The inclosed letters from mr Appleton & genl Dearborn, will give you our latest intelligence from Cadiz & Lisbon, which you will find of a very gloomy & discouraging nature. After perusing them, be so kind as to enclose them to Mr Madison, with a request that he return them to me.

Our accounts from So America, & Mexico, indicate, that those people must undergo great difficulties before they can attain a firm establishment, on a republican basis. The great defect is the ignorance of the people, by means whereof, they are made, in the hands of military adventurers, & priests, the instruments of their own destruction. Time, however, with some internal convulsions, and the form of our example, will gradually mature them, for the great trust deposited in their hands.

I hope to see you in Albemarle in a few weeks, in good health.