(Livingston Manor, June 8, 1722;
received by Robert in New York: June 11)


My Dear Husband,

I have received your letter of May 30 and understood from it that you are in great pain. And [I] hope you are better now. Please, do not take too much doctor’s stuff lest you convert your body into a pharmacy! Last winter you were a lot better and easier. I hope God will ease your pain and will not impose more upon us than we can bear regarding the patents, [viz.] that what the King’s Governor has once given away can be broken by an other Governor; then there would never be an end, and then one would never be safe in this world!
I hope God will give the Assembly more willingness to listen to Colonel Moris1) for they serve their own pockets. I always thought you would have trouble with that commission and I am surprised the Governor is cheating you like that. Well, I’m used to it. I had written you that I was without money and that Sam van Veghten has dunned me now for 10 lb.; and I am ashamed that I cannot help him and [(probably:) he] was not well-satisfied that I could not help him. Do send me 12 lb. in money! Otherwise I’m at my wit’s end. Our grain is very bad and the summer-corn indifferent, and there’s so much to be stubbed at the river-lot that I wonder where all the brush-wood is coming from.
Right now I get your letter from Den Eyk2). It would be a good thing if he could compound with his creditors. It would be good for us to be freed from what you are answering for. Then you can transfer it in such a way that first the bowery is paid off – viz. the debts – [and] then the other things.
[I] got the mules in: [they’re] too short and too narrow and too low upon my feet. And my shoes have to be a lot longer than Naetye’s shoes and somewhat higher upon my feet. The shoemaker cannot make your boots of that leather he has. Send me 6 sides of sole-leather and 3 lb. of chocolate. I hope you will send



continued in the left margin:
me 12 lb. in money, else you won’t get Sam’s wheat. Alyda’s box has not arrived yet. Maybe it is at our son Robbert’s; one has to inquire after that. The Albany skippers don’t have it.
Her mother wrote that the commission would come from Rhode Island and New England – i.e. Connecticut – but did not want it to be talked about.
I send you five kegs of butter:
No. 1 weighs 48 ½
No. 2 weighs 48
No. 3 weighs 53 with the keg
No. 4 weighs 48
No. 5 weighs 48
This includes the kegs.
____
245 ½
__40_
245 ½ lb. the weight comes out right3)
You must tell Naetye to send a pattern for a case for the spectacles. I send you the sponge marked R
Herewith, be commended to the Lord.
Your Beloved Wife
Alida Livinghston,
in the Manor of Livinghston, 1722, June 8.

Notes:
1) = Morris.
2) In all other letters spelled “Ten Eyk”.
3) The last three lines in the lower left corner are in Robert’s handwriting.