I have immediately on the receipt of your letter taken measures for the publication of your advertisement in the newspapers of this State.
You will perceive by the inclosed cash account that I have received five and twenty hundred dollars; this was procured in part of the loan I mentioned to you. It was chiefly paid to me in specie, and I have exchanged it with Colonel Pickering and Mr. Duer for your notes; the latter had twelve hundred dollars. Taxes collect slowly, but I must shortly receive two or three hundred pounds more, of which Mr. Duer will have the principal benefit, as it appears by your letter to him, that you hoped he might receive three thousand dollars from me.
As I may shortly set out for Philadelphia, I wish to surrender to Mr. Tillotson, as soon as you think proper, the office in which he is to succeed.
I have the honor to be,
With sincere respect and esteem,
Sir, your most obedient servant,
Alex. Hamilton.
HAMILTON TO LA FAYETTE.
Albany, November 3, 1782.
Since we parted, my dear Marquis, at Yorktown, I have received three letters from you; one written on your way to Boston, two from France. I acknowledge that I have written to you only once; but the reason has been, that I have been taught daily to expect your return. This I should not have done from my own calculations; for I saw no prospect but of an inactive campaign; and you had much better be intriguing for your hobby-horse at Paris, than loitering away your time here. Yet they seem to be convinced, at head quarters, that you were certainly coming out; and by your letters it appears to have been your own expectation. I imagine you have relinquished it by this time.
I have been employed for the last ten months in rocking the cradle and studying the art of fleecing my neighbors. I am now a grave counsellor-at-law, and shall soon be a grave member of Congress. The Legislature, at their last session, took it into their heads to name me, pretty unanimously, one of their delegates.
I am going to throw away a few months more in public life, and then retire a simple citizen and good paterfamilias. I set out for Philadelphia in a few days. You see the disposition I am in. You are condemned to run the race of ambition all your life. I am already tired of the career, and dare to leave it. But you would not give a pin for my letter unless politics or war made a part of it. You tell me they are employed in building a peace: and other accounts say it is nearly finished. I hope the work may meet with no interruptions. It is necessary for America; especially if your army is taken from us, as we are told will soon be the case. That was an essential point d’appui, though money was the primum mobile of our finances, which must now lose the little activity lately given them. Our trade is prodigiously cramped. These States are in no humor for continuing exertions. If the war lasts, it must be carried on by external succors. I make no apology for the inertness of this country: I detest it: but since it exists, I am sorry to see other resources diminish.
Your Ministers ought to know best what they are doing; but if the war goes on, and the removal of the army does not prove an unwise measure, I renounce all future pretensions to judgment. I think, however, the circumstances of the enemy oblige them to peace.