I have just now recd your friendly letter, and take the earliest opportunity to express my entire satisfaction with the Contents of it. No man could have been nomd. as Mr B Successor that wd. be more agreeable to me than Mr Patter, & had I known before that he was a Candidate for the appt I should not have requested it. He will likewise I have no doubt be equally agreeable to all the officers of the mint all of whom are worthy men & very much yr friends.

I have only to beg that my appn to you may remain a Secret in yr own bosom.

The yellow fever the scourge of our Country begins to engage the Attention of the Courts in Europe. I have lately recd a number of Queries upon the Subject of its nature & Origin from the Governments of Etrutria & Prussia—the one thro the hands of a Dr Palloni—the other from the Prussian minister at the Court of London. My Answers to those Queries were calculated to impress in the strongest terms the domestic origin of the disease & that it never did & never can spread from importn or Contagion, I mend these facts in order to submit to yr Judgment whether measures similar to those taken by the Above Courts, might not be taken by our Natl. Government?—(Would a recomn. of such an inquiry be foreign to a message to Congress?)—Our State legislatures have erred egregy. & chiefly thro’ ignorance in their laws for prevg the importn of the fever, & thereby embarrassed injured our commerce both at home and Abroad.—

Excuse the liberty I have taken in commg this hint, & believe me to be as usual your sincere Old friend of 1775