Ixvi 
LIFE OF WILSON, 
in my resolution of not interfering in the debate on Saturday, 
as we talked of. At the same time I am really pleased to see 
the improvement the practice has produced in you ; and would 
by no means wish to dissuade you from amusing and exercising 
your mind in this manner; because I know that your modera- 
tion in sentiment and conduct will always preserve you from 
ill will on any of these scores. But as it could add nothing to 
my fame, and as they have all heard me, often enough, on dif- 
ferent subjects, about Milestown; and as it would raise no new 
friends to you, but might open old sores in some of your pre- 
sent friends, I hope you will agree with me that it will be pru- 
dent to decline the affair. And as you have never heard me 
deliver any of my own compositions in this way, I will com- 
mit a speech to memory which I delivered at Milestown, in 
the winter of 1800 , and pronounce it to you when we are by 
ourselves in the woods, where we can offend nobody. 
“ I have heard nothing from Washington yet; and I begin to 
think that either Mr. Jefferson expects a brush with the Span- 
iards, or has not received our letters; otherwise he would never 
act so unpolitely to one for whom he has so much esteem as 
for Mr. Bartram. No hurry of business could excuse it. But 
if affairs are not likely to be settled with Spain, very probably 
the design of sending parties through Louisiana will be suspend- 
ed. Indeed I begin to think that if I should not be engaged by 
Mr. Jefferson, a journey by myself, and at my own expense, 
at a time, too, when we are just getting our heads above water, 
as one may say, would not be altogether good policy. Perhaps 
in another year we might be able, without so much injury, to 
make a tour together, through part of the south-west countries, 
which would double all the pleasures of the journey to me. I 
will proceed in the affair as you may think best, notwithstand- 
ing my eager wishes, and the disagreeableness of my present 
situation. I write this letter in the schoolhouse — past ten at 
night — L.’s folks all gone to roost — the flying squirrels rattling 
in the loft above me, and the cats squalling in the cellar below. 
Wishing you a continuation of that success in teaching, which 
