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The Philander Chase letters were written in the 18th and 19th century and therefore may contain language that we understand today as harmful or offensive. You may encounter paternalist descriptions of Native Americans, racial slurs, or sexism. For more information, see our policy page.
Date
10-18-1806
Keywords
Business Memorandum; New England; Jedebiah Fay; Colonel Hinkley
Recommended Citation
Chase, Philander, "Letter to Unknown" (1806). Philander Chase Letters. 28.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/28
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Transcript
What you wrote concerning the promising youth, son to your worthy friend and Brother. Lawyer Col: Hinkley, excites my warmest sympathy. What could have induced him to so unguarded a [?]. Little did he know of that world into which he so rashly launched, without a pilot and without a friend. I have made inquiry of the keeper of the Coffeehouse who is generally known and knowing throughout this town, and can gain no tidings. No such person, he is confident, is amoung us. Please present my best respects to his excellent parents and assure them that, should it please Providence to throw their dear son in my way, I shall spare no pains to do him service, and will immediately write you on the subject.
I find, with a kind of delight that fills my eyes with tears, that you have anticipated the request made in my last letter concerning our dear and revered mother Mrs. Fay. The knowledge of your benevolent heart might have spared me the [?] of saying anything on the subject. “The is nigh you” and that is enough. Yet I can’t refrain from a solemn and serious request to put her expenditures to my Dr.-- It is my duty to minister to her wants and you have enough to do besides. Be not too covetous of doing good. You have engrossed “all the dear branches of our [?] parents”, leave some gleanings for your kinsmen, the [?] in the south who have heard of the fame of Boar and [?] would linger around his fields.
You mention “your family circles in Vermont”--Pray don’t, when they take place, forget to be religious and and pray for “absent friends”. They are with you in imagination, I’ll appease you, and never cease to entreat the Good God to watch over you and grant you his [?] blessings, from Heaven above and earth beneath.
As the state of the Lot, if it should prove that a demand for all cash should essentially diminish its price, as it probably will in that place. I should have no objections to ⅓ money and the rest [?] by a bond and mortgage with the lawful interest of that state for any number of years. What think you of it? Only fix the business that if it should please God I ever go back to my native land I may never be obliged to visit a place where I have been so used and so unfortunate. Blessed be God that I have left it. When I did so it formed a new and happy epoch in the history of my humble life.
You mention the note you have according to my request delivered to my brother in law Mr. Judiah Fay. All is well except one item in the mode in which I hoped, for pure delicacy and good will, the business would be [?]. Instead of having the interest subject to my order I wished it to be that of his mother (or [?] as the case there was). This I thought would take off the edge of the business--manifest my willingness to assist him and the family and at the same time do justice to my own wife and family should I be taken from them. [?] be not already finished pray have the thing done in this way. I want the interest to be [?] from him to his mother while she lives. [?] all as it is--it may with other little [?] be of service to her. Why this Brother Jed of ours does not write to us I can not imagine. Could he have misapprehended this affair so far as to be out of humour with us? As to Dr. [?]-I am equally astonished with you. That the money could have been sent sooner is hardly possible for him to suppose: for every little inspection might convince him that the money left me some month before it was done--and as to Woodstock Bills, what reasonable man can complain at the lawful [?] money of the Country of which he is an inhabitant, and in whose government he has a voice equal to any. I may as well complain that my debts are not paid in Rupees, the currency of the Indies. Have the goodness to manage this affair in your own way.