I chearfully embrace this opportunity of writing to you, the rather, as the paper I write upon is to be the cover of a letter from a worthy old friend of yours and mine who does not rejoice more sincerely or heartily than I do, in the honours and merit you have acquired by the services you have done to your country and the world. For the conveyance of this I am indebted to my friend Lieutenant General Melvill, who though he had not the felicity of enjoying so much of your company here, as I was in my good fortune to do, has nevertheless in these late trying time of friendship and principles, uniformly thought and spoke of you with the esteem and affection of your particular friends. Uniting as he does so happily, the Gentleman and the Scholar, I think he is certain of being favoured with your countenance and advice both upon his own account, and on the score of his errand. He is appointed, very wisely in the general opinion of those who know him as I do, negotiator in behalf of himself and his fellow sufferers in Tobago, the scape-goats of their country, who as men and protestants, cannot help feeling as they do, at being transferred with the Island, without any stipulation in favour of their rights and properties.

I now enter unwillingly on a subject so insignificant, but I must necessarily say something of myself, as an apology for what it might else be impertinent in me to mention. On the dissolution of the Religious Society of which Mr. Radcliffe and I were the Ministers, which happened soon after you left England I declined the stated exercise of the profession to which I was educated, and have ever since been a private member of the Church of Unitarian Christians in Essex Street at the opening of which you was present. There only I sometimes officiate occasionally as Minister and never but when necessity requires it. In the mean while, in a comfortable retirement about a mile from town, my books have been my principal companions, and the culture of a garden my chief amusement. Here I have for some years inwardly cheriched the hopes of seeing you again and endeavoured to save all I can, to transport me and my companions to Pennsylvania, where whether I accompany them or not I mean they shall be ultimately deposited in the Library of which you was the founder. Turned as I am the     of life, being but a year younger than your very good friends and mine Dr. Priestley and Mr. Lee and urged by no grievous necessities nor unfavourable prospects here, perhaps even the Friends I mention will condemn my resolutions. But with such undisclosed views I have long secretly sighed for a sight of the American Constitutions and have been within these few days in possession of my wishes. I concern myself chiefly with the Constitution of the state in which my views terminate, and I rejoice that it hav in all respects the preheminence. In its Council of Censors there is a resource for the removal of the objection, for I have but one, and therefore after what I have said, I know you will forgive my taking the liberty of mentioning it on the way of query.

Is the last clause of the Declaration in Sect. 10 of Chap. II reconcileable to the clause of the 2d Article of the Declaration of Rights which says, “Nor can any man who acknowledges the Being of a God be justly deprived of any civil right as a Citizen on account of his religious sentiments, or peculair mode of religious worship.” I cannot think that the State of Pennsylvania would have even endangered its welfare by admitting freely and universally to a denizonship in it, “all foreigners of good character” Christians or not Christians.

But passing from this, there are Christians and sincere worthy Christians who after all their pains to make up their minds on the subject of the divine inspiration of the Old Testament especially, must express themselves as our friend Mr. Lee did on another subject, when he said I have been a great part of my life, endeavouring to understand it, but I cannot yet tell you what a Libel is. If the State of Pennsylvania wishes to grant citizenship to all foreigners of good character who are Christians, why establish a declaration which some Christian foreigners of good character must object to? Is it an incredible thing that a man be really a Christian, who is not yet a Jew? Or is it indispensibly requisite that a man must first be a jew before he can be qualified to be a good    of the State of Pensylvania? May not the Friends of Christianity have connected it injudiciously, and injured its cause by connecting it more closely with Judaism than its Author and first publishers did? Are not the Evidences of Christianity and the evidences of Judaism destinct? Why then complicate them with each other so odd as that they must necessarily stand or fall together?

I needed not to have laid so much to you who   and to those who do not think it is not necessary to say any thing.

It is very immaterial whether I   or have not a personal reason for touching on   point; for if I ever cross the Atlantic, I shall come with a settled purpose of never being a Religious of any denomination whatsoever, but as a p   individual, purposing to employ myself in some bler station more usefully, I could wish fore   freedom for my own and every other man’s religious opinions. I ought to apologize for the length and freedom of this letter, when I consider your greatness and the importance of your to me, but I know your goodness, and rely for my pardon on your belief of my being in all essential respects no worse than when you left me in the honoured circle of your acquaintance I cannot yet conclude without congratulating you on the accomplishment of your character and on the conclusion of a war considering its origin and conduct has happily eliminated in the only way that could have prevented many of friends from becoming Sceptics or Atheists. I am with the highest esteem reverence and affection Dear Sir Your’s &c