Relying on your Excellency’s Regard to literary Merit & Yr Readiness to encourage the Cultivation of the Sciences in this Country, I take the Liberty of recommending to your Patronage the Business which carries the Bearer Mr Joseph Workman to England.1

His Brother Mr Benjamin Workman has invented an Instrument for taking the Variation of the Needle, which the Bearer is to submit to the Examination of the Royal Society; & if it should meet the expected Approbation, they intend to apply for a Patent. The Brothers are of unquestionable Character & have served with Reputation as Tutors in the University in this City: & I thought that your Excellency’s being made acquainted with this might both dispose & enable you to support their Claim for such Rewards as the Work may be found to merit.

It may be proper to inform you, Sir, that the Books you sent by me were delivered agreeably to your Directions. When I left England, I had no Reason to expect that the Time of our Arrival would be the very Crisis which shd call for a more than ordinary Degree of Attention to the Subjects contained in them. I allude to the Sitting of the present Convention: & I have the Pleasure of believing, that the Principles of your Work will have no small Influence on the Deliberations of that Body.

I beg my most respectful Compts to Mrs Adams & to Col: & Mrs Smith—

I cannot conclude without thaking you, Sir, for your polite Attentions to me when in England: and I have the Honor to subscribe myself, / Your Excellency’s obliged & very / humble Servant,

Mr Cutting presents respectful compliments to the American Minister and returning his warmest acknowledgments for the entertainment and invaluable instruction comprised in those sheets of his second Volume entitled a defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (with which Mr C. was lately favour’d and which having read rapidly once he is now again perusing with care and attention)—intreats permission to retain the same a little longer.

The entire history of the Italian Republics is so fully and exactly calculated to sustain the whole doctrine for which Mr Adams contends, that if the former volume has not converted every unbeliever in the political utility of the triple ballance the facts and demonstrative deductions contained in the latter must make him a proselyte to a truth so irresistably inculcated and indisputably established.

Yet while Mr C. rejoices as a young Citizen of the United States, and congratulates his Country, upon the blaze of light with which an illustrious Lawgiver illuminates the great principles of a right single, seperate and solitary government; he cannot but deeply regret the palpable dimness, nay thick darkness visible that still seems to involve the subject of that Complex Constitution so indispensably requisite to unite by league and cement by confæderation any given cluster of active commercial and warlike republics—which destitute of such a solid bond of stedfast amity must either soon split into ruinous state—dissensions or moulder into a mighty mass of unqualified Monarchy.