JAMES LOVELL TO C. W. F. DUMAS.
Philadelphia, July 10th, 1780.
Sir,
I know not how I can profess all the regard which I feel for you, without appearing, on the one hand, to do it upon slight grounds, or, on the other, to have delayed it too long.
I have been steadily in Congress without once visiting my family in Boston, since January, 1777, and from May, that year, have been a member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs; consequently, I am well informed of your truly republican spirit, your particular affection for these States, and your industry in their service, most of your numerous letters, down to December 30th, 1779, having come to hand.
The honorable gentleman who will deliver this, being also a member of Congress, has a just esteem for you, and promises himself much advantage from an opportunity of conversing with you. Mr Searle is well able to make a due return of the benefits from the fund of his intimacy with American state affairs, his extensive commercial knowledge, and his science of mankind gained by former travels.
I shall shortly write to you again by another respectable gentleman of our assembly, and I will use every means to make him the bearer of what you have so rightfully solicited, as a faithful first correspondent of our Committee, from whom you will, probably, have regular official letters under a new arrangement of a secretaryship, which has been vacant from the days of a confusion excited by an indiscreet and illiberal publication here, on the 5th of December, 1778, and which you have read with grief.
In the meantime, I hope you will receive kindly this individual testimony of cordial friendship, from, Sir, your very humble servant,
JAMES LOVELL.