I just now received your long Letter of the 8 ^12th^ Inst:1 and am not a little pleasd with the Humour and Freedom of Sentiment that Characterizes it. It would give me Pain, if I thought You could even suspect me capable of wishing to impose any Restraint upon You in this high and inestimable privilege of Friendship: Because I can see no Reason, why the Rights of one Relation in Life, should destroy those of another. I Detest that forbidding Pride, which, with formal Ceremony, can Stalk over the Social Rights of others, and elevate the Soul in a vain Conceit of it’s own Dignity and Importance, founded merely in some advantatious Circumstance of relative Superiority. Take this therefore, if you please, as a noli Prosequi,2 for the heinous Crime of writing a free and familiar Letter to me: with this further, That whenever You Transgress in the other Extreme, You must not expect to meet with the same Mercy—

I really Believe Jay, Your Pen was directed by the rapid Whirl of Imagination—Nay, I am convinced That this Whirl was begun continued and Ended with a strong Tide. I can’t help conceiving it under the Idea of a Mill-Tide which keeps the Wheels in a quick Rotation; save only, with this Difference, That the Motion of that is uniform; Yours irregular—An Irregularity however, that bespeaks the Grandeur, not the Meanness of the Intellectual Source from whence the Current flows.—Now, You are racking your Brain for an explanation of my short Query and after shifting the Question round and round again, You have at last Mistook my Meaning—Then Your Imagination takes a Flight, and gives Your Ideas a few Turns round the Wheels of human Life: From thence She Soars into the planetary Regions and moves in the Circuit of those larger Spheres—Down again she comes, and sweeps round the Confined Orbit of our Little Selves. And after opening the Ball, You give a Picture of the World, like Fairies dancing to the Tunes in mystic Measures: Till at last, the Musick, the Frolick and the Dance, all cease; and these busy Beings, breathing their last in this little point of Time, fall asleep. To Sleep! Perchance to Dream! &ca.—3

So much for a Comment on the Freaks of your Imagination, and tho she has taken this wild and romantic Tour, I won’t Condemn her Excursions: Because, like a Regal Queen, she sometimes will Govern in the Intellectual Realm, while Reason her Lord Paramount, stands aloof and admires the dextrous, varied Art, and Ease with which she Guides the Rein—Reason sometimes Checks her Progress, and sometimes suffers the Royal Dame to move unfettered—In the latter Case her Sallies are so bold, That we know not with how much art the Windings turn, nor where the regular Confusion ends.4

I will now explain to You what I meant, by asking how Business went in the office—And first Negatively I did not want a List or the Number of the new Causes; neither was I anxious to know how often You visited the office. But as a Regard to your Modesty on the one hand, and your veracity on the other has induced you to evade an Answer to the last, I will nevertheless solve the Dilemma for You by saying That I believe You have too much Veracity to assume a false Modesty, and That You are too honest to declare an Untruth: And as You have left me between two Extremes, I shall take the Middle-Way, and so suppose, That upon the whole You attend the office as much as you ought to do: So that You see I save both Your Modesty and Veracity, and answer the Question, as you State it, into the Bargain.

But affirmatively I am to Tell You That I did mean to ask in general, whether my Business decreased much by my Absence; and whether my Returns at the last Term were pretty good, and whether Care has been taken to put that Business forward as much as possible—I conclude however, That tho You did not take me, as the Irishman says, Yet these Things have been properly attended to.

Here we are, and are likely to be so, I am afraid these Ten days. There are no less than 47 Persons, charged all, upon three several Indictments, with the Murder of those persons, who lost their Lives in the Affray with the Sheriff—Four or five of them are in Gaol and will be tried this day. What their Fate will be God only knows; tis terrible to think that so many Lives should be at Stake upon the Principles of a constructive Murder:5 For I suppose that the immediate Agency of but a very few of the Party can be proved.

I dont know when we shall have done, but hope at farthest to be at Home, in a Fortnight from this—It has been a tedious and perplexed piece of work, and I long to shake hands with, and be rid of it—Tell Mrs. Kissam,6 That I wrote Yesterday of ^by^ Capt. Van Alen a Skipper, who promised to deliver the Letter himself—I have not Time to write by the Post to her—Let as many Drafts of Declarations be drawn as can be. I am Your affectionate Friend