like it as possible. Let me know, as soon as you can, what to depend upon.

If the Monmouth Judge is with you, congratulate him on the birth of a grandson. The young gentleman made his first visible appearance the day before yesterday. This afternoon Mrs. B. and myself have had the pleasure of seeing him, and next Sunday he is to be loaded with names, not quite so many as the Spanish ambassador who signed the Treaty of Peace in 1783, but only four; viz., Samuel Finley Breese Morse. They intend to go through the catalogue at once, which I think is very ill policy, considering their age. However, they must please themselves, and in so doing I hope they will please their friends. Madam is very well, and in good spirits; and the father is as well pleased as a man can be in such circumstances.

As to the child, I saw him asleep, so can say nothing of his eye, or his genius peeping through it. He may have the sagacity of a Jewish Rabbi, or the profoundity of a Calvin, or the sublimity of a Homer, for aught I know; but time will bring forth all things.*

Tell the Squire, also (with my best compliments to himself and lady and Miss Susan), that our Committee is gone with a mathematician to survey the ground for the Sandwhich Canal; and, if that perforation should be made through Cape Cod, I shall expect to see his Honour and lady come to Boston in a Shrewsbury boat. It will be no more than river sailing all the way: through Long Island Sound, up Buzzard's Bay, and through the Canal, and they will be at Boston in a trice. I seriously hope that the grandson will attract them; and, when they come, we will endeavour to entertain them to the best of our ability; and, if you and Mrs. Hazard will add yourselves

*The child whose birth is here recorded became in after years celebrated for attainments in science and art; and for his discoveries connected with electrictelegraphy his fame has become universal. Eps.

to the party, it will be 100 per cent more agreeable. Our love to her and your children. I am, dear sir,

Yours affectionately,

JERE. BELKNAP.

Sunday evening, May 1.

This A.M. I changed with Mr. Morse. Both mother and child are well. I told him I should write to you an account of this event. He therefore defers writing himself till a private opportunity.

HAZARD TO BELKNAP.

PHILADELPHIA, May 6, 1791.

MY DEAR SIR, I have received yours of 23d ultimo. The money for the bill was punctually paid, and (as I informed you in my last I should) I now send you another box of 25 rheams of paper, by the Ceres, which I wish safe to hand. Thank you for what you have done about my collection, and am sorry your success has not been equal to your exertions. My prospects are by no means flattering, yet Dobson persuades me to go on.* He says he begun the Encyclopædia with 250 subscribers, and adds that works of that kind procure subscribers in their progress. People wish to see what sort of works they are. Perhaps he may be right, but I confess I feel a little skittish. £1,500 is a serious sum.

*

I am pleased that your subscription list encreases so fast; but will you do right to print a smaller number than at first? It is probable that many may incline to have the books whom it does not suit to advance money. 1 hope you will not ultimately be disappointed about your son's types.

* Hazard's historical papers, which, during the first part of this correspondence, he was engaged in collecting, were finally printed (at least a part of them) by T. Dobson, of Philadelphia, in two vols. 4to, 1792 and 1794, entitled "Historical Collections," &c. - EDS.

1

Lotteries are an evil that will cure themselves. They are pernicious.

The printer attended to the puff. So have others. Cornelia is married to a Mr. Snowdon, a farmer, a pious young man of property, who lives near Princeton, in New Jersey. They were married the beginning of February, with the approbation of friends on both sides; and the match promises mutual happiness.

I will speak to the paper-maker to know if it will be any injury to him if I take but 55 reams instead of 65. If it will, I must take the latter, as I have bespoke them, and I suppose they are begun. Otherwise, I will take but 55, as you desire. His name is Frederick Beeking. I forget the place where his mill is situated; but I think it is Lower Merion, about 12 miles from the city.

The Monmouth Judge, his lady, and Abby were here lately. They desired to be remembered to you, when I should write. They have sold their house at New York, and have gone there to execute the deeds.

Mrs. H. cordially salutes yourself and Mrs. Belknap; so does your friend,

EBEN. HAZARD.

P. S. Trenchard has your map, to make an estimate of cost, and has not returned it yet.

BELKNAP TO HAZARD.

BOSTON, 16 May, 1791.

have come safe The paper is

MY DEAR SIR, Two boxes of paper to hand, accompanied by two letters. pronounced good, and I think rather better than that on which the 1st volume was printed. I find that my son knows Beeking, and has been at his house on business for his old master Robert. My printing is begun, and Jo does

.

the work at Thomas and Andrews's office. The first sheet is now working off. We have an account that Captain Davis (on board of whom I suppose Jo's types were) is wrecked on one of the Islands of Guernsey, Alderney or Sark, and that part of the cargo is saved. The disappointment is rather mortifying to my son, but "it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth." I suppose the property is insured in London, and that the final loss will be only the premium, which must be repeated on a reshipment.

But it would divert you to hear some of our merchants, men of large property and independent fortunes, talk of their losses, and of being ruined by the non-arrival of Davis and Scot; for the latter is missing, and supposed also to be lost. If a man owns £10,000, and is disappointed in his expectation of adding 1 or 2,000 to it in the course of a year, he proclaims his losses to the world with a loud voice, the only meaning of which is that he has failed of getting more; and perhaps the whole is insured, capital and profits.

When you wrote last, you had not received the letter announcing the entrance of the young geographer on the stage of action. Never were parents better pleased with their first essay at procreation. All continues well there. I am sorry the Monmouth Judge was gone before the arrival of my letter; but I hope you have sent the account of it after him.

So my little Cornelia is become a wife! and has got a husband endowed with qualities "profitable for the life which now is and for that which is to come," piety and property. I rejoice in her happiness: when you have an opportunity, please to present my sincere congratulations to her.

Pray tell me whether or not Dr. Samuel Magaw is dead. I said, in company with Dr. Witherspoon, that he was: the Doctor seemed to know nothing of it, and did not be

lieve it. If I remember right, he died of the influenza,

about a year ago.

I

I have agreed with a Mr. Hill to engrave my map. am to give him 30 dollars for the plate and the engraving, and 1 dollar per hundred for printing; and I am to find the paper. I was induced to make this bargain by receiving from you an account that all your best engravers were engaged, and could not do it. What Trenchard's terms may be, I cannot say; but this I know, from former experience, — that he is a very careless fellow, and I am not fond of having any connexion with him. Pray make him return the map to you. Is William Spotswood in Philadelphia? He is the best of your printers with whom I have had any connexion. Your Vermont pamphlets I cannot yet spare, but you shall have them in due season for your use. I have met with much difficulty in getting a clue to unravel the mysteries of that combination. Some of the principal actors will not inform me, but litera scripta manet. I have found, in the Secretary's office at Exeter, papers which have helped me; and I have received from President Washington a copy of a letter which he wrote them in the war time, which I could not get from those to whom it was written. I shall reduce the story to a very few pages, but those few pages have cost me much labour and contrivance. I mean to obtain the requisite information.

As to your publication, it is a risque; and there is a necessity for a risque in all such cases. People say here,

Why does not Mr. H. publish an history rather than the materials for history?" This is a very natural question with a certain class, who think it as easy a thing to write a history as to read it after it is written. I suppose a regular history of the United States would be a more popular and profitable work than such a collection, but it would cost you years of labour. Should you feel discouraged about the publication in its present form, what if you