51
PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR
me to you & not on you to me. But I shall not pretermit my exertions to serve you whilst the pulsations of life last and you live to be served. When I was in Savannah a week or ten days since I saw your young kinsman C. A. L. Lamar and asked him if he thought by an assignment of six months of your Salary you could obtain $3750 on it in ~avannah. He estimated that he thought you could altho' it was out of his power to make the advance from the very large expend- itures to which he was subject hy being engaged in building a large Stearn Flour :Mill in the City of Savannah. He said he had forwarded a Letter froni you to his father he presumed on this subject I would much prefer your getting the money thr'o the instrumen- talitv of the son than the father hecause for an old Debt the latter might make the condition of a new accommodation your payment of account of the same. I shall see you in Texas early in Oct and in the meantime will find out from Mr Charles Lamar how the securities can be [so] arranged that after I arrive you may execute them & [secure] value for the money. But make no sacrifice of your property until you see or hear from me. - But My Dear Genl let me entreat you not to mort- gage any part of your salary for your old Debts for altho I cannot agree with Sheridan that worst possible investment a man can make is, to pay an old, 22 yet the ease comfort & respectability of your residrnce will depend on keeping your salary intact & unexhausted & untouched except for the inevitable expenditures incident to your mission. Altho not in the class of the highest grade of foreign missions it is nevertheless among the most agreeable. By a delicious climate and agreeable society - I met in Philadelphia with most /ntelligent & pleasant gentlemen in the person of Dr. Felton who had been resi- dent naval Surgeon on . the Buenos Ayrean station for four or five year's must give you a letter to this gentleman whom you must see on you way thro' Philadelphia He informs me that your plan of life which will combine both comfort & economy will be to hire a villa 3 or 4 miles from the city which you can procure cheap and not to attempt to live in a crowded Spanish City where the price of living is quite extravagat [sic] This will not prevent your enjoying the french eng- Iish Spanish & American Society in the City which is excellent. He says with this plan you can live with perfect comfort on perhaps two thirds of your salary whereas in the City one-half of it would be ab- sorbed in House Rent. I know any extension from the urgency of your private affairs you may want I can procure for you from Genl Cass without difficulty. Write me directed to Savannah forthwith. I shall .f!o on my last pilgrimage to the Shrine of the public faith of Texas during the ensuing session. If she will pay my claims I shall be but too grateful. If not I shall submit without a murmur. But I shall leave off my vocation for the last ten years as Beggar & like Cincinnatus I must enedavous [sic] "to be nobly Poor." The public Article you propose writing for the Prints I am sure would do me infinite servise as you are best acquainted with my servises &
12 Hamilton has evidently omitted the word ·"debt" here.
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