My dear Maria--I am happy at length to have a letter of yours to answer, for that which you wrote to me February 13th came to hand February 28th. I hope our correspondence will now be more regular, that you will be no more lazy, and I no more in the pouts on that account. On the 27th of February I saw blackbirds and robin-redbreasts, and on the 7th of this month I heard frogs for the first time this year. Have you noted the first appearance of these things at Monticello? I hope you have, and will continue to note every appearance, animal and vegetable, which indicates the approach of spring, and will communicate them to me. By these means we shall be able to compare the climates of Philadelphia and Monticello. Tell me when you shall have peas, etc., up; when every thing comes to table; when you shall have the first chickens hatched; when every kind of tree blossoms, or puts forth leaves; when each kind of flower blooms. Kiss your sister and niece for me, and present me affectionately to Mr. Randolph and Miss Jenny. Yours tenderly, my dear Maria, TH. J. _To Martha Jefferson Randolph._ Philadelphia, March 24th, 1791. My dear Daughter--The badness of the roads retards the post, so that I have received no letter this week from Monticello. I shall hope soon to have one from yourself; to know from that that you are perfectly re-established, that the little Anne is becoming a big one, that you have received Dr. Gregory's book and are daily profiting from it. This will hardly reach you in time to put you on the watch for the annular eclipse of the sun, which is to happen on Sunday se'nnight, to begin about sunrise. It will be such a one as is rarely to be seen twice in one life. I have lately received a letter from Fulwar Skipwith, who is Consul for us in Martinique and Guadaloupe. He fixed himself first in the former, but has removed to the latter. Are any of your acquaintances in either of those islands? If they are, I wish you would write to them and recommend him to their acquaintance. He will be a sure medium through which you may exchange souvenirs with your friends of a more useful kind than those of the convent. He sent me half a dozen pots of very fine sweetmeats. Apples and cider are the greatest presents which can be sent to those islands. I can make those presents for you whenever you choose to write a letter to accompany them, only observing the season for apples. They had better deliver their letters for you to F. S. Skipwith. Things are going on well in France, the Revolution being past all danger. The National Assembly being to separate soon, that event will seal the whole with security.