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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Yesterday was the first day that I was at liberty to read your letter of the 19th July with the attention it deserved, and to look into a few Cases. I regret that is not in my power to devote more time1 in examining the authorities before returning you an answer; but this is prevented by the necessity I am under of leaving home in a day or two for the Springs, whence I shall proceed on my circuit.
I returned from my Circuit yesterday after an absence of 3 months wanting as many days. I was ten weeks in Court without intermission, and have upon no former occasion had so many important cases to decide. Notwithstanding the length & severity of this tour of duty, my health, thank God, has continued to improve, and I now feel as well as I have been for some years past.