May 04, 2017 - Sale 2446

Sale 2446 - Lot 70

Price Realized: $ 812
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
"THE POLITICAL STATE OF OUR COUNTRY . . . IS TRULY DEPLORABLE" TROUP, ROBERT. Autograph Letter Signed, "Rob. Troup," to painter John Trumbull, remarking that [George?] Clinton has acted ignobly, complaining of the overbearing power of the Democratic party and comparing the situation to that of Europe under Napoléon, speculating that the presidential proclamation [of November 2, concerning trade with Britain and France] is designed to aid Napoléon, and speculating that there is little hope that France's General André Masséna will be defeated by Britain's General Lord Wellington [in Portugal]. 6 1/2 pages, 4to, written on two folded sheets, address panel on terminal page; faint scattered foxing, folds. (MRS) Albany, 24 November 1810
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". . . The political state of our country, both as to its internal and external concerns, is truly deplorable. The Democratic Party have now so powerful and overbearing an ascendancy that our situation is nearly . . . as hopeless as that of Continental Europe under the iron weight of Bonaparte's tyranny. . . . [L]ast winter, too many of our friends, and leading ones too, disgraced themselves and their party by a dirty scramble for office . . . .
"As to our foreign concerns . . . . I really do not know what to say. The trap set by Bonaparte for our political rats has effectually caught them. For ought that appears, our President has issued, upon Cadore's letter alone, a proclamation declaring that Bonaparte has so modified his decrees as that they no longer injure neutral commerce, and announcing that the non-intercourse system will be in effect on the 2nd of February against G. Britain . . . . The effect of our administration is more plainly another attempt further to entangle our affairs with Great Britain . . . and thus more completely to aid Bonaparte's efforts to destroy her. . . .
"We are flattering ourselves with a little hope that Massena's army will be destroyed by Wellington . . . ."