FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

Letter 17.
New Orleans, March 5, 1809
[From Jean-Baptiste Florian to his wife, still in England]
[On the cover:]
Single
M. Florian
Care of Simpson & Davison
Merchts.
London
This letter, my dearly beloved, will be only a duplicate in some ways of the one I wrote
you the day before yesterday, but for fear that the other may be lost in the mail I am
writing you again by a ship which is leaving for New York. I told you that after a long
wait I had finally received your letter of last October 4. I see by the postmark that it only
left New York on February 7, and quite surely if it came by the October packet boat it
should have arrived a long time before that date: but if I judge from the color it must have
remained at least a month, being smoked on M. Cheriot’s mantelpiece. That gentleman
may be a very fine man, but I like neither his person nor his manners, & I beg of you
from now on to address your letters to Duplanty, [in English] at M. Duplanty, Merchant,
New York [end English] who will send them on to me. Duplanty is a very estimable
fellow and highly regarded, who knows more about business than that Mysterious
Cheriot, whatever the latter may say, & I would count much more upon his help than the
other’s.
I told you and I repeat with great pleasure how delighted I am with what you told me of
the progress made by Virginie [Virginia, his first daughter] and Eliza [his third daughter].
Embrace them most tenderly for me, and do the same to that little sprite Azelie [his
fourth daughter], to get her to follow the good example of her sisters.
You do well to learn painting upon velvet; learn also to paint and varnish tables and work
boxes as does Miss Soley. I believe they call that [in English] “to Japan” [end English;
“Japonnaise”?]. All these talents will be welcomed very avidly here. I have already told
you that there is all hope of enrolling students for a school in this place, so try to increase
your skill on the harp and to have some pieces well prepared to play before people. Also
Laura should get very good at singing & even dancing to teach the young girls in the
school. <strong>The</strong>re are a few teachers here, but they are at most on the same level as those at
St. Malo, & to make a success we would have to offer everything ourselves in the school.
My trip to the Atacapas has been delayed for a few days, our dear brother Emmanuel
having been kept to his room by an attack of rheumatism. His clerk is obliged to travel
out and I am keeping the store. I do not know what effect the climate will have on me in
the future: up till now I stand it quite well and am in better health than I ever have been.
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