DEAR SIR,--I duly received your favor of the 14th ult., covering a paper containing proceedings of the patriots of South Carolina. It adds another to the many proofs of their steady devotion to their own country. I can assure you the hearts of their fellow citizens in this State beat in perfect unison with them, and with their government. Of this their concurrence in the election of Mr. Madison and Mr. Gerry, at the ensuing election, will give sufficient proof. The schism in Massachusetts, when brought to the crisis of principle, will be found to be exactly the same as in the Revolutionary war. The monarchists will be left alone, and will appear to be exactly the tories of the last war. Had the repeal of the orders of council, which now seems probable, taken place earlier, it might have prevented war; but much more is requisite to make peace--"indemnification for the past, and security for the future," should be the motto of the war. 1,000 ships taken, 6,000 seamen impressed, savage butcheries of our citizens, and incendiary machinations against our union, declare that they and their allies, the Spaniards, must retire from the Atlantic side of our continent as the only security or indemnification which will be effectual. Accept the assurances of my great esteem and respect. TO COLONEL WILLIAM DUANE. MONTICELLO, October 1, 1812. DEAR SIR,--Your favor of September the 20th, has been duly received, and I cannot but be gratified by the assurance it expresses, that my aid in the councils of our government would increase the public confidence in them; because it admits an inference that they have approved of the course pursued, when I heretofore bore a part in those councils. I profess, too, so much of the Roman principle, as to deem it honorable for the general of yesterday to act as a corporal to-day, if his services can be useful to his country; holding that to be false pride, which postpones the public good to any private or personal considerations. But I am past service. The hand of age is upon me. The decay of bodily faculties apprizes me that those of the mind cannot be unimpaired, had I not still better proofs. Every year counts by increased debility, and departing faculties keep the score. The last year it was the sight, this it is the hearing, the next something else will be going, until all is gone. Of all this I was sensible before I left Washington, and probably my fellow laborers saw it before I did. The decay of memory was obvious; it is now become distressing. But the mind too, is weakened. When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal powers. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor, and time, and slow investigation. When I offered this, therefore, as one of the reasons deciding my retirement from office, it was offered in sincerity and a consciousness of its truth.