I should have written you a long time ago, if I had completed the duties of my last circuit, so as to give you all the results. But I am as yet scarcely free from all the cases, which have been under advisement.

I thank you for your late letter containing the Decisions of your spring & autumnal Circt.¹ I shall confine my Answer to your own Cases, intending to bring you an abstract of mine when I come to Washington this winter. Until very lately I thought it would be unnecessary, as the 4th volume of Mason is partly through the press, & I supposed it would include them. I think now it will not— But I shall bring you the printed sheets, as far as they go, which will be about 400 pages.

There were so few cases of importance decided at my spring circuit, that I thought it would be best to wait for the fall Sessions, and to give you the whole in one letter. This task it is now my intention to perform. Some of the points decided are involved in much difficulty, upon which I shall be much pleased to see your observations.

It is about a week since I returned home, the session of the Phila. Court having been abridged by a severe rheumatic attack, which confined me to the house for many days prior to my departure. I have seldom, on any circuit, tried so few cases as on the last, and few of them were either new or difficult.  Such as are at all interesting, I will now proceed to state.

Your favor of the 25th inst., recd today, induces me to do immediately what I had mentally arranged to do after my return from Trenton—answer your interesting letter of the 4th July. But first allow me to excuse myself from the censure to which I am apparently obnoxious for having postponed the performance of this duty to this late day. I took that letter out of the office in Alexa.

I have at length returned home, after an absence of between 4 & 5 months, and I employ the first moments of leisure in reporting to you & brother Story the most interesting cases which came before me for Judgt during my late circuit. I shall say nothing of the Atlantic ins. Co. of N. Y. and the U. S.² which employed us very closely for 9 days, as the case will go to the Supreme Court.

As Mr Sparks will probably leave this in a few days for Boston, I have determined, altho but half settled at home after an absence of 4 or 5 months, to prepare my letter to you that it may be ready for him to take on. The tea cause employed so great a part of the court at Phila. that few others could be tried before the Session came to a close.

It has given me inexpressible pleasure to receive a letter from you; for the newspaper statement of your indisposition led me to fear that you were quite ill— I rejoice that you are so much recovered; & I trust, that a good Providence will enable you to join the Supreme Court at Washington, where your presence is so important to the public, & withal so interesting to myself.

I owe you an apology for my long silence & especially as I have two letters of yours unanswered. My Cirt. did not end until the latter part of June, & I have ever since been overwhelmed with pressing private or public concerns, which have obliged me to postpone all other business. In addition to my other labours I have been obliged to prepare a Discourse to be delivered this month before a Literary society (the P. B.

I had a short session at Phila, and decided but few Cases, but most of these are interesting. Without further preface, I proceed to give you an abbreviated report of them.

The foregoing are the principal cases decided in my last Circuit, which are susceptible of an abridged statement, that will make the case intelligible. Many more cases were before the Court but the questions of law decided were not new in principle, and so involved with the facts, that I must pass them over.

At length I have got sufficiently released from more urgent business to enable me to perform my promise to forward you a report of the cases which came before me on my late Circuit. I think I sent you from Phila. printed statements of¹ Pennock & Sellers vs. Dialogue & Courcier vs. Ritter— These will therefore be omitted from this letter.

Your letter would have been sooner answered if I had not known that you had Courts to attend which would detain you for some time from home.

At the time I recd your letter of the 7th July, I was engaged in completing some business which would not admit of delay, & as I wished to examine with attention, & a reference to books, the decisions you had given, I determined to postpone my answer until this could be done. In the mean time, our domestic misfortunes occurred, which compelled me to take my family to the mountains, where I remained until it was necessary to commence my circuit duty.

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 now sit down to report to you the few decisions made during my last circuit. The Court at Phila. continued only two or three weeks in consequence of the sickness of Mr Binny who was concerned in almost all the arguable causes. The only Cases decided which may be considered as containing important principles are the two following.

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.

I returned home two or three days ago, after an absence of more than 3 months, when I had the pleasure to recieve from the post office your very friendly and interesting letter of the 2d Septr— For your kind & affectionate wishes for my health I am sincerely grateful to you, as I am for some other expressions which I owe chiefly to your indulgence & partiality. my health is now, thank God, as good as it has been for some years past.

Your three letters of the 25th Jany, 6 & 22d february have been recd, but not duly, the first written having been detained at the Alexandria post office until three days ago, when it was forwarded to me. As to the one containing observations upon the case of Conn. vs. Penn., I must postpone an answer until I can look again over my notes, which I left at Mount Vernon, as also the opinion in extenso.

Last Monday was the commencement of my stated February session. It was also the day to which the Circuit Court stood ajourned. All the Lawyers concerned in the Penn. causes were engaged in the State Courts. I sent Mr Caldwell to inquire if they had anything to do in the Circuit Court; & particularly in the Case of Conn. & Penn.

I returned home from my Circuit on the last day of Novr, since which, I have, as far as the various calls to which a farmer is exposed, have afforded me time for Study, been employed in preparing an opinion in the equity case of Conn. vs. Penn. the argument of which consumed nearly a fortnight of our last Term. I hope to make a final decree in this case in April, and never again to be plagued with it, unless an appeal should be taken.

Your letter of the 11th July found me upon a bed of sickness, from which I was not very soon relieved. I had scarcely become convalescent, before others of my family were taken down— finally, I determined to abandon the Country, which was becoming universally sickly, and to take refuge with Mrs W. in this place, which has, thus far, been unusually healthy. I trouble you with this account of my past troubles, as it furnishes the only legitimate apology for my long Silence since the rect of your favor.

Altho I have been at home upwards of six weeks, yet this is the first day when it has been in my power to write to you. My whole time, when it was not engaged by company, has been devoted to a chancery suit in which I am, involved as Executor of Genl W., the entire management of which devolves necessarily upon me.

Before I proceed to business, I must account for my long but involuntary silence. During the second day of the April term of this Court, I was, whilst on the Bench, attacked by a violent pleuresy which terminated the Session, as it had nearly done the life of your friend. I anticipated that event myself, as did most of my friends.

I have not yet heard whether your session in Philadelphia is over & you have returned to Mount Vernon. I had supposed from your last letter that your tour would be a short one; but not having heard of its being over, I doubt whether you may not be still engaged in Philadelphia.