Your two letters on La Harpe, I have taken the liberty to publish in the Port Folio, and I have now to ask the favor of you, as your leisure & inclination may serve, to pursue your extracts & comments upon any portion of that great work, which you may find agreeable or think useful.1 I make this request in behalf of the Editor of the Port Folio, who will be flattered & obliged by any literary communication. If you should write again upon any of the subjects, which fall within the investigation of La Harpe, there need be neither date nor name to your letter. Care was taken to erase both, in the former letters received;

I have also received two other letters from you, controverting one of Paine’s aphorisms, or, as you call it; “airy anticks,” with which the arch Apostate Callender seems so well satisfied.2 There is such an abundance of false philosophy in every thing written by Paine on the subject of government, that whole volumes of refutation might grow out of a single page; but the letters he has written since his return from France have given the finishing stroke to his “reputation as an author,” let him discuss what topic he may. His former admirers have abandoned him to his fate which without independent of this last effort of his own, had consigned his works to a remorseless oblivion. His slanders against you, in some of those letters, were so gross & blackguard, that though I felt the utmost indignation at the author of them, I could not publicly notice, without making them of more consequence than they deserved, or could ever derive, while resting on the credit of Paine’s testimony. There was however one barefaced lie, which Paine asserted as a fact, and which Blake of Worcester attempted to circulate with his comments. This I undertook to contradict, and you may possibly have seen in the Port Folio No 2. of Volume 3. the manner in which it was done. The intrigue against Genl: Washington, which I think I have heard you say, did exist about the beginning of 1778, does not appear on the journals, by any express marks of disapprobation towards him, and the transactions of that period being with closed doors, must depend as you have expressed it, upon tradition. The System of closed doors appears to be revived in the present session of Congress, and it is presumable with similar views as formerly existed; viz, to confound the traitor & the patriot in a general 271 conclave, & leave it to the chapter of accidents, to ascribe the merit of patriotic exertions to treasonable Counsellors.3 If you feel no restraint imposed upon you at this distance of time, as to the propriety of disclosing the transactions of early times, I should be very glad to receive from your pen, for my private satisfaction some traditional notes upon the characters, who composed the first Congress. I would hold them as a sacred deposit

With best love & duty I am, dear sir, / Your Son

I duely recd yours of the 16th with the Paper enclosed. I had given no Attention to the Attack upon you in Cheethams Paper, because I know that no Integrity of heart, no Purity of Conduct, or Innocence of Life can protect any Man from the Shafts of Calumny, in these times of party rage and under an elective Government, which breeds Passions and prejudices as fast as ever the sun upon the Slime of the Nile brought forth frogs:1 especially if a Man holds an office, which is covetted by numbers, and has Ennemies on both Sides.2 Our Papers are good for nothing but Advertisements, and I doubt whether We could get it printed. indeed I believe it is Scarcely worth while to excite any public Attention to the subject here. Your Character has not suffered here, on Account of it.

I recd and read with Attention Coriolanus. It is well written in a Simple clear and nervous Style, with a Knowledge of the subject, and with a Spirit, Decision and Intrepidity that I admire. I wish that our Government may not find reasons by a dear bought Experience to wish to regret that they did not at first adopt your the Project. The Compliments you pay to particular Characters you will not expect that I should approve or disapprove in this Letter. Your Faith in our Constitution that it can govern Canada, the West India Islands &c is Stronger than my grain of Mustard seed. your frank dissertation on an Alliance with England, altho it is not improper that our Nation should consider Such a contingent Possibility, I should not have thought it prudent to produce.3

The Pamphlet has raised your Reputation in this part among all who know the author: and it is written with so much respect to Authority that no reasonable Man can censure so frank and candid a submission of his sentiments to the public Opinion, by any free Citizen.— Since you have begun the Career of the Press I hope you will persevere: if you had begun twenty Years ago you might have done great things, eer now.

I rejoice to hear of the Welfare of my Daughter and your sons & Daughter. Make them Schollars. A taste for Letters, is a never failling source of Entertainment, and is usefull in every Station of Life. I am with the best Wishes for your Prosperity, sir your friend & sert