it has been no further, that I can recollect, than by expressing an opinion that shifting them from one work to another, before anything was completed, is a waste of time, and a backwarding of labor. Have you ever been denied money when it was asked for? and have I not on a variety of occasions given it as my decided opinion that to improve my farms by lessening the quantity of tillage, by dressing the smaller quantity more highly; by hedging, and keeping them clean; by ditching and meadowing, would be more agreeable to me than immediate profit; and that for want of a regular rotation system (adapted to the nature of the soil, and to circumstances) my land hitherto has been sorely pressed, and must ultimately be ruined, if it is not adopted.

If all these things have happened, where have I been deficient? or in what have you just cause to complain? If I cannot remark upon my own business passing every day under my own eyes, without hurting your feelings, I must discontinue my rides, or become a cypher on my own estate. And you will, I am persuaded, do me the justice to say, that I have never undertaken any new thing, or made any material change, or indeed any change at all in the old, without consulting with you thereupon; and you must further acknowledge, that I have never been tenacious of any matters I have suggested, when you have offered reasons against the adoption of them. If your feelings have been hurt by my remarks on the bad clover seed that was purchased, I cannot help that; my views and plan have been much more hurt

by it; for it is a fact known to yourself, that field No. 2. at D. R. would not have been sown with oats but for the sake of the clover (with a view to carrying on my rotation system at that farm) and that I required only three or four days to have ascertained by actual experiment whether it was good or not. In a case where facts could be resorted to, there was no occasion to exercise judgment.

But as it is not my wish to hurt the feelings of any one, where it can be avoided-or to do injustice in any respect whatsoever, the foregoing is to be considered in no other light than as a reply to your letter, and as a development of the principles on which I have acted and shall continue to act. I shall proceed then to suggest now what I intended to mention to you some little time hence, and which was the ground on which I proposed the plan of building a house at the mill.

Two things have appeared very clear to me for some time past; one, that your attention is too much divided, and called to so many different objects, that notwithstanding your zeal and industry, with which I always have been, and still am perfectly satisfied, some of them must suffer :-the other, that my mill and distillery, under the uncertainty of cropping of late years, would with good management and close attention to them, be found my best and most certain support.

Under this conviction, under a belief that to carry on the millering and distillery business to the extent of which they are susceptible, would, of themselves,

be sufficient to occupy the time and attention of any one person; and under a persuation that if you were relieved wholly, or in part from all the other duties and perplexities of your present employments (still retaining the salary and emoluments you now have) that you would render these two branches more productive than the whole now is to me. These considerations then, had determined me to propose to you to confine your attention to these objects and to the Fishery; if not altogether, at least in a great degree; to enable you to do which with the greatest convenience was one of my motives for proposing to build a convenient house at the mill. In this case you would be relieved from the responsibility of other matters, and in a great measure from the trouble which is now attached to them, altho' I should still expect and stipulate to receive all the aid that could be derived from your knowledge and advice in the management of my farms, especially at the three nearest to the mill, and that you would ride round them with me whenever required so to do, and do business for me in Alexandria when called upon for that purpose. I am induced, in some degree, to make this proposition from another consideration; namely a belief that one of the overseers which I now have, altho' he may obey orders, will never carry on business to advantage if controuled by any one except the owner of the farm, if by him.

If you are inclined to accede to this proposition, I will give the three concerns above mentioned up entirely to your management the ensuing year, under regula

tions to be agreed upon, and will furnish you with means to carry on the business to its utmost extent, and shall, as mentioned before, only require your advice and assistance occasionally in conducting the other parts of my concerns. By a plan of this sort you will be relieved from the most troublesome part of your present occupations-from all the responsibility annexed to them; and from those remarks which seem to be the source of your present uneasiness and complaints.

So soon as you shall have given this proposition due consideration, I shall expect to be informed of the result, as decision and timely measures must be taken on my part to arrange matters for the new order, if you are determined to quit the employ. I wish you well, and am your friend, &c.

MY DEAR SIR,

TO ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

MOUNT VERNON, 27 May, 1798.

Yesterday brought me your letter of the 19th instant. You may be assured, that my mind is deeply impressed with the present situation of our public affairs, and not a little agitated by the outrageous conduct of France towards the United States, and at the inimitable conduct of its partisans, who aid and abet their measures. You may believe further, from assurances equally sincere, that if there was anything in my power, which could be done with consistency,

to avert or lessen the danger of the crisis, it should be rendered with hand and heart.

The expedient however which has been suggested by you, would not in my opinion answer the end, which is proposed-the object of such a tour could not be vailed by the extensive cover to be given to it; because it would not apply to the state of my health which never was better and as the measure would be susceptible of two interpretations the enemies to it, always more active and industrious than friends wou'd endeavor, as much as in them lay, to turn it to their own advantage by malicious insinuations; unless they should discover that the current against themselves was setting too strong, and of too serious a nature for them to stem, in which case the journey would be unnecessary, and in either case the reception might not be such as you have supposed.

But, my dear Sir, dark as matters appear at present, and expedient as it is to be prepared at all points for the worst that can happen, (and no one is more disposed to this measure than I am,) I cannot make up my mind yet for the expectation of open war, or, in other words, for a formidable invasion by France. I cannot believe, although I think them capable [of] any thing bad, that they will attempt to do more than they have done; or that, when they perceive the spirit and policy of this country rising into resistance, and that they have falsely calculated upon support from a large part of the people thereof to promote their views and influence in it, that they will desist even from those practices, unless unexpected events