William Nelson to William Short, 26 March 1785

          Tho’ I answered your friendly and communicative letters from L’Orient & Paris very fully a short time ago, I cannot let M^r Mazzei take his departure without a line from me.

          That you can be delighted with the amusements of Paris, and still prefer this country is a proof of your mixing amusement with solid information— I am impatient to know your answer to the problem in my first letter— whether the improvements in arts & science compensate for our unbounded liberty and genuine domestick happiness,— a happiness, my friend, to which you are at present a stranger, but which I wish you to enjoy at some time or other— You are sensible of the refined pleasure of friendship— Add love to it, and make the object a tender amiable being,— and you will have an idea of it.—

          I have spent the greater part of this year in this town,— and M^rs N has been here from the beginning of it— It is really the most philosophic retreat which our country affords— There is more of the calmness of the Lycæum than any spot that I know— yet perhaps there is too much still-life for a young man.— I confess I feel a great anxiety to know what is going forward on the great theatre of the world— much of this you will gratify. My return will be but small— A federal court is to set here in June to decide a territorial dispute between Massachusetts & New York— Our late amiable and able preceptor is one of the judges—

          Early in next month an eclesiastical convention of the epis-copal church is to set in Richmond— Tho’ the plan of the assessment failed the last assembly, as I informed you, this church is incorporated— Old vestries are dissolved and new ones have been elected by the members of this communion, who delegate two persons (one a layman) to the convention— They are to regulate the doctrine, dis-cipline and worship of the church—. the first and last of these will probably be liberal, and the second will only ^^affect their own members— At present the result is uncertain— I hope they will not wade so far as to be lost in the labyrinth—.

          We have no theatrical amusements— The company has opened at Charlestown— perhaps only a fragment of them— what members compose it is here unknown—

          As to the business which is in M^r B H’s and Harvie’s hands, I must refer yearou to my last, which I hope will reach you safely—

          Present me with great respect to Gen^l Chastellux—

          Direct to me at Richmond, for which place I am this moment starting.—

Y^r fr^d ever