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prayers of all the northern part of America. Mrs Washington is amiable in her deportment and sweet in her manners, and I am very glad he has a companion so well qualified to soften the cares and toils of war. The removal of the continental and the disgraceful flight of the ministerial army has made such an alternation here as can scarcely be described; instead of the bustle of a camp and the busy preparations for attack and defence, a dead silence reigns through the long extended lines. The total stagnation of business within and the still calm without the walls of Boston , resembles that serenity which often succeeds the most violent concussions in the world of nature. I know madam your compassionate heart heaves a sigh of pity for the miserable group indiscriminately hurried on ship board to escape the just resentment of their affronted injured country. Do you think there was ever a more sudden reverse of hopes and expectations than these poor creatures suffer? They are certainly the object of commiseration and contempt. I should be happy to have a line before you reach your own delightful residence which to the surprize of every one has escaped the outrages of the enemy. Mr Warren joins in compliments of unfeigned regard, to you and the good family you are with. I am my dear madam, with the highest esteem your affectionate friend and Able Servt M Warren mwp1 1. The letterbook date is March 13, 1776, but the content suggests the letter was written some time in April. The British did not evacuate Boston until March 17, nor did Washington report the evacuation to Congress until a few days later. Therefore, while the letter might have been written in March, it would have been after the 13th. 29 to james warren jr. [In his last year at Harvard, jw2 appears to have suffered some form of depression or nervous collapse; aa reported to her husband in a portion of a letter dated May 27 that young James had been “carried home” and “disorderd in his mind” (afc1: 418, 419n7). Therefore, one wonders about the date of this letter. Presumably, 74  to james warren jr., june 1776 mow learned of his mental state and wrote this to buck him up in early May, but received notice he was not fit to continue his studies and brought him home by late May. He eventually took his degree in 1776 with the rest of his class. However, see note 1.] Plymouth, June 1776 I doubt not the mind of my dear James has been greatly agitated by the expectation of painful tidings since the long confinement of his mother; but returning health enables me to take up my pen and remind you again that youth is the happy season when the ideas flow quick and memory secures the acquisition and makes the literary labours of every hour its own. Nature has given you a thirst for knowledge and leisure and inclination has taught you to soar to distinction in the early path of science. From your own reflection—from your sensibility and regard to character you stand in as little need of frequent admonitions against the insinuations of criminal pleasure as any one of your age; but who can pronounce himself safe? All writers on morals, religion, and philosophy agree, that the great business of life is the regulating of the passions and subjugating those appetites which tend to inflame them and to waken the powers of the mind until it forgets the law of reason. Can this work be too early begun or too assiduously attended to? Consider how easily youth glide into error and error justified or indulged generally ends in vice. The best disposed mind may through inadvertence or the evil influence of unworthy companions fall into a snare, but the monster vice a second time listened to gains such an advantage over the devoted victim, that she generally erects her empire in his mind in spite of the feeble struggles of the sinking delinquent. He may at first despise himself or the weakness of his resolutions, but familiarized by habit, a torpor ensues till by degrees he looses the detestation, nor has the power or the inclination to resist the most shameful debaucheries. Of all the arts used to undermine the basis of virtue there are none more fatal than the keen shafts of ridicule; but I have little doubt you...

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