It was much longer than the usual time before your very acceptable Letter of the 22 Decr came to my hand.  I receivd it as a singular Favor and felt the more thankful for it, because I knew that hardly anything could induce you to write a Letter but the urgent Affairs of our Country or the powerful feelings of private Friendship.  I should have written you an Answer sooner but the peevish nominal Saint who scrap’d an Acquaintance with me at Baltimore the last Winter, has followd me even to this place.  I think he is the most impertinent & troublesome Visitant I ever had.  I am so thoroughly disgusted at the Creature that I have taken every Method that could be devisd to prevent my being ever plagud with him again.  He seems at length to be about leaving me & he may depend upon it I shall deny all his Visits for the future.

The Spirit of Avarice, I am sorry to be obligd to say it, prevails too much in this Town; but it rages only among the few, because perhaps, the few only are concernd at present in trade.  The old substantial Merchants have generally laid aside trade & left it to Strangers or those who from nothing have raisd fortunes by privateering.  The Body of this Community suffer proportionably as much as the great continental Publick.  It must be confessd that the Charges of Trade are enormous, and it is natural for men when they have at great Risque & Expence imported Commodities which are wanted by every body, if they must receive in payment for them what is valued by no body, to demand as much of it as they please, especially if it is growing daily into less Repute.  This you know has been the Case.  There is but one effectual Remedy; & that is to lessen the Quantity of circulating paper Money.  This is now doing here.  Our Assembly have laid on a very heavy Tax, & are determind to repeat it again and again.  Besides which they have called in a large Quantity of their bills, for which they have issued Notes payble with Interest.  The Effects are already felt & the prices of Goods have been for some time past gradually sinking.

You tell me we have a great many men now inlisted & that you hope Means will be found to collect them.  I joyn with you in these hopes, and that we may keep them together when they are collected and make a good Use of them.  Howe I understand has fortified himself by a Line of Redoubts from River to River.  Has he more than 13 or 14 [sic] Men in America?  If not why should we wait till he is reinforced before we make an Enterprize somewhere.

Your Resolution to stop the Embarkation here I fancy has nettled Burgoyne.  He has since been soliciting Interviews with A & B & wishes for private Conversations upon a Matter in which “he thinks the General Cause of Humanity and possibly the essential Interests of both our Countries are concernd."1 He has not prevaild upon A to comply with his Request; for more Reasons than one which I think must be obvious upon a short Review of our History.  The Resolutions of Congress