ca. 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 forever 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. I have had great opportunities of
searching into his character, and have availed myself of them. Many
persons of differen