you are not better off
than we are here. I live in hopes that we see the most difficult time
we have to experience. Why is Carolina so much better furnished than any
other State, and at so reasonable prices? Your PORTIA.

BRAINTREE, June 8th, 1779.

Six months have already elapsed since I heard a syllable from you or my
dear son, and five since I have had one single opportunity of conveying
a line to you. Letters of various dates have lain months at the Navy
Board, and a packet and frigate, both ready to sail at an hour's
warning, have been months waiting the orders of Congress. They no doubt
have their reasons, or ought to have, for detaining them. I must
patiently wait their motions, however painful it is; and that it is so,
your own feelings will testify. Yet I know not but you are less a
sufferer than you would be to hear from us, to know our distresses, and
yet be unable to relieve them. The universal cry for bread, to a humane
heart, is painful beyond description, and the great price demanded and
given for it verifies that pathetic passage of Sacred Writ, "All that a
man hath will he give for his life." Yet He who miraculously fed a
multitude with five loaves and two fishes has graciously interposed in
our favor, and delivered many of the enemy's supplies into our hands, so
that our distresses have been mitigated. I have been able as yet to
supply my own family, sparingly, but at a price that would astonish you.
Corn is sold at four dollars, hard money, per bushel, which is equal to
eighty at the rate of exchange.

Labor is at eight dollars per day, and in three weeks it will be at
twelve, it is probable, or it will be more stable than anything else.
Goods of all kinds are at such a price that I hardly dare mention it.
Linens are sold at twenty dollars per yard; the most ordinary sort of
calicoes at thirty and forty; broadcloths at forty pounds per yard; West
India goods full as high; molasses at twenty dollars per gallon; sugar,
four dollars per pound; Bohea tea at forty dollars; and our own produce
in proportion; butcher's meat at six and eight shillings per pound;
board at fifty and sixty dollars per week; rates high. That, I suppose,
you will rejoice at; so would I, did it remedy the evil. I pay five
hundred dollars, and a new Continental rate has just appeared, my
proportion of which will be two hundred more. I have come to this
determination,--to sell no more bills, unless I can procure hard money