Please to favour me with a letter as soon as convenient. I am in daily expectation of the nuts, &c. The ground has been ploughed some weeks for their reception. I am in good health, but my mother, my wife, my brother, his wife, and oldest child are all very sick. Please accept my best wishes for your welfare. The club also wish to be remembered to you. Your Old Friend. To Mr. Faux. {427} _Brooklyn, Long Island_, _June 29th, 1820._ My Dear Friend, I received yours, with its inclosures, in due time, and it would be a difficult thing for me to describe the pleasure I feel at seeing such a proof of your continued friendship. There is, indeed, a something in a real upright and downright honest John Bull, that cannot be found in the sly, say-nothing, smiling, deep speculating, money-hunting Jonathans of this all-men-are-born-equally-free-and-independent, negro-driving, cow-skin republic. It is surely wrong to be content with nothing, because not blessed with all. We see bad effects, we hate them, and we grumble, but ten to one it is because we are unacquainted with the cause from whence they spring; but there is one self-evident, hell-born cause of endless ills in this land, which, for want of a better name, we will call avarice. From Maine to Georgia, on all occasions, the general question is, How much shall I get by it? What will it fetch me? Pray what benefit will that be to me? &c. &c. From this, man-stealing, mail robberies, piracy, murders, thefts, swindling, forgeries, lying, cheating, slavery, whips, gags, chains, and all the black catalogue of monstrous ills proceed. Indeed, that angel who is described by Milton as being more fond of admiring Heaven's golden pavement, than any thing glorious aloft, is the ruling god of this nation; and in imitation {428} of him, they are for ever chasing dollars, walking half bent under the accursed dominion of selfish views. But death, the mighty hunter, will catch them all, and then, in company with their god Belial, they will enjoy the name, title, and privilege of _fools_. There is a national church liturgy in England, and if ever there should be one adopted here, the following I think ought to form a part of it. Money, money, is all our cry, Money, the total sum! Give us money or else we die; O let thy money come!