Philadelphia Decr. 8 1796
My Dearest Friend
Inclosed are some Signal Accomplishments of Prophecies.
Be cool and discreet in your Communications of them.
No such Person as Jasper Dwight is known to either of the Senators of Vermont. The Signature is thought to be fictitious.
I have no Letter from you later than the Sunday after my Departure.
Major Butle r has indeed resign'd.
They kept back Paines Letter Several Weeks, presuming no doubt that it would not promote their Election. It appeared for the first, this morning.
I think, of all Paines Productions it is the weakest and at the same time the most malicious. The Man appears to me to be mad -- not drunk. He has the Vanity of the Lunatick who believed himself [illegible] to be Jupiter the Father of Gods and Men.
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There is a Dr. Edwards here -- a Relation of Mr. Burr and Pierpoint Edwards who has lately return'd from Paris. Perhaps he may be the Pensilvanian of whom you read.
I can Say nothing of Election. I have received to Day the Votes of New Jersey but know not for whom they are, as they are under Seal.
I am,
J.A.
The Feelings of Friendship excite a Curiosity to know how Mc Kean will vote. By that I shall guess how Gov. Adams would have voted.
But I have Seen Friendships of S. Quincy, Jona. Sewall, Daniel Leonard, Gen. Brattle, Treasurer Grey and fifty others go away like a vapour before political Winds -- and a constant Succession of Others go the same Way from that time to this, that I cannot depend upon any Feelings of my own Judgment I can form from any Feelings of my own. No private Friendship would induce me to Spare a wrong Political Character. But Mc Kean and Adams can never believe the Lies that are told. If they could vote against me it must be because they think I should not be
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Supple enough to the French. I have known the Time when both of them would have been as Stiff as myself.
I feel myself in a very happy temper of Mind. Perfectly willing to be released from the Port of Danger but determined if call'd to it, to brave it, if its horrors were ten times thicker than they are. I have but few Years of Life left and they cannot be [illegible] better bestowed, than upon that Independence of my Country in Defence of which it that Life has ever been in Jeopardy.
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[Endorsement -- see page image]
