ABSTRACT
Having taken up residence in Philadelphia as postmaster general of the United States of America, Hazard, no longer on the road but twice as busy, decided it was best to write his letters in shifts. Hazard was still Mentor to the young man Philip Freneau, dubbed now with the Homeric title of Telemachus. When Hazard’s letter of 10 April reached Belknap at Dover, the latter was ‘in a pretty good mood for copying’. Belknap looked forward to the promised ‘copy of the Oration in Praise of Knowledge’, by Hazard’s protege Telemachus, whom Belknap thought ‘an amiable youth’. War news included reports that Lord North, British Prime Minister, had resigned over the British defeat at Yorktown; a new government directed the war effort. Hazard responded to Belknap’s two letters – and another one besides from June – the first week in August. War news included that while Belknap was at Portsmouth he saw four French Men-of-War in the harbour.
