You favour of the 25th Ultimo was duly received and I am sorry to inform that the notices which had been issued by the commissioner and enclosed in a Letter to the sheriff of Loudon County to be served on Mr Lee again has not been returned and I have reason to beleive that the sheriff to whom the Letter was directed was not then in office to which circumstance perhaps it is attributable tho there is a shamful negligence in the public officers & it is extremely difficult to get either notices or process served and returned where the officer lives out of the District: on