Your little letter from Alexandria assured me of your safety, and for a moment consoled me for your absence. The only solid consolation is the belief that you will be happy, and the certainty that we shall often meet.
I am to be detained here yet a week. Immediately on my return to New-York I shall prepare for a tour to Georgetown or to Charleston; probably a water passage.
I.B. Prevost has been hurrying off Senat and Natalie; but for his interposition they would have relied wholly on me, and I had already proposed that they should go with the chancellor some time in the summer or autumn, which would have been then or never, as I had pleased; but he (I.B.P.) has advised otherwise, and strongly urged their immediate departure. I think I shall be able to prevent it.
Would Mr. Alston be willing to go as secretary to Chancellor Livingston? I beg his immediate answer.
By the time the enclosed shall reach Mr. Alston, it will have travelled about three thousand miles. It will certainly deserve a kind reception. I leave mine open for your perusal; the other appears to be from _Miss Burr_.
Your Dumfries letter was received yesterday. To pass a day in Dumfries is what you could not at any time very much desire; but to pass one there against your will, and a rainy day too, was indeed enough to try your tempers.
On Sunday, the 15th, I commence my journey to New York; there I shall not arrive till the 25th. Nothing but _matrimony_ will prevent my voyage to Charleston and Georgetown; and even so great an event shall only postpone, but not defeat the project I am sorry, however, to add that I have no expectations or decided views on this subject. I mean Hymen.
It gives me very great pleasure to hear that Colonel W. Hampton is become, in some sort, your neighbour, by having purchased a plantation within fifteen or twenty miles (as is said) of Georgetown. Write me if this be so.
I have written to Frederick [6] as you commanded; that I might not err in expressing your ideas, I enclosed to him your letter. You have no warmer friend on earth; no one who would so readily hazard his life to serve you. It always seemed to me that you did not know his value.
Certain parts of your letter I cannot answer. Let us think of the expected meeting, and not of the present separation. God bless thee ever.