FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

Letter 15.
New Orleans, February 12, 1809
[From Jean-Baptiste Florian to his wife and four daughters, and brothers-in-law, still in
England. This (largely duplicate) letter is apparently not in the files of the Mobile Public
Library, but only at the Library of Congress]
I am sending you, my dear ones, a duplicate of the note of which you will receive the
other copy, via Havana. I sold my large rifle for $140 and I could have gotten 150 if I
had waited longer. It cost me, as did the one I left with Joseph, 17 shillings, 8 pence,
which leaves me a profit of $78. You will see that’s a nice profit. You can count that, if
you obtain good ones, at a good price of course, that there will be a profit of about 100
percent over the cost price. Single shot [?] rifles sell from 20 to 30 piasters each, the
ammunition [batteries?] from 8 to 9 piasters the piece. Of course one must deduct freight
and 17 and ½ percent for customs. But at retail one is more sure and enough ______ ,
especially if one has these objects before the month of November.
I cannot conceive why neither Emmanuel nor I have received any letters from any of you.
<strong>The</strong> packet for October arrived in New York a long time ago. We have had here news
from London from November 5 to the last part of December. Despite this, we have heard
nothing from you, nothing from Cheriot. I don’t know what to imagine. If I am to
believe what was told to me by Mr. Clay, correspondent for Mr. Kirkland, they wrote to
the latter from London in October, that Miss Ravencamp with my wife and daughters
were going to leave for New York at the first occasion. ________ Have they been en
route since that time? And if so, what could have made them so late in arriving? In truth,
I am in a fever. But why didn’t one of you write me by the October packet? If you knew
all that this silence has made me suffer, and the anxieties into which your departure
plunges me, you would never be so negligent. Above all, it is to my wife and daughters
that I direct this reproach. <strong>The</strong>y certainly have more leisure than you two.
In regard to Miss Ravencamp, you should know that according to the report of her tutor,
Mr. Kirkland, she has 20 thousand pounds sterling, Jamaica currency, which makes $55
to 60,000. ______ This, my dear friends, is for your guidance. It seems to me that Peter
would do very well to court her. She is very nice, and such a fortune is worth while
looking into. Nevertheless, it would be a good idea to verify the matter. Mrs. Davison,
who handles Mr. Kirkland’s affairs, could tell you what is what.
________ with you. I would not have believed that you could be so lazy. I wrote to you
via Havana day before yesterday, and by your friend Couessin 15 days ago. He is bound
for New York and thence to England, and takes with him a part of my dentures to have
repaired. <strong>The</strong>y _______ [broke?] in my mouth without any effort.
Goodbye, my villainous lazy ones.
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