I have been frequently tempted to address you since I came to the City, but really I have had neither spirits or temper to render the employment a pleasant one. The conduct of certain men, in a certain place, has teased me more than I can easily describe to you, and the alternate hopes and fears which the accounts we have sometimes recd of the probable course which would be pursued there, have kept me in a state of excitement not the most pleasant in the world.

     Accept my sincere thanks, my dear Sir, for Your address, which I have read with great interest. It has given me a clearer idea of the delicate and arduous duties of the Chief Magistrate of a large City than I before possessed, and has gratified the partiality in your favor which led me to anticipate a wise and honourable discharge of those duties under your administration.

     When I had the pleasure of seeing you, for the first time, at Mount Vernon, on a late visit, you mentioned to me, that a motion had been made to dissolve the injunction filed against the Exrs of Gl Washington, by my Father, as Exr of my Uncle.

     I received your letter of yesterday, enclosing [one] from Mrs Blodget, addressed to me. My personal acquaintance with that lady is limited: But it has been sufficient, with some other favorable information which I have received of her, to inspire me with a high respect for her genius, and a disposition to serve her in any way in which I could do so with propriety. During the short remnant of the present administration, I fear no opportunity to promote her wishes in regard to her son-in-law, will present itself.

     You will please credit me with the sum mentioned in the within Certificate, & as I shall have considerable transactions with your bank, at least until the sum I have subscribed to the C. & O. Canal Co. shall be paid, you will oblige me by sending me a small bank book with the entries in it to this time. I am very respectfully dear Sir yr mo. ob. Servt

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.

     I received your favor of the 10th instant. I regret to have to inform you that, at present, there is no vacancy in any of the Clerkships attached to the Department of State, to which the son of your friend could be appointed, nor am I aware that any will occur prior to the 4th of March next. If any existed your own recommendation, founded upon your personal knowledge, would be entirely Sufficient. It would have afforded me much pleasure to have been able to promote your wishes. I am, with great respect & esteem Faithfully Your ob. Servt

In consequence of your oblidging letter of the 6th inst. I now send you a check on the office Bank of Virginia at Norfolk for sixteen hundred dollars to be placed to my credit in the Branch bank of the U.S. at Washington and am very respectfully dear Sir yr mo. ob. Servt

     I yesterday recd a letter from Mr Thomas Williamson, Cashr of the Office Bank of Virginia at Norfolk informing me that he had deposited to my credit in that Bank Sixteen hundred dollars, subject to my order. Sums from the same Source have heretofore been negotiated through the Potomack bank; but as this mony is intended to go into your bank to meet the calls of the Canal Co., it will save trouble if you can negotiate my Check for the above sum so as to place it to my Credit on your books. Upon recieving permission I will forward you a check and am very respectfully Dr Sir Yr mo. ob.

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.

Accept my dear sir, my thanks for your pamphlet containing a short notice of the life of the late Judge Peters, which I have read with great interest and feeling.

During a period of more than 26 yea<rs> that we were associated in Judicial labours, the harmony of our intercourse was never, to the best of my recollection, interrupted by one unkind expression or sentiment. <I> felt for him whilst living the most sincere friendship & re<sp>ect, the memory of which I can never cease to cherish. Believe me to be respectfully my dear sir yr mo. ob. servt

How goes it, my dear Judge? This inquiry I wd make in person, if I had not as much writing to do as will fully occupy my time ‘till my departure for Trenton. 

     If you can call upon me between this & wednesday it will confer a great pleasure upon yr friend.

     As the calls of the Chesapeak & Ohio Canal Co. will probably continue to be for monthly payments by the stock holders,¹ I am anxious, on account of my long & frequent absences from home, to make some provision by which the sums which shall be required of me may be paid without my immediate agency at the respective times designated. But I do not know how this is to be contrived; and if you will have the goodness to suggest a plan which may answer, you will much oblige me.

I anxiously desired to converse with you before you left the neighbourhood on the subject of this most ruinous and distressing debt, but circumstances have occur'd to prevent our meeting— I wou'd see you to day but the health of my little boy is too precarious for me to leave him,¹

I have been in the Country for two months, returned here yesterday, and am obliged to leave this tomorrow morning on my Connecticut Circuit, And I have not been able to obtain the information you wish respecting the School on Long Island. Immediately on my return which will probably be in a few days, I will make the Enquiry and write you— I presume the School to which you allude is at Jamaica.

     I recd at the Springs your favor announcing the death of my venerable & beloved friend, Judge Peters. I was shocked on receiving the information, and yet I had endeavoured for more than twelve months to prepare myself for it. But he has descended to the tomb ripe in years, and full of those public & private virtues which embalm those we loved whilst living in the hearts of their survivors. I recd about the same time a letter upon the same melancholy subject from our friend Doct.

     I have nearly recovered from a serious indisposition which had nearly launched me from time to eternity, otherwise, your letter of the 30th ulto would not have laid by so long unanswered— I am truly sorry, that in all my efforts to collect debts due to me, I have failed, wishing, if possible, to pay in that way rather than, resort to a loan from the Bank.

     Your friendship will induce you not only to pardon this protracted answer to your favor by Mr Bartram, but to regret the cause of it, when I inform you that I am Just recovering from a severe bilious attack, which succeeded a distressing dyspectical state of my stomach, which really unfitted me for business of every kind.

I regret exceedingly that you have been necessitated to remind me so often of yr demand[.] I do assure you I have made every exertion in my power to collect Money to pay it— I have written to my agent in Kintucky to sell property— he writes me, cash cannot be procur'd at present for half the value of the property—but that he is using every endeavour to collect what is due me there and will remit the Money as soon as collected.

     I this day read a letter from you to Angela Lewis, dated in April last, in which you complain of the silence of your relations, and express a fear of having been forgotten by them.  I freely acknowledge that I have been hitherto obnoxious to your charge of neglect, so far as my silence may be considered as an evidence of it; but your apprehension of being unremembered by you<r> immediate family, or by myself, is, I can assure you entirely unfounded. You are often the subject of our conversation, as much oftner of our thoughts.

     Your letter of the 14th Decr last in which you stated that Mr [Poor] of Washington would have funds in his hands which shd be paid² one of us & not the balance of³ your debt to the estate should be observed thro one of the banks I paid to us, induced⁴ us to hope that we shd be spared⁵ the necessity of again calling your attention to this matter.

     I have received your letter of the 16th, in which you communicate the unanimous wish of the Anti-Jackson Corresponding Committee for Fairfax county, that I would allow myself to be considered a member of that body.

     I beg you to accept my thanks for "the Memoir" relating to your unsettled claims upon the government of the U. S. which I have read with much interest, and with my former opinion of the Justice of those claims more fully confirmed.

     Believe me to be with very great respect, and with best wishes for your happiness, Dear Sir Your Mo. ob. Servt

     I had the pleasure of receiving your letter from Baltimore my dearest Uncle some days ago, and should have written again, immediately on receiving it but waited in the hope of being able to say on what day we should have the happiness of being with my beloved Aunt and yourself.