Belknap did not receive the hastily sent message of his new friend Hazard until four days had passed, notwithstanding that Portsmouth was but ten miles downstream from Dover by boat – less as the crow flies. But it was winter, and there was war; nothing was in order, nothing passed for normal, and the letter received was like everything else – one's salary, a break in the weather, peace – much too late. And now Hazard was gone, riding slowly along post roads to the south, to Boston and beyond, to warmer regions than the deep woods of New Hampshire – though warmer not by much.

Upon Hazard's return to Portsmouth after his lengthy journey to Maine, he had found arrived at Postmaster Libbey's an express from Philadelphia calling the Surveyor of Post Roads south. Hazard and Belknap postponed discussing pages of Gorges's History; first there were effective communications to establish and a war to win.