Pettigrew, John, 1779-1799
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Orange
County, University, April 12th 1796
Hond Father;—
Your most affectionate letter came safe to hand on the 19
th
March by M
r Outlaw.
1 It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that all were well,
& that Glasgow returned safe back before you set out for
Bonerva, for I doubt not your anxiety
for his arrival was great; but I am in hopes you have been over, got your rice
beat out, and returned before now, although you have had very disagreeable
weather, it has been so warm that the rice I suppose broke very much, &
it was also very laborious for the beaters. Upon the reception of yours I rote
back by M
r Watson to my
Mother
which I am in hopes she has
received before this time.
Brother
Ebenezer
& myself are both well at present, only the spleen
which is a little increased, but the reason of that is because I have not
taken
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so much exercise, and have been more
confined than when I was at home. My nose is not more inflamed than when you saw
me.
There are here at this time 86 Students: they are all in a perfect state of
health; except one who has taken with the rheumatism last knight.
Cursing & swearing is carried on here to the greatest perfection; even
from the smallest to the largest: they vent out the oath's with greatest ease
immaginable. They have lately got a supply of boks, & those are chiefly
Payn's Age of
reason, they prefer it to all the books that were ever wrote since the creation
of the World; they also say that he was sent into the World to set menkind to
liberty; but I would not have you think that they are all of this opinion but
there are are a great majority of this cast. The house will not contain more
than three or four boy's, except the
trustees should
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alter the law and have eight in each room; but I am in hopes they
will not do it for I find it very difficult to get six well-behaved in a room as
we have not an opportunity of choosing & in my opinion it would be
almost impossible to get eight wellbred boys in a room. I shall now inform you
of something as strange as what I wrote upon my first arrival here: that is we
have moved into another room. One of the young men into whose room we moved,
when we came up first, fully acted up to the charater we gave him, but the other
we were much deceived in; he is disliked by more than half the students in
Colledge, & as to his roommates he desired to reign King & said
if we did not obey him he would use rough methods; this we greatly disliked
knowing that no student durst take upon himself that authority, & that
here we were all on an equality and to be room-mates and not one superior to
another.
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I shall say nothing of my new
companions untill I get better acquainted with them.
As to our diet we have had no reason to complain considering the scarcity of the
year for all kinds of provisions. You mentioned coming up in July but I am of
opinion you had much better not, as provisions on the road will be extremely
scarce, the weather very warm, & the journey fatiguing when it would
answer almost the same purpose to send up and I am certain there will be several
opportunities between now and then. We forgot our Greek Lexicon which we shall
want by July.
There is to be a quarterly examination next saturday it is not certain whether
the
Trustees will be here or not. My paper & leisure time both
giving out. I can give you no more news at present. My
Brother
joins me in sending
his [duties] to our
mother
. I remain your dutiful son.