London, Aug. 9, 1783. By the newspapers from America, particularly our quarter, I find there but slender grounds of hope for success in attempting the recovery of debts or estates; a general shipwreck is seemingly intended of all absentees' property--the towns in their instructions to the representatives making it a point to prevent the return of them, and consequent confiscations of all their property, notwithstanding the provision in the fifth preliminary article. These lawless people regard not any obstacle when the gratification of their angry passions or the object of gain are in view. For an explicit answer, "Do you propose to spend the remainder of your days abroad?" The wished for period of my return is not arrived, it is a subject I consider with some indifference, age and infirmities having made such inroads on my constitution as leave me but little to hope, or fear from the result of public councils, or the imprudence of private conduct. I am free to declare my apprehension that the lower, illiterate classes, narrow-minded and illiberal all over the world, have too much influence. Oct. 6. This day was proclaimed peace with France, Spain, and Holland. At New England Coffee House in company with Mr. Nathaniel Gorham, lately arrived from Boston, whom I had well known. He is a native of Charlestown, late a member of Congress, and of the Massachusetts Assembly, and who is now here on the score of obtaining a benevolence for the sufferers at the destruction of that town June 17, 1775, by the king's troops, which all things considered, carries with it such a face of effrontery as is not to be matched. Invited him to tea; received a letter from my wife's brother, James Russell. To him he replied, I thank you for your favor of the 21st of August, the first from you since my unhappy abandoning my former home in April, '75. In truth, were your sister (Mrs. Curwin) no more, there would need no act of Massachusetts, or any other assembly, or senate to prohibit my return. To his wife he writes: If it was not for your sake, or that you would follow my fortune or accompany my fate, I should not hesitate for a moment taking up my future abode, which cannot possibly be but of short continuance, somewhere out of the limits of the republican government. Wishes for the welfare of my friends still warm my heart, as to the rest, I read with cold indifference the insurrection in Pennsylvania, and the carryings-on in the late English colonies, having lost local attachment. If your fortitude has increased in the proportion that your health and spirits have improved, perhaps you will not find it an insurmountable difficulty to resolve on a land tour to Canada, or a voyage to some other English settlement. Whatever shall be the result of your thoughts let me be made acquainted therewith as soon as convenient. Should a final expulsion be concluded on, you will no longer hesitate. Captain Nathaniel West brings