The Letter to Lord Fairfax which accompanied your favor to me of the 22d of March, went into New York immediately upon its arrival at this place; & no doubt obtained a ready passage to England. I should not have delayed so long to inform you of this, & (as you seemed to desire it of me) to have announced the Ratification of the Provisional & Preliminary Articles of Peace, had I not been sure that you did not doubt the first; & that the second would come Officially from the fountain head, before any letter from me could reach you. I now, only await the arrival of the Definitive Treaty to bid adieu to public life, & in retirement to seek that repose which a Mind always on the stretch, & embarrassed by a thousand difficulties in the course of Eight successive years stands much in need of.

Your direction to the Attorney General is, I think, very proper; and it is my opinion we should be governed wholly by his advice in the suit of Mrs Savage—whether she is Dead, or alive.

I have been informed (by Mr Lund Washington) that some person has petitioned, or is about to petition the Court of Londoun for an Acre of the Land I bought of you on Difficult, to Build a Mill on; but I hope no advantage will be permitted, by that Worshipful bench, to be taken of my absence, in this Affair—The losses I have already sustained by an Eight years absence from home, & the Total neglect of my private concerns, are already capitolly great—they need not be augmented by lessening the value of what is left me. With the greatest esteem & regard I am—Dr Sir Yr Most Affecte Hble Servt