To Alexander Hamilton from Angelica Church, [2 October 1787]
From Angelica Church1
[London, October 2, 1787]
You had every right my dear brother to believe that I was very inattentive not to have answered your letter;2 but I could not relinquish the hopes that you would be tempted to ask the reason of my Silence, which would be a certain means of obtaining the second letter when perhaps had I answered the first, I should have lost all the fine things contained in the Latter. Indeed my dear, Sir if my path was strewed with as many roses, as you have filled your letter with compliments, I should not now lament my absence from America: but even Hope is weary of doing any thing for so assiduous a votary as myself. I have so often prayed at her shrine that I am now no longer heard. Church’s head is full of Politicks, he is so desirous of making once in the British house of Commons,3 and where I should be happy to see him if he possessed your Eloquence. All the graces you have been pleased to adorn me with, fade before the generous and benevolent action of My Sister in taking the orphan Antle under her protection.4
I do not write by this packet to either of my sisters, nor to my father. It is too Meloncholy an employment to day, as church is not here to be my consolation: he is gone to New Market. You will please to say to them for me every thing you think that the most tender and affectionate attachment can dictate. Adieu, my dear brother! be persuaded that these sentiments are not weakened when assiged to you and that I am very sincerely your friend.
AC
Is Kitty Livingston6 Married?
ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress[@LOC].
1. Angelica Schuyler Church, H’s sister-in-law, had lived in England since 1782.
2. Letter not found.
3. At the next parliamentary election, which was held in 1790, John B. Church was elected to the House of Commons from Wendover Borough.
4. J. C. Hamilton states that
“Colonel [Edward] Antil of the Canadian Corps, a friend of General [Moses] Hazen, retired penniless from the service—his military claims, a sole dependence, being unsatisfied. Hoping to derive subsistence from the culture of a small clearing in the forest, he retired to the wilds of Hazenburgh. His hopes were baffled, and in his distress he applied to Hamilton for relief. His calamities were soon after embittered by the loss of his wife, leaving infant children. With one of these Antil visited New York, to solicit the aid of the Cincinnati, and there sank under the weight of his sorrows. Hamilton immediately took the little orphan home, who was nurtured with his own children and became the wife of a prosperous merchant [Arthur Tappan].” (, III, 361.) The "little orphan" was Frances Antill, daughter of Edward Antill, a lawyer and a veteran of the American Revolution. In 1783 Antill bought land in New Jersey but shortly thereafter moved to New York City, where he was living and practicing law in 1786. In 1787 he went to Canada. In 1791 or 1792 Antill died in Clinton County, New York. In 1802 his estate was still unsettled and was the subject of litigation in the New York Supreme Court. For information concerning the case of Gerrit G. Landsing, Administrator of Edward Antill v Isaac Cortelyou, see Goebel, Law Practice, II, 303-310.
5. “Town Place” presumably referred to the Church’s town house, the “Albany,” on Sackville Street, Piccadilly, London.
6. Catharine Livingston, daughter of William Livingston, governor of New Jersey.