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 have read over all the cases in my note books to the end of the fall term of 1809, with some attention, and now enclose you some observations upon such of the cases as seemed to merit criticism. You will observe that the corrections which I have suggested are principally such as qualify expressions more general than it was safe to use, or tend to expunge dicta which were unecessary to the points decided, the correctness of which might be doubted.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have just closed a very laborious autumnal circuit, in the course of which many highly important questions have been decided— I would send you an abstract of them, if I could command leisure just now; but my whole attention is directed to affairs connected with my departure for Washington— I shall however either bring the original opinions with me; or an abstract per your use.

     I recd yesterday, at this place, your favor of the 30^th Ulto.— Had it come to hand before I left Mount Vernon, it is highly probable I could have found amongst my papers a rough Copy of the two opinions in the case of Miller vs Mitch— it is now too late to have the search made. These opinions however are copied into my note book volume 17 which is in the hands of Mr Richard Peters Junr of Philadelphia, who, I think it likely, will attend this supreme Court.