u to be planted. The great body of your friends are
among the firmest adherents to the administration, and in their support
of you will suffer Mr. Randolph to have no communications with them. My
former letter told you the line which both duty and inclination would
lead me sacredly to pursue. But it is unfortunate for you, to be
embarrassed with such a _soi-disant_ friend. You must not commit
yourself to him. These views may assist you to understand such details
as Mr. Pinckney will give you. If you are here at any time before the
fall, it will be in time for any object you may have, and by that time
the public sentiment will be more decisively declared. I wish you were
here at present, to take your choice of the two governments of Orleans
and Louisiana, in either of which I could now place you; and I verily
believe it would be to your advantage to be just that much withdrawn
from the focus of the ensuing contest, until its event should be known.
The one has a salary of five thousand dollars, the other of two thousand
dollars; both with excellent hotels for the Governor. The latter at St.
Louis, where there is good society, both French and American, a healthy
climate, and the finest field in the United States for acquiring
property. The former not unhealthy, if you begin a residence there
in the month of November. The Mrs. Trists and their connections are
established there. As I think you can within four months inform me what
you say to this, I will keep things in their present state till the last
day of August, for your answer.

The late change in the ministry I consider as insuring us a just
settlement of our differences, and we ask no more. In Mr. Fox,
personally, I have more confidence than in any man in England, and it
is founded in what, through unquestionable channels, I have had
opportunities of knowing of his honesty and his good sense. While he
shall be in the administration, my reliance on that government will be
solid. We had committed ourselves in a line of proceedings adapted to
meet Mr. Pitt's policy and hostility, before we heard of his death,
which self-respect did not permit us to abandon afterwards; and the late
unparalleled outrage on us at New York excited such sentiments in the
public at large, as did not permit us to do less than has been done. It
ought not to be viewed by the ministry as looking towards them at all,
but merely as the consequences of the measures of their predecessors,
which their