I duly received your kind Letter of May 14. 87. I was then busily engag’d in attending our General Convention, which, added to the ordinary current Business of this Government, took up so much of my Time, that I was oblig’d to postpone answering many Letters of Friends, which gave occasion of mislaying some of them, and among those was yours, only last Week come again to hand. I think I never receiv’d that you mention respecting the University of Aberdeen, but the Goodwill I might show on that Occasion was not of Importance enough to deserve your Repeating the Acknowledgment. It was in me only paying a Debt; for I remember with Gratitude; that I owe me of my first Academical Honours to your Recommendation. It gives me great Pleasure to understand that my Points have been of Service in the Protection of your and yours. I wish for your sake that Electricity had really prov’d what at first it was suppos’d to be, a Cure for the Palsy. It is however happy for you, that when Old Age and that Malady, have concurr’d to infeeble you, and to disable you for Writing, you have a Daughter at hand to nurse you with filial Attention, and to be your Secretary, of which I see she is very capable by the Elegance and Correctness of her Writing in the Letter I am answering. I too have a Daughter, who lives with me, and is the Comfort of my declining Years, while my Son, estrang’d from me by the Part he took in the late War, keeps aloof, residing in England, whose Cause he espous’d; whereby the old Proverb is exemplyfied,