I returned home the day before yesterday after an absence of about four months. It was my intention not to address you until I could get time to forward you my report of the decisions made on my late Circuit, many of which are highly interesting.

I owe you an apology for not having returned an earlier answer to your letter of the 20th June. The truth is, that at the time I recd it, and another from brother Thompson, I was engaged in a piece of business which required dispatch, & which induced me to postpone my answers to a period when it would be more in my power to reflect upon the decisions which you & he had made & to examine cases. But before that period had arrived our domestic misfortunes commenced.

I embrace the first moment of relief from more urgent business to perform my promise to report to you the substance of the decisions made during my last circuit which may be worthy of your notice.