Please to make my compliments to Mrs Hunter, Miss Nancy, Andrew, and to Uncles family--I am, sir Your most obedient Most humble Servt: PHILIP V. FITHIAN [JOURNAL] _Saturday 4._ The day cool & agreeable--I kept the children in til twelve tho' with great difficulty; they were for asserting their liberty. & pleaded the custom of las winter--I finished a rough incorrect plan of my English Thesis, & laid it by for future examination-- After dinner I begun the Lecture, wrote an introduction--Towards evening I took my hat & a Sermon, & retired to a Shady Green where I rambled about til dusk committing my Sermon to memory--We have omitted Supper, & in its place substituted Coffee which we commonly take about seven in the evening--Ben, this Afternoon rode to Colonel Frank Lee's. The ground is very dry; The Frost of the fourth of May has been much more severe and fatal here than in the northern colonies--The peaches here, except on Farms lying near the Potowmack are wholly destroy'd, & these were the choisest expectation of some, who think Brandy their most valuable comodity!--And I am told that in Louden, & the other upper counties, (which indeed are the best for grain) Wheat & Rie are cut off, so intirely that the owners mow it down for fodder!--And in these lower Counties in many places the Woods appear like November, & the Leaves are actually dropping!--To be sure it is unusual & melancholy!-- _Sunday 5._