Once more the dawn of day appears, but I rise not with pleasure, it is not to enjoy the refreshing of the morning or listen to sweet carols of the feathered race, it was not the anticipation of spending the day in the favored embrace of friends, but pain severe, mental and physical, that induced me to leave the pillow. But the attempt was ineffectual, and I had to immediately resume a recumbent posture. I almost sickened at the idea of again being confined. Despair seized my mind and I abandoned every object and viewed all with the most cold and negligent indifference. How frequently will the question be asked, What is the matter of this man which causes so much disquiet? The bigoted Religious will declare it is because he does not love God and neglects Divine assemblies. But the first part of this answer is false; I have as much and as pure a love for my Creator as the most zealous Christian and believe as strong in efficiency of God's grace and that Christ died and suffered for Sinners; but I do not feel under any divine compulsion to attend everyday or week or month a meeting or meetings, but believe I can be just as good in my room or riding in the road as if at church. The moralist will refer it to a deviation from the path of strict rectitude at some period, and the repetition on past conduct will account for all this unpleasant sensation. It is impossible, he exclaims, that a man can be easy unless in every instance he strictly has followed that course which on mature reflection he believes to be just, equitable, and right. And the third, a more consistent and sympathizing individual, will endeavor to palliate and say it is more probable he, in all his intercourse, has been actuated by the best motives, in every undertaking, and the plan adopted has been the only eligible one circumstances would permit, and if accomplished, in the end, would have resulted in the greatest benefit. But, like many other individuals, he may have been unfortunate and who has always succeeded? This is nearer the truth. It is not justice to condemn before you have some knowledge of the action, in order to arrive at the probable motive. And may I not ask, Where is the man that has not done wrong or has at some time deviated from a strict attention to his duty? That individual is not to be found. But let every man have his own ideas, and prove the suspicion unfounded by exemplary deportment.
Received a few hints in a letter from New York from a real and genuine friend or at least has for several years proved himself so, from the many favors bestowed on me; that some foul defamer had endeavored to prejudice him against me. Respected sir, when you become acquainted with the motives that propelled me here, you will then be satisfied and believe me to have remained the same individual in every particular you once did, even if your ideas have now changed and you imagine you could look on me with cold indifference and unworthy of your confidence. Admitting this to be the fact, or all that may be represented by others, it will not change a friendship founded on long and the most intimate, and from which has resulted some of the happiest moments of my life. Remember that, when all the voices that have endeavored to filch from me the name I sustained through all my life are mute and silent and those busy tongues that have been busied in inventing falsehood are palsied by the stroke of death, you will then believe the words I have spoken. You will yet be sensible that I have never violated those sound principles, permanently established which it was my endeavor to inculcate to others. We are now separated and time may never bring us within the distance of verbal conversation. Be that as it may, I have a regard for you that the base calumny of the vipers, tongue can never shake. My friendship is not of that ephemeral nature that can wither and perish in a day. It was not predicated on the base idea of gain, but of worth, real worth, and a love of those principles of justice which you ever held forth and were so congenial to my own ideas on the same subjects. It is these that I cherish as the apple of my eye; it is by them I have been and am yet governed and under their influence I hope to yield up the last convulsive struggle of nature and hope that those that may live after me will never see them violated, but give to every man his due.