12.]

CORRESPONDENCE.

ON TO EDWARD STEVENS.

ST. CROIX, Nov. 11, 1769.

This serves to acknowledge the receipt of yours per Capt. Lowndes, which was delivered me yesterday. The truth of Captains Lightbowen and Lowndes' information is now verified by the presence of your father and sister, for whose safe arrival I pray, and that they may convey that satisfaction to your soul that must naturally flow from the sight of absent friends in health; and shall, for news this way, refer you to them. As to what you say respecting your soon having the happiness of seeing us all, I wish for an accomplishment of your hopes, provided they are concomitant with your welfare, otherwise not; though I doubt whether I shall be present or not, for, to confess my weakness, Ned, my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it; but I mean to prepare the way for futurity. I'm no philosopher, you see, and may justly be said to build castles in the air; my folly makes

me ashamed, and beg you'll conceal it; yet, Neddy seen such schemes successful when the projector is shall conclude by saying, I wish there was a war.

P. S. I this moment received yours by William am pleased to see you give such close application to study.

HAMILTON TO TILEMAN CRUGER.

ST. CROIX, Nov. 16, 1771.

In behalf of Mr. Nicholas Cruger, (who, by reason of a very ill state of health, went from this to New-York, the 15th ult.,) I have the pleasure to address you by the long-expected sloop Thunderbolt, Capt. William Newton, owned by Messrs. Jacob Walton, John Harris, and Nicholas Cruger, the latter of whom has written you fully concerning her destination, which I need not repeat. She has on board besides a parcel of lumber for yourself, sundry articles on account of her owners as per inclosed bill of lading; and when you have disposed of them, you will please to credit each partner for one third of the proceeds.

Mr. N. Cruger's proportion of this, and the balance of your account hitherto, will more than pay for his one third cost of her first cargo up; and for the other two, I shall endeavor to place value in your hands betimes. I only wish for a line from you to know what will best answer.

Reports here represent matters in a very disagreeable light, with regard to the Guarda Costas, which are said to swarm upon the coast; but as you will be the best judge of what danger there might be, all is submitted to your prudent direction.

Capt. Newton must arm with you, as he could not so conveniently do it here. Give me leave to hint to you that you cannot be too particular in your instructions to him. I think he seems to want experience in such voyages. Messrs. Walton and

John H. Cruger are to furnish you themselves with their respective proportion of the cost of the several cargoes.

The staves on board, if by any means convenient, I beg may be returned by the sloop, they will command a good price here, and I suppose little or nothing with you; could they be got at I would not send them down, but they are stowed promiscuously among other things.

If convenient, please to deliver the hogsheads, now containing the Indian meal, to the captain as water casks, and others should he want them. I supplied him with twenty here. I must beg your reference to Mr. Cruger's last letter of the 2d ult. for other particulars.

Our crop will be very early, so that the utmost dispatch is necessary to import three cargoes of mules in due time.

TO CAPTAIN WILLIAM NEWTON.

ST. CROIX, Nov. 16, 1771.

Herewith I give you all your dispatches, and desire you will proceed immediately to Curracoa. You are to deliver your cargo there to Tileman Cruger, Esq., agreeably to your bill of lading, whose directions you must follow in every respect concerning the disposal of your vessel after your arrival.

You know it is intended that you shall go from thence to the main for a load of mules, and I must beg if you do, you'll be very choice in the quality of your mules, and bring as many as your vessel can conveniently contain-by all means take in a large supply of provender. Remember, you are to make three trips. this season, and unless you are very diligent you will be too late, as our crops will be early in. Take care to avoid the Guarda Costas. I place an entire reliance upon the prudence of your conduct.

NEW-YORK, AUGUST 31, 1776.

PAY-BOOK

OF THE

State Company of Artillery,

COMMANDED BY

ALEX'R HAMILTON.

Specimen of Notes scattered throughout this Pay-Book.

The Dutch in the Greenland fishery have from 150 to 200 sail and ten thousand seamen.

It is ordered that in their public prayers they pray that it would please God to bless the Government-the Lords-the States and their great and small fisheries.

Hamburgh and Germany has a balance against Englandthey furnish her with large quantities of linen.

Trade with France greatly against England.

The trade with Flanders in favor of England.

A large balance in favor of Norway and Denmark.

Rate of Exchange with the several Nations in 52, viz.: To Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburgh.

To Paris-Loss, Gain.

Postlethwaite supposes the quantity of cash necessary to carry on the circulation in a State one third of the rents to the land proprietors, or one ninth of the whole product of the lands.

See the articles Cash and Circulation.

Messagers in his Secret Memoirs says, that when he returned with an account to Lewis XIV. that the Spaniards would not come into his project for attacking Jamaica, the Monarch was much chagrined at their refusal, and said, "They were the most stupid wise people in the world."

The par betwen land and labor is twice the quantity of land whose product will maintain the laborer. In France one acre and a half will maintain one. In England three, owing to the difference in the manner of living.

Aristotle's Politics, chap. 6, definition of money, &c.

The proportion of gold and silver, as settled by Sir Isaac Newton's proposition, was 1 to 14. It was generally through Europe 1 to 15. In China I believe it is 1 to 10.

It is estimated that the labor of twenty-five persons, on an average, will maintain a hundred in all the necessaries of life.

Postlethwaite, in his time, supposes six millions of people in England. The ratio of increase has been found by a variety of observations to be, that 100,000 people augment annually, one