Ever since the last week in Octor I have been engaged in composing & delivering a new Course of lectures on the theory & practice of medicine in the College of this city.1 This arduous business has employed me so closely that it has seperated me from my friends,—detatched me from all Other pursuits—and—what I regret most of all, has deprived me for a while of the pleasure of your Correspondence.— Altho’ we hold different principles upon some Subjects, yet I cannot help loving and respecting you. You were my first preceptor in the Science of Goverment. From you I learned to discover the danger of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, and If I have had any merit, or guilt in keeping the public mind Awake to its folly, or danger for 13 years, you alone should have the Credit of the former & be made responsable for the latter. But my dear Sir I learned further 239 from you, to despise public opinion when set in competition with the dictates of judgement or Conscience. So much did I imbibe of this Spirit from you, that during the whole of my political life, I was always disposed to suspect my integrity, if from any Accident I became popular with our Citizens for a few weeks or days. The reformation of our State goverment has completed my last political wish. Hitherto I have never known a defeat, or final disappointment in any One of them. I ascribe my Successes wholly to my perseverance. I claim this Virtue publicly boldly, since all my enemies admit of my possessing it, at the time they deny me every other Virtue or quality of a politician.—

The experience I have had in public pursuits, has led me to make many discoveries in the human heart that are not very favourable to it.— I shall leave some of them upon record by way of beacons to deter my children from engaging in public life.— One of them will be that “a politician can never suffer from his enemies.”— The folly—the envy—and the ingratitude of his friends are the principal Sources of his sufferings.

Such is my apathy now to public Affairs that I often pass whole weeks without reading our newspapers.— I have never Once been within the doors of our convention, nor have I broken bread with a single member of the body who compose it.2 Heaven has been profuse in its gifts of family blessings to me. My dear Mrs Rush is every thing to me that a friend—a companion & a wife should be to any man. Our children are affectionate—& dutiful,—& promising as to their capacities for acquiring knowledge.— Nineteen out of twenty of my evenings are spent in their Society.

I see many of my friends who began their political Service with [. . .] men high in power or affluent in office, who in the year 1776 considered me as One of the firebrands of independance. I feel the effects in a debilitated Constitution of the midnight Studies which I devoted for 16 years to my Country— I see nothing before me during the remainder of my life, but labor and Selfdenial in my profession—and yet I am happy. I envy no man—and blame no man. O! Virtue—Virtue—who would not follow thee blindfold!— I want nothing but a heart sufficiently grateful to heaven for the happiness of my family & my Country

I do not reject the modern languages as a part of Academical education. I have found much more benefit from the French, than I ever found from the latin or Greek, in my profession. I have found some advantages from a knowledge of the Italian, & have been 240 entertained by reading Spanish Books. My partiality to these languages, is one of the reasons of my having quarelled with the dead languages of Greece & Rome.—

with great regard I continue Dr / Sir yours very affectionately / & sincerely

I doubt not but You have been inform’d that our Genl Assembly have order’d a Convention to be called to meet a South-Kingston the first Monday of March. the Delegates were Chosen the 8th. of this Month and from the Returns we Count Thirty Two Federals and Thirty Eight Antis—so that the Battle will go hard against us if some methods cannot be hit upon to affoard us some help. as I hinted in a former Letter1 so I repeat it in this, if Congress would take up the Letter that was sent from our General Assembly and give them a firm and Spirited Reply it would be of great service. they might let them know that Congress Consider the Teritory of Rd Island as a part of the United States that if a part of the present Inhabitants did not Choose to Live under the Federal Government they would be permitted to sell Their Estates &c. but that the people of Rd Island must of necessity be united with the Rest of the American States. the same wicked disposition continues among the Leaders as heretofore and Congress can do nothing that is good or praise worthy but every of their Acts and found fault with.

we shall do every thing in our power per fas aut nefas to accomplish our ends—as we really look on the people as Dluded and 241 facinated at present, and seem determined to oppose with Forc of Arms every effort that can be made for the Establishing the Federal Government, if a firm Arm could be laid on us to let them feel and see that Congress was Determined that something should be done and that soon it would have a good Effect.

The present plan of the oposition is to adjorn the Convention to September by which time they say Congress will do so many unjust things that several of the great States will be ready to Revol, and that Rd Island remaning a Free & Independent State will put her self at their head. &c with many other Extravegant plans.

on the whole if something could be sent on from Congress to look as if it was spontaneously done. addressed to the Convention I really believe it would have a great weight in producing a favourable determination of the Question.

with Esteeme I Remain Your Excelly / most Obedient Humb Servant