Yesterday on my return from the upper country I found your letter of the 8th. of April & immediately deposited with the clerk of the district court the copy of the title of your reports.

I Have not for a long time Had the pleasure to Hear from you But Hope the Restoration of peace Between the U.S. and G.B. will afford opportunities for a Correspondance I So much Value— the Consequences of the late changes in france with Respect to our British interloude are not yet known— they Cannot at Any Rate Hinder, under proper precautions, the precious Invite You Have been pleased to promise.

I did not receive your letter of the 22d. till yesterday.

I recollect but very indistinctly to have seen among the papers of Genl. Washington a letter from some foreigner respecting lands or to have seen Genl. Washingtons answer to the letter I forget which. I am now much occupied in court, &, when the term is over, will examine for the letter.

The court which has just terminated has furnished some business for your Honors at Washington. I have had some new & intricate questions on one of which, that goes up to the Supreme court, I decided on reflection differently from my first impression.¹ That judgement will probably be reversed.

I was extremely sorry to learn from your last that you were again indisposed. This has been generally the most sickly season I have ever known, but I will hope that the frosts have had a favourable influence on your health as they have had on that of most others. You were certainly right to return, and I hope your endeavours to meet your brethren in February will succeed.

While at Mount Vernon I delivered you the affidavit of T. Marshall stating that he never received the certificate which you were so obliging as to obtain for him & I now enclose you mine that I have lost it. I have no doubt that they will be sufficient to obtain the renewal of the certificate; but I believe that some bond must be executed before it can issue. I do not know how this is to be filled up & suppose it must contain a description of the certificate which I cannot make.

     I recd in due time your favor of Sepr 14 and have delayed acknowledging it, till you should have returned from your autumnal Circuit. Presuming this to have taken place. I now offer my thanks for your ready assent to my request of August & particularly for your politeness in referring to myself the mode of attaining its object. The one which will probably give you the least trouble; will be to have the papers in question Deposited with Mr R. Catto, under an address to me & to be forwarded by some safe hand.

So idle were the gentlemen I had employed in my copying business during my absence, that with my utmost exertions I coud not get the books in readiness in time to send them to you before your departure from Alexandria. Every thing is now prepared, & I watch the stage continually for some person who will take them to Philadelphia. I am extremely anxious that you shoud give the volume an attentive reading & make all those corrections which I am sure will suggest themselves to you.

The day after I wrote to you I was informed that a Mr Davidson of this place was setting out for Philadelphia & woud take charge of a box to you.¹ I thought it most advisable to send it tho I had not had it in my power to examine the second copy, or to correct the first. There is a part about which I wish you to be particularly attentive, as, on reading it over I had designed to change it, but the opportunity of sending it was so sudden that I have omitted to make the corrections I intended.

I have just received your letter inclosing your notes on the parts of the life which you have read. I am sorry they are not more ample—but I hasten to advert to the circumstance mentioned by Mr Wayne which is of real importance. I had designed barely to hint at Braddocks defeat in the first volume & to detail the circumstances minutely in the second & thought I had done so, but on looking into what I believe is the 12th chapter I find I have been much more particular than I thought myself or woud wish to be.