To Alexander Hamilton from Angelica Church, [19 February 1796]
From Angelica Church
[London, February 19, 1796]
My dear Brother
Your letters of January the 13th are received1 but no plan of the lot, and no description of the house.2 I am sensible how much I trouble I give you, but you will have the goodness to excuse it, when you know that it proceeded from a persuasion that I was asking from one who promised me his love and attention if I returned to America; If friendship is only a name, for what do I exchange ease and taste, by going to the New World, where politics excludes all society, and agreeable intercourse, where all that is not given to Fame seems to be regretted and forgotten. My Love to Betsey I do not write by this Ship but will by Monday.
I believe Mr. Marshall3 has made no progress in settling the affairs of your Honorable friend.4
Adieu my dear and naughty Brother, it will be impossible for me to Charter a Vessel for how can I bring out furniture when I do not know the number of rooms my house contains. What an agreeable amiable fellow, has Jay’s Little treaty turned into a defender of what he never would himself have deigned to submit to. Voila mon sentiment, changes le si vous veules.
Adieu
AL, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. Letters not found.
2. H was engaged in buying a house for John B. and Angelica Church. See Philip Schuyler to H, October 12, 1795.
3. James Marshall, the brother of John Marshall, was married to Robert Morris’s daughter Hetty.
4. Robert Morris. See Morris to H, June 7, 1795, note 10. See also Morris to H, July 20, November 16, December 18, 1795, January 15, 1796.