No systematic attempt seems ever to have been made to collect Marshall’s letters. It should be done. Only a few of his family letters have yet found their way into print. One of them, to his wife, is quoted in a previous page. In another to her, written on March 9, 1825, referring to the inauguration of President John Quincy Adams, he says: “I administered the oath to the President in the presence of an immense concourse of people, in my new suit of domestic manufacture. He, too, was dressed in the same manner, though his clothes were made at a different establishment. The cloth is very fine and smooth.” In a letter of December 7, 1834,[39] to his grandson, “Mr. John Marshall, jr.,” he gives the boy some advice about writing which is a good commentary on the extraordinary neatness and felicity, the close fit, of his own clear, compact, and simple style:-- “The man who by seeking embellishment hazards confusion is greatly mistaken in what constitutes good writing. The meaning ought never to be mistaken. Indeed, the readers should never be obliged to search for it. The writer should always express himself so clearly as to make it impossible to misunderstand him. He should be comprehended without an effort. The first step towards writing and speaking clearly is to think clearly. Let the subject be perfectly understood, and a man will soon find words to convey his meaning to others.” A letter to James Monroe, dated Richmond, December 2, 1784, was written while Marshall was a member of the House of Delegates. He writes: “Not a bill of public importance, in which an individual was not particularly interested, has passed. The exclusive privilege given to Rumsey and his assigns to build and navigate his new invented boats is of as much, perhaps more, consequence than any other bill we have passed. We have rejected some which, in my conception, would have been advantageous to this country. Among these I rank the bill for encouraging intermarriage with the Indians. Our prejudices, however, oppose themselves to our interests, and operate too powerfully for them....