Your favor of the 28th: Octr: has been received, & as I omited writing by the last Post, I will defer it no longer, lest, your fears should again be excited on my account.1 If I felt the same degree of alarm that appears to have taken hold of the People at a distance from Philadelphia, the proposal you were kind enough to make me of passing the Winter with you would probably be accepted, but from a full conviction that I can reside in Pennsylvania with perfect security, I think it most prudent to decline the invitation. If it should be unsafe to remain in Philadelphia, I can take up my residence in some of the interior Towns, where I shall have an opportunity of 452attending the County Courts, & forming an acquaintance which may be useful to me hereafter. But the City itself is at present perfectly free from the contagion, & I see no reason to apprehend a fresh eruption of the disease—besides the old saying of “Nothing venture, nothing have” is so deeply impressed upon my mind at present, that I would not hesitate to run some risque if there were a prospect of introducing myself into professional business by it. So far as my observations of life extend, I am convinced that there never was a Man of Eminence in the world, that was not indebted in some degree, for his fame to what is commonly termed fortune or accident. This is perhaps more frequently the case with Military than litterary characters, in one respect, viz. their continual exposure to danger & death. Their reputation is well earned no doubt, & is rather extorted from mankind as a just debt, than confered gratuitously. But I will not at this time descant upon a subject which can bear very little analogy to that which introduced it. All I wish to enforce by it is, that I could justify to my own mind, a remote hazard of my life, provided the occasion was sufficiently important to myself or others, to warrant the trial. I have been nearly Ten Weeks out of the City, and have met with some interruption in my studdies, but I shall make application for admission to the Bar soon after my return to the City. Mr Ingersoll returned last week, and expects me to attend the Office to assist him ‘till my admission, & as Dr Rush assured me I might return with perfect security, I shall not disappoint my Master. There is a certainty that much law business must be done this Winter and I dont see why I should be excluded from a share of the Loaves & Fishes, tho’ it may be a very small proportion.

Business of every kind is lively in Philadelphia, & most of the Citizens have returned. The Air which when I left it was extremely offensive in every part of the City, is now perfectly pure. We have lately had several heavy rains & some snow, & there is no doubt but we shall have a severe winter. The price of wood is high at present, but this is owing to the want of intercourse not to the scarcity, for there are thousand of Cords now lying on the Banks of the Creeks in this County, ready for transportation.

I have heared but once from my Sister since [her] return to New York—2 She wrote me by a Lady [who] lives in this town & was on a visit to NewYork but unfortunately the Trunk which contain[ed] my letter's was left on the Road & has not yet been forwarded.

Presenting my best love to all the Family / I remain / your Son

Your father will be the bearer of this Letter, and probably will find you at Philadelphia, which our late accounts represent as being totally free from the pestilence, which raged with so much violence for two or three months.— Remember however and be cautious— In the midst of the general calamity, for which your friends participate in the general affliction, they recollect with pleasure, proportioned to the extreme anxiety they felt for you, that you were spared, and they are therefore earnest in their recommendations, that you would not expose yourself by any particular omission of precautions, when the danger is principally past.

I apprehend from the tenor of your last Letter to me, that one Letter which I wrote you, had not yet reached you. It was dated if I mistake not the 15th: of September;1 and some part of the contents, were such as I should be very sorry to have fall into any other hands. If you have the Letter now, or should receive it hereafter, I wish you to give me notice of it, for my own satisfaction: but if you have it not yet, do not perplex yourself with conjectures upon the subject, as possibly you might without this caution, from the manner in which I now speak: if this appears mysterious to you, upon explanation, you would discover that like most other mysteries, it would turn out to be something very simple.

The approaching Session of Congress is like to be somewhat tempestuous; though I really think, the extravagance of the french fire-brand's absurdities, will operate as an antidote against them.2 454His measures appear to be as weak, as his designs are destructive: but the example which he sets to future European agents, is so pernicious, it may be so easily imitated by the representatives of any foreign power; that I am alarmed at the tameness with which it is received by this people.— In this part of the Country indeed there is scarcely any body so thoroughly depraved in his politics as not to disapprove of his madness, but if the President had treated him as he did Duplaine, he would scarcely then have been punished in a degree equal to his deserts.

I hope you will not be much longer delayed in the attainment of your legal degrees, and I dare say the time you have past in your sequestration has not been lost. I most earnestly wish that your success, in your profession may be greater, and especially more rapid than mine has hitherto been. You have not quite so many disadvantages to encounter as have fallen to my lot— Three long long years of painful suspence and tedious expectation and at the close of them suspence and expectation still, is not an encouraging prospect.— Yet it has been and still is mine. I have however long since got above or below repining at it, and in spite of all my evils can fatten upon it, like one of the genuine pigs from the sty of Epicurus.3

Whereupon I conclude myself your brother