I yesterday recd a very discouraging letter from Mrs Washington from which I beg leave to trouble you with the following extracts. She says that the pain in her side encreases, and has for several days past been accompanied by a dull pain (as heretofore felt) in the shoulder; occasionally in the wrist and other Joints. She is certain she has night fevers– Wants appetite & sleeps badly. She has for some days discontinued the steel & bark being afraid, & very Justly she thinks, that those medicines have done injury to her side.

Mrs Washington’s mouth having got much better, we commenced the application of the mercurial ointment about ten nights ago. After using it for two nights, she became apprehensive that it had affected her mouth, and of course it was thought best to discontinue the operation untill these symptoms should disappear. At this period, the experiment was extremely flattering to our hopes. To use Mrs W’s expression, the ointment, with the gentle friction used in rubbing it on, acted upon the pain in the side like a charm.

Whilst I was in Richmond, Mrs Washington commenced the taking of the mercurial pills, and having most unfortunately persevered too long, even after the soreness in the mouth had taken place, a kind of salivation was brought on, & though not attended by a spilling, her tongue & mouth have been for 8 or 10 days so much swollen, that she has been unable to take any kind of nourishment not in a liquid form. Her mouth is now somewhat better, but I am greatly alarmed by the return of the pain in the side which had almost ceased.