American letters of the eighteenth century abound in expressions of love and in mention of gifts sent home as tokens of that love. Thus, Mrs. Washington writes her brother in 1778: "Please to give little Patty a kiss for me. I have sent her a pair of shoes--there was not a doll to be got in the city of Philadelphia, or I would have sent her one (the shoes are in a bundle for my mamma)."[118] And again from New York in 1789 she writes: "I have by Mrs. Sims sent for a watch, it is one of the cargoe that I have so often mentioned to you, that was expected, I hope is such a one as will please you--it is of the newest fashion, if that has any influence in your taste.... The chain is of Mr. Lear's choosing and such as Mrs. Adams the vice President's Lady and those in the polite circle wares and will last as long as the fashion--and by that time you can get another of a fashionable kind--I send to dear Maria a piece of chintz to make her a frock--the piece of muslin I hope is long enough for an apron for you, and in exchange for it, I beg you will give me the worked muslin apron you have like my gown that I made just before I left home of worked muslin as I wish to make a petticoat of the two aprons,--for my gown ... kiss Maria I send her two little handkerchiefs to wipe her nose..."[119] _XI. Woman's Sphere_ With all their evidence of love and confidence in their wives, these colonial gentlemen were not, however, especially anxious to have womankind dabble in politics or other public affairs. The husbands were willing enough to explain public activities of a grave nature to their help-meets, and sometimes even asked their opinion on proposed movements; but the men did not hesitate to think aloud the theories that the home was woman's sphere and domestic duties her best activities. Governor Winthrop spoke in no uncertain terms for the seventeenth century when he wrote the following brief note in his _History of New England_: (1645) "Mr. Hopkins, the governour of Hartford upon Connecticut, came to Boston and brought his wife with him (a godly young woman, and of special parts), who was fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her understanding and reason, which had been growing upon her divers years, by occasion of her giving herself wholly to reading and writing, and had written many books. If she had attended to her household affairs, and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger, etc., she had kept her wits, and might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set her."