I return you many thanks for your letter of the 12th, which was forwarded to me from Philadelphia since I left that place. You have stated precisely that part of the opinion in the case of the U.S. vs. Nicoll which I had forgotten & was anxious to see. It fully sanctions the opinion which I had prepared in the post office case, viz that the giving of a new bond with new sureties by the deputies, in consequence of a requisition of the P. M. G.

    Mr Hardin writes me, that a letter from Mr Rowan to the Governor, together with his argument in Green in Biddle, has been published, the tendency of the former being to excite the strongest prejudices agt the Court— Amongst other things, it is stated, that these great constitutional questions were decided by a minority of the Court— 3 out of 7.—  As the invalidity of the Kentucky Law was in fact decided by six Judges, will it not be well for you to insert, in a note to this Case, the opinion which was delivered in 1821 when I was¹ absent from the Court?

After my return from Phila. I recd your letter requesting me to furnish you with the opinion delivered in the above case. Most fortunately I had preserved a rough copy of that opinion, or I am perfectly satisfied that it would not have been in my power to comply with your request. As this is the case I am rather pleased that you have been compelled to call upon me, since it has enabled me to correct a mistake in the opinion which was delivered, into which I was led by depending upon an abridgement for the want of the full reports of cases.