I write again my dear Sister because I know you love to hear from me, & not that I have any thing important to communicate I was disappointed by not having a line from you yesterday as you clos’d your last Letter of Feb. 1d by Saying you had just receiv’d one from me which you Should reply to the next day

I went to Boston a Friday with mr & mrs Black in their Sleigh & return’d with them the next day. at mr Smiths I took up a chronicle & Saw in it an infamous Lie as I had it in my power to make appear. I had your Letter in my Pockit in which you say. “one thing is certain that no intillgince is reciev’d by the President from our Envoys abroad.” there were a number of Gentlemen present to whom I thought proper to make this declaration The writer in the chronicle asserts that the President had receeiv’d dispatches from them, three weeks Since. which he had for base purposes conceal’d— to day I see the centinel & Mercury have given the chronicle the Lie— this paper is become So notorius that no one gives any credit to the party writers in it. not even the Jacobins themselves—1

Adam Colison is dead. that Pickaxe of goverment. tis Said how truly I know not, that a week before his death he had to appoint executers to his will. Some he wish’d, declin’d & advis’d him to take them from his own party & inquir’d why he had not at first made a choice among them. because Said he—“I knew not one I can trust—” dying Speeches are generally thought to be Sincere. if he had been a little wiser I should have had a better opinion of those who caress’d him. but he was just fit to Bark as he was bid2

I veryly think our General assembly get thro their business with more dispatch than your venerable Body The Judiciary Bill & the Dog act, have taken up most of the Session I hear. the former is lost the latter is past & a tax lay’d.3 the design is to exterpate the race how happy for the country if congress could as profitable get rid of their mad Dogs! they are more to be dreaded than any we have yet 405 heard off If People will send Such vulgar Members they must expect Such conduct from them but how must we be degraded in the eyes of foreign Nations. your Jacobin equallity too— oh fie. but tis all of a peice

our Envoys must be very disagreable Situated. I fear congress will be oblig’d to Set till Summer. I begin to long for your return, & as to the winter I never knew So long a one. we have fine slieghing & the weather Severly cold—but I do not mind it in a cover’d Sleigh. I drank Tea with mrs Smith mrs Belnap mrs Bs Sister & mrs Black last Friday at mrs Lambs.4 we talkd of you my dear Sister & of our pleasent meetings at your house. mrs Black will send a cap by the mail. She would send a slip if She could. She has a large Baskit of cloathes for the child which She design to have sent mrs Hall before She got to Bed. they will be large enough for the Baby when it comes here she thinks to take the woman & her child if She is willing to come. She Says She shall want a person she can trust to take care of the Baby & there is no one so likely to be attach’d to it as She who has nurs’d it

I do not know but you will see my Son Soon mrs Cranch writes me that mr Greenleaf wishes him to be with him a few days before he is to have a hearing. it will be a satisfaction to him to see the President & you it will be next to seeing us—5

mrs Greenleaf makes too good a nurse to be fleshy I think she is full as thin as her sister Norton use’d to be but she is in good health. but looks as if She grew in the Shade. She has no colour. She sends her duty to you—

Willm Shaw spent a couple of nights with me last week he Says his mother has had her health every well this winter his sister Betsy has been Sick with a fever. is about house. but has a bad cough still. your Lads are well & fine boys. I hear their Father is return’d. I hope he will not take the children away. he cannot be So ungrateful as well as disrespectful— I was glad to hear of the welfair of your children abroad. I hope you & I too shall Some time or other see all our children again—

mr & mrs Norton & her Family are well. poor Suky warner is very low the Doctor has very little expectation of her living thro the spring

mrs Beal has not been at meeting Scarcly this winter. she has been very unwell. Richards wife & child are with her for the winter.6 mr Ben Beal has not yet return’d from new-york uncle Quincy is 406 well as usual & mr Wibird crawls—about yet I believe but I have not seen him for a long time mr Baxter has not brought his wife home nor do I believe he will tis suppos’d he will go & live with her.

