"Since I write this as if it were my last poor demonstration of affection to my lovely friend, I have much to say; and it is with difficulty that I can steal an hour from the fatigue of business to devote to the grateful, painful task. But tell me (you cannot tell me) where shall I begin? where shall I end? how shall I put an eternal period to a correspondence which has given me so much comfort? With what expression of regret shall I take leave of my happiness? with what words of tenderness, of gratitude, of counsel, of consolation, shall I pay you for what I am robbing you of--the husband whom you cherish, the friend who is all your own? "But I am giving vent to more weakness than I intended: this, my dear, is a letter of _business_, not of love, and I wonder I cannot enter upon it and keep to my subject. Enclosed is my last will, made in conformity to the one I left in the hands of Doctor Hopkins of Hartford, as you may remember. The greater part of our property now lying in Paris, I thought proper to renew this instrument, that you might enter immediately upon the settlement of your affairs, without waiting to send to America for the other paper. "You will likewise find enclosed a schedule of our property debts and demands, with explanations, as nearly just as I can make it from memory in the absence of my papers. If the French Republic is consolidated, and her funds rise to par, or near it, as I believe they will do soon after the war, the effects noted in this schedule may amount to a capital of about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, besides paying my debts; which sum, vested in the American funds or mortgages equally solid, would produce something more than seven thousand dollars a year perpetual income. "If the French should fund their debt anew at one-half its nominal value (which is possible), so that the part of your property now vested in those funds should diminish in proportion, still, taking the whole together, it will not make a difference of more than one-third, and the annual income may still be near five thousand dollars. Events unforeseen by me may, however, reduce it considerably lower. But, whatever may be the value of what I leave, it is left simply and wholly to you.