Mr. Trist was a much esteemed and highly trusted friend of Mr. Jefferson, and married his favorite grand-daughter, a lady of superior intelligence, with whom I was well acquainted. He was also for many years a neighbor and confidential friend of Mr. Madison, toward the decline of the life of the latter. My knowledge of him has been derived from long and familiar intercourse with him as a confidential clerk in my department whilst I was Secretary of State, as consul of the United States at Havana, and as private secretary of President Jackson, and I do not hesitate to say that I never knew a more upright man. No one who has had opportunities to become well acquainted with his character, however politically or personally prepossessed in regard to him in other respects, will, I am very sure, fail to admit his perfect truthfulness, and the authenticity of any relation he might make upon the strength of his own knowledge. FROM MR. TRIST. PHILADELPHIA, _May 31, 1857_. MY DEAR SIR,--My promise, however tardily performed, has never been forgotten; and now, complying with your request preferred at the time and since renewed, I give you in writing the statement made by me a month or two ago in conversation at Mr. Gilpin's; which statement you will recollect was casually elicited, as the proper commentary upon the charge mentioned by one of the company as being brought against Mr. Jefferson--the charge, namely, that he had "stolen Mr. Madison from the Federalists." This notion, by the way, involves an utterly erroneous conception of the relation which existed between the minds and characters of the two men. But I must here confine myself to doing what you asked of me. During the latter years of Mr. Madison's life, (the exact date is recorded in a memorandum not now at hand,) the following incident occurred. My intimate friend Mr. Davis, Law Professor in the University of Virginia, mentioned to me, as a thing which he thought Mr. Madison ought to be apprised of, that in a forthcoming Life of Colonel Hamilton, by one of his sons, the authenticity of his (Mr. M.'s) report of Colonel H.'s speech in the Federal Convention was to be denied; and furthermore he was to be represented as having "abandoned" Colonel Hamilton. This Davis had learnt from Professor George Tucker, of the same University, then recently returned from a trip to the North. Of course, on my first visit to Mr. Madison, which occurred soon after, I told him of what Davis had said.