I have been honored with your Letters of the 10th. 19. & 30 April and 1st: May last. Since the sitting of the Convention a sufficient number of States for the Dispatch of Business have not been represented in Congress, so that it has neither been in my Power officially to communicate your Letters to them, nor to write on several Subjects on which it is proper that Congress should make known their Sentiments to You.

Your Information of the Attempt to counterfeit the Paper of the Carolinas, and the probable Design of exporting base Pence to this Country is interesting, and shall be made proper Use of.

The public Attention is turned to the Convention.— Their Proceedings are kept Secret, and it is uncertain how long they will continue to sit.— It is nevertheless probable that the Importance and Variety of Objects that must engage their Attention will detain them longer than many may expect. It is much to be wished that the Result of their Deliberations may place the United States in a better Situation; for if their Measures should either be inadequate or rejected, the Duration of the Union will become problematical. For my own Part I am convinced that a national Government as strong as may be compatible with Liberty is necessary to give us national Security and Respectability.

Your Book gives us many useful Lessons, for altho’ I cannot subscribe to your Chapter on Congress, yet I consider the Work as a valuable one, and one that will tend greatly to recommend and establish those Principles of Government on which alone the United States can erect any political Structure worth the Trouble of erecting.

The Western Indians are uneasy and seem inclined to be Hostile— It is not to be wondered at— Injustice is too often done them; and the Aggressors escape with Impunity— In short our Governments both particular and general are either so impotent or so very gently administered as neither to give much Terror to evil Doers, nor much Support, and Encouragement to those who do well.

I have not answered Colonel Smith’s Letters, but I have not forgotten him, nor will I forget him.1

What Congress will say about your Resignation or your Successor I know not, for that and other Matters in this Department are yet to come under their Consideration. The great Delays which mark their Proceedings on almost every interesting Subject are extremely inconvenient and sometimes injurious.—

With great and sincere Esteem and Regard, / I am, Dear Sir, / Your affectionate and / Obedient servant,

I received, my dear Sir, your Republics, & am much honord with the office you assign me. I had before read them & nothing material occurrd to me as amendments. The title is the only thing exceptionable, because it applys to that particular part only which respects M. Turgot. But the work will undoubtedly be of very great service, in directing the consideration of our Countrymen to the defects of our Constitutions in the want of a due balance of three Estates. To form one great National Parlaiment which shall be paramount to the several Legislatures, is certainly one object of conventional deliberation.

I shall read again your Republics & communicate to you any thing that may occur, worthy your attention My Br. R. H. is expected here to-morrow to take his seat in Congress.1 He was again sollicited to go into the Convention, but refusd, on this ground that he shoud be better able to advocate what they might recommend, if he had no concern in the framing it. It is certain that popular Assemblies will listen with some degree of jealousy to the advocation of those who have been in Convention, & in those Assemblies the greatest 111 opposition to any effectual system must arise, because in fact their powers & the abuse of them, are the root of the evil that is to be remedied.

I give you joy of your Grandson—be so good as to remember me to its Parents & to Mrs. Adams.

Adieu