I received your Letter of Jan’ry 23d and was gratified to find your Hand writing improving.

I know you are attentive to what is passing in the political World, indeed who can be an indifferent Spectator, in Times so critical, so allarming and so big with Concequences as the present?

I send you a late publication under the signature of scipio, [“]Reflections on Monroe’s view of the conduct of the Executive.” I do not know who the writer is—

Many of the observations and reflections containd in your Letter, meet with my approbation, and do honour to you. Not so the Sarcasam, and the Metaphor, by which you describe miss Peabodys expected Change from a single to a married state, connecting the Image of a Melafactor condemned to Execution, with the entrance into a state, prounounced by holy writ “Honarable in all things”1 and Sanctiond by the experience of Ages as one of the strongest Links in the social order, as one of the firmest pillars which supports Decency, Virtue, and Religion, in the world. It is the origion of all relations, and the first Element of all duties,

“Mr Burk observes in a Letter of his, That the Christian Religion by confining marriage to pairs, and by rendering that Relation Indissoluble, has by these two things done more towards the Peace, happiness settlement and civilization of the world, than by any other part, in the whole scheme of divine Providence”3 Never again my dear Nephew, exercise your wit at the expence of Reason and judgement, to that holy state you owe your own honorable existance, and it is always a proof of a depravity of Mind and Manners to aim at Sapping the foundation upon which they are built. I cannot asscribe to you any Such motives, the thoughtless Ebuilition of a youth full fancy gave your pen the latitude, which I know your judgment must condemn. In this Rage of innovation, this endeavour at shaking down all old revered Principles of Religion and Government, it would be well for the Youth of our Country to attend with the veneration due to an oracle to the following eloquent observations of the late mr Burk upon Manners—

“Manners are of more importance than Laws. upon them in a great measure the Laws depend. the law touches us, but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or sooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible opperation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give the whole form and contour to our Lives. According to their quality, they aid Morals, they supply them or they totally destroy them”4

I rejoiced at the good account you give me of my Grandsons, and I indulge the pleasing hope, that with examples So pure and amiable as they have before them, they will be led to adopt and cultivate every Virtue and grace, which may adorn society, and do honour to their Teachers to their Parents and to your truly affectionate / Friend and Aunt

I yesterday received your Letter of March 11th 1 it would give the President great satisfaction to communicate to the publick the dispatches of our Envoys if he could do it consistant with their safety and Security. the Portugeze minister is imprisoned now in France.2 we have not Certainty that ours have left Paris—and so critical are the times, that our Ministers cannot communicate confidentially if their dispatches are to be laid before the publick. the experiment made at the extraordinary sessions of Congress, in which some dispatches were made publick, gave some of our ministers more trouble abroad than is proper to be made known & would have opperated their removal if measures had not been taken to prevent the ill Effects produced by the communications. I mention this to you in confidence.

You will receive by this post the Message of the President sent yesterday to Congress— I suppose the cry will be, that the President 458 has declared War by his taking off the restriction from preventing merchant men to Arm, a restriction lade by the former President, and continued by the Present for prudential motives, tho not with out his doubts of the legality. the Times are becomeing very Serious. that other powers as sweeden and Denmark are treated as we are, is no consolation I presume to the merchant who loses his property. it only serves to prove that the British treaty about which so much clamour has been raised, is only made use of as a cover to the Hostile designs of France, who would have plunderd us, under some other pretence, or no pretence at all, for Plunder is what she wants. she has no means of paying; and power with unbridled ambition, have laid silent & dumb all Principle, all Rights all obligations, and all the powers whom France has conquerd, and those which she has fraternized, are pretty nearly on the same footing her embrace has proved like the Poisoned shirt of Dejanira.

As to the stamp Act, the decisive conduct of the senate, which would not give it a second reading quelld all opposition to it here, and there is never a word or Paragraph appeard since that I have heard. there will undoubtedly be wanted all the Revenue it will produce, to put our Country in a state of Defence— if we would preserve that Independance for which we have once fought & bled, we must be up & doing;

as to what is publishd in the papers respecting mr Gerrys going to Talyrands Ball I do not credit it.3 a thousand lies will be circulated, and every method made use of to divide our Counsels, to distract our Country. you know it is a part of their system which they practised under the administration of washington, and which they are now working into a system from one End of the united States to the other. hence the grose lies daily publishd in the Aurora, Argus, & Chronicle. we have the most Authentic information that, all their malice will be leveld against the President Personally, against his family his administration, in order to make the people discontented and oblige him to resign, that they may have no obstical in the way of their wishes— the Coffe House in this city is filld with french Men. I was was told last Evening that there are ten to one American, who daily filld that place.4 they are scatterd all over the union and what ever their Professions, they are to a Man Frenchmen—

Inclosed is a Letter which mr Brisler requests you to send to his Brother5

my Love to mrs smith and Family / From your Friend