I have taken the liberty of sending to your address some pages of a work I have just put to press in Philada.—A copy of which I shall convey to you, entire, as the nos. or half vollumes are competed. The first will be published in a few weeks, & the others at convenient intervals, perhaps of six months.—

I wished very much to consult you on the subject of this publication before the present time, and especially to request from you some notice of the life of Mr. Hancock; but from the respect which I felt was due to that repose, which has so long been sacrificed to the interests of others, I abstained from it. On a nearer view however, of a difficulty the importance & sacredness of the task I have perhaps rashly undertaken, I have ventured to solicit your attention to it.

The sketch I now send you is yet without revision, or final preparation for the public; it contains, however, the sum of the inteligence my enquiries have enabled me to obtain; which is indeed very scanty & general. I regret extremely my inability to converse or correspond with some one whose intimacy with Mr. Hancock might have supplied my imperfections in the knowledge of his character & the incidents of his life.

In describing the characters of those to whom we are indebted for the best of all human blessings, I feel impelled by my warmest inclinations, as well as interests, to use no expressions unworthy of them; I need not, therefor declare to you the gratitude I should owe to your kindness for any information which may promote the interests of an undertaking for which I feel the most anxious and religious solicitude.

With great respect / I have the honor to be / Your Obt. hbl. Sevt.