William Livingston to Sarah Livingston Jay, 21 August 1781
William Livingston to Sarah Livingston Jay
Trenton 21 Augt 1781
My dear Child
I have received your Letter of the 14th of March, & at the same time that of the 30th of December,1 and read them with great pleasure.
Your description of Martinico is very lovely and picturesque, and I dare say, drawn to the life. Nor is your Account of the Armory at Aranjuez less entertaining, especially as the Curiosities there, were altogether new to me.
Our political affairs have this summer assumed a very favourable Aspect. Mr Robert Morris at the head of our finances, will it is hoped extricate us out of all the difficulties we laboured under for want of Cash. Our Success in the Southern States has been astonishing, the Enemy having lost all their possessions in South Carolina except Charlestown. In Georgia, they are reduced to Savannah. In Maryland & Virginia the mighty parade of Cornwallis, is like to end like the fable of the mountain which produced a mouse. General Washington with the Troops of our Allies is beseiging New York, & we hourly expect a French fleet to co-operate with him in the reduction of that metropolis. If we succeed in this Enterprize, I think the British must abandon America, & Lord North, may if he please, go & hang himself. If the nation had any virtue remaining, they would spare him that trouble.
It is so long since we have heard of the Saraghtoga that there is the greatest reason to believe that she is lost, & that my poor John Lawrence is buried in the Ocean.2 Alas how much misery is the Ambition, of our Tyrant capable of introducing into the World!
Peter Jay came the other day with his Grand Mamma and met me at Maples Town, where we spent three or four days. In crossing Raritan River he was greatly delighted with the water, and observed to your mother that the more we went abroad, the more we saw of the World.
Remember me to Mr. Jay & Brockholst— I am your affectionate Father
Wil. Livingston
PS. I have received no Letter from Brockholst dated at L’Orient—
ALS, UkWC-A (EJ: 15). Marked: “(Duplicate)”. Addressed: “Mrs. Sarah Jay / At / Madrid”. Endorsed.
1. SLJ to William Livingston, 14 Mar. 1781, LbkC, NNC (EJ: 7349); the letter of 30 Dec. 1780 has not been found.
2. Midshipman John Lawrence Livingston, SLJ’s younger brother, was lost at sea on 18 Mar. 1781, when the ship on which he was serving, the sloop of war Saratoga, perished in a sudden storm off the Bermuda coast. In obtaining a midshipman’s berth for his son, William Livingston had declared that the “public interest requires our navy to be officered by the children of respectable families.” At the same time, he instructed his son that officers should treat their men “with respect and dignity.” Rumors of the Saratoga’s capture and John’s imprisonment prolonged the Livingston family’s and especially William Livingston’s anxiety over his son’s fate for almost a decade. Theodore Sedgwick Jr., A Memoir of the Life of William Livingston (New York, 1835), 345–47.