I received yours My dear Sir of the 12th of Decr and am happy to hear from you & your family. It is but a poor consolation to tell you, that I sympathize with you for your late distresses, and that I have a deep sense of your friend & relations Calamity. It is nevertheless all that human weakness can do; and to do any thing more we must have recourse to a superior tribunal, to one, that I feel unworthy to approach. It is to that source I am now convinced we ought to address ourselves; to the comforter of the afflicted, and the protector of the weak.