,
my dear Sir, that so inveterate is the rancor of party spirit among us,
that nothing ought to be credited but what we hear with our own ears. If
you are less on your guard than we are here, at this moment, the designs
of the mischief-makers will not fail to be accomplished, and brethren
and friends will be made strangers and enemies to each other, without
ever having said or thought a thing amiss of each other. I presume that
the most insidious falsehoods are daily carried to you, as they are
brought to me, to engage us in the passions of our informers, and stated
so positively and plausibly as to make even doubt a rudeness to the
narrator; who, imposed on himself, has no other than the friendly view
of putting us on our guard. My answer is, invariably, that my knowledge
of your character is better testimony to me of a negative, than any
affirmative which my informant did not hear from yourself with his own
ears. In fact, when you shall have been a little longer among us, you
will find that little is to be believed which interests the prevailing
passions, and happens beyond the limits of our own senses. Let us not
then, my dear friend, embark our happiness and our affections on the
ocean of slander, of falsehood, and of malice, on which our credulous
friends are floating. If you have been made to believe that I ever did,
said, or thought a thing unfriendly to your fame and feelings, you do me
injury as causeless as it is afflicting to me. In the present contest in
which you are concerned, I feel no passion, I take no part, I express no
sentiment. Whichever of my friends is called to the supreme cares of the
nation, I know that they will be wisely and faithfully administered, and
as far as my individual conduct can influence, they shall be cordially
supported,

For myself I have nothing further to ask of the world, than to preserve
in retirement so much of their esteem as I may have fairly earned, and
to be permitted to pass in tranquillity, in the bosom of my family and
friends, the days which yet remain for me. Having reached the harbor
myself, I shall view with anxiety (but certainly not with a wish to be
in their place) those who are still buffeting the storm, uncertain
of their fate. Your voyage has so far been favorable, and that it
may continue with entire prosperity, is the sincere prayer of that
friendship which I have ever borne you, and of which I now assure you,
with the tender of my high respect and affect