accommodated to country circulation. Grile's (successor of Oswald) twice a week without advertisements at four dollars. His debates in Congress are the same with Claypole's. Also Smith proposes to issue a paper once a week, of news only, and an additional sheet while Congress shall be in session, price four dollars. The best daily papers now are Bradford's compiled by Loyd, and Marshland and Cary's. Claypole's you know. Have you remarked the pieces signed Fabius? they are written by John Dickinson. P. M. The bill before the Senate for equipping the three frigates, and buying nine vessels of not more than twenty guns, has this day passed on its third reading by 16 against 13. The fortification bill before the Representatives as amended in committee of the whole, passed to its third reading by 48 against 41. Adieu affectionately, with my best respects to Mrs. Madison. TO COLONEL BURR. PHILADELPHIA, June 17, 1797. DEAR SIR,--The newspapers give so minutely what is passing in Congress, that nothing of detail can be wanting for your information. Perhaps, however, some general view of our situation and prospects, since you left us, may not be unacceptable. At any rate, it will give me an opportunity of recalling myself to your memory, and of evidencing my esteem for you. You well know how strong a character of division had been impressed on the Senate by the British treaty. Common error, common censure, and common efforts of defence had formed the treaty majority into a common band, which feared to separate even on other subjects. Towards the close of the last Congress, however, it had been hoped that their ties began to loosen, and their phalanx to separate a little. This hope was blasted at the very opening of the present session, by the nature of the appeal which the President made to the nation; the occasion for which had confessedly sprung from the fatal British treaty. This circumstance rallied them again to their standard, and hitherto we have had pretty regular treaty votes on all questions of principle. And indeed I fear, that as long as the same individuals remain, so long we shall see traces of the same division. In the House of Representatives the republican body has also lost strength. The non-attendance of five or six of that description, has left the majority very equivocal indeed. A few individuals of no fixed system at all, governed by the panic or the prowess of the moment, flap as the breeze blows against the republican or the aristocratic bodies, and give to the one or the other a preponderance entirely accidental. Hence the dissimilar aspect of the address, and of the proceedings subsequent to that. The inflammatory composition of the speech excited sensations of resentment which had slept under British injuries, threw the wavering into the war scale, and produced the war address. Bonaparte's victories and those on the Rhine, the Austrian peace, British bankruptcy, mutiny of