I owe many apologies both to you and to Mr Dupont for having delayed until now the translation of the treatise of Mr. Quesnay. I have however almost ever since I received it, been engaged in the courts: having recently commenced the practice of the profession, I have found the forms of judicial proceedings require much of my attention, I have too, to make my way thro’ a thick rank of counsel of well established reputation, and some of them certainly of no mediocrity of abilities. All these circumstances have conspired, together with the necessity of much exercise & recreation on account of my health, to suspend almost entirely every literary labour. Even now, I have been compelled to eke out the translation on the evenings of our Chancery court, after the morning has been devoted to the irksome details of depositions, cross bills &c. I confess to you too, I was somewhat dismayed in undertaking a work entirely new to me, under the disadvantages of reading a badly written manuscript, in a foreign language, on one of the most difficult and abstruce branches of elementary politics. If under all these discouraging circumstances I have succeeded in any tolerable degree in giving the meaning of the author, it is all to which I can aspire. To infuse into the translation the elegant precision, and nervous brevity of the original, would require much more attention (if indeed it be attainable at all in English) than I can hope to bestow on it. I have only aimed at giving the meaning as accurately as I could, without even an attempt at grace or beauty of composition.

Will you do me the favour to read over the translation at your leisure, make such alterations as the sense, or propriety of expression seem to require, and return it to me, that I may correct, & transcribe it for Mr Dupont? I should not presume to ask of you this favour, if I were not desirous of addressing the translation to you (by your permission) and should regret its being entirely unworthy the patronage of your name.

If your engagements will not allow you to spare the small portion of time necessary to this revision, I must ask that service of Mrs. Randolph’s kindness: one which I hope she will not be unwilling to shew an early pupil of hers in French, and who regrets that his other pursuits, and indeed his want of critical knowledge of the language, allow him to reflect so little honor on his disinterested patroness.—   accept the assurance of my admiration