51To Thomas Jefferson from William Short, 16 November 1792 (Jefferson Papers)
You will be much less surprized to learn that the French have entered Brussels, than you no doubt were to learn their success at Mons mentioned in my last. The government having taken the alarm and retired to Ruremond, the Austrian army seem to have thought of nothing since but securing a retreat. Accordingly they have been retiring successively and in much disorder—passing by Brussels without...
52To Thomas Jefferson from William Short, 9 November 1792 (Jefferson Papers)
It was not my intention to have written to you by this post—but an account just recieved from the armies in Flanders (and which may be relied on) is so absolutely different from what my late letters would have induced you to expect, that I can not forbear communicating it. Dumouriez after an hot and bloody action has forced the Austrian army to give way and fall back towards Brussels. The...
53To Alexander Hamilton from William Short, 2 November 1792 (Hamilton Papers)
I had the honor of recieving yesterday your letter of the 28th. of August. Being desirous from its nature to answer it in the speediest manner possible, I do it immediately (without waiting for the account, for which I wrote yesterday to the commissioners, in the instant of recieving your letter) this day’s English post being the last which will be in time for the New-york packet of Wednesday...
54To Thomas Jefferson from William Short, 2 November 1792 (Jefferson Papers)
The hope that this letter will be still in time for the N. York packet induces me to address you again by that conveyance. Since my last the French have made several attempts to enter the Pays bas, in all of which they have been defeated, and it becomes every day more and more probable they will not be more successful as the Austrian troops which were in France are forming strong posts in...
55To Thomas Jefferson from William Short, 2 November 1792 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved yesterday, from the Sec. of the treasury a letter of Aug. 28. in which he tells me the accounting officers of the treasury have represented to him that a regular account of all the monies recieved by me from the commissioners or which they have paid by my direction, would be requisite in the examination and adjustment of their accounts—and requests me therefore to furnish him with...
56To Alexander Hamilton from William Short, 27 October 1792 (Hamilton Papers)
The French post arrived here the day before yesterday & brought some of the mails which have been so long detained on the frontiers. I received thereby several letters from M. Morris, from whom I mentioned to you in my last I was waiting with impatience to hear. It does not appear that he has seen the commissaries as I wished in order to satisfy himself that they had given credit to the U.S....
57Enclosure: William Short to Gouverneur Morris, 27 October 1792 (Hamilton Papers)
Notwithstanding the immense length & prolixity of my letter of yesterday it wd. have been continued if I had not been interrupted & detained until the hour of the post. You desire me to consider well before hand as to the obligations, whether I would wish to come to a settlement previously with the ministry, in fixing the value &c. If as you suppose the obligations are only three, nothing more...
58To Thomas Jefferson from William Short, 27 October 1792 (Jefferson Papers)
We are still in the state, mentioned to you in my last, of certainty as to the retiring of the combined armies, and of conjecture as to the cause of it. The issue of the military operations has been the direct opposite of what I counted on in my prolix letter No. 111.—but one of the leading circumstances which I then mentioned seems more than ever probable; namely the scission between Vienna...
59Enclosure: William Short to Gouverneur Morris, 26 October 1792 (Hamilton Papers)
After more than four weeks interruption some of the French mails in arrear were recieved here yesterday & we had hoped therefore that this day, being the regular postday, would have brought us the rest—in this we have been disappointed, & of course conclude that the post communication with Paris is not yet freed from all its obstacles. I therefore send by the way of England my acknowlegement...
60To Thomas Jefferson from William Short, 22 October 1792 (Jefferson Papers)
In my last of the 15th. ulto. I treated in a manner which I fear you will have found much too diffuse, the subject then in question. In letters which are to cross the Atlantic I find it difficult not to run into that fault—and particularly as I have myself had so much more reason to complain of the laconicism than of the diffusion of my correspondents on that side of the ocean. Instead of...