Letters from Home: Period Accounts

Leonard Gansevoort Jr to Leonard Bronck

4 Nov 1781

My dear Sir
I most heartily congratulate you on the great and glorious News of the surrender of Cornwallis Yesterday we testifed our Joy with the firing of Canon, Ringing of Bells & drinking and eating plentifully Every thing was conducted with a regularity and order which does Honour to the citizens of this place I hope your good Whigs at Cooksackie will also celebrate the Day
Nothing will excuse you for not doing it Let every Heart be glad Let every Friend to his Country rejoice and let those dastardly villians the Torys with dejected Spirit and drooping in Silenceand Sorrow curse the Day that they became Enemies to their Country

My friend I am overjoyed So are all good and trueWhigs It gives me Pleasure to see the Mortification of those Miscreants whose Souls are Black as Hell and whose Minds are as dark as the Midnight Shades I could write a whole Day but Mr. Gay waits impatiently for my letter

A little more News and then I shall leave off Yesterday Letters arrived from Col. Willet who is arrived at Fort Renselier He says he pursued the Enemy until his provisions was quite exhausted He has however had an Engagement with the Rear Guard of the Enemy and has killed Nine of them & taken twenty Prisoners Among the killed is Young Butler They say the Oneyda Indians have scalped him This is certain that he is killed and that Part of his Cloaths and Ornaments have already been sold at Schenectady I think the Expedition has been a pretty dear One to the Enemy

Lord Stirling writes that the Enemy are not advancing further than Ticonderoga so that we need fear nothing from there

Once more I give you Joy so I do your Father and Mother and all who stand connected with you Rejoice with an exceeding great Joy If you dont the Tories will think you still afraid

believe me your Friend

LG

 

published source: Beecher, Raymond (Ed.): Letters from a Revolution, 1775-1783: A Selection From the Bronck Family Ppaers At the Greene County Historical Society. The NYS American Revolution Bicentennial Commision; Albany (NY), 1973, pp. 38-39..

 

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