Madison's reply has been lost, but on May 12th, Freneau answered from Philadelphia:[20] "SIR,--After a month's ramble through the States of New Jersey and New York, I returned to this place on Saturday last, and found your friendly Letter on Mr. Bailey's table, with the contents. There was no occasion of enclosing any Money, as your name was all I wanted to have placed at the head of the Subscription list.--I hope you will credit me when I say that the republication of these Poems, such as they are, was not a business of my own seeking or forwarding. I found last Winter an Edition would soon be going on at all events, and in contradiction to my wishes, as I had left these old scribblings, to float quietly down the stream of oblivion to their destined element the ocean of forgetfulness. However, I have concluded to remain here this Summer, and have them published in a respectable manner, and free as possible from the blemishes imputable to the two former Editions, over which I had no controul, having given my manuscripts away, and left them to the mercy of chance.--I am endeavouring to make the whole work as worthy of the public eye as circumstances will allow. 1500 copies are to be printed, only; but I have a certainty, from the present popular frenzy, that three times that number might soon be disposed of.--I will attend to what you direct on the subject, and will forward the ten you mention by the middle of July or sooner.--I will consider of what you say relative to the insertion of a piece or two in prose, but suspect that anything I have written in that way is so inferior to the Poetry, that the contrast will be injurious to the credit of the Publication.--I feel much in the humour of remaining here about two years, to amuse myself, as well as the Public, with such matter as that of the fat man you refer to, and if the public are in the same humour they shall be gratified.--But I am intruding on your time and will add no more at present.--I had almost said-- "'Cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus Res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes Legibus emendes, in publica commoda peccem Si longo sermone mores[21] tua tempora, Caesar--' "My best wishes, Sir, will ever await you, and in particular that your Presidential Career may be equally honourable though less stormy than that of your predecessor." It is evident that Freneau wrote also to Jefferson, for on May 22, 1809, the latter wrote from Monticello.[22]