I received yours from of the 23d May from Madrid with Duplicates thereof & ^of^ the Letters you wrote from Cadiz & Martinico. The original of the first of these came to hand shortly after I wrote my Letters of the 22d. Decr. The last never— You had I flatter myself before this time recd four Letters which I directed to the care of Doctr Frankling.1 I shd send you Duplicates of them where it not that having been home not long since I have left all my papers there for which I had no immediate want & the drafts among them— Your remembrance of the pleasurable days of our youth & the scenes in which we mutualy bore our parts together with the attractions which this country still has for you afford me the most pleasing hope that neither time nor absence will weaken a friendship which has so long stood the test of both This indeed I hope and that the hour may yet arrive in which we may again This indeed I expected from the steadiness of your temper but I must confess I had little hope that yr speedy return would afford me a prospect of deriving that same consolation from it in the decline of life to which I looked even while it animated the pursuits & pleasures of youth—I will You fear mistake your own heart when you say you are unambitious & without the assurance you have given me I should have believed that that ambition would have kept you continualy in the line in which you now are—more especially as the general satisfaction that your appointmnt. & particularly your conduct since has given—will render it the wish of every body less interested in your return than I am to keep you abroad.

You tell me nothing of Mrs. Jay tho I am the more interested in hearing of her health as I am told she is lik[l]ie soon to encrease the Diplomatick body— Present my best complts to her and tell her that on reading her letter to her mother from Martinique I partook both in the pain & pleasures of her voyage.2 I believe I told you not long since that I had seen your son & Jersey friends who were all well since when I have heard nothing from them but that they are still so. Your son is a very fine boy We have already talked of a match between him & my girl & I have accordingly rejected many advantageous proposals. Mrs. Livingston about whom you are so obliging as to inquire is very well—

I have not been able to procure the means of using the cypher you direct me to;3 besides which it is extremely troublesome & difficult. I shall therefore be obliged to confine what I have to say to meer common occurences & inclose a cypher which you will find very easy & utterly impossible to decypher while the key is concealed as the same figure serves to express a variety of letters— In order that you may know whether it comes safely to hand I have in this letter used the precaution mentioned in yours—

Our advises from the Southward are far from being pleasing after the loss of Charles town. The enemy extended themselves as far in to the country as Cambden which is about only 6 hours thro’ a thin settled country, they took several other posts so as to secure the greater part of South Carolina— When the militia recovered their first panick & found themselves supported by a body of continental troops they collected under the command of Genl. Gates and were extreamly successful in a variety of skirmishes with them surprizing & cuting off most of their posts when Gates advanced with his main body consisting of about 900 continental troops & 2000 militia to within 7 miles of Cambden— Where he was attacked by Cornwallis with his whole force the militia being surprized fled at the first fire & Genl Gates with them in order to raly them quited the ground while our regulars remained fighting nor did he stop till he reached Hilsborough which is near 200 miles from which place on the fourth day after the battle he writes to us, but as he knew nothing of what passed after he left the place and we had reason to conclude from his account that all the continentals were cut of[f]—but by later advices we learn that they maintained the battle with great spirit after the flight of the militia had enabled the enemy to turn their flanks that they retired in such order as totally to destroy the enemies horse which attacked them on their retreat and it is even said they have brought of[f] their cannon.

Genl D’Calb is dangerously (some say mortally) wounded4 no other officer of destinction as we have yet heard is missing as we are in hourly expectation of some further information. I hope to receive it before I am under a necessity of closing this— We have long been flattering ourselves with a prospect of recovering New York & giving by the assistance of france a decisive blow to the enemy for this purpose we took measures to augment our army under the command of Genl. Washington to 30,000 men but our prospects grow more & more faint every day the first division of the French fleet has been and still continues to be blocked up by a superior fleet at Rhode Island5 the second have not yet sailed that we can hear the militia tired out and are returning home our magazines are exhausted & our finances before sufficiently deranged have been still more disordered thereby— Your old friend the Confederacy is still here owing to our inability to procure the necessary means of fitting her for sea— However I believe the obstacles will be removed in a few days— Our privateers have been uncommonly successful every day sees new prizes enter our ports among others no less than 27 of the Quebeck fleet richly laden have been brought in by the Boston Salem privateers—12 of them Twelve more are said to have been taken by a French ship of the line and the remaining 8 fearful to proceed because of the privateers that were crusing in the gulph of St. Lawrance have put into Halifax— The combined fleets in the West Indies have separated and thereby lost a noble opportunity of taking Jamaica which is in a manner defenceless as Govr. Dalling6 with the greater part of the troops from that Island is said to be upon an expedition to the Spanish settlements in the main.

I write you occurrences without order just as they arise in my mind because I know that in your situation facts are of more importance to you than deductions from them— But not believe judging from myself that in proportion to a mans distance from home is his avidity to hear from it I must not forget our poor little State She has never rested a moment from her labours The enemy still harass her on every side— Some of the finest settlements in Tryon County have been cut of[f] & the militia have been in the field the whole season— But her distress has not shaken her firmness on the contrary toryysm declines among us every day— Our political system moves on much as usual without any great change either of men or measures—

Dr John I have a thousand things which I could wish to communicate but I dare not for want of a cypher acknowledge the rect of this therefore as soon as possible as there are many things you shd know that you will not be able to learn from our publick Letters— Nothing astonishes me more than the effrontery with which the Ministry & their friends assert that America sighs to return to their government since the fact that we never were more fixed in opposition. Nor if we except the derangement of our finances were we ever so capable of resistance.

Our friend Smith7 is said to have imbibed the ministerial Madness so strongly as to have prevailed on Genl. Kniphausen to march out of New York into the jersies before Clinton returned from Charlestown hoping that discouraged by the loss of that place & weary of the war the militia would not oppose him8—& he shd (as Mr. Smith is said emphatically to have predicted) have the whole honor of terminating the war before the return of his principal the experiment proved the folly of the Idea— The militia flocked together on the 1st. summons, some of them taking their horses from the plough rode down full speed hung them to the fences & engaged people of all ranks & ages collected & all that was effected by an army of 5000 men unopposed except by militia & about 1000 continental troops was the destruction of 20 farm houses & the abuse & murder of some women after which they retired with the loss of 500 men killed wounded and taken—since which they have been much less sanguine.

Adieu. Remember me to the Coll and Mr. Carmichael & I again offer my affectionate compliments to Mrs. Jay