I am recovering from a long spell of our fashionable Influenza which is leaving me debilitated; but not materially injured. Generally, thro’ a long pilgrimage, I have had no ^durable^ ill health or disease, chronic or temporary. So that it would be ingratitude to a kind providence, in me to complain. I often think of the few old friends left behind the multitudes who are gone to that undiscovered country “from whose bourne no traveller returns.”1 Among them, my recollections of the long & sincere love & friendship I have undeviatingly cherished for you, affords to me the most gratifying & cordial satisfaction.

I have been often impressively solicited to request your permission to make public your letters to me on the subject of our beloved Washington’s valedictory Address. But I have not deemed myself warranted so to do, without consulting your opinion & inclination. Were it optional with me, I would, assuredly, furnish every information required by the friends of our chief, & indeed by every friend to his country. The base endeavours made by the Hamilton family, to withdraw from the political creed of every sincere patriot, the name which gives to it the highest lustre & its fortunate & merited influence; has produced a crisis demanding every means to defeat their vain & unwarrantable attempt. Every thing they can do is & has been long Known. But nothing appears on the true & important side of the question. We have, here, an historical Society, composed of intelligent, literary, & highly respectable members; who are uneasy & even indignant under the present state of that subject. I copy for your perusal recent requests I have received from them; & beg you would be pleased to communicate to me your sentiments as to your former letters; & accompany them with any additional observations you deem fit.

Mrs. Hamilton, under the pretext of a friendly visit, went to Mount Vernon, & prevailed, gradatim & artfully, on Judge Washington,2 to search all the Papers in his possession, left by the General, for any letters, drafts, or copies of anything written by Col Hamilton, for or to Genl W. But not a scrape of a pen could be found suitable to her purpose. No copy of the Farewell Address, or anything relating to it. Ch. Justice ^Marshall^ also diligently searched, among the papers from which he composed Genl. W’s life;3 & the same result occurred. So that I am satisfied, that Col. H. never sent on the copy of the Address you mention, with the amendments engrafted in it; but may have sent the separate paper containing them, with the return of the original. If this fair copy be now found among his (Col. H’s) papers, or elsewhere it is the one which has roused the vanity of Mrs. H. & family. You will perceive in Mr Rawle’s letter that there are many interlineations in the original now found in the hands of the printer. Whether these, all or any of them, be those suggested by you & the other friends to whom the original draft was sent; it would be difficult, if not impossible, now to decide. At any rate the discovery is enough to defeat the unjust, silly, & mishievous project of the H. family.

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