Culper Senior had the contents of the above letter on its way to Washington three days later; see his letter of June 10, 1780, on p. 79.
A shorter but no less important letter reads:
New York, 31st December, 1779.
My good Friend:
When I left you at D. Bowne’s, I galloped directly to the Ferry the nearest way without stopping, and arrived there in two hours and twenty five minutes, and had there been a boat ready I might, if I chose it, have gone to meeting here in the afternoon, but you will readily imagine that I was more intent on procuring a good dinner, which I did at Brooklyn and got over before sundown....
We have no news—besides what the enclosed papers contain. The Southern Fleet, consisting of 150 sail, went out of the Hook at two o’clock on Sunday and ’tis feared that they have suffered in the dreadful storm that followed soon after. The fleet for Europe sailed the thursday before.
This goes by Hick’s boat to Great Neck, to the care of Richard Thorne. I also send a small paper bundle containing a Book for Eliza and a pair of skates for my friend Harry—of which I beg their acceptance. My respects and best wishes attend Mrs. Lawrence and the family and our two friends over the ICE. I am affectionately yours,
Wm. T. Robinson.
Another Robinson letter will be found in the notes [(125)].
It may interest some to know that this Wm. T. Robinson once owned the property 421 E. 61st Street, New York, now owned and occupied by the Colonial Dames of America. His helpful intelligence reached the spies through Joseph Lawrence of Bayside, L. I. The original documents were preserved in a manner so similar to all the rest of the Culper Jr. material as to be remarkable. The wife of Joseph Lawrence was Phebe and there were not so many that knew her maiden name, but it was Townsend and she was the daughter of the Fourth Henry Townsend. They were married in 1764 when he was 23. Their son Effingham married Anne Townsend daughter of Solomon Townsend who was Robert Townsend’s brother. A daughter of Anne and Effingham twenty three years after her mother’s death had occasion to go through the homestead and there under the eaves in the garret at the stone house she found (in 1868) this interesting correspondence that had evidently been placed there by her grandparents and had remained unobserved for nearly a century. It reached the Long Island Collection in East Hampton a few months ago, having been carefully preserved but without critical examination during the past seventy years.