Your volumes of newspapers, which I return by the stage to morrow, I have kept an unreasonable time—but in truth I found that they communicated so much information which it was important for me to possess, and which I could obtain no where else, that I ventured to trespass thus on your goodness. The delay was somewhat increased by an injury which one of them sustained in its binding by a fall from one of my shelves, which made it necessary to have it rebound. By the more thorough acquaintance with the proceedings in Congress which I have derived from them, my opinion on some important points of our early congressional history has been greatly modified, and in some instances entirely changed—The first volume is now transcribing for the purpose of being sent to England to be published at the sametime as in this country. Begging you to present my respects to Mrs. Madison, I am, Dear Sir: your most respectful & obliged servant