"BOSTON, November 14th, 1831. "My mind has got into a new perplexity about Pinckney's Draught of a Constitution. By a rigid comparison of that instrument with a Draught of the Committee reported August 6th they are proved to be essentially, and almost identically, the same thing. It is impossible to resist the conviction, that they proceeded from one and the same source. "This being established, the only question is, whether it originated with the committee, or with Mr. Pinckney, and I confess that judging only from the face of the thing my impressions incline to the latter. Here are my reasons. "1. All the papers referred to the committee were Randolph's Resolutions as amended, and Patterson's Resolutions and Pinckney's Draught without having been altered or considered. The committee had them in hand nine days. Their Report bears no resemblance in form to either of the sets of resolutions, and contains several important provisions not found in either of them. Is it probable that they would have deserted these, particularly the former, which had been examined seriatim in the convention, and struck out an entirely new scheme (in its form) of which no hints had been given in the debates? "2. The language and arrangement of the Report are an improvement upon Pinckney's Draught. Negligent expressions are corrected, words changed and sentences broken for the better. In short, I think any person examining the two for the first time, without a knowledge of circumstances, or of the bearing of the question, would pronounce the Committee's Report to be a copy of the Draught, with amendments in style, and a few unimportant additions. "3. If this conclusion be not sound, it will follow that Mr. Pinckney sketched his draught from the Committee's Report, and in so artful a manner as to make it seem the original, a suspicion I suppose not to be admitted against a member of the Convention for forming the Constitution of the United States. "Will you have the goodness to let me know your opinion? If I am running upon a wrong track I should be glad to get out of it, for I like not devious ways, and would fain have light rather than darkness.