Your favor of May 8th 09 was duly received, and I should have had the pleasure to acknowledge it long ago, but the account I had of Mrs H's health was so unfavorable, that I trembled for your happiness every time I looked at a Raleigh paper; Major Williams has given me reason to hope, that altho she suffers by much ill health, she is not in danger, and I have therefore concluded that your mind would be sufficiently at ease to receive a letter from a friend.

The means of education are so much increased and so highly improved in Raleigh that you are happily situated in this respect with regard to your children. You can watch over their passions and habits and form their tender Hearts to virtue while the preceptor is improvingtheir minds and cultivating their shooting and sprawling talents. It is of great consequence to have our children under our eye in the early part of their education, say from 7 years old to fifteen, the important period when first impressions at least of the moral kind are made, and while the passions are still manageable. The correction of the passions, the moral formation of the Heart, falls properly within the parental department, and the necessary Delegation of the parental authority for these great purposes can never be made either to the Tutor or the friend.

I also congratulate you on the present prospects of the University, it appears to be gradually triumphing over error and Democratic prejudice, how much will posterity and your country owe to you for your unceasing effortsto promote the interests of that Institution.

There seems to be an extraordinary futility attending our relations with G. Britain, whenever there is a prospect of having our accumulated and accumulating differences amicably settled, some [unrecovered] steps in and blasts our hopes, Monroe's treaty, Erskine's arrangement, Thore's mission, Jackson's embassy all have shared the same fate. How is this? is it the finger of providence, is it fatality, is it the invisible hand that the "wise men of the East" say they have seen, or what is it? When a man attends "to the signs of the times", the strange course of our public affairs, the entangled situation of all our foreign relations, connected with the convulsed state of the world, when will he find any ground of hope, or is it possible to repress the gloomy apprehensions this state of things naturally and irresistibly suggests.I cannot tell in what light the British Ministry will view the rapture of the negotiation with Jackson; I wish they could consider it as Mr Macon does, a mere "petty quarrel between Smith & Jackson" the two nations might continue to negotiate, the condition if not the object to which all our foreign policy seems to be reduced. The conversation of Mr Canning reported by Pinkney appear candid and pacific, and Jackson seems to have but illy represented his principal. Mr Madison seems sincerely desirous of friendly accommodations, a disposition which Mr Smith appears at least to have sported with. The annals of diplomacy will not furnish a parallel of such an uncivil and unearthly correspondence, insolent redress on one side, and captious asperity on the other.

Notwithstanding the draught immediately in my neighborhood I made a good crop of cotton, but November, December, and January have been so unfavorable from constant rains, snows, and severe frost that I have yet near 40 acres to pick out. The winter with us has been extremely severe, so that a good deal of the cotton will be injured and some entirely destroyed by remaining so long in the field. Our markets are influenced altogether by political circumstances, prime cotton will now bring 13 ¾, this is still very low, however better than some time past. The depression of the times on [unrecovered] markets have fallen heavily upon me, and injured me [copiously].

My children here enjoy good health and join with me in respects to your family accept of my best wishes, and my assurances of uttermost and regard.

When Judge Moore and I prevailed upon General Person to make the cash donation for the purpose of building the chapel at the University, we gave him reason to expect that we would use our endeavours to have his munificence properly commemorated, and upon some observation made by the General evidently to ascertain the manner in which we supposed such a thing would be done, we suggested that the Trustees would after his death rest in the chapel some monument of marble to his memory; and afterwards on an enquiry what would be the cost of such a memorial of him, I remember to have told him that a neat marble slab set into the wall and [unrecovered] by an urn or some raiment of that kind would not cost more than £40 or £50: I think he added that sum to the original donation — and if I am not greatly mistaken you will find by the treasurer's books that such was the fact. Now Sir I reproach myself exceedingly for not having stated this matter to the Board of Trustees while I was a member, as I knew I had the pleasure to sit with them once or twice after his death, I have now no way left of discharging my duty in this respect, which I am pained and ashamed to have neglected, but by devolving it upon you and praying you to take the trouble to state it to the Board, as Mr Moore I am told now never leaves home. My own unfortunate experience enables me to say that such a monument as I mentioned would not cost more than 50 or 60 dollars, and I sincerely hope that the Board will make the necessary appropriation and direction. I think the original donation was £5000 or 1000 dollars and that he afterwards added £40 [unrecovered]. I sincerely believe [unrecovered] the expense of the monument suggests in any event it is a justice due to him, and the policy of such a measure will be easily perceived by the Board. It will not be forgotten that he was a warm, active, and steady friend to the institution, usefully and consistently engaged in combating the prejudices with which it was assailed in its infancy.