I received your letter a few days past & ought immediately to have answered it; but when you reach my age you will find that when a man is engaged as I am at present, a thing postponed is very apt to slip the memory & to be longer neglected than it ought to be. I concur with you in the opinion that the clerk can be appointed only when the court is in session, & I suppose there would be an impropriety if indeed there would be a power to make the appointment at the August term. I wish most devoutly that the business was over. I receive continual applications which are extremely painful to me because most of them are from gentlemen I should feel great pleasure in serving. I hope never again to have any voice in an appointment.

I received the other day a letter from Mr Griffith. I write to him that you had mentioned him to me in such terms as to co[n]vince that no gentleman could be proposed whose pretensions were superior to his, but that I had pledged my self to a very respectable young man the son of a particular friend. That I did not believe this young gentleman could succeed, and that as soon as his failure should be ascertained, I would most unquestionably support Mr Griffith. I still believe that Mr Randolph has no chance, and that I shall be at liberty to promote your wishes as to Mr Griffith.

I have some long & troublesome suits in chancery which occupy me very closely one of which is particular unpleasant because between old friends, and one of those unfortunate cases that the ruin or nearly the ruin of one or the other must be the consequence. I have just made up an opinion in one for the division of a man’s estate who was married at the same time to two women the first of whom had two husbands. The case depended on the legitimacy of children born in wedlock & I have determined that the conclusion of the law in favour of legitimacy may be rebutted by strong circumstances although access of the husband to the wife was not impossible. I am my dear Sir your affectionate