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tenant to the work above mentioned. It is with pleasure too that the liberal spirit with which instruction and the diffusion of knowledge has been acted upon, is offered as warranting the recommendation to your encouragement of a history of the State, by William D Williamson. As such, and it is only known to me that one is nearly prepared, it cannot, as is respectfully suggested be less than honorable, if a revision should authorize such a sanction, and the character of the author leads against doubt, to aid in extending its circulation. The production will be submitted to your consideration.

From respect to communications made to me and to the nature of the subject, it has become almost imperative to offer some sentaments as to the relations of debtor and creditor, and as to our penal code. Regarding the former subject, in a young State, Cud it is its capital, but credit must depend there on the laws which bind its pledges, on the stern justice which, being superadded to the influence of honor, is the barrier to temptation and the tenor of fraud. Omitting therefore the cases of misfortune, which the conservative moral sentiment, and rescuing sympathies of society usually provide for, it may be feared that the practice of easy, manageable compositions with creditors may be endulged to a degree to impair the character of our State. It is especially to be so apprehended when we reflect that the wary and prudent do not usually belong to the loosing party, but that the benevolent and confiding, the good and generous, are commonly there engaged and there devoted. If you can prevent the long distress and dreadful sacrifice of families who fall a prey to the adventurous and the rash if you can save the kind the unsuspecting and the ignorant, from the cunning, the dishonest or the careless, surely you will be disposed to do it. In that view and none other is the present doctrine and