explain as I doubt not you well remember the Circumstances of these
Matters. It will be hard for such Persons to pay the British Creditors
for the same Goods which the British Nation took from them for its own
necessary Use & if I mistake not with a Promise to compensate them,
unless the Promise is complied with.

A few Lines on this Subject when you are at Leisure will very much
oblige them as well as

Your Friend





TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.

[MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library; a text is in J. T. Austin,
Life of Elbridge Gerry, vol. i., pp. 422-424.]

BOSTON April 19th 1784

MY DEAR SIR,

Mr Higginson was so obliging as to show me your Letter to him dated the
4th of March. I was happy in having adopted an opinion of the
Cincinnati so similar to what I found yours to be. I think I am as
sensible as any Man ought to be of the important Services of our late
Army, and am very desirous that their full Share of Merit may be
gratefully acknowledgd & rewarded by the Country. This would have been