es taking place, which had been counted on, I think the present
disposition is to require his return to his station in America. He told
me himself, lately, that he should return in the spring. I have never
pressed this matter on the court, though I knew it to be desirable and
desired on our part; because if the compulsion on him to return had been
the work of Congress, he would have returned in such ill temper with
them, as to disappoint them in the good they expected from it. He would
for ever have laid at their door his failure of promotion. I did not
press it for another reason, which is, that I have great reason to
believe, that the character of the Count de Moutier, who would go, were
the Chevalier to be otherwise provided for, would give the most perfect
satisfaction in America.

As you have now returned into Congress, it will become of importance,
that you should form a just estimate of certain public characters; on
which, therefore, I will give you such notes as my knowledge of them
has furnished me with. You will compare them with the materials you are
otherwise possessed of, and decide on a view of the whole.

You know the opinion I formerly entertained of my friend, Mr. Adams. *
* * and the Governor were the first who shook that opinion. I afterwards
saw proofs, which convicted him of a degree of vanity, and of a
blindness to it, of which no germ appeared in Congress. A seven months'
intimacy with him here and as many weeks in London, have given me
opportunities of studying him closely. He is vain, irritable, and a bad
calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern
men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him. He is as
disinterested as the Being who made him: he is profound in his views;
and accurate in his judgment, except where knowledge of the world is
necessary to form a judgment. He is so amiable, that I pronounce you
will love him, if ever you become acquainted with him. He would be, as
he was, a great man in Congress.

Mr. Carmichael is, I think, very little known in America. I never saw
him, and while I was in Congress I formed rather a disadvantageous idea
of him. His letters received then showed him vain, and more attentive to
ceremony and etiquette, than we suppose men of sense should be. I
have now a constant correspondence with him, and find him a little
hypochondriac and discontented. He possesses a very good understanding,
though not of the first order.