By JUDGE BENJAMIN HUNTINGTON (17361800), a Connecticut public man and jurist, member of the Continental Congress and later of the first Con gress under the Constitu tion. His letters to his wife, from New York, Princeton, and Philadelphia, throw much light on the life of the members and their surroundings. - For Huntington, see Contemporaries, II, No. 163.For the Con 65. Life in Congress (1783) EAR MRS HUNTINGTON DE PRINCETON Sept 8th 1783 Since my Last Nothing Material has hapned a Dutch Minister is Dayly Expected to arrive in Philadelphia and it was Rumoured that Some of his furniture was arrived last Week This must be a Wonderful great Affair and what Congress can Do with this Great Personage in Princeton is more than Humane Wisdom can Divise [devise] for there are not Buildings Sufficient to House more Dons [gentlemen] nor. . . Indeed as many as are Already here Some are under Necessity to Go to Philadelphia once or Twice a fortnight to Breath in Polite Air. The Country so badly agrees with those Sublime & Delicate Constitutions that it is to be feared that many of them will Contract a Rusticity that Can never be wholly Purged off We have nothing here but the Necessaries and Comforts of Life and who can live so? The Agreeables of the City cannot be had in the Country I Expect no Business of Importance will be Done untill Congress Returns to that Sweet Paridice [paradise] from which they hastily took Flight in June last Since which Time an Awkward Rustication has been their Painful Situation on an Eminence in the Country where they have no Musquitoes to Serenade them in bed and in the Day they have a Prospect of no more than 30 or 40 Miles to the High Lands on [or] the Sea Coast nor can they hear the "Dutch Min- musick of Carts and Waggons on the Pavements in the City nor See the motly Crowd of Beings in those Streets. This must be Truely Distressing to Gentlemen of Taste - The The "New Ladies make less Complaint than the Gentlemen and the Jersey mus- Gentlemen who have their Ladies here seem in some Degree quitoes" were famous from Contented. The President of Congress who Belongs in the history of the Jersy is obliged to leave his Lady in Philadelphia to Keep Possession but has the Promise of a Very Genteel House tinental Congress, see Contemporaries, II, Nos. 141, 153, 155, 185, 189, 190, 209, 219; III. ister," i.e. an envoy from Holland. the earliest province. dent of Congress was not; he was a man of here if he will take it but not Knowing whether Congress The presiI will abide in Princetown or not, he is at the utmost Loss what to Do, Whether it is best for him and his wife to live Elias Bouditogether as Peasants do in the Country or for her to be at Philada as the Ladies do, and for him to Live as a Gentle- large means. man Doing Business in the Country in hopes of Retiring to the Pleasures and amusements of the City when Business is over this Matter Requiring Great Deliberation Cannot (like the Emigration of Congress in June last) be hastily Congress sat Determined Thus you See we Great Folks are not without Trouble. I hope to become a small man in a few Weeks and Retire from the Embarrassments of Dignity to the Plain & Peaceful Possessions of a Private Life not Desiring to Live without Business but to do useful Business without ye Pangs & Vanity of this Wicked World All I have Wrote is not what I Designed when I began & Consequently have not yet advanced one Step toward any Design and having nothing to Write About am at a Great Loss what to Write because it Requires more Strength of Genius to Build on Hansom [an handsome] Fabrick without Materials than with- I am Spending Money very fast but not so fast as I Could with the Same Degree of Industery in Philadelphia & it is a Mortifying Consideration that my Cash is Spent for no better Purposes, but the Great & General Concerns of a Nation must [be] attended to and the Fashions & Customs of the World are Such as Require it to be Done with Expence - A new Fashion is among the Ladies here which is the Same as at Philada The Roll is much less than formerly and is Raised to a Peak on their Forehead Frowzled and Powdered and they wear Men's Beaver Hats with a Large Tye of Gauze like a Sash or Mourning Wead [weed] about the Crown & Decorated with Feathers & Plumes on the Top which makes a very Daring Appearance The Brim of the Hat is Loped before about as low as their Eyes and is a Kind of Riding Hat They Walk Abroad and Sit in Church in the Same. Some have at Princeton because it had been mutineers at assaulted by Philadelphia in June, 1783. On the fash ions of the time, see Contemporaries, II, ch. xii; II, ch. i. For docu ments on the Confedera tion, see American them in the Same Figure made of Paper and Covered with Silk with Deep Crowns as a Beaver Hat but as this is much out of the Line of Business I was sent here to do I have not been very Particular on the Subject I might also mention the Waistcoat and Long Sleaves much like the Riding habits our Ladies wore Twenty five years ago but as they Differ some from them & having no Right to be very Much in Observation upon the Ladies I am not able to say Much on the Subject Give my love in Particular to Every Child in our Family & History Leaf Regards to Friends & Neighbors lets, No. 28. I am