in by the middle of the week. I have read many
articles of capitulation, but none which ever before contained so
generous terms. Many people find fault with them, but perhaps do not
consider sufficiently the circumstances of General Gates, who, by
delaying and exacting more, might have lost all. This must be said of
him, that he has followed the Golden Rule, and done as he would wish
himself, in like circumstances, to be dealt with. Must not the vaporing
Burgoyne, who, it is said, possesses great sensibility, be humbled to
the dust? He may now write the "Blockade of Saratoga."[183] I have
heard it proposed that he should take up his quarters in the Old South,
but believe he will not be permitted to come to this town. Heaven grant
us success at the southward. That saying of Poor Richard often occurs to
my mind, "God helps them who help themselves;" but if men turn their
backs and run from an enemy, they cannot surely expect to conquer him.
This day, dearest of friends, completes thirteen years since we were
solemnly united in wedlock. Three years of this time we have been
cruelly separated. I have, patiently as I could, endured it, with the
belief that you were serving your country and rendering your
fellow-creatures essential benefits. May future generations rise up and
call you blessed, and the present behave worthy of the blessings you are
laboring to secure to them, and I shall have less reason to regret the
deprivation of my own particular felicity. Adieu, dearest of friends,
adieu.