Cousin Betsy return’d about a week since from Boston I wonder if She has inform’d her sister who brought her home. he was often at mr smiths while she was their—but “they were all accidental visits”—not made to her—but to mrs Smith.— mr Smith is a good hand to rally you know—& these accidental visits were So rung in her ears—that she had no peace— She will make a visit to her aunt Peabody Soon. I fancy She will not go alone [. . . .] a long visit— She has a bad cold & cough at present. I f[. . . .] about it. but I am trying to cure it

mrs Baxter continues to mend I took a Bottle [. . . .] wine for her from your cellar. I feel almost Sure she has had the Rhumatism in her head when I saw her last Sunday She had it in her wrist, So bad She could not help crying out Sometimes She can only Set up long enough to have her Bed made now

It has been very healthy here this winter. we have had several deaths but no great Sickness Jonathan Beal has lost another child very Suddenly. it was sick but nine hours. the Quincy they thought was its disorder—7

mr Cranch sends his Love to the President & you. will write you Soon. he will not condicend to Scrible as I do but must take time to think— I should never write if I did—& you my Sister will I know be always kind enough to look with candor / upon every thing, which falls from the pen of / your affectionate Sister

I received your kind Letter of Feb’ry 9th and was quite rejoic’d to hear that mrs Baxter was like to do well, when I feard to open the Letter least it should inform me of her death.

I have been Confined with a cold like the influenza for several days past. I have dreaded least it should prove one of my Feb’ry attacks. it came on with a very soar Throat and hoarsness and terminated in sneezing it has made me quite sick. I have not been out of my Room Since saturday. I hope however it is going of. I have a company of 33 to dine with me tomorrow Eleven of whom are Ladies, and Louissa is in much trouble on account of being obliged to act as Principle to morrow. she would have had me sent cards of apology to defer it, but I could not consent, as most of the Ladies are well known to her, and it is good Sometimes to oblige young people to come forward and exert themselves. amongst the Ladies is mrs Law the Grandaughter of mrs washington, who lives in the city of washington. she is a very pleasing agreable Lady, and I loved her for the kind and affectionate manner in which she spoke of mr & mrs Cranch and Betsy Elliot whose absence she says they all regreet—

I have some expectation of seeing Your son here in a few days. I hear he is comeing upon mr Greenleaf affairs. mr Morris deliverd himself to his bail and went to Jail last week.1 if ever said mrs Law, I had felt a disposition to extravagance, I should have been cured by a visit to mrs Morris. two years ago, Mrs Morris was a remarkable 408 well looking woman. Maria, my companion gay and blith as a bird, blooming as a rose in June. I went to visit mrs Morris, & met her without knowing her, so alterd that I was shockd. maria pale wan dejected & Spiritless— such is the change Here I cannot refrain quoting a passage which struck me in reading it, as applicable not only to that Family, but to one with which I am more closely connected.

“The man who loses his whole fortune, yet possesses firmness, Philosophy, a disdain of ambition and an accommodation to circumstances, is less an object of contemplative pity, than the person who without one real deprivation, one actual Evil is first, or is suddenly forced to recognise the fallacy of a Cherished and darling hope all speculative Wealth has a shallow foundation, but that its foundation has always been shallow is no mitigation of dissapointment, to him who had only viewed it in its superstructure, nor is its downfall less terrible to its visionary elevator because others had seen it from the beginning as a folly or Chimera: its dissolution should be estimated, not by its romance in the unimpassioned examination of a rational looker on but by its believed promise of felicity to its credulous projector.”2 I am sometimes ready to exclaim when I see one bubble bursting after an other, all is vanity and vexation of spirit—

you write me that I have amused and entertaind you by my communications. I am sure I must mortify you by a detail of some late proceedings in congress. you must have heard of the spitting animal. this act so low vulgar and base, which having been committed, could only have dignifiedly resented, by the expulsion of the Beast, has been spun out, made the object of party, and renderd thus, the disgrace of the National legislature, by an unfortunate clause in the Constitution which gives the power into the hands of the minority, requiring two thirds to concur in an expulsion of a member. the circumstances were so fully proved of Lyons being the base agressor, that as Gentleman I could not have belived they could have got one third of the members to have consented to his continuence with them, but you will learn the state of the buisness from the documents I send you—3 I know not where it will end— in the mean time the business of the Nation is neglected, to the great mortification of the federalists.

you will have received before this my Letters, which contain a reply to some of your queries

I want to say a word to you by way of advise. the Farm which has been disposed of, I hope may prove a relief to mr Cranch as well as an advantage to him and that the income from the money if vested in publick Securities will yeald you more real profit than the Land. yet that was solid money fleeting. my request is that the sum during Brothers Life may not be broken in upon with an Idea of assisting Children. they are young and can better bear hardships and care, than those who are advanced in Life. I hope therefore nothing will lead to a dispertion of the capital, tho you have as deserving children as any person need desire. I repeat pray do not let the bank be touchd. I have seen too many instances of Parents dependant upon Children— tho there are instances which do honour to humane nature, there are more which disgrace it

as to the Carpet you speak of, you may use it, and when I return I will let you know whether I will part with it—

adieu my dear sister / most affectionatly / your