Manor of Livingston, 16th September, 1779.
My Dear Col.:
I have had no earlier opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of your
very agreeable favor of the 7th instant. To yours of the ---- I
transmitted an answer by the post.
I perfectly agree in opinion with you what the enemy ought in good
feeling to attempt; but as they uniformly contravene their best
interests, and pursue measures which can produce the least possible
advantage, I conclude they will not persevere in the system of
attacking us in our weakest side--the Southern States. They may too,
by this time, have some reason for declining what a more enterprising
people would hazard at any event. I think I intimated to you that I
should not be surprised if Count D’Estaing paid a visit to our coast
this fall. Reports prevail which announce his approach. In that case
they will be as safe in New-York as at Savannah or Charleston; and
it is no slander to say, that the _safety_ of their army has all
along been their first object. I have many reasons to be anxious for
the expedition against the Six Nations. No less than the safety of
our Northern and Western frontiers depends upon its success; to say
nothing of the vast national advantages which will be derived from the
reduction of these perfidious savages. By the way, what will the world
think of our spirit and our resources, when at the very instant our
enemies, foreign and domestic, pronounced our immediate ruin from the
embarrassment of our finances, and a series of heavy calamities under
which they affirmed we were expiring, they see their grand army cooped
up in a garrison; their forts taken from them by unparalleled bravery;
the country of their Indian allies ravaged and destroyed without
a single effort for their protection; and a capital naval armament
equipped by a single State, which it required misconduct _perhaps_,
on our part, and _certainly_ the most hazardous efforts on theirs, to
defeat! I wait with great impatience for further intelligence from
General Sullivan’s army. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the
country to form a clear idea of their intended route; but if they
visit the Senecas effectually, I suppose we soon shall hear from them
at Conodeseraga, the chief Seneca town, where our State, so long ago
as 1732, made a large purchase for a settlement, to keep them in, but
which was not prosecuted on account of the turbulent and faithless
temper of the Senecas, and the want of vigor in our own Government.
I must close, or lose the opportunity by a sloop passing to New
Windsor. Be so good as to pay my most respectful compliments to His
Excellency, the family, Generals McDougal, Greene and Knox, and _if he
is still safe_, to G. Wayne; and believe me to be with great regard,
and a disposition to do you every possible service,
Your most obedient servant,
Jas. Duane.
Col. Hamilton.