191

    To Sarah Savage Thatcher

    Philadelphia        6 February 1800

    Your determination, my dear, to retaliate on me for the shortness of one of my Letters has hardly permitted you to be just; for after declaring your Letters should be no longer than mine, & acknowledging mine contained four Lines & an half, you wrote me one that contained but four Lines—Making no allowance for the ten dollars that accompanied my very short Letter—Now if you had acted on the Line of strict Justice, I think the least return you could have made for that short Letter & a ten dollar Bill, would have been a Letter as long with half a dozen Kisses—Indeed—Your revenge seems hardly satisfied with your four-Line Letter—For having finished this Letter, you add a post Script about three times as long as the Letter, to tell me you had engaged on a frolick to Portland with a young Gallant1—And so, an old woman with eight small children, & like Madam Rogers, one at the Brest, is about to commence high life! Well, be assured your young Spark will soon be weary of his mistress—& she will be glad to return to her old husband where only she will find a hearty welcome—

    If the Letter you complain of was too short, this will be too long, if time will permit me to say all I have to write—

    Inclosed is a Receipt for ninety dollars, to be disposed of, sixty to Doctor [Aaron] Porter—sixteen to Sylvester Haley, Constable—& then pay Mr. Pike for my Plough Irons, & Harrow teeth—And the remainder to Doctor Hubbards Sweet heart to buy Ribbonds & other fine things as she may choose2—or if her Flollick [frolic] is over & she has sufficiently retaliated on her old husband, she may lay it out on the dear children—to her discretion it is committed—

    I think you had better get the Major [Jeremiah Hill] to aid you in the distribution—

    As to Doctor Porters physical Bill, I cant tell whether it is high or low; but as we pay him the cash; & probably his charges are as to others who pay in Lumber, he ought to make some deduction—This you may mention to him—In all my former settlements he has made a deduction; because my pay was, as he said, better than other customers—

    [. . . .]

    I hope you spent your time at Portland to your wishes—I like your visit; & think I would make a short one to Berwick, if you can leave the Family; but give the most precise charge to the Family to take care of the fire: you know my painfull anxiety on that Subject

    Yours most affectionately

    * * *

    ALS, TFP. Omitted text relates to the payment of household accounts, including GT’s tax payment of sixteen dollars.