You will have seen in the newspapers some proceedings in the legislature, which have cost me much mortification.  My own debts had become considerable, but not beyond the effect of some lopping of property, which would have been little felt, when our friend ——­ gave me the coup de grace.  Ever since that I have been paying twelve hundred dollars a year interest on his debt, which, with my own, was absorbing so much of my annual income, as that the maintenance of my family was making deep and rapid inroads on my capital, and had already done it.  Still, sales at a fair price would leave me competently provided.  Had crops and prices for several years been such as to maintain a steady competition of substantial bidders at market, all would have been safe.  But the long succession of years of stunted crops, of reduced prices, the general prostration of the farming business, under levies for the support of manufacturers, &c, with the calamitous fluctuations of value in our paper medium, have kept agriculture in a state of abject depression, which has peopled the western States by silently breaking up those on the Atlantic, and glutted the land-market, while it drew off its bidders.  In such a state of things, property has lost its character of being a resource for debts.  Highland in Bedford, which, in the days of our plethory, sold readily for from fifty to one hundred dollars the acre (and such sales were many then), would not now sell for more than from ten to twenty dollars, or one quarter or one fifth of its former price.  Reflecting on these things, the practice occurred to me, of selling, on fair valuation, and by way of lottery, often resorted to before the Revolution to effect large sales, and still in constant usage in every State for individual as well as corporation purposes.  If it is permitted in my case, my lands here alone, with the mills, he, will pay every thing, and leave me Monticello and a farm free.  If refused, I must sell every thing here, perhaps considerably in Bedford, move thither with my family, where I have not even a log hut to put my head into, and whether ground for burial, will depend on the depredations which, under the form of sales, shall have been committed on my property.  The question then with me was, Utrum horum? But why afflict you with these details?  Indeed, I cannot tell, unless pains are lessened by communication with a friend.  The friendship which has subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me through that long period.  And if I remove beyond the reach of attentions to the University, or beyond the bourne of life itself, as I soon must, it is a comfort to leave that institution under your care, and an assurance that it will not be wanting.  It has also been a great solace to me, to believe that you are engaged in vindicating to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to them, in all their purity, the blessings of self-government,