Translation
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Show/hide Download PDF Brother Livingston, New York, March 22, 1700.
[I] received your letters of February 29 and March 11 and 18, all three of them. As for Miles Vaster, he remains in your house as I have written to you before. I believe, certainly, what brother Schuyler has told you – [viz.] that the money for the 4 companies of soldiers has been received in England – but that cannot help us as long as we don’t have it, which is extremely costly to us because Robert Elleson1) wants to have his money in time without further delay and my brother, too, says he lacks the money to buy return cargoes for the West Indies. And where to get the money, I don’t know. Colonel De Payster2), De Lancy, Van Swieten, Barbarie, Minville, Willett, Van Dam, Lingh, William and John Morris, Mr. Noesl, and several others have warrants on the revenue and are not willing to give any money, so that I cannot get any money to pay My Lord’s salary, who writes me about that very annoyed, so that pressure is put upon me for all sides. And [I] cannot get any money for what is owed to me myself out of the revenue. And if Elleson is not willing to wait, I will be forced to take up money elsewhere at interest – to my cost and to my shame. If you don’t know any remedy to satisfy him in a different way, orders will have to be issued that all warrants be paid off in course of time irrespective of persons, else the government will lose all its credit. I’m having difficulty now in keeping the account and proving it. Mr. Van Swieten says he has paid me two articles that I don’t know anything about, so that after all my pains I get blame as a reward! Mr. Graham tells me you have been freed completely from the bond you gave to My Lord on Hed’s behalf, with which I am very pleased.
This one is going along with Frans Winne with whom [I] am sending you 2 plates for ploughshares, [they] weigh 36 ½ lb., bought from Mr Jamain for 6 d. apiece, one anker containing 10 gallons of rum, bought from ditto for 5 sh. 6 d. a gallon, one anker containing 10 gallons of molasses at 2 [sh.] 9 d. a gallon, [and] ten bushels of salt, bought from Johannes.
[I] will have the model of a crank taken off the ship and send it to Boston with the first yacht. There’s no meat for sale under 40 sh. a barrel nor pork under 3 [lb.] 10 sh., and [it’s] very hard to get, especially on credit, which is the way I will have to buy it – if I can get it that way.
Regards to your family; [I] commend you to God and remain your obliging brother,
S. v. Cortlandt.
Notes: 1. Spelled “Allison” or “Alleson” 2. Mostly spelled “De Peyster”
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