Your affectionate letter of 20th of august came safe to hand on saturday in which you accused me with a haveing committed breach of promise It is true: I cannot dispute the accusetion. You certainly had a right to claim the first letter from [me] both from your superior age and my promice to you when I left home but I can assure you with confidence that my not writing to you does not proceed from a want of love or respect, but from the natural aversion I have to writing

But as to the express injuncture of Papa I should have preformed it but for reasons which I rendered to him in my letter dated as well a I remember the 12th of July and which I hope will not fail to prove satisfactory. . . You mentioned in your letter that I have erroneously conjectured that Papa has2 not the same paternal love for me as he has for the rest of his children yes my Brother it is a conjecture which I fear is founded on fact. but every exertion shall be made by me to conciliate his affection and to eradicate that something I know not what that keeps me from an equal share of my Fathers affection. I know that you have feelings not callous to sensibility. I appeal to you what must have been my feelings on my reception at home in may when instead of meeting the smiles and cordial welcome of the only to whom I had a right to look for protection I heard my Father say that he had a mind to make me leave the place of my nativity the last place as I thought to which I could flee for refuge and protection language grows feeble in attempting to express the emotions of my soul. To have incured the displeasure of a Father would have been sufficient but to hear him utter these words tutched my heart in a manner ever unknown before and which I am in hopes it will never be a stranger whilst the almighty who preserves our lives permits me to breath out this short span of vital air, but I am glad to say that the conduct of Papa towards me while at home was that of an affectionate Father to a dutyful son. When I left home Papa gave me forty five dollars. I paid thirty for board eleven for room rent and tuition three for bed hire and one I sent to salem3 last saturday for candles which has left me completely unmonied. What I by necessity owe and what I am in actual want of is as follows

	D	C
For the washing of my clothes the present seshion	4
For the expences of our last Ball4	3	50
For servant hire	[1	50]
Borrowed of cousin Jno R Mason to bear my expences home	3	50
Borrowed of Do 5 to pay for the hire of my horse	6	50
	19

I sent my receipts from Stith Rhea and Barbee 6 for tuition board room rent and library hire in my letter to Papa . I mention this not [to] jog the memory of Papa but for fear that the letter wh[ich] I wrote him may get miscarried. I am in daily want of this money particularly Cousin John Masons who is in want of it himself I wish Papa to send me some extry money when he sends the above. I would be obliged to you to tel him what you think I could do with as you have lived here as a student and must know what is necessary. I wish Papa to send me a pair of course shoes. . . . give my love to Papa to Sister Lucy and Martha 7 tel them I intend writing to them soon. I remain as ever your affectionate Brother

P.S. you must write me in your next letter how all the good folks in Mecklinburg are. I am &c.

1. Thomas Williamson Jones Papers, SHC. The letter is addressed "Mr Thomas W. Jones / Brunswick County/ Virginia." Attending the University only one year, John Cargill Jones was suspended in March 1814 for four months for his role in the January 1814 rebellion against President Chapman .

On March 31, 1814, University Tutor Abner Stith wrote to Thomas Jones , a former classmate and fellow member of the Philanthropic Society, explaining why John Jones had been suspended:

The students it appears, or at least some of them, being offended by Mr. Chapman in some manner or other, had formed an association to harrass him as much as they could by committing depredations on his property.

According to this resolution of theirs, they on different nights shaved the hairs on his horse's tail, when he was secured by the guard of a lock; upset a house on his lot at two different times; carried away a cart and hid it in the wood; and loosed his gate from its hinges and concealed it in some secret place. (Thomas Williamson Jones Papers, SHC)

According to Stith , when the faculty investigated these events, several students, including John , "avowed that they possessed the required information but that they would not disclose it."

2. Jones wrote s on top of a d that was erased.

3. Probably the city of Salem, NC, founded by the Moravians in 1766 and in 1913 consolidated with Winston as Winston-Salem.

4. Sponsored jointly by the Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies, the annual commencement ball was an eagerly anticipated social event in a town offering few diversions or entertainments. Battle reports that a commencement ball was held in the dining room of Steward's Hall as early as 1804 (1:195).

5. "Do": ditto, the same.

6. Andrew Rhea probably issued the receipt for tuition and room rent. William Barbee likely issued the receipt for Jones' board.

The trustees had instituted a library fee in 1803. Every student paid this fee whether or not he used the University's library, which by 1812 numbered approximately 1,500 volumes and was housed in a room at the top of the stairs in the President's house. Initially the library fee was one dollar per year; in 1813 the fee was doubled. Books were bought with the proceeds until 1824, and shortly thereafter the library fee appears to have been abolished. Each of the two debating societies also had libraries, in 1812 boasting a combined total of 800 to 1,000 volumes (Battle 1:405).

7. Biographical notes for the Thomas Williamson Jones Papers, SHC, reveal that John and Thomas' sister Lucy attended a school in Warrenton, NC, run by Mr. and Mrs. Falkener. An August 19, 1809, letter from Thomas Williamson to his mother mentions "little Martha," presumably a young sister.