157

    To Sarah Savage Thatcher

    Philadelphia        3 February 1798

    My dear—

    Yours of the 20th January brings me the happy tidings of your being so far recovered from your illness as to be able to leave your room—But I am very much affraid you have been too precipitate not only in removing your lodging room, but in going into another so soon—Anner Lewis was not a month old when you wrote, and that day you had walked into the back room, where you intended to lodge in future—I have a thousand, million fears that you get well too fast—or think yourself well before you are able to endure the change of air in another room—

    I must add a word of caution about fire—which I have hitherto been silent upon—Last night two houses were burnt in the City—And every news-paper gives accounts of Destruction by fire in different parts of the Country— [. . . .]1

    We have yet no news from our Envoys at Paris2—My opinion continues as it has always been, we shall jog along & work through all difficulties, without a war—We have a pretty serious affair now in hand, & will be taken up on monday—One member has spit in anothers face—And as the old saying is—there is the Devil to pay3—party spirit runs high as ever—Prudence in governing the passions was never more necessary than at this moment—

    Kiss the children with a double portion to Anner Lewis, for their papa—

    * * *

    ALS, TFP. Addressed to Biddeford; franked; postmarked.