Another of our friends of 76. is gone, my dear Sir, another of the Co-signers of the independance of our country. and a better man, than Rush, could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius, or more honest. we too must go; and that ere long.

I do not entertain your apprehensions for the happiness of our brother Madison in a state of retirement. such a mind as his, fraught with information, and with matter for reflection, can never know ennui. besides, there will always be work enough cut out for him to continue his active usefulness...

you probably do not know mr Madison personally, or at least intimately as I do. I have known him from 1779. when he first came into the public councils; and from three & thirty years trial, I can say conscientiously that...

mr Henry’s ravenous avarice, the only passion paramount to his love of popularity. the facts I have heard on that subject are not within my own knolege, & ought not to be hazarded but on better testimony than I possess.

Dr Franklin, the greatest man & ornament of the age and country in which he lived.

Hamilton is ill of the fever as is said. he had two physicians out at his house the night before last. his family think him in danger, & he puts himself so by his excessive alarm. he had been miserable several days before from a firm persuasion he should catch it. a man as timid as he is on...

my present course of life admits less reading than I wish. from breakfast, or noon at latest, to dinner, I am mostly on horseback, attending to my farms or other concerns, which I find healthful to my body, mind, & affairs: and the few hours I can pass in my cabinet, are devoured by...

I have the same good opinion of mr Adams which I ever had. I know him to be an honest man, an able one with his pen, and he was a powerful advocate on the floor of Congress. he has been alienated from me by belief in the wretched forgeries lying suggestions, contrived for electioneering purposes,...

I think it a part of his character to suspect foul play in those of whom he is jealous, and not easily to relinquish his suspicions.

I shall be happy to receive your corrections of these ideas as I have found in the course of our joint services that I think right when I think with you.