"When I left Philadelphia, about the middle of September 1809, the ten copies of the Revolutionary Poems, which you subscribed for, were put into a box well secured, and forwarded according to your direction, under the care of General Steele, then Collector of the Port of Philadelphia: I have not since heard whether they reached you or not. "That Edition was published by _Subscription_ merely for the benefit of, and to assist Mrs. Bailey, an unfortunate but deserving widowed female, niece to General Steele, and this consideration alone induced me to pay some attention to that third Edition. "But, in mentioning these matters I fear I am intruding both on your time and patience, constantly, or always perpetually engaged, as you undoubtedly are, in the duties of your station at a stormy period, a tempestuous Presidency indeed: May you weather all the conflicts of these mighty times, and return safe at the proper period to your Virginian Groves, fields and streams: sure I am, different very different indeed from your long intercourse with political Life and the affairs of a 'grumbling Hive.' My best wishes attend Yourself, and Mrs. Madison, to whom, tho' I never had the pleasure of her acquaintance, I beg you to present my best compliments and regards." On March 3d following, he writes again to Madison:[26] "SIR,--When I mentioned in my few lines to you, dated from my residence in New Jersey on the 22d of January last, the two Volumes of Poems publishing in this city by Mr. Longworth, I did really think to have had a small box of them at Washington by the middle of February at farthest, with a particular direction of a couple of copies to Yourself bound in an elegant manner. Finding, however, that the business went on slowly here, and a little vexed to be under the necessity of leaving my Solitude and the wild Scenes of nature in New Jersey for the ever execrated streets and company of this Capital, I embarked near Sandy Hook in a snow storm, about the last of January, and shortly after arrived here, fortunately unnoticed and almost unknown--At my time of life, 63!!! abounding however in all the powers of health and vigour, though I consider my poetry and poems as mere trifles, I was seriously out of humour on my arrival here to see my work delayed, as well from the severity of the cold, which has been unremitting for more than a month past, and perhaps to some other causes it would not be prudent _here_ to explain. By my incessant exertions in spurring on the indolence of typography, the work, such as it is, is now finished, in two small Volumes of about 180 pages each.--The moment they are out of the bookbinder's hands, Mr. Longworth will forward you a Copy, and by the first Vessel to Alexandria, Georgetown, or