Yesterday I received yr. two kind letters of Saturday & Sunday.1 I do indeed judge of your feelings by my own & for that reason forebore writing while under the first impression of surprize & grief— Your superiority in fortitude as well as every other virtue I am aware of, yet I know too well your tenderness for your family to doubt the pangs of separation— Your own conflicts are sufficient: they need not be augmented by the addition of mine— Never was ^I^ more sensible of the absolute Ascendancy you have over my heart— When almost in dispair I throw myself on my bed and renounced the hope of Domestic bliss— Your image in my breast seem’d to upbraid me with adding to your trials— that idea alone roused me from my Despondency. I resum’d the charge of my family & even dare hope that by your example I shall be enabled ^to^ look up to that Divine Protector from whom we have indeed experienced the most merciful Guardianship— I cannot say I perceive your objections to taking with you our son—2 having just finished his College studies & not yet commenced his Law studies, it seems a favorable period to indulge under your auspicies a laudable curiosity with respect to a Country that was once so intimately connected with this— His Cousin has not a doubt of your taking him, indeed it appears to be the opinion of any one that has convers’d with me on the subject. Those conjectures have I’m sure excited powerful inclinations in him, which without serious objections it wd. be a pity to control— I am convinced too that his tenderness for you has a great share in his desire of accompanying you—

I hope you do not sail from Philadelphia— You may recollect our being 8 days in the Delaware—3

The Court being held here at present Col. & Mrs. Lewis4 are in Town, & have brought with them Pete’s wife, which will give Pete an opportunity of taking leave of her. The Children continue well: they were exceedingly affected when they received the tidings— & intreated me to endeavor to dissuade you from accepting an Appointment that subject us to so painful a separation— Farewell my best beloved! Your Wife till Death & after that a Ministring spirit—