I have the honor to be, &c.
LAFAYETTE.
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON TO M. DE LAFAYETTE.
Philadelphia, January 10th, 1783.
Dear Sir,
I was honored by yours of the 14th of October last. It contains much useful information, and upon the whole exhibits a pleasing picture of our affairs in Europe. Here the scene is more chequered with good and evil; the last I think predominates. The want of money has excited very serious discontents in the army. They have formed committees. A very respectable one, with General McDougal at their head, is now here. Their demands, though strictly just, are such as Congress have not the means of satisfying. The states upon whom they call, complain of inability. Peace is wished for with more anxiety than it should be; wearied out with the length of the war, the people will reluctantly submit to the burdens they bore at the beginning of it; in short, peace becomes necessary. If the war continues we shall lean heavier upon France than we have done. If peace is made she must add one obligation more to those she has already imposed. She must enable us to pay off our army; or we may find the reward of her exertions and ours suspended longer than we could wish.
Charleston is at length evacuated; the enemy made a convention with General Greene and were suffered to depart in peace. In one of the papers I send you, you will see the general orders at going off.
The embarkation of your army, before the war in this country had closed, gave me some pain. Their stay might have answered useful political purposes, had they been at hand to operate against New York, which they will not otherwise quit.
Congress saw this in its true light, but were too delicate to mention it; I enclose their resolutions on being apprized of it. You speak of operations in America. I agree with you, that they are devoutly to be wished, both by France and by us; but if they are to depend upon operations in the West Indies, it is ten to one but they fail. The machine is too complex. If it is to be worked in any part by Spanish springs, the chance against it is still greater, for whatever the latter may be in Europe, in the West Indies they lose their elasticity.
The great cause between Connecticut and Pennsylvania has been decided in favor of the latter. It is a singular event. There are few instances of independent States submitting their cause to a Court of Justice. The day will come, when all disputes in the great republic of Europe will be tried in the same way; and America be quoted to exemplify the wisdom of the measure.