Dear Sir,

Your favor of the 8^th. from Carlisle came to me safe, as did the letter alluded to in it; which I should have thanked you for long ‘ere this if the public business in which I am engaged wd. yield obedience to my inclination, and indulge me more frequently in the gratification of an epistolary and pleasing intercourse with my friends. I received with much pleasure the acct. of your recovered health, and sincerely wish it may be of long continuance and much usefulness to yourself and Country.

We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience. To enveigh against things that are past and irremediable, is unpleasing; but to steer clear of the shelves and rocks we have struck upon, is the part of wisdom, equally incumbent on political, as other men, who have their own little bark, or that of others to navigate through the intricate paths of life, or the trackless Ocean to the haven of secury. and rest.

Our affairs are brought to an awful crisis, that the hand of Providence, I trust, may be more conspicuous in our deliverance. The many remarkable interpositions of the divine governmt. in the hours of our deepest distress and darkness, have been too luminous to suffer me to doubt the happy issue of the present contest; but the period for its accomplishmt. may be too far distant for a person of my years, whose Morning and Evening hours, and every moment (unoccupied by business), pants for retirement; and for those domestic and rural enjoyments which in my estimation far surpasses the highest pageantry of this world.