DEAR PAGE,--In the most melancholy fit that ever any poor soul was, I sit down to write to you. Last night, as merry as agreeable company and dancing with Belinda in the Apollo could make me, I never could have thought the succeeding sun would have seen me so wretched as I now am! I was prepared to say a great deal: I had dressed up, in my own mind, such thoughts as occurred to me, in as moving a language as I knew how, and expected to have performed in a tolerably creditable manner. But, good God! When I had an opportunity of venting them, a few broken sentences, uttered in great disorder, and interrupted with pauses of uncommon length, were the too visible marks of my strange confusion! The whole confab I will tell you, word for word, if I can, when I see you, which God send may be soon. Affairs at W. and M. are in the greatest confusion. Walker, M'Clurg and Wat Jones are expelled _pro tempore_, or, as Horrox softens it, rusticated for a month. Lewis Burwell, Warner Lewis, and one Thompson, have fled to escape flagellation. I should have excepted Warner Lewis, who came off of his own accord. Jack Walker leaves town on Monday. The court is now at hand, which I must attend constantly, so that unless you come to town, there is little probability of my meeting with you anywhere else. For God sake come. I am, dear Page, your sincere friend. TO JOHN PAGE. DEVILSBURG, January 19, 1764. The contents of your letter have not a little alarmed me; and really, upon seriously weighing them with what has formerly passed between ---- and myself, I am somewhat at a loss what to conclude; your "_semper saltat, semper ridet, semper loquitur, semper solicitat_," &c., appear a little suspicious, but good God! it is impossible! I told you our confab in the Apollo; but I believe I never told you that we had on another occasion. I then opened my mind more freely, and more fully. I mentioned the necessity of my going to England, and the delays which would consequently be occasioned by that. I said in what manner I should conduct myself till then, and explained my reasons, which appears to give that satisfaction I could have wished; in short, I managed in such a manner that I was tolerable easy myself, without doing anything which could give αδνιλεβ'ς friends the least umbrage, were the whole that passed to be related to them. I asked no question which would admit of a categorical answer; but I assured αδνιλεβ that such questions would one day be asked--in short, were I to have another interview with him, I could say nothing now which I did not say then; and were I, with a view of obtaining one, _licentiam solicitandi aliis, quibus degit postulare_, it would be previously necessary to go the rounds _cum custodibus_; and after all this, he could be in no other situation than he is at present. After the proofs I have given of my sincerity, he can be under no apprehension of a change in my sentiments; and were I to do as my