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Your Father will write you by the next opportunity. If they have not by some means been lost, you must have received several letters from here & three or four very full ones from your ever, ever Affectionate Mother M Warren mwp2, rc 1. mow and ww appear to have developed a secret code through which to refer to individuals in international correspondence, using numbers or single letters. With one or two exceptions, as indicated in notes to follow, the editors cannot positively identify who is meant by this sign system. 2. By “A” mow may refer to Robert Morris, who served as the chief financial officer of the postwar government under the Articles of Confederation and to whom she took a strong dislike. 3. The Order of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary military officers whom radical republicans like the Warrens viewed as the first step toward the creation of an American aristocracy. Membership was elite and hereditary—thus the suspicion. 74 to winslow warren Milton August 28 1784 My Dear Son, I forward you a large packet by the Jacob and Antony, Capt. Wybrands commander.1 If you receive it you will find a Manuscript which I have since reperused & find several Negligencies. A more critical eye will doubtless discover many faults. It would be strange if there were not, considering the disadvantages under which it was wrote. Let not your partiallity hury it into public View, but give [me] your opinion of the work first. I mean to prepare you a more correct copy if you think it will bear the public inspection . As to the Dedication, I think as a friend reading it is more properly a preface. I will find a short, concise one addused to some literary character, Mr. F[?] if you think proper, or any one else. G. Washington is not the Man, though private Friendship as well as public Esteem would be our inducement , but every poetess in America dedicates to him.2 I believe, & it is the opinion of some others among the rest, Mr. J[?] Warren, that the Sack of Rome abounds too much with similis[?], with 186  to winslow warren, august 1784 mere[?] poetic Description & moral Observations at some times when passion ought to have its full play.3 Several vessels have arrived & no letters for Mamah. Hope[?] will come soon, I dare say, perhaps by a ship which passed the fair Tremont this Morning supposed to be Capt. Hallet. Charles embarks with Capt. Grinalda[?] next Saturday. He is really better, but dare not risk an American winter. I suppose no one of the Family will write by this opportunity but myself , &[?] several more direct[?] are likely to present soon. I have a thousand things to say but prudence imposes silence with regard to many matters. I wish you to know C is a lyar that roars at the corner of every street. Yet he must roar on perhaps till his Hunger is appeased by a certain delicious Morsel, for which he has whet his appetite. Only some fortunate stroke should relieve 13 from his present Embarasments. But such is the World. A train of misfortunes frequently attend the virtuous, while Fortune sports away her Favours on the Worthless & Insolent. Your letter by the Union Capt. Gardiner came to hand yesterday. Your prospects of bussiness is a circumstance pleasing to each one of the Family. We have every Reason to think it will increase from this quarter provided the anticommercial Regulations of our wise Legislature does not destroy all Trade in the Eastern states. From the late transactions, we are warrented to say they conduct without principle & not without system. Many suppose they must soon repeal their own act, and thus weaken the Energy of their own Government, both by their Blunders & by their Endeavours to extricate themselves from the Consequences. Be gaurded, my son, in all your letters. There are many who lurk in secret to do mischief when we do not suspect. Rival ships in trade or in politics often create dangerous Enmities, & the Effects opperate more or less fatally according to the local Circumstances of the Country where we reside in the custom & manners of the people with whom we associate. I rely much on your Discretion, Judgment, & Integrity, yet more on that providential arm which is able to lead you in safety to gaurd & bring you back to your tender friends, to your affectionate Mother, M Warren to winslow warren, august 1784  187 [3.16.212.99] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 13:38...

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