Upon my lamenting that a gentleman, of his acquaintance, had submitted to the enemy, he said, "that he had acted properly, and that a man who had a family, did right to take that care of them." The whole of his conversation upon the subject of our affairs, indicated a great despair of the American cause. Upon my going to Baltimore, to take my seat in Congress, the latter end of January, I mentioned the above conversation to my brother. I likewise mentioned it to the Hon. John Adams, Esq., with whom I then lived in intimacy, a day or two after his return from Boston to Congress. I did not mention it with a view of injuring Mr. Reed, for I still respected him, especially as I then believed that the victory at Trenton had restored the tone of his mind, and dissipated his fears, but to show Mr. Adams an instance of a man possessing and exercising military spirit and activity, and yet deficient in political fortitude. To which I well remember Mr. Adams replied in the following words: "The powers of the human mind are combined together in an infinite variety of ways." BENJAMIN RUSH. _Philadelphia, March 3, 1783._ I went with Congress to Baltimore, in 1776. On the arrival of my brother there, a few weeks afterwards, I called to see him. To the best of my recollection, Mr. Clerk and Dr. Witherspoon, delegates from New Jersey, were in the room with him. The two former, after some time withdrew, and my brother then mentioned the conversation as related by him above. He informed me, also, of some _other_ conversation that passed between Mr. Reed and him, which is not necessary at present to repeat. JACOB RUSH. _Philadelphia, March 3, 1783._ Joseph Ellis, a Colonel of Militia, in the county of Gloucester, and State of New Jersey, doth hereby certify, that upon the retreat of a body of militia from before Count Donop, in the neighborhood of Mount Holly, in Burlington county, in the month of December, 1776, he met with Charles Pettit, Esq., _then Secretary of the said State_, that a conversation ensued between them respecting the situation of the public dispute at that period; that Mr. Pettit, in said conversation, representing that our affairs were desperate, Col. Ellis endeavoured to dissuade him from such an opinion, when Mr. Pettit replied, "What hurts me more than all is, my brother-in-law, General Reed, has, (or I believe he has,) given up the contest." That a good deal more passed between Mr. Pettit and Col. Ellis, during the said cnnversation[TN], but omitted here, as being thought unnecessary. JOSEPH ELLIS. _Woodbury, March 9, 1783._