I wrote to you last Sunday, and on Wednesday received your kind Letter.1 we have begun to pack up our furniture, and expect to get it on Board by the 20th perhaps we may make it later, but I hope not as the weather will every day become more & more uncomfortable. the Idea of going so much further from you is painfull to me, and would be more so if I did not hope to Spend the next summer with you. at present you have your Family with and near you, but it is my destiny to have mine Scatered, and scarcly to keep one with us. my seperation from mrs smith is painfull to me on many accounts. there is at present no prospect of their going with us, and if their prospects here were as fair as they ought to be, I should be less solicitious for them. with Regard to our House, I should have no objection to a carefull person living in the kitchin to take care of it, but as to letting it I cannot consent unless any person offers to take House and furniture all together. there is the other part of the House in which Bass lives that might be let, but then I should be loth that a shoe makers shop should be made of either of the Rooms— in short I do not know of any persons property so unproductive as ours is. I do not believe that it yealds us one pr cent pr Annum I have the vanity however to think that if dr Tufts and my Ladyship had been left to the sole management of our affairs, they would have been upon a more profitable footing in the first place I never desired so much Land unless we could have lived upon it. the 131Money paid for useless land I would have purchased publick Securities with the interest of which poorly as it is funded would have been less troublesome to take charge of then Land and much more productive, but in these Ideas I have always been so unfortunate as to differ from my partner who thinks he never saved any thing but what he vested in Land. I am really however very uneasy with Pratt as a Famer. he has got a great swarm of helpless children round him, labours hard but has no skill and the place with the addition of veseys very little more than pays the taxes; I wish mr Beals could be induced to go upon it. the other place I know no more about than if it lay in the Moon. I have written to request that the saint Germain pears and the best Russet Apples may be sent to me. the communication between Boston and Philadelphia is so frequent that I should suppose their could be no difficulty in it.

I had the pleasure of assembling yesterday mr & mrs Storer mr & mrs Atkinson mr Charles George & mary storer col & mrs smith and miss Pegy Smith who all dined with me and I felt more like Home than I have ever done since I left Braintree. mr Adams mourns that he could not make a visit Northward this fall. we are well. Brislers family all got through the small pox with only a day or twos illness— present me affectionatly to all Friends I fear mr Cranch does not put on his flannel soon enough. I grow more and more in favour of the use of it and advise you to wear it next your skin make little waistcoats & put them on with the first comeing of cold weather. I[f] I had as much Spair Room in my stays as you have I would not be without them

poor mr Thaxter I am grieved for him—but who is without their troubles? thank God that a larger portion has not fallen to the Lot of your ever / affectionate Sister

I am I believe more than one Letter in your debt; but I feel if possible less inclination than ever to write to my friends as I have no good news to tell them about myself, and very little about any one 132else. I have now the advantage of being three hundred miles distant from every member of the family; alone in the world, without a soul to share the few joys I have, or to participate in my anxieties and suspense, which are neither few nor small. Why should I sit down to write, when I can assume no other language than that of complaint, which must be as disagreeable, to my friends who read, as it is to me who write— You may readily believe that when I have any thing favourable to say, I shall be sufficiently impatient to give you the information. My taste for politics has even become disgusting to me; I can scarcely take any pleasure in the increasing prosperity of my Country: what is the public welfare to me, if the very efforts upon which it has so much depended, have deprived me of my fundamental support, and have left me exposed to the most humiliating neglect from all the world around me; and turned me over to the delusions of Hope for my Comfort.— I am exhibiting all my weakness I am exposing myself to the Contempt as well as to the Pity of my friends, by assuming thus a style of Lamentation, unbecoming a man of Spirit. Evils I shall be told must me remedied; not deplored: but my peculiar Situation is such that there is no room for my Exertion— The day will come however, I still perswade myself that the day will come, when I shall be enabled to give you more pleasing intelligence; and as I have already said I shall then write with much more satisfaction, what will give you much more pleasure to read.

You will perceive by our Papers, that four members of our present Delegation in Congress are re-elected. It is not from the paltry malevolence of a few contemptible scribblers in our News papers, that the sense of the people is to be collected. Two candidates had been opposed to Mr: Ames with the intention to divide the votes more effectually; and so much industry and influence was exerted in their favour, that the result in his favour, was beyond the most sangwine expectations of his friends, and the friends of the national honour. In Middlesex indeed the votes were more divided. Mr: Gorham is a popular man: and if the public report be not fallacious he has been indefatigable for these two years past in the pursuit of this Election. Mr: Gerry however has a respectable majority of votes.

You mention in one of your Letters that Mr: Short is commissioned to negotiate the Loan. I should wish to know, where it is expected he will obtain it: I cannot imagine that the attempt will be made in France, where the nation are so heavily labouring under the weight of their own poverty.— Holland I presume will be the seat of the negociation. And I should be glad to be informed what is the 133opinion of the VP. with respect to its success.— I think the value of public paper must depend considerably upon it.1

Our Court of Common Pleas are sitting in this Town; and I have made my first Essay in addressing a Jury. I wish I could add that I had acquitted myself to my own Satisfaction. I had very little time for preparation and [did] not know the existence of the Cause three hours before I spoke to it.2 From [this] circumstance, and from the novelty of the Situation, added to the diffidence I have always felt, of my talent at extemporary speechifying I was too much agitated to be possessed of proper presence of mind. You may judge of the figure I made.

I address this Letter still to New-York, presuming that if it should arrive after your departure, care will be taken to have it forwarded to Philadelphia.

Ever your's