From Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, [17 August 1791]
To Elizabeth Hamilton
[Philadelphia, August 17, 1791]
My Loved Eliza:
I wrote you two or three times last week.1 But since my last I have received another letter from you2 which does not remove my anxiety. The state of our dear sick angel3 continues too precarious. My heart trembles whenever I open a letter from you—The experiment of the Pink root alarms me but I continue to place my hope in Heaven.
You press to return to me. I will not continue to dissuade you. Do as you think best. If you resolve to come I should like best your coming by land & I wish you could prevail on Doctor Stringer4 to accompany you. It would be a matter of course & pleasure to make him a handsome compensation. If you want money, you may either get it from your father or draw on Mr. Seton5 at New York for it.
But let me know beforehand your determination that I may meet you at New York with an arrangment for bringing you, or rather write to Mr. Seton who I will request to have things ready—All you will have to do will be to inform him that you leave Albany on a certain day. All here are perfectly well & join in love to you.
Adieu, my Angel
A. H.
Mrs. Hamilton
Copy, Columbia University Libraries.
1. See H to Elizabeth Hamilton, August 9, 10, 1791 (, IX, 24, 25–26), August 12, 1791 (printed in this volume).
2. Letter not found.
3. James Hamilton, H’s third son and fourth child, who was three years old.
4. Samuel Stringer, a native of Maryland, received his medical education in Philadelphia and was director general of hospitals in the northern department during the American Revolution. After the war he settled in Albany and continued to practice medicine. He was the Hamilton family’s doctor in Albany.
5. William Seton, cashier of the Bank of New York.