TO THEODOSIA.
New-York, December 8, 1801.
By the ship Protectress you will receive all your things, together with cook and maid. To sail on the 14th. On the day of sailing I will write to you, enclosing the bills of lading.
Your interesting letter of the 23d is this day received. It brings me to the familiar acquaintance with your amiable circle, and admits me to your fireside more than any thing you have written. Mrs. Allen is here. Anna will, to all appearance, be married before spring to a merchant of the name of Pierpont. Catharine is astonished that she has not yet an answer to her letter. I have told her that she can by no possibility have one before Christmas. In your reading, I wish you would learn to read newspapers; not to become a partisan in politics, God forbid, but they contain the occurrences of the day, and furnish the standing topics of conversation. The reading of newspapers is a knack which you will acquire in six weeks, by reading, during that time, every thing. With the aid of a gazetteer and atlas, you must find every place that is spoken of. Pray, madam, do you know of what consist the "Republic of the Seven Islands?" Do you know the present boundaries of the French republic? Neither, in all probability. Then hunt them.
Now, one word of self. I came here on the 6th, and shall remain in New-York till near the 20th. Then to Washington. The business is in a prosperous way. My great love for the fine arts, especially sculpture, may detain me a week in Philadelphia. Adieu, ma belle.
A. BURR.
Footnotes:
1. Mr. Burr had left the Senate previous to the date of this memorandum.
2. This is not all. It has already been demonstrated, and the fact is notorious, that, from the year 1777 until after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the Livingstons and Clintons were not acting in concert. The Livingstons were of the Schuyler party. Before the revolutionary war there were two great contending families in the state of New York; but they were the Van Rensellaers and the Delancies. The former espoused the whig cause, the latter the cause of the tories.
3. George W. Irwin, subsequently minister to the court of Spain.