To John Jay from Sarah Livingston Jay, 27 November 1783
From Sarah Livingston Jay
Chailliot 27th. Novbr. 1783—
My dr. Mr. Jay,
I had not recd. a letter from you of a later date than the 14th. inst. until last evening, when yr. two letters of the 18th. & 21st. were handed me; but if my anxiety at your silence was banished, my mortification was increased, as I found you had reason to suppose me inattentive— I wrote you on the 12th., & Doctr. De Butts took charge of the letter, & on the 20th. I sent Lewis wh. another to the post-office, but I hope you have recd. them both by this time.—1 I am delighted to find you begin to wish your return & can answer that a sister-sentiment has long since found a place in my own breast: but since you are absent, rather prolong yr. stay as long as may be necessary for yr. health, than by returning too soon leave occasion to regret not having given the waters of Bath a sufficient tryal.
You’ll find by my other letters that my little family was perfectly well when I wrote, & heaven be praised! they ^We^ still continue so— The weather here is really delightful, & now that we are a little settled I shd. like to inoculate
the Children if you approve of it— The famous Inoculator, Dr. Sutton2 is here; so that if upon reflection you think it wd. be proper let me know—
The Coachman’s wife was brought abed of twins the day before yesterday, & as he is anxious to see her I can’t detain him, but will write you a longer letter to-morrow— Good night my Love—
Sa. Jay
Peter’s letter is not yet ready, so that I’ve time to tell you that a Globe of Montgolfiers, went up the other day from the Muette with two persons in a Globe gallery that was fix’d to it: after the rope that detain’d it was cut it asscended three thousand feet high, & the gentlemen that was attached to it, observing at one time that it descended rather too rapidly, threw into it a little more straw, & then it again mounted, by which means they remained in the air ’till they had gone from the place from whence they set out to Paris, & so pass’d over the whole City, ’till at length concluding they had stay’d as long as the experiment required they suffered the Ballon to descend gradually near the Boulevards, without having expended more than a third part of the straw they had provided.—3 Saturday Monsr. Charles will entertain the public wh. a like experiment of one fill’d wh inflammable Air— Don’t ^you^ begin to think of taking yr. passage in one next Spring?— God bless you.—
1. Neither JJ to SLJ, 21 Nov., nor SLJ to JJ, 20 Nov. 1783, have been located.
2. One of seven members of the Sutton family. The internationally known “Suttonian Method” significantly altered the practice of smallpox inoculation by using fresh serum from a smallpox blister, drawn before its maturation, injected only by a superficial puncture of the skin and not through the widely used method of making long incisions or deep cuts. The treatment included keeping patients as cool as possible and limiting their diet to vegetables and citrus fruits. The method was supplanted by Edward Jenner’s vaccination in 1798. The patriarch Robert Sutton (c. 1707–88), a Suffolk surgeon, advertised the new method in 1762. His estranged son, Daniel (c. 1735–1819), claimed to have invented the method in 1763. His sons Robert Jr. (known to have worked in Paris before 1770), William, Joseph, Thomas, and James all practiced inoculation in England and on the Continent. Two of the brothers (unspecified) were in France in 1788. Of the seven, Robert Sr. and Daniel were the most likely to be referred to as “the famous Inoculator, Dr. Sutton”. John N. Force, “Daniel Sutton and the Revival of Variolation,” University of California Publications in Public Health (Berkeley, 1931), 1: 323–35; David Van Zwanenberg, “The Suttons and the Business of Inoculation,” Medical History (London, 1978), 71–82. JJ gave an affirmative response in JJ to SLJ, 8 Dec. 1783, ALS, NNC (EJ: 8043).
3. On 21 Nov. 1783 Pilatre de Rozier and the marquis d’Arlandes (1742–1809) piloted a hot air Montgolfier balloon to a height of three thousand feet, remaining aloft for twenty to twenty five minutes, and traveling approximately five to five and one half miles. , 1: 300–302, 2: 11–22; The Annual Register (London, 1783), 26: 70–71; , 50–56. For the ongoing interest of the Jays in balloon experiments, see JJ to Robert Morris, to RRL, and to Charles Thomson, all 12 Sept., and Peter Jay Munro to JJ, 16 Oct. 1783, above.