ALS, two pages on two adjoining sheets, opened to 13 x 8, October 18, 1742. Handwritten letter by Cadwallader Colden, responding to his daughter, Elizabeth DeLancey, whose letter to her mother is written preceding Colden's response. Colden writes, in part: "Your Mother had just finished what is above when your Brother Cad came & being taken up with his coming & afterwards with the Family & Johny who has pretty much of a fever with the mumps she grew tired. I therefor tell you how affectionately both of us take your writing to us at the time you did…Cad has a very short passage having got to Newburgh by 7 last night. He is very well." Matted and framed with glass on both sides to an overall size of 14.75 x 10.75. In very good condition, with scattered staining, foxing, and repairs to separated folds. Cadwallader Colden entered political life in 1720, when Governor William Burnett of New York chose him for provincial council. He served as lieutenant governor and as acting governor in 1760-1761, 1763-1765, 1769-1770, and 1774-1775. He was acting governor of New York from 1760 to 1762 (replaced by Robert Monckton in 1762) and again from 1763 to 1765, and finally from 1769 to 1771 after Henry Moore’s death. He was likely one of the oldest acting British governors in New York. He was replaced by John Murray after his last term. He served as the first colonial representative to the Iroquois Confederacy, an experience that resulted in his writing The History of the Five Indian Nations (1727), the first book on the subject. On 1 November 1765, Cadwallader Colden was confronted by a huge crowd carrying an effigy of him in a parade to protest the Stamp Act. He seemed to enjoy confrontation and had gone out of his way to defend royal prerogative. Members of the throng had appropriated his coach and added it to the parade; at the end of the route the coach was smashed to kindling and used as part of a great celebratory bonfire on Bowling Green. In 1769, at his request, the New York State Assembly, led by James Delancey, passed a bill providing funds for British troops garrisoned in New York City. The Livingston family voted against as they opposed a standing army in times of peace. In summer 1775, the British authority in New York came to its end as America entered into the Revolutionary era, and Colden retired from public life. On 24 September 1776, the British occupied the city; Colden died four days after that occupation.
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