From Alexander Hamilton to John Langdon, 6 September 179[4]
To John Langdon1
Philadelphia September 6th. 179[4]2
Dear Sir.
Permit me to recommend to your civilities General Walterstoff, Governor of the Island of St. Croix;3 a Gentleman of real merit, possessing all the requisites to render an acquaintance with him valuable. He is accompanied by my particular friend Doctor Stevens.4 They are upon an excursion through the Northern States.
With esteem and regard I have the honor to be D. Sir
Your Obed. Servt
A Hamilton
John Langdon Esq.
Portsmouth.
Magazine of American History, XXI (January–June, 1889), 279.
1. Langdon, a merchant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was United States Senator from 1789 to 1801.
2. This letter is dated “1796,” but the date is almost certainly a mistake, for in early September, 1796, H was in New York City. See H to George Washington, September 5, 8, 1796. It is more likely that the letter was written in 1794 when H lived in Philadelphia and when Walterstorff visited the United States. See note 3.
3. Ernst Frederich von Walterstorff was governor general of the Danish West Indies from 1787 until July 25, 1794. On leaving office he went to the United States and traveled there until he returned to Denmark in 1796.
4. Edward Stevens, a physician educated in Edinburgh, was H’s boyhood friend in St. Croix. See H to Stevens, November 11, 1769. In addition, Stevens was H’s doctor during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. See Washington to H, September 6, 1793, note 1; H to the College of Physicians, September 11, 1793.