John delivered safely your letter of the 14th. I am sorry you did not continue at Monticello until your house was in compleat readiness for you. you will run the double risk of green plaister, & a less perfect preparation of it for your winter’s residence. I do not know what stores remained for your consumption, but it is always my wish you should take whatever does remain. many of them will not keep, such as crackers, cheese, fish &c. porter is so peculiarly salutary for your stomach, that I took a larger supply than usual that there might be some for you: and in laying in the stores for the ensuing year, I never count on the fragments of the last. I beseech you therefore to consider every thing of that kind as intended for you, and to use any of the wines, & at all times, which you prefer to your own.    having been so long in the midst of a family, the loansomeness of this place is more intolerable than I ever found it. my daily rides too are sickening for want of some interest in the scenes I pass over: and indeed I look over the two ensuing years as the most tedious of my life.    you will have with you in a few days a mr Brodie, an elderly English gentleman, who is seeking an asylum in this quiet country to bring his family to. he is a very worthy, inoffensive, polite man. he turns his eyes to our neighborhood, & I have given him a letter to Mr. Randolph merely to prevent his being imposed on in any bargain. he has his eye on Henderson’s & Overton’s lands, but of preference on the latter. I send in a separate package to mr Randolph 25. advertisements from mr Shoemaker which we ask the favor of him to have set up in the most public places for 20. miles round, & without delay. by the return of Davy I shall send a piece of linen to be made up for me against March. present me affectionately to mr Randolph & the young ones, & be assured of my constant & tenderest love.