I recd, sometime during the last month, your favor of the 20th of January, which I should have acknowledged immediately, if its contents had seemed to require it, and if I had not supposed that my letter to your daughter upon the same Subject would be promptly communicated to you. I can say nothing more at present but to repeat the assurances given to her of my earnest wish to serve you in this, or in any other way in my power, and of the zeal with which I shall exert myself to do so when the occasion alluded to shall offer. But I have no reason to believe that Mr C. contemplates a resignation at present, and it must be very uncertain how long his health will permit him to retain the Office. The Subject is of too delicate a nature to be mentioned generally to my brethren; but knowing the correct view which the Chief Justice will take of it; and the indulgence with which he will recieve from me any communication, it is my intention to place you before him as a fit successor for that office, lest you might be forestalled with him by the application of some other person in case a vacancy should suddenly occur. Rest assured, my dear Sir, that your letter to me required no apology, and that I appreciate as I ought the motives which dictated it.

     The partiality which you are so good as to feel for Mrs Herbert will incline you, I am persuaded, to sympathize wih her in the loss she sustained a few days ago in the death of her second son, and wish her family, on acount of her own health, the State of which alarms us all. She supports herself with a degree of fortitude and resignation which I have seldom seen surpassed; but she is, in every Sense of the word, a christian.

     I should before this have sent you my subscription for your work, had the books not been recd bound, as I knew the subscription Cost. Will you be so good as to inform me what is the amount of them bound, that it may be remitted to you without further delay— I am, with very great regard truly, yr friend & faithful Servt