here.  You may be at liberty, I expect; to communicate some things, consistently with your honor and the duties you will owe to a protecting nation.  Such a communication among individuals may be mutually beneficial to the contending parties.  On this or any future occasion, if I affirm to you any facts, your knowledge of me will enable you to decide on their credibility; if I hazard opinions on the dispositions of men or other speculative points, you can only know they are my opinions.  My best wishes for your felicity attend you wherever you go; and believe me to be, assuredly,

Your friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER III.—­TO JOHN RANDOLPH, November 29, 1775

TO JOHN RANDOLPH, ESQ..

Philadelphia,

November 29, 1775.

Dear Sir,

I am to give you the melancholy intelligence of the death of our most worthy Speaker, which happened here on the 22nd of the last month.  He was struck with an apoplexy, and expired within five hours.

I have it in my power to acquaint you that the success of our arms has corresponded with the justness of our cause.  Chambly and St. Johns were taken some weeks ago, and in them the whole regular army in Canada, except about forty or fifty men.  This day certain intelligence has reached us that our General, Montgomery, is received into Montreal:  and we expect every hour to be informed that Quebec has opened its arms to Colonel Arnold, who, with eleven hundred men, was sent from Boston up the Kennebec, and down the Chaudiere river to that place.  He expected to be there early this month.  Montreal acceded to us on the 13th, and Carleton set out, with the shattered remains of his little army, for Quebec, where we hope he will be taken up by Arnold.  In a short time, we have reason to hope, the delegates of Canada will join us in Congress, and complete the American union as far as we wish to have it completed.  We hear that one of the British transports has arrived at Boston; the rest are beating off the coast, in very bad weather.  You will have heard, before this reaches you, that Lord Dunmore has commenced hostilities in Virginia.  That people bore with every thing, till he attempted to burn the town of Hampton.  They opposed and repelled him, with considerable loss on his side, and none on ours.  It has raised our countrymen into a perfect phrenzy.  It is an immense misfortune to the whole empire to have a King of such a disposition at such a time.  We are told, and every thing proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy we have.  His Minister is able, and that satisfies me that ignorance, or wickedness, somewhere, controls him.  In an earlier part of this contest, our petitions told him, that from our King there was but one appeal.  The admonition was despised, and that appeal forced on us.  To undo his empire, he has but one truth more to learn; that, after colonies