Dear Spouse your Most Affectionate BENJ HUNTINGTON MRS ANNE HUNTINGTON W. D. McCrackan, editor, The Huntington Letters (New York, 1897), 56-61. No. 66 is by JEAN PIERRE BRISSOT DE WARVILLE (1754-1793), a famous French Republican. In 1788 he founded a society of Friends of I 66. The West (1788) HAVE not the time, my friend, to describe to you the new country of the West; which, though at present unknown to the Europeans, must, from the nature of things, very soon merit the attention of every commercial and the Blacks," manufacturing nation. I shall lay before you at present only a general view of these astonishing settlements, and refer to another time the details which a speculative philosopher may be able to draw from them. At the foot of the Alleganies, whose summits, however, do not threaten the heavens, like those of the Andes and the Alps, begins an immense plain, intersected with hills of a gentle ascent, and watered every where with streams of all sizes; the soil and in the commission of this body came to America to inquire into the condition of the negro. He participated in the French is from three to seven feet deep, and of an astonishing Revolution fertility it is proper for every kind of culture, and it multiplies cattle almost without the care of man. : and became leader of the Girondists. Brissot was a sympathetic observer of and institu It is there that those establishments are formed, whose prosperity attracts so many emigrants; such as Kentucky, American Frankland, Cumberland, Holston, Muskingum, and Scioto. conditions The oldest and most flourishing of these is Kentucky, which began in 1775, had eight thousand inhabitants in 1782, fifty thousand in 1787, and seventy thousand in 1790. It will soon be a State. Cumberland, situated in the neighbourhood of Kentucky, contains 8000 inhabitants, Holston 5000, and Frankland 25,000. - tions. Western see Contemporaries, II, chs. xx, xxii; III. Frankland, or Franklin, now eastern Tennessee. Spain, by Orleans, conholding New trolled the Mississippi. mouth of the There is nothing to fear, that the danger from the savages will ever arrest the ardour of the Americans for extending their settlements. They all expect that the navigation of the Missisippi becoming free, will soon open to them the markets of the islands, and the Spanish colonies, for the productions with which their country overflows. But the question to be solved is, whether the Spaniards will open this navigation willingly, or whether the Americans will force it. A kind of negociation has been carried on, without effect for four years; and it is supposed, that certain States, fearing to lose their inhabitants by emigration to the West, have, in concert with the Spanish minister, opposed it . . . a number of reasons determine me to believe, that the present union will for ever subsist. A great part of the property of the Western land belongs to people of the East; Through the unceasing emigrations serve perpetually to strengthen and land their connexions; and as it is for the interest both of the companies. East and West, to open an extensive commerce with SouthAmerica, and to overleap the Missisippi; they must, and will, remain united for the accomplishment of this object. ... The Western inhabitants are convinced that this navigation cannot remain a long time closed. They are deter This prediction was justified in 1803. Ecuador. Not fulfilled entirely till the emancipation in Brazil, in 1888. mined to open it by good will or by force; and it would not be in the power of Congress to moderate their ardour. Men who have shook off the yoke of Great-Britain, and who are masters of the Ohio and the Missisippi, cannot conceive that the insolence of a handful of Spaniards can think of shutting rivers and seas against a hundred thousand free Americans. The slightest quarrel will be sufficient to throw them into a flame; and if ever the Americans shall march towards New Orleans, it will infallibly fall into their hands. . . . ... I transport myself sometimes in imagination to the succeeding century. I see this whole extent of continent, from Canada to Quito, covered with cultivated fields, little villages, and country houses. I see Happiness and Industry, smiling side by side, Beauty adorning the daughter of Nature, Liberty and Morals rendering almost useless the coercion of Government and Laws, and gentle Tolerance taking place of the ferocious Inquisition. I see Mexicans, Peruvians, men of the United States, Frenchmen, and Canadians, embracing each other, cursing tyrants, and blessing the reign of Liberty, which leads to universal harmony. But the mines, the slaves, what is to become of them? The mines will be closed, and the slaves will become the brothers of their masters. . . Our speculators in Europe are far from imagining that two revolutions are preparing on this continent, which will totally overturn the ideas and the commerce of the old the opening a canal of communication between the two oceans, and abandoning the mines of Peru. Let the imagination of the philosopher contemplate the consequences. They cannot but be happy for the human race. J. P. Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States of America. Performed in 1788 (translated, London, 1792), 474-483 passim. |