Your letter of the 5th has remained unanswerd to this late period, partly in consequence of a severe cold which confined me to my room, and prevented me from consulting with my brethren on the subject to which you referred, and partly on account of the interesting questions which have been discussed (amongst these, the validity of the state bankrupt laws) which have engaged my whole attention both in & out of Court, when my time has not been otherwise occupied.

The Session of the Supreme Court will terminate today, after a continuance of 54 days, during which time, we have disposed of about 66 causes, many of them difficult, & some greatly interesting to the Nation. I shall return to Mount Vernon without delay, and endeavour to hasten the preparations for my Northern Journey. The unusual length of the Session puts it totally out of my power to go to Trenton; and I fear that I shall not be able to get to Phila. before the 2d or 3d day of the Court.

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.

I observe this day, that the Millet, which you induced me to try this year, is heading very fast, altho it was sown only a few days before my return home. As soon as I discovered its forwardness, I searched all the books on farming, in my possession, that I might be prepared for the proper management of it when it shall be fit to cut. I can find nothing said respecting the time, or the mode of harvesting it—saving the seed, or curing the Stalk & leaves. I have not the 4th vol.

I have not recd a line from you since yours of the 7th altho I have with infinite anxiety sent to Alexa. in the hope of recieving a letter to inform me what was done on the 11th as to the adjournment of the Court. Mrs Washington has not even yet recovered her strength, but it was our intention at least to set out on our Journey & to endeavour to perform it by slow rides in case you had informed me that the adjournment was to any day in this month.

I wrote you some days ago describing the Situation of Mrs W. & myself, and expressing my anxiety (which I most sincerely felt & yet feel) to attend the Phila. Court, and my doubts whether it would be practicable. I am now distressed, (as well on account of the effect as of the cause) to inform you, that I altogether despair of being able to go forward. I am yet very weak myself, although I should risk the attempt to get on, if I had myself alone to attend to. But Mrs W.

Very soon after the rect of your kind favor, whilst the Hack from Washington was here to take us to Trenton, & the night before the Journey was to commence, I was attacked by a bilious fever, which with the necessary evacuations have so prostrated my strength, that I have scarcely enough left to enable me to move, but with great difficulty, about the room. Mrs W. is equally indisposed with the same Complaint.

I am requested [b]y¹ two of my friends to write to you in their behalf for some of your Tunis Sheep which, Livingston & Humphreys, to the contrary notwithstanding, they prefer to Merinos. There are many Sheep of the Tunis breed in our State equal to yours perhaps in Size, & for aught I know, in flavor; but my friends say that yours excel them decidedly in the fineness & weight of the fleece. One of these gentlemen wishes to obtain two rams & one Ewe about 12 months old—the other, one ram & one Ewe.

Circumstances, with which it is unecessary to trouble you, will prevent my leaving home in time to reach Phila. on the 11th. I could do so were I to travel alone, but Mrs. Washington's health will not permit¹ her to go forward as fast as would be necessary for that purpose. I hope to get to the City on the 12th so as to be ready to proceed to business the next day.

The grand Sachem, one of your acknowledged Uncles, not having been much accustomed to admiralty proceedings has propounded a question to me, about which he entertains some doubt, and wishes to know whether it has occurred in any of the Courts of my Circuit. I informed him that you would be the most likely of all our brethren to have met with the case & perhaps decided it, & I promised to mention it to you.

The day before I left Philadelphia, Mr Tilghman & Mr Rawle called at my room with the papers in the Suit of Tatham agt you that I might have an opportunity to consider the case & make a decree during the vacation.

In one of your letters enclosing the request of the bar that the Circuit Court might be adjourned, you speak of the first monday in January as the day mentioned by them and approved by you. But as the determination to adjourn was not positively fixed at that time, and no notice of it has appeared in any of the Phila. papers which have come to my hands, I think it necessary to ascertain at once the precise day; that is whether it is to be the 1st day, or the first monday.

I have watched with anxious solicitude the successive reports of your board of health, always hoping that some favorable change would take place in the State of the disorder which seemed to threaten your City. The last accounts appear to us very alarming, particularly as they correspond very nearly with those from New York, Baltimore & Norfolk, & seem for this reason to prove that the Sickness is not local, but dependent in a great measure on the unfriendliness of the season, aided no doubt by imported causes.

After a careful examination of the circumstances which attended, as well as others which preceded the fire at this place, it is obvious that it was the work of an incendiary. But I know as little who to suspect at this moment, as when I first recieved the information. There is not amongst my domestics one, to whom I can trace it by any possible motive of vengeance, or whose conduct would in any manner warrant me in selecting him as the guilty person.

The yellow fever in Alexandria prevented me from recieving your favor as soon as I otherwise should have done.