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TO MR. J. H. PAYNE.

Philadelphia, February 22d, 1809.

My Dear Friend,

I have not forgotten you, nor ceased to feel a deep interest in
your welfare, nor to make frequent inquiries about you, though
our correspondence has so long been discontinued. The “Bos-
ton Mirror” is a token of your remembrance, which comes
duly to hand, and affords me some basis for conjecture, at
least, as to your present situation and pursuits. Will you give
me a more full account under your own hand. A great many
rumours have reached me, of the truth of which I am ex-
tremely anxious for an opportunity to judge.

Two years have passed away since I saw you; a period that
seldom makes material alterations in the character or habits or
destiny of a man past thirty, but they are big with fate at that
unsettled and mutable age at which they have found my
friend. Let me know from your own pen, with that candour


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and sincerity which were shining qualities in you, when I en-
joyed your personal intercourse, how you fare, what two years
have done for you?

This is a large demand for one to make who has so few
claims upon your esteem and confidence. Nothing emboldens
me to make it, but the earnest regard I have for you; though
you may reasonably demand more solid testimonies of that re-
gard than this naked assurance of it.

Permit me, warmly to recommend to your acquaintance, my
friend Mr. O. who will deliver you this. He is a man, if I
am not much mistaken, after your own heart. His merits are
those on which you are accustomed to set most value; and
higher merits of that kind, I suspect, not even your imagination
has ever hitherto set before you.

I am, affectionately, yours,