for you to avoid saying anything which may either increase or lessen their hopes of ransom. I write to our bankers, to answer your drafts for these purposes, and enclose you a duplicate to be forwarded with your first draft. The prisoners are fourteen in number; their names and qualities as follows: Richard O'Bryan and Isaac Stephens, captains; Andrew Montgomery and Alexander Forsyth, mates; Jacob Tessanier, a French passenger; William Patterson, Philip Sloan, Peleg Lorin, John Robertson, James Hall, James Cathcart, George Smith, John Gregory, James Hermel, seamen. They have been twenty-one or twenty-two. We are in hourly expectation of hearing the event of General Scott's irruption into the Indian country, at the head of between seven and eight hundred mounted infantry. Perhaps it may yet be known in time to communicate to you by this opportunity. Our bank was filled with subscriptions the moment it was opened. Eight millions of dollars were the whole permitted to be subscribed, of which two millions were deposited in cash, the residue to be public paper. Every other symptom is equally favorable to our credit. The President has returned from his southern tour in good health. You will receive herewith the newspapers up to the present date. I have the honor to be, with great esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant. TO JOHN ADAMS. Philadelphia, July 17, 1791. Dear Sir,--I have a dozen times taken up my pen to write to you, and as often laid it down again, suspended between opposing considerations. I determine, however, to write from a conviction that truth, between candid minds, can never do harm. The first of Paine's pamphlets on the rights of man, which came to hand here, belonged to Mr. Beckley. He lent it to Mr. Madison, who lent it to me; and while I was reading it, Mr. Beckley called on me for it, and, as I had not finished it, he desired me, as soon as I should have done so, to send it to Mr. Jonathan B. Smith, whose brother meant to reprint it. I finished reading it, and, as I had no acquaintance with Mr. Jonathan B. Smith, propriety required that I should explain to him why I, a stranger to him, sent him the pamphlet. I accordingly wrote a note of compliment, informing him that I did it at the desire of Mr. Beckley, and, to take off a little of the dryness of the note, I added that I was glad it was to be reprinted here, and that something was to be publicly said against the political heresies which had sprung up among us, &c. I thought so little of this note, that I did not even keep a copy of it; nor ever heard a tittle more of it, till, the week following, I was thunderstruck with seeing it come out at the head of the pamphlet. I hoped, however, it would not attract notice. But I found, on my return from a journey of a month, that a writer came forward, under the signature of Publicola, attacking not only the author and principles of