Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Shaw, Samuel (1754-1794) to Henry Knox

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02437.04445 Author/Creator: Shaw, Samuel (1754-1794) Place Written: Boston, Massachusetts Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 20 December 1789 Pagination: 1 p. ; 30.9 x 18.4 cm. Order a Copy

Thanks Knox for everything has done for him and writes, "While I feel the full force of the most lively gratitude for your friendship towards me, it pains me to know that the too tender concern you take in everything which regards your poor Shaw cannot but interrupt that happiness you deserve ever to enjoy, and which with my whole soul I wish you. On this account, it aggravates my present unhappiness to inform you, that nothing could be done in the way we wished - and that I must get my ship ready and proceed, with my present means alone, as fast as possible to Batavia and China." Adds that the season is too far advanced to consider another route and he does not want to disappoint his creditors and patrons in Canton. States that he gives Knox the power of attorney over his and Thomas Randall's property in the ship, the Jay.

Shaw, Samuel, 1754-1794
Knox, Henry, 1750-1806

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