Amsterdam, 2 December, 1781.
My dearest Friend,--Your favors of September 29 and October 21 are
before me. I avoided saying anything about Charles to save you the
anxiety which I fear you will now feel in its greatest severity a long
time. I thought he would go directly home in a short passage in the best
opportunity which would probably ever present. But I am disappointed.
Charles is at Bilbao with Major Jackson and Colonel Trumbull, who take
the best care of his education, as well as his health and behavior. They
are to go hence with Captain Hill in a good vessel of twenty guns.
Charles's health was so much affected by this tainted atmosphere, and he
had set his heart so much upon going home with Gillon, that it would
have broken it to have refused him. I desire I may never again have the
weakness to bring a child to Europe. They are infinitely better at home.
We have all been sick here, myself, Mr. Thaxter, Stevens, and another
servant, but are all better. Mr. Thaxter's indisposition has been slight
and short, mine and Stevens's long and severe.
I beg you would not flatter yourself with hopes of peace. There will be
no such thing for several years. Don't distress yourself neither about
any malicious attempts to injure me in the estimation of my countrymen.
Let them take their course and go the length of their tether. They will
never hurt your husband, whose character is fortified with a shield of
innocence and honor ten thousand fold stronger than brass or iron. The
contemptible essays made by you know who will only tend to his own
confusion. My letters have shown them their own ignorance, a sight they
could not bear. Say as little about it as I do. It has already brought
them into the true system, and that system is triumphant. I laugh and
will laugh before all posterity at their impotent rage and envy. They
could not help blushing, themselves, if they were to review their
conduct.
Dear Tom, thy letter does thee much honor. Thy brother Charles shall
teach thee French and Dutch at home. I wish I could get time to
correspond with thee and thy sister more regularly, but I cannot. I must
trust Providence and thine excellent mamma for the education of my
children. Mr. Dana and our son are well at Petersburg. Hayden has some
things for you. I hope he is arrived. I am sorry to learn you have a sum
of paper. How could you be so imprudent? You must be frugal, I assure
you. Your children will be poorly off. I can but barely live in the
manner that is indispensably demanded of me by everybody. Living is dear
indeed here. My children will not be so well left by their father as he
was by his. They will be infected with the examples and habits and
tastes for expensive living without the means. He was not. My children
shall never have the smallest soil of dishonor or disgrace brought upon
them by their father, no, not to please ministers, kings, or nations. At
the expense of a little of this, my children might perhaps ride at their
ease through life, but dearly as I love them, they shall live in the
service of their country, in her navy, her army, or even out of either
in the extremest degree of poverty, before I will depart in the smallest
iota from my sentiments of honor and delicacy; for I, even I, have
sentiments of delicacy as exquisite as the proudest minister that ever
served a monarch. They may not be exactly like those of some ministers.
I beg you would excuse me to my dear friends, to whom I cannot write so
often as I wish. I have indispensable duties which take up all my time,
and require more than I have.
General Washington has done me great honor and much public service by
sending me authentic accounts of his own and General Greene's last great
actions. They are in the way to negotiate peace. It lies wholly with
them. No other ministers but they and their colleagues in the army can
accomplish the great event.
I am keeping house, but I want a housekeeper. What a fine affair it
would be, if we could flit across the Atlantic as they say the angels do
from planet to planet! I would dart to Penn's hill and bring you over on
my wings; but, alas, we must keep house separately for some time. But
one thing I am determined on. If God should please to restore me once
more to your fireside, I will never again leave it without your
ladyship's company--no, not even to go to Congress to Philadelphia, and
there I am determined to go, if I can make interest enough to get
chosen, whenever I return. I would give a million sterling that you were
here; and I could afford it as well as Great Britain can the thirty
millions she must spend, the ensuing year, to complete her own ruin.
Farewell, farewell.