This letter is a nice example of a typical Laurens-related letter of the period. It has three themes: war news, personal affairs, and business particulars.

Henry’s good friend, John Lewis Gervais, writes from Charles Town on this Friday, informing Henry that he received Laurens’s important letter from May 3rd. In it, Gervais learns of “the happy turn of our affairs by the Alliance with France.”¹ Gervais basks in the belief that the event “will afford us leisure to put ourselves upon a more respectable footing.” Charlestoanians greeted that news with “great Satisfaction to all (except Tories).” Gervais understood the geopolitical importance of the news. Great Britain must now be stretched too thin, defending the home island and the valuable West Indies from French invasions and excursions. Gervais say he joins the rest of Charleston in their asatisfaction that Henry has decided to “stay a little longer in Congress [still at York, Pennsylvania] … particularly at this present Juncture.”

The letter turns personal, as many such letters do, and Gervais says that he had recently taken his wife to “Goose Creek [a tributary of the Charles Town’s Cooper River] in hopes the change of air would restore [her] strength.” The change of air and scenery must have helped because “she Walcks much better.”

The portion of this letter written this day concludes with some personal business. Gervais, who oversaw Laurens’s plantation business during his stay in Congress. “I have sent Mr. [George] Galphin [an Indian trader and commissioner] an order on Mr [Leroy] Hammond [another Indian commissioner] at Sight for fourteen hundred & Sixty Dollars the Sum which you desired me to pay him.”²

1. John Lewis Gervais to Henry Laurens, Charles Town, June 19, 1778, Papers of Henry Laurens, 13:491-495. The June 19th portion of this letter ends on p. 493. ↩︎
2. For Gervais and plantation management see, John Lewis Gervais, Charles Town, November 27, 1777, Papers of Henry Laurens, 12:84-88. For George Galphin during this period, see Bryan Rindfleisch, “George Galphin and the War in the South, 1775-1780,” Journal of the American Revolution, September 1, 2015, https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/09/george-galphin-and-the-war-in-the-south-1775-1780/ (accessed June 19, 2025) and Michael P. Morris, “George Galphin,” New Georgia Encyclopedia, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/george-galphin-ca-1700-1780/ (accessed June 19, 2025). ↩︎