Alexander Hamilton

One page (12 5/8 x 7 3/4 in.; 320 x 197 mm) on a bifolium, New York, November [1800–1803]; large ink stain at upper fore-edge corner obscuring date and about 7 words, lighter ink stains elsewhere, integral blank similarly stained and with early repairs to fold separations. Tipped to a larger sheet.

The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Syrett, 25:251–252

One page (12 5/8 x 7 3/4 in.; 320 x 197 mm) on a bifolium, New York, November [1800–1803]; large ink stain at upper fore-edge corner obscuring date and about 7 words, lighter ink stains elsewhere, integral blank similarly stained and with early repairs to fold separations. Tipped to a larger sheet.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Hamilton writes to a friend caught up in the Haitian Revolution. Hamilton’s correspondent was the wife of Comte Laurent Caradeux Lecaye, a French planter who owned a plantation at Cul de Sac near Port-au-Prince, Saint-Domingue. Because of the slave rebellion that wracked the island, Caradeux Lecaye relocated, with fifty slaves, to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1792. In 1799, however, Caradeux Lecaye went back to Saint-Domingue after François Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture, the self-educated former slave who essentially gained control of the French portion of the island, welcomed French colonists to return. When Toussaint L’Ouverture extended his independence too far, Napoleon sent two expeditionary forces to retake the colony for France, first in 1802 under General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, and—after Leclerc and most of his army died of yellow fever—in 1803 under General Rochambeau. It was during this period of uncertainty that Hamilton wrote the present letter.

“This is the fifth letter, Madam, that [I shall] have written to you, without yet having had [the pleasure] of knowing that one has reached your hands. This [situation] is matter of no small regret to us, and it would be still more perplexing and painful did we not understand th[at] others of your friends are in a like situation. Being a common misfortune, we cannot impute it to any forgetfulness of us, but merely to obstacles arising from your local position. This however is a mitigation only; it is not a consolation. Your friends here think of you with [too] lively an interest not to be much chagrined at so entire a privation of intercourse. They had flattered themselves that frequent occasions of hearing from you would in some degree alleviate the loss of your Society.

“They will not however renounce the hope of seeing you in the Spring as you have intimated; and it will not be their fault if you are not prevailed upon to adopt this country for your permanent residence. If the most sincere and cordial friendship can atone for other disadvantages, you are likely no where to find a preferable home. Tis said that the ‘absent are always in the wrong’ but you are an ‘exception to the rule.’ Your importance to us is much more felt and better understood than when you were among us. We have not discovered how to supply your place; and the void which has been created in the circle of our enjoyment is too great not to leave us very anxious to see you speedily reoccupy your station.

“The events of St Domingo chagrine us. Besides other motives, the disappointment to your views in that quarter contributes to render us extremely sensible to the disasters of that Colony. Where will this disagreeable business end? But when would our interrogations finish, if we should attempt to unravel the very intricate and extraordinary plot in which the affairs of the whole world are embroiled at the present inexplicable conjuncture? We have nothing for it but patience and resignation and to make the best of what we have without being over solicitous to ameliorate our conditions. This is now completely my philosophy.”

Before closing with “the best wishes of Mrs. H and myself,” Hamilton adds a cryptic comment that may have come from either Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler, Elizabeth Hamilton’s youngest sister, or Catherine Church Cruger, the daughter of Angelica and John B. Church and the wife of Peter Bertram Cruger: “Kitty, who is looking over my shoulder, insists there is one exception and that you as well as herself can guess it. Shall I confess that she is right?”