Your remarks on my letter of the 10th December, 1777, are so inconsistent, that I shall bestow a few observations on them. "So strong and virulent," you say, "was my antipathy to the constitution, and such my enmity to those who administered it, that you believe I would have preferred _any_ government to that of Pennsylvania, if my _person_ and _property_ would have been equally secure;" and yet it seems, in the next sentence you say, "but it was our lot to meet again, a few days before the battle of Monmouth; here we were again united in _confidence_ and _danger_." If you really thought I would prefer _any government_ to that of Pennsylvania, why did you then take so much pains to show, that we again united in "_confidence_ and _danger_," at the battle of Monmouth, so many months after I had discovered that virulent antipathy, and which now hath extorted such gross reflections? You say, my breast was burning with disappointed ambition; but how does this appear, when, immediately upon the formation of the new government, I was appointed the first of three brigadiers, which created me commanding officer of the militia. Could my ambition be gratified further? But to obviate every objection, let me suppose you meant, that I wished to rise to power in the civil line,--which, however, has never been insinuated before,--let me here call to your memory, how easy the task was for _any character_ to rise to the first offices of government. I confess, I do not think so meanly of myself, as to have dreaded any rivalship from some of the candidates of those days; nor do I mean, by this declaration, to insinuate any extraordinary merit, when I estimate mine by that of those I have alluded to. I could not have consented to make the sacrifices required; but you, however, and some others, as much opposed to the essential parts of the constitution as I was, freely made them, and broke through every obligation of faith and honour. The charge you have brought against a party in the state, of an opposition to its constitution, deserves some attention. I will digress a little from my main subject to examine how far this charge is true, and how far the thing is in itself criminal.