My dearest Friend,--Your favor of December 9th came to hand this evening
from Philadelphia. By the same post I received a letter from Mr. Lovell,
transcribing some passages from one of the same date to him, and the
only one, he says, which he has received since your absence, and his
pocket-book proves that he has written eighteen different times; yet
possibly you may have received as few from him. The watery world alone
can boast of large packets received,--a discouraging thought when I take
my pen. Yet I will not be discouraged. I will persist in writing, though
but one in ten should reach you. I have been impatient for an
opportunity, none having offered since January, when the _Alliance_
sailed, which, my presaging mind assures me, will arrive safe in France,
and I hope will return as safely.
Accept my thanks for the care you take of me, in so kindly providing for
me the articles you mention. Should they arrive safe, they will be a
great assistance to me. The safest way, you tell me, of supplying my
wants is by drafts; but I cannot get hard money for bills. You had as
good tell me to procure diamonds for them; and, when bills will fetch
but five for one, hard money will exchange ten, which I think is very
provoking; and I must give at the rate of ten, and sometimes twenty, for
one, for every article I purchase. I blush whilst I give you a price
current: all butcher's meat from a dollar to eight shillings per pound;
corn twenty-five dollars, rye thirty, per bushel; flour fifty pounds per
hundred; potatoes ten dollars per bushel; butter twelve shillings a
pound, cheese eight; sugar twelve shillings a pound; molasses twelve
dollars per gallon; labor six and eight dollars a day; a common cow from
sixty to seventy pounds; and all English goods in proportion. This is
our present situation. It is a risk to send me anything across the
water, I know; yet if one in three arrives, I should be a gainer. I have
studied, and do study, every method of economy in my power; otherwise a
mint of money would not support a family. I could not board our two sons
under forty dollars per week apiece at a school. I therefore thought it
most prudent to request Mr. Thaxter to look after them, giving him his
board and the use of the office, which he readily accepted, and, having
passed the winter with me, will continue through the summer, as I see no
probability of the times speedily growing better.
We have had much talk of peace through the mediation of Spain, and great
news from Spain, and a thousand reports, as various as the persons who
tell them. Yet I believe slowly, and rely more upon the information of
my friend than on all the whole legion of stories which rise with the
sun, and set as soon. Respecting Georgia,[205] other friends have
written you. I shall add nothing of my own, but that I believe it will
finally be a fortunate event to us.
Our vessels have been fortunate in making prizes, though many were taken
in the fall of the year. We have been greatly distressed for [want of]
grain. I scarcely know the looks or taste of biscuit or flour for this
four months; yet thousands have been much worse off, having no grain of
any sort.
The great commotion raised here by Mr. Deane has sunk into contempt for
his character; and it would be better for him to leave a country which
is now supposed to have been injured by him. His friends are silent, not
knowing how to extricate him. It would be happy for him if he had the
art himself. He most certainly had art enough, in the beginning, to blow
up a flame, and to set the whole continent in agitation.