Yours of Decemr 5th came to hand yesterday. I was charmed with the Subject of it. In order to hasten the object you have suggested I sat down last evening, and selected such passages from your letter as contained the kindest expressions of regard for mr Adams and transmitted them to him. my letter which contained them,1 was concluded as nearly as I can recollect, for I kept no Copy of it, with the following words. “Fellow labourers in erecting the fabric of American liberty and independance!—fellow sufferers in the calumnies and falsehoods of party rage!—fellow heirs of the gratitude and Affection of posterity!—& fellow passengers in the same stage which must soon Convey you both into the presence of a Judge with whom the forgiveness and love of enemies is the only Condition of your acceptance!—embrace—embrace each Other. Bedew your letters of reconcilliation with tears of Affection and joy. Let there be no retrospect of your past differences. Explanations may be proper between contending lovers but they are never so between divided friends. were I near to you I would put a pen into your hand, and guide it while it wrote the following note to Mr Jefferson.

I sincerely hope this my second effort to revive a friendly intercourse2 between you by letters will be successful. Patriotism—liberty—Science & Religion would all gain a triumph by it.

How cold the feelings! and how feeble!—The expressions of indignation in Congress against the outrages committed by G Britain3 upon our rights, compared with what they were in 1774. and 1775, against outrages of a less degrading and insulting nature! Randolph seems to have composed his speeches from the fragments of the tory publications of those memorable years, with which his Opponents seem to be shamefully unacquainted. But All I hope will yet end well.

Mr Madison has inflicted a sore blow upon my whole family by taking my son Richard from us. He has been my friend and Counsellor for many years, & he relinquishes great political as well as professional prospects in his native state by accepting the office lately given to him under the general Government. His talents and acquirements qualify him for active and professional pursuits, and his manners—for popular favor. They will all be lost to his Country and family in an Office in which the mind can have no employment, and in which a merchent, or the Cashier of a bank would be more respectable than even a Burke or a Fox.

I once said to Hamilton Roan whom I met in Company at the time when Porcupine was amusing and gratifying the tory4 Citizens of Philadelphia with his publications against me,—that “I lived, like himself in a foreign Country.” “no Sir you do not, (said he.) You live in an enemy’s country;.” This has been strictly true ever since the restoration of the tories to thier antirevolutionary rank by the officers of the general Government upon the removal of Congress from new York to Philadelphia. Previously to that time, I was courted and employed by them, but it was with a View of protecting themselves by means of my influence,5 from the rage of the insulted and triumphant party of which I was then a member—nor did they sue for my Services in Vain. I constantly advised forgiveness and Clemency to be exercised towards them. Often did I supplicate the Executive Council and Judges of our state in thier favor, and from my attempts to serve them, as Often incurred the censure of my whig friends. By One of them whom I was chiefly instrumental in saving from banishment, or perhaps a worse fate, I was publickly abused and betrayed in the year 1800. I need not name him to you. He has been called in one of our papers a “traitor by instinct.” From this detail of my situation in Philada6—living only with my patients and pupils, judge how severely I feel the loss of the Society & the friendship7 of my son Richard!— My 3rd son James who lately returned from Europe And who assists me in my business, is very amiable, and promising,—but what can eminence in the “mute Art” of medicine (as Ovid calls it)8 do to protect a young and persecuted family, compared with eminence at the bar, and a popular political character?

These fireside Communications I am sure will be felt by you, for you are both a father, and a friend. All thier Sensibilities are familiar to you.

As my son has quitted professional, for Official life, and state, for national prospects, I hope he will be remembred in some future arrangements of office by Mr Madison.—