From Westminster, Henry writes a pedantic and fatherly letter to his son, Henry, Jr. (Harry), then studying at the home of David Chauvet in Geneva.¹

This letter responds to Harry’s letter of March 10, which, unfortunately, has not survived or resurfaced. Discussing the important news of the era, Henry informs his 11-year-old son, “I do not approve of illicit traffic.” However, Henry suggests, “It is least Criminal in those People to whom nature has been unbountiful in Soil [because n]ecessity is the Mother of Invention.” Thus, people “who have no Staple Commodities … forcing Trade, & not only Earning Bread, but acquiring Wealth by such means as are unknown to the Carolinians,” who abound in “Rich Rice & Indigo fields.”

Henry acknowledges the fortune of Carolinians, “but most meritorious are those Men who act with Candor & uprightness under all disadvantages & temptations; Celebrated in the English toast, who dare to be honest in the worst of times.”²

Henry closes his letter with the admonition, “To be diligent in the improvement of every Day to advance yourself in useful Studies & you will be more & more beloved by Your Affectionate Father.” He adds in a postscript his desire that in addition to his studies in commerce, he should inform himself “minutely in the Constitution & form of the Government of that wonderful Republic [Geneva].”

1. Henry Laurens to Henry Laurens, Jr., April 5, 1774, Papers of Henry Laurens, 9:377-379. ↩︎
2. This toast can be found in George Cavalier (pseudonym), A Letter to the Late Author of the Spectator; Occasion’d by His Paper of Monday December 6, 1714 (Lonon, 1714). ↩︎