I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 3d, my dear Jefferson, and to congratulate you on your writing so good a hand. By the last post I sent you a French Grammar, and within three weeks I shall be able to ask you, "Parlez vous Français, monsieur?" I expect to leave this about the 9th, if unexpected business should not detain me, and then it will depend on the weather and the roads how long I shall be going--probably five days. The roads will be so deep that I can not flatter myself with catching Ellen in bed. Tell her that Mrs. Harrison Smith desires her compliments to her. Your mamma has probably heard of the death of Mrs. Burrows. Mrs. Brent is not far from it. Present my affections to your papa, mamma, and the young ones, and be assured of them yourself. TH. JEFFERSON. In a letter written to a friend in the winter of this year (1803) he thus alludes to his health: "I retain myself very perfect health, having not had twenty hours of fever in forty-two years past. I have sometimes had a troublesome headache and some slight rheumatic pains; but, now sixty years old nearly, I have had as little to complain of in point of health as most people." We have in the following letter one of the very few allusions to his religion which he ever made to any of his family: _To Martha Jefferson Randolph._ Washington, April 25th, 1803. My dear Martha--A promise made to a friend some years ago, but executed only lately, has placed my religious creed on paper. I have thought it just that my family, by possessing this, should be enabled to estimate the libels published against me on this, as on every other possible subject. I have written to Philadelphia for Dr. Priestley's history of the corruptions of Christianity, which I will send you and recommend to an attentive perusal, because it establishes the ground-work of my view of this subject. I have not had a line from Monticello or Edgehill since I parted with you. Peter Carr and Mrs. Carr, who staid with me five or six days, told me Cornelia had got happily through her measles, and that Ellen had not taken them. But what has become of Anne?[50] I thought I had her promise to write once a week, at least the words "All's well." [50] This little grand-daughter was now twelve years old.