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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) GOUVERNEUR MORRIS TO JAY. - The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, vol. 1 (1763-1781)
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS TO JAY. - John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, vol. 1 (1763-1781) [1890]Edition used:The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston, A.M. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890-93). Vol. 1 (1763-1781).
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GOUVERNEUR MORRIS TO JAY.
Camp,Valley Forge, Feb. 1st, 1778. Dear Jay:
Congress have sent me here in conjunction with some other gentlemen, to regulate their army, and in truth not a little regulation hath become necessary. Our quarter-master and commissary departments are in a most lamentable situation. Opportunities have been neglected last campaign which were truly golden ones, but omnipotent fatality had, it seems, determined that the American capital should fall. Our sentiments on this occasion are so perfectly coincident that I will not enlarge. The mighty Senate of America is not what you have known it. The Continental currency and Congress have both depreciated, but in the hands of the Almighty Architect of empires, the stone which the builders have rejected may easily become head of the corner. The free, open, and undisturbed communication with the city of Philadelphia debauches the minds of those in its vicinage with astonishing rapidity. O, this State is sick even unto the death, and in Sir William [Howe] they have certainly got a most damnable physician. Just before the reduction of the forts, the enemy balanced exactly upon the point of quitting the city, and a straw would have turned in either scale. Our troops; Heu Miseros! The skeleton of an army presents itself to our eyes in a naked, starving condition, out of health, out of spirits. But I have seen Fort George in the summer of 1777. Next campaign I believe we shall banish these troublesome fellows. For Heaven’s sake, my dear friend, exert yourself strenuously in the great leading business of taxation. To that great wheel “a thousand petty spokes and small annexments are morticed and adjoined.” I earnestly entreat you and my other friends, fortia opponere pectora to that fatal system of limitation, which, if carried into execution, would be downright ruin, and in the ineffectual attempt will carry us to the brink of it. Yorktown and its neighbourhood, although nearly ninety miles from Philadelphia, already considers our money almost as waste paper. At taverns, take as specimen the following rates: breakfast and supper each, seven shillings and sixpence; dinner, ten shillings; one night’s hay for one horse, seven shillings and sixpence; oats, per quart, one shilling; toddy, per bowl, ten shillings; rum, per gill, seven shillings and sixpence; wine, per bottle, from thirty to forty shillings, and the like; you will observe this is proclamation. Hay, they tell me, hath been sold in some places at £20 proc. per ton. My love to Livingston. I shall write to him by this opportunity, if I can find time to send a long letter, which, indeed, I owe him. Remember me to Mrs. Jay, and believe me, yours,
Gouverneur Morris.
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