I have recieved your favor of the 12th. inst. proposing to resign your office of Collector at the end of the present year: & I recieve it with real concern. no one respects you more than myself; none is more deeply impressed with the value of your revolutionary services, nor does any one more earnestly wish your personal happiness. you are one of those who have deserved well of your country, and I have seen with pleasure your convenience allied to it’s services. how far it may now be more desirable for you to separate yourself from the office depends on circumstances into which I have no right to enquire, and of which yourself alone can judge. it is on my own account therefore that I ask some respite of your determination so as to give me a more enlarged scope of time to fix on a successor, & that I particularly request that your resignation may relate, not to a fixed day, but to the actual appointment of a successor, on my assuring you it shall not detain you beyond another quarter, say beyond the last day of March next. Accept my friendly salutations & assurances of great esteem & respect.