friends advise me, I would give no better security than he has at present. He is satisfied that I shall make him an offer, and if he intends to accept of it, he will disregard those made by others; my fate depends on αδνιλεβ'ς present resolutions, by them I must stand or fall--if they are not favorable to me, it is out of my power to say anything to make them so which I have not said already; so that a visit could not possibly be of the least weight, and it is, I am sure, what he does not in the least expect. I hear you are courting F----y B----l, but shall not listen to it till I hear it from you. When I was up the country, I wrote a letter to you, dated Fairfield, Dec. 25, 1763; let me know if you have received such a one. As I suppose you do not use your Statutes of Britain, if you can lend them to me, till I can provide myself with a copy, it will infinitely oblige me. Adieu, dear Page. TO GOVERNOR PAGE. DEVILSBURG,[78] January 23, 1764. DEAR PAGE,--I received your letter of Wednesday, the 18th instant; in that, of this day, you mention one which you wrote last Friday, and sent by the Secretary's boy; but I have neither seen nor heard of such a one. God send mine of January 19 to you may not have shared the same fate; for, by your letter, I am uncertain whether you have received it or not; you therein say, "you hope to have received an answer from me by this time," by which I judge it has miscarried; but you mention mine of December 25th, which put me in spirits again, as I do not know how you should have got intelligence that I had wrote such a one, unless you had seen my letter of Jan. 19, in which it was mentioned--yes, there is one other way by which you might have received such intelligence. My letter of Jan. 19 may have been opened, and the person who did it may have been further incited by curiosity, to ask you if you had received such a letter as they saw mentioned therein; but God send, and I hope this is not the case. Sukey Potter, to whom I sent it, told me yesterday she delivered it to Mr. T. Nelson, the younger, who had delivered it to you--I hope with his own hand. I wish I had followed your example, and wrote it in Latin, and that I had called my dear _campana in die_,[79] instead of αδνιλεβ. We must fall on some scheme of communicating our thoughts to each other, which shall be totally unintelligible to every one but to ourselves. I will send you some of these days Shelton's Tachygraphical Alphabet, and directions. Jack Walker is engaged to Betsey Moore, and desired all his brethren might be made acquainted with his happiness. But I hear he will not be married this year or two. Put _campana in die_ in mind of me; tell him I think as I always did. I have sent my horses up the country, so that it is out of my power to take even an airing on horseback at any time. My paper holds out no longer, so must bid you adieu. TO JOHN PAGE.