The General and family charge me to present their most affectionate respects. We are to receive the new Minister to-morrow morning.
DUANE TO HAMILTON.
Manor of Livingston, 16th September, 1779.
My Dear Col.:
I have had no earlier opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of your very agreeable favor of the 7th instant. To yours of the —— I transmitted an answer by the post.
I perfectly agree in opinion with you what the enemy ought in good feeling to attempt; but as they uniformly contravene their best interests, and pursue measures which can produce the least possible advantage, I conclude they will not persevere in the system of attacking us in our weakest side—the Southern States. They may too, by this time, have some reason for declining what a more enterprising people would hazard at any event. I think I intimated to you that I should not be surprised if Count D’Estaing paid a visit to our coast this fall. Reports prevail which announce his approach. In that case they will be as safe in New-York as at Savannah or Charleston; and it is no slander to say, that the safety of their army has all along been their first object. I have many reasons to be anxious for the expedition against the Six Nations. No less than the safety of our Northern and Western frontiers depends upon its success; to say nothing of the vast national advantages which will be derived from the reduction of these perfidious savages. By the way, what will the world think of our spirit and our resources, when at the very instant our enemies, foreign and domestic, pronounced our immediate ruin from the embarrassment of our finances, and a series of heavy calamities under which they affirmed we were expiring, they see their grand army cooped up in a garrison; their forts taken from them by unparalleled bravery; the country of their Indian allies ravaged and destroyed without a single effort for their protection; and a capital naval armament equipped by a single State, which it required misconduct perhaps, on our part, and certainly the most hazardous efforts on theirs, to defeat! I wait with great impatience for further intelligence from General Sullivan’s army. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the country to form a clear idea of their intended route; but if they visit the Senecas effectually, I suppose we soon shall hear from them at Conodeseraga, the chief Seneca town, where our State, so long ago as 1732, made a large purchase for a settlement, to keep them in, but which was not prosecuted on account of the turbulent and faithless temper of the Senecas, and the want of vigor in our own Government.
I must close, or lose the opportunity by a sloop passing to New Windsor. Be so good as to pay my most respectful compliments to His Excellency, the family, Generals McDougal, Greene and Knox, and if he is still safe, to G. Wayne; and believe me to be with great regard, and a disposition to do you every possible service,
Your most obedient servant,
Jas. Duane.
Col. Hamilton.