23

    To Sarah Savage Thatcher

    New York City        1 October 1788

    Dear Sally—

    If it affords you any pleasure to hear of my being home-sick, this must be a most gratefull epistle, for it will tell you the news—and I declare it tells the truth, that I am very home-sick—never more so in my life, and have been so for several days; upon the whole I think it increases, notwithstanding my endeavour to put home out of my mind—But this endeavour, I find very much resembles good people’s attempting to comfort and console one another under heavy afflictions—it only makes home so much the more charming, and absence the more irksom—

    This is a cold, cloudy, day—I have got a fire in my chamber—I hate to stur out; but still I had rather be seting by our own fire at Biddeford with the family about us—In mine of yesterday, or the day before I desired you not to write me after the eighteenth of this month;1 if I had requested you not to write me again after the receipt of that Letter, it would have been as well, for I am doubtfull whether I shall be here to the end of this month—

    I told you there was an addition going to be made to the Building Congress now sets in—Twenty or thirty people are daily to work upon this; and the house we now set in must, immediately, be unroofed2—And Congress must of course adjourn to some other house for the present—There is none where they can be very well accommodated, and I should not wonder if an adjournment without day3 should take place—If this should be the case you may look for me some time in this month—

    According to my plan you will now call for the news & politics—

    The southern mail arrived to day about twelve, & brings account of the Pennsylvania election, which was yesterday at Philadelphia—Robert Morris, & William McClay were choosen federal Senators for that State4—The former lives in the City of Philadelphia—and is the greatest Merchant, perhaps, in all America—He was for several years Financier-General of the United States, in which Office, he acquired immence Riches—whether honestly or dishonestly—is not for you or I me to determine, nor is it of any consequence to us now—And it may be enough to regulate his future Conduct for him to know, which I believe he does, that the people in general think pretty independently upon this subject; and three to one dont hesitate to say, in speaking of his wealth, that ill-gotten Riches are of short duration

    Wm. McClay, the other Senator—was originally a Lawyer—he lives now on a large Farm upon the River Susquehanna about one hundred & ten or twenty miles from Philadelphia; he is a member of Council in that State;5 and highly respected by the Landed interest, as Morris is by the mercantile

    I hope to be able, in my next, to give you a more particular detail of these two Senators—their Characters—and the views of the parties that choose them—It is an object with me to acquire as accurate a knowledge, as possible, of the Members of the first Congress under the new Constitution—

    adieu, my dear—the first part of this Letter will please you—& the latter our friends Silas [Lee], [Jeremiah] Hill, &c &c

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    FC, TFP