Your letter of the 18th. anounced the Death of one of the first of our fellow Citizens—His loss is great to your City-State—our Country and to the world—altho’ at the same time, we ought to be thankful, that he was continued to do good an old age, for the common benefit of Mankind.

The public Papers will inform you of what Congress has done to testify their respect for the memory of so worthy a fellow Citizen—We have been blamed for this Measure by the Senate refused to follow our Example, as being improper for a Citizen who was not in a public Character of the Time of his Death—I confess the objection appears to me a weak one—Poor Republics have no other means of shewing their grateful rememberance of important services, but by Testemonies of this sort, and I think too great attention to these of the deceased cannot be shown—there can no judging arie from the Precedent, as I doubt whether he has left his equal behind, in point of usefulness to his Country—

Had the Doctor left a deathbed Testimony in favour of religion, it might have brought many of our pretended Deists to some serious Consideration: for I do believe that a man who has the reputation of great wisdom and uncommon insight into the work of nation, dying calmly & with apparcal satisfaction, has a tendency to lule thereof a careless turn of mind, or whose Interest it is (in their own concert) that a future state should be a men fable to ? in the wisdom of the world, without even turning a serious thought, to the Concerns of [muturity?]—

We have at last got into the funding system and have argued on the ways & means, but the measure get gone on so heavily that I still fear the issue—

Your Aunt joins me in most affectionate loving respect to our News & her little Brood.

If any particular anecdote of the Doctor, should transpire, I would be obliged by a repetition of them This year seems to be marked by the Deaths of great men Cullen—Howard—Joseph & a Franklin—Oh how great is the advantage of the true Christian—Usefulness in this life, so far from being the brightest Gem in his brighter character, it is but an emblematic Figure of that holy activity which shall increase throughout an enless Eternity— I am my dear Sir with great respect yours very affecty.