Having just closed some Letters of business I cannot resist the temptation of forwarding by the same conveyance one of pleasure for such I think I may justly stile that which enable me to repeat the sentiments of esteem that I entertain for you & which flatter me with the hopes of learning in return your Welfare & that of the Minister to whom I wish you to make my comps. & acknowledgements, not only for these civilities for which I feel myself indebted to him-but for the peculiar marks of confidence with which he honourd me. I
I have already recd. Letters from Genl Schuyler & Mr. Matthews which break in greatly upon my plans of domestick tranquility, they intreat to go down to Philadelphia or at least to meet them at camp in order to hear their reasons more at large for this request & this last I shall do as soon as I can possibly leave Mrs. Livingston.(3) And from thence if you give me any encouragement I may again be enduced to trouble you. In the mean time I can only request you to remind my friends with you of the esteem I bear them And to be persuaded that that which I profess for you is proferred with the utmost sincerity. I am, Dr. Sir &c
1 Don Juan de Miralles, unofficial Spanish agent to the United 8tates, died on April 28 of "a violent biliary Complaint" while visiting Washington's headquarters at Morristown with the chevalier de La Luzerne. For Washington's report on Miralles' death to the Governor of Cuba, DiegoJose Navarro, see Washington, Writings (Fitzpatrick), 18:316-17. A long discussion of Miralles' illness, death, and burial, written by his secretary, Francisco Rendon, to Navarro on May 5, is in Procedentes de Cuba, Legajo 1281, Archivo General de Indias, Seville.
2 Francisco Rendon, Miralles' secretary and successor, served as the Spanish agent in Philadelphia following Miralless death until 1785, when he became secrerary to the newly appointed Spanish minister to the United States, Don Diego de Gardoqui. Hermonio Portell-Vila, Los "Otros Extranjeros" en La Revolucion Norteamnericana (Miami, Fla.: Ediciones Universal, 1978), pp. 92-100.
3 For the attempts of John Mathews and Philip Schuyler to convince Livingston that he should return to Congress, see Schuyler to Livingston, April 23, and Mathews to Livingston, April 24, 1780. Livingston, who was in New Jersey to be with his wife (the daughter of John Stevens) during the birth of their child, was wrestling with himself over attending to his duties as a delegate and had voiced concern over the crisis of public affairs in a letter to James Duane written from "Valley Lebanon" the previous day. "By this time," he observed regarding Duane's recent return to Congress, "I may condole with you on the new scenes of trouble and anxiety which have opened upon you-these were sufficient to try the fortitude of any man before I left them, and, if I may judge from Letters which I have received from Schuyler, & Matthews they have not diminished since. God send you that spirit of firmness & decision, which becomes every hour more necessary. I am greatly mistaken if daily experience will not teach you that the bond which ties us together is too weak for the exertion that our circumstances require, and that the confederation even if agreed to, would only prove a nominal union. Greater powers must lodge some where, or our efforts will continue to be what they have hitherto been, weak & disjointed, & as the respect for a powerless body will every day diminish, the evil will every day encrease till the voice of the people shall vest elswhere what Congress are unwilling to trust themselves with. Or some daring genious with necessity for his plea, shall seize what they dare not give. This language would surprize you if you did Evidently discover from the ground on which you are now placed the ineficacy of resolutions, & the