I have a knephew a son of Major Taylor who is at school in Kentucky under the direction of my brother Doctor Marshall. He has written to me for some books which I cannot procure here, & which if I had them could not without much difficulty be conveyed from this place. I take the liberty to ask the favor of you to purchase them for me in Philadelphia & leave them with the bookseller packed up to be delivered to the order of Doctor Marshall. The books I wish to purchase are Terence & Livy in latin, Longinus Thucydides & Demosthenes in Greek, also Xenophons retreat of the 10,000.

Be so good as to send the booksellers receipt for the money as it is to be inserted in an executors account. Should the inclosed be insufficient I will immediately remit the residue. I will thank you also to pay Delaplaine four dollars for me & take his receipt for that sum for the last half volume, I believe it is the third.

Great dissatisfaction has been given to the politicians of Virginia by one opinion on the bank question.¹ They have no objection to a decision in favor of the bank, since the good patriots who administer the government wished it, & would probably have been seriously offended with us had we dared to have decided otherwise, but they required an obsequious, silent opinion without reasons. That would have been satisfactory, but our heretical reasoning is pronounced most damnable. We shall be denounced bitterly in the papers & as not a word will be said on the other side we shall undoubtedly be condemned as a pack of consolidating aristocratics. The legislature & executive who have enacted the law but who have power & places to bestow will escape with impunity, while the poor court who have nothing to give & of whom nobody is afraid, hears all the obloquy of the measure.

We are in great distress here for money. Many of our Merchants stop—a thing which was long unknown & was totally unexpected in Richmond. Farewell I am dear Sir y<mutilated>