You cannot imagine how much You have obliged me by your kind Letter of the 6th.

I was intimately acquainted with your Uncle Cesar Rodney who under the constant pressure of ill health, preserved a clear Under Staing and a firmness a stediness, and inflexibility of heart, equal to any Statesman I have known. He was pleased to be very Social and familiar with me; and there was no Topick on which he delighted more to descant, than on the Character of Mr Otis, and his Conduct in what you call the [“]Stamp Act Congress,” of 1765. He Often Said to me, that “Mr Otis was the best Speaker, and the greatest Statesman in that Assembly; the greatest Master of every Subject; whenever all appeared at a loss, and no Man pretended to have any Information on a Subject, Mr Otis would rise and explain every Thing to the Satisfaction of all.” Mr Mackeen has often Said to me the Same things in Substance.

Your Letter Sir, is to me a Pearl of great price. I was So affected on the first reading of it, that I thought of nothing but printing it the next day. But Seeing the Word “Private” I dared not publish it without Your Consent. I do now most earnestly request your permission to publish it, totidem Liberis et numeris, for it cannot be mended, except in One Word. Robinson for Williams. To renew a friendship with the Name of Rodney will be and is a great Pleasure to your / most obedient and humble Servant