Mr. Eppes informs me that Maria was so near well that they expected in a few days to go to Mont Blanco. Your departure gives me a hope her cure was at length established. A long and painful case it has been, and not the most so to herself or those about her; my anxieties have been excessive. I shall go by Mont Blanco to take her home with me.... I long once more to get all together again; and still hope, notwithstanding your present establishment, you will pass a great deal of the summer with us. I wish to urge it just so far as not to break in on your and Mr. Randolph's desires and convenience. Our scenes here can never be pleasant; but they have been less stormy, less painful than during the X Y Z paroxysms. During the session of Congress the Republicans nominated as candidates for the coming Presidential election Mr. Jefferson for President and Aaron Burr for Vice-President. The opposite party chose as their nominees, Mr. Adams and Mr. Pinckney. The Seat of Government was moved to Washington in June, 1800. We can well understand how disagreeable the change from the comfortable city of Philadelphia to a rough, unfinished town must have been. Mrs. Adams seems to have felt it sensibly, and in the following letter to her daughter has left us an admirable and amusing picture of it: _From Mrs. Adams._ I arrived here on Sunday last, and without meeting with any accident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore, and going eight or nine miles on the Frederick road, by which means we were obliged to go the other eight through woods, where we wandered two hours without finding a guide or the path. Fortunately a straggling black came up with us, and we engaged him as a guide to extricate us out of our difficulty; but woods are all you see from Baltimore until you reach the city, which is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed among the forests, through which you travel miles without seeing any human being. In the city there are buildings enough, if they were compact and finished, to accommodate Congress and those attached to it; but as they are, and scattered as they are, I see no great comfort for them. The river which runs up to Alexandria is in full view of my window, and I see the vessels as they pass and repass. The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables; an establishment very well proportioned to the President's salary! The lighting the apartments from the kitchen to parlors and chambers is a tax indeed, and the fires we are obliged to keep to secure us from daily agues is another very cheering comfort.