The duplicate via Charlestown of your letter of the thirtieth of August, never reached my hand till a day or two before the nomination took place to the office of Judge of the district of Georgia. As I had the pleasure and advantage of a particular acquaintance with yourself, and the misfortune to know nothing at all, but by a very distant and general reputation of the gentleman nominated, I should have been ill qualified to make an impartial decision between the candidates.1 I feel upon all occasions I own, a particular pleasure in the appointment to office of Gentleman who are now well affected to the national Constitution who had some experience in life before the revolution and took an active part in the course and conduct of it.

Union peace and liberty to North America, are the objects to which I have devoted my life: and I beleive them to be as dear to you as to me. I reckon among my friends all who are in the communion of such sentiments: tho’ they may differ in their opinion of the means of obtaining those ends. I will not say that an energetic government is the only means: but I will hazard an opinion that a well ordered, a well ballanced, a judiciously limited government, is indespensably necessary to the preservation of all or either of those blessings. If the poor are to domineer over the rich, or the rich over the poor, we shall never enjoy the happiness of good government: and without an intermediate power sufficiently elevated and independant, to controul each of the contending parties in its excesses, one or the other will for ever tyrannize. Gentlemen who had some experience before the revolution and recollect the general fabric of the government under which they were born and educated and who are not too much 167 carried away by temporary popular politicks, are generally of this opinion. But whether prejudice will not prevail over reason passion over judgment and declamation over sober enquiry is yet to be determined

Yesterday I received your favour of the 19th. and learn with Pleasure your design to pursue your valuable History of New Hampshire.

The Anecdote of “Positive Proof from Holland that military Stores, to the amount of 400,000£ st. were ordered and purchased from N. America,” is wholly unknown to me. that Col Lee of Marblehead ever “recd or dispersed” any stores I never heard nor that he was “reimbursed by the 800£ voted to pay minute Men”.— I am ignorant of the whole, nor do I believe any Part of it.— Sir Joseph York at the Hague was supposed and I beleive truely to have Spies in every Tavern in Amsterdam, who fabricated more lies than they discovered or communicated Truths; and this I doubt not was one of the former: if indeed the British Ministry had any Such Information.1 Your Governor or Lt. Governor can tell you, with certainty whether there is any foundation for the Rumour. I believe there was absolutely none.— We should all have been comforted with even the faintest hope of Such Relief at that Time, and if there had existed even a Report of the Kind that any of Us believed, I should not have failed to have heard of it.

You have very good Reasons, from Hutchinsons Vanity his Love of Flattery, and his particular Pride in the Love and Admiration of New Englandmen, to suppose, that in a foreign Country Scantily supported, with numerous family Connections dependent on him, and still more numerous objects ruined by his Wiles, despised by one half the nation, neglected by the other, and not even much admired at Court, his latter days must have been “dark and dismal.”— But I am unable to give you particular Information concerning him. Nobody where I was in England was fond of talking of him.— I 168 heard a Report that he laid violent hands on himself, but it was from so poor an Authority, that it is scarcely worth while to enquire into the Truth of it.— if there had been any foundation for it, the Story would have made more noise.— I have heard too of Mortifications he received at Court, from Slights of the King at his too earnest Zeal to bring forward his Brother Foster upon all Occasions.2 whether these particulars are not beneath the Dignity of Biography to mention, You are the best Judge, next to Dr Kippis that I know.3

The Subject chosen by the Clergy, does honour to their Patriotism as well as Piety. The Morals and Religion, as well as the Property and Liberty of the People of this Country, have Suffered extreamly, from a Loss of the Sense of the Duty of submission to Government. if the Press should not pull down as fast as the Pulpit can build up, the Design of the Clergy in all Events laudable, will have very happy Effects.

Happy are you sir, to contemplate in learned Ease and Leisure, the Course of Events, and at the same time that you contribute largely to the Entertainment & Instruction of your Country and Posterity, raise a Monument more durable than marble to yourself.— Unhappy am I, to be destined to Spend two thirds of my Life in defending this People, against an Host of Ennemies, I might have said against an Host of Nations, and the remaining third, in feebleness and Infirmity, against their own Ignorance Folly and ——— I will not say more.

I have not been asssulted by Malice.— Ned Church has been actuated by the purest motives of Patriotism for any thing that I know.— I never injured nor offended him. I know nothing of him. There has not been a Word exchanged between him and me, this dozen years that I know.— if it was not Patriotism it was mere Caprice, or the lust of fame. Let him have it, tho he who burnt the Temple could not obtain it.—

With great Esteem, I have the honour / to be, sir your most obedient &c