HAMILTON TO GREENE.
Albany, October 12, 1782.
Dear General:
It is an age since I have either written to you or received a line from you; yet I persuade myself you have not been the less convinced of my affectionate attachment, and warm participation in all those events which have given you that place in your country’s esteem and approbation which I have known you to deserve, while your enemies and rivals were most active in sullying your reputation.
You will perhaps learn, before this reaches you, that I have been appointed a Member of Congress. I expect to go to Philadelphia in the ensuing month, where I shall be happy to correspond with you with our ancient confidence; and I shall entreat you not to confine your observations to military subjects, but to take in the whole scope of national concerns. I am sure your ideas will be useful to me and to the public.
I feel the deepest affliction at the news we have just received of the loss of our dear and estimable friend Laurens. His career of virtue is at an end. How strangely are human affairs conducted, that so many excellent qualities could not insure a more happy fate! The world will feel the loss of a man who has left few like him behind, and America of a citizen whose heart realized that patriotism of which others only talk. I shall feel the loss of a friend I truly and most tenderly loved, and one of a very small number.
I am, dear Sir,
Truly your friend and servant,
A. Hamilton.
To General Greene.