long letter to you, but I was so disgusted with the imperfect and feeble expression which I had given to some not uninteresting ideas, that I threw away the unfinished sheet, and could not find resolution to resume what had been so inauspiciously begun.  I am ashamed to say, that I write so few letters, and employ my pen so little in any way, that I feel both a lack of words (such words I mean as I wish for) and of mechanical skill, extremely discouraging to me.  I do not plead these disabilities on my part as an excuse, but I wish you to know that they have been the sole cause of my silence, and not a want of sense of the honour done me by your correspondence, or an ignorance of what good breeding required of me.  But enough of my trespasses!  Let me only add, that I addressed a letter of some length to you when you were lying ill at Middleburgh; this probably you never received.  Now for your book.  I had expected it with great impatience, and desired a friend to send it down to me immediately on its appearance, which he neglected to do.  On this account, I did not see it till a few days ago.  I have read it through twice, with great care, and many parts three or four times over.  From this, you will conclude that I must have been much interested; and I assure you that I deem myself also in a high degree instructed.  It would be a most pleasing employment to me to dwell, in this letter, upon those points in which I agree with you, and to acknowledge my obligations for the clearer views you have given of truths which I before perceived, though not with that distinctness in which they now stand before my eyes.  But I could wish this letter to be of some use to you; and that end is more likely to be attained if I advert to those points in which I think you are mistaken.  These are chiefly such as though very material in themselves, are not at all so to the main object you have in view, viz. that of proving that the military power of France may by us be successfully resisted, and even overthrown.  In the first place, then, I think that there are great errors in the survey of the comparative strength of the two empires, with which you begin your book, and on which the first 160 pages are chiefly employed.  You seem to wish to frighten the people into exertion; and in your ardour to attain your object, that of rousing our countrymen by any means, I think you have caught far too eagerly at every circumstance with respect to revenue, navy, &c. that appears to make for the French.  This I think was unnecessary.  The people are convinced that the power of France is dangerous, and that it is our duty to resist it to the utmost.  I think you might have commenced from this acknowledged fact; and, at all events, I cannot help saying, that the first 100 pages or so of your book, contrasted with the brilliant prospects towards the conclusion, have impressed me with a notion that you have written too much under the influence of feelings similar to those of a poet or novelist, who deepens the distress