I received a few days ago your letter of the 14th., and thank you for the "Report and Statute on the abolition of imprisonment for debt." My great age, with a crippled state of my health, restraining me from the task of examining the subject in all its principles & provisions, I must content myself with saying that I have read the Report with pleasure and instruction, and that the statute appears to have been prepared with much care and practical information. That experience will suggest improvements in its details may well be presumed; but the law in its actual form, affords a meritorious example, and I wish it may lead to successful revisions of the Debt code, wherever a like necessity calls for it.

I cannot be insensible, Sir, to the favorable and

friendly sentiments expressed in your letter, and pray you to accept a return of my cordial respects and good wishes.