It is with more than common pleasure that I sitt down this day to write to You once more: As I read my own death more than once in our newspapers, so I read and also heard that You quitted this present stage and was gone Where Lycurgus Solon Numa and the Elder Brutus have both long gone before you; and where I most decidedly believe that you and others who have served; and have endeavour’d to serve their Country, and the community of Mankind at large will compare notes with them. Although I consider’d your last quitting of Europe as a departure like that of death at least to us whom you left behind; yet so long as you remained upon the same Globe in the same system of life as the proverb says while there’s life there’s hope and one might indulge some hopeless hopes that we might meet again. But when I was told you was dead, I was struck with a damp upon my heart, not for you, but for myself, as having lost the last friend remaining with whom I had, and could communicate on some points of the utmost importance to the liberty of Man, and with whom, except in that interval of the struggle by arms, when It wou’d have been wrong in me to think my Country in the wrong, although she was actually so, with whom I can say with truth, I had communicated with the utmost confidence and without any reserve personal or political. My heart suggested to me now my dear friend Franklin is gone I believe that I am the only one now left on this Stage of life of those Commissioners representing and acting for the several Provinces and Colonies in America whom I mett and communicated with at that Congress at Albany in 1754. When the events which have since come into fact first began to develope themselves already to burst into bloom and to bring forth the fruits of Liberty which You in America at present enjoy. How long I am to continue after these is of very little consequence either to myself or to the world as I now stand unconnected with it and its affaires—but in the interval I feel, as I belonged to an age that is passed away, and as a stranger not known in the present age or to the present actors in it except by idle amusements with which I fill up the vacuity of my present and which have served to amuse others. So you see I was so farr from greiving for You that my grief was all selfish and center’d in self mixt with envying you, that was departed and gone to a place where you and your services to mankind will be understood where you will have the happiness to feel yourself understood and by a look back on this globe to see the effects of them. I look forward to somewhat similar in like hopes. In your last letter from Paris when you took leave of me then at Geneva, you desired I wou’d consider the operations and effect of the Helvetic League, with a reference to the Political Union of the American States. I did so and every thing which I saw or had occasion to learn about this league, only served to confirm what I had already written and published in my Memorial addressed to the Sovereigns of America. I saw that if there was not in a People such a Confidence in the basis of their Liberty, that could sufferr without fears and jealousies, a Spirit of Sovereignty, to establish a regulated Rotary System of Government, trusted (as to Men in rotation) with all and every power necessary to render it effective—there could be neither the true Spirit of Liberty, nor the fruits of Government, and that either an Aristocracy, or a Monarchy founded in faction or violence must take place of it. I saw the traces of the politicks of some High Allies, fals friends, of the Suisse, establishing an Aristocracy, whose Members were their pensioners. I deprecated from my soul that this might never be the fate of America And since you carried up from the committee of Convention Your report of a System of Sovereignty founded in Law and above which law only was Sovereign. I begin to entertain hopes for the Liberties of America, and for what will be an Asylum one day or other to a remnant of Mankind who wish and deserve to live with political Liberty. I do not altogather take confidence to heart. I have some fears of mischief from the orbit of four years period, which You give to the Rotation of the Office of President. It may become the grounds of intrigue. Further suppose the United States in Peace and that they have a President exactly and fully qualified to Conduct the Affairs in Peace, but not in Warr; Suppose then Warr to come upon you before the Period of His office has had its rotation. Although the United States might wish to Choose a President suited to Conduct matter in the line of Warr or of Negotiation; that, unless a voluntary resignation of the first takes place, cannot be done. I make this remark from my knowledge on experience, that the People in their annual election of their representatives in general Assembly look always thus to suit the character of their representative to the buisness of the Country which is likely to come into operation. When I see how wisely and prudently suited to the basis whereon it is built, every other part of your System is framed, I suspect My own judgment in this and suppose there must be something which I do not see, that operated to this form of a four-year Rotation. As I hope and trust you are now alive and will be so to receive what I now write; and as I also hope you will give me an answer and that I shall continue in life to receive it—Pray explain this to me. Being at this place to spend a few weeks in spring and sending to Mrs. Cruger to inquire whether anyship, by which I could write to you, was going to America and hearing that a ship bound to NYork is just gone down the River and that she sends her letters to morrow morning. I have just an hour and hardly to write this hasty letter to you—My Dear Friend—to send my best respects to you to inquire after you and after every thing which concerns or interests [upon]?—for I am, as I ever have been, most sincerely Your Affectionate friend