I have so often wrote to you, without having a single Line in Answer to one of my Letters, that I have doubted whether you have receivd any of them. Had I not heard that you dined with some of my Friends at Cambridge about a fortnight ago I should have suspected that you had changed your Place of Abode at Dedham and that therefore my Letters had not reached you, or I should have been very anxious lest by some bodily Indisposition you were renderd unable to write to me. It is painful to me to be absent from you. As your Letters would in some Measure afford me Reliefe, I beg you would omit no Opportunity of writing. Your Backwardness leads me to apprehend there has something happend which would be disagreable to me to hear. If any ill Accident has befallen my Son or any other person dear to me, I would chuse to hear it. Our Boston Friends are some of them confined in a Garrison, others dispersd I know not where. Pray, my dear, let me know as much about them as you can. I make no Doubt but it will be a pleasure to you to hear that I am in good Health and Spirits. I wish I could consistently inform you what is doing here. I can however tell you that Matters go on, though slower than one could wish, yet agreable to my Mind. My Love to all Friends. I earnestly recommend you and them to the Protection and Blessing of Heaven. The Bearer is waiting for this Letter, I must therefore conclude with assuring you that I am with the greatest Sincerity, my dear Betsy, Your affectionate husband and Friend June 17 We have had Occasion to detain the Bearer which gives me the Pleasure of acknowledging your very acceptable and obliging Letter of the 6th Instant. I am rejoycd to hear that you are recoverd from a late Indisposition of Body. I pray God to confirm your Health. I wonder that you have receivd but one Letter from me since I left Worcester. I wrote to you at Hartford and New York and I do not know how often since I came into this City. It is a great Satisfaction to me to be assured from you that your Mother & Family are out of Boston, and also my boy Job. I commend him for his Contrivance in getting out. Tell him from me to be a good Boy. I wish to hear that my Son and honest Surry were releasd from their Confinement in that Town. I am much pleasd my dear with the good Sense and publick Spirit you discoverd in your Answer to Majr Kains Message--your Concern for my comfortable Subsistence here is very kind and obliging to me--when I am in Want of Money I will write to you. Your, TO ELBRIDGE GERRY. [J. T. Austin, Life of Elbridge Gerry, vol. i., pp. 90, 91.] PHILADELPHIA, June 22, 1775. MY DEAR SIR,