tribute of praise so justly paid to the enlightened philosopher and statesman, while the polite, friendly and affectionate treatment myself and my family received from that venerable sage and the worthy family in which he is embosomed, will ever endear him to my heart. The name of Washington is far above my praise. I would to Heaven that on this occasion one more wreath had been added to the number of those which are twined around his amiable brow—that those with which it is already surrounded may flourish with immortal verdure, nor wither or fade till time shall be no more, is my fervent prayer, and may that glory which encircles his head ever shine with undiminished rays. To find myself under the necessity of opposing such illustrious characters, whom I venerated and loved, filled me with regret; but viewing the system in the light I then did, and yet do view it, to have hesitated would have been criminal; complaisance would have been guilt. If it was the idea of my state that whatever a Washington or Franklin approved, was to be blindly adopted, she ought to have spared herself the expence of sending any members to the Convention, or to have instructed them implicitly to follow where they led the way. It was not to have my “name enrolled with the other labourers,” that I wished to return to Philadelphia—that sacrifice which I must have made of my principles by putting my name to the Constitution, could not have been effaced by any derivative lustre it could possibly receive from the bright constellation with which it would have been surrounded. My object was in truth the very reverse; as I had uniformly opposed the system in its progress, I wished to have been present at the conclusion, to have then given it my solemn negative, which I certainly should have done, even had I stood single and alone, being perfectly willing to leave it to the cool and impartial investigation both of the present and of future ages to decide who best understood the science of government—who best knew the rights of men and of states, who best consulted the true interest of America, and who most faithfully discharged the trust reposed in them, those who agreed to or those who opposed the new Constitution—and so fully have I made up my own mind on this subject, that as long as the history of mankind shall record the appointment of the late Convention, and the system which has been proposed by them, it is my highest ambition that my name may also be recorded as one who considered the system injurious to my country, and as such opposed it. Having shown that I did not “alter my opinion after I left Philadelphia,” and that I acted no “contradictory parts on the great political stage,” and therefore that there are none such to reconcile, the reason assigned by the Landholder for that purpose doth not deserve my notice, except only to observe that he shrewdly intimates there is already a Junto established, who are to share in and deal out the offices of this