I have received several letters from you, within a few months past,1 and if I have not answered them, it has been solely because my unceasing public duties, have prevented me from giving the attention, I desired to give, to the correspondence of my friends. From one or two of your letters I have the impression, that you entertained apprehensions, that some one may have communicated information to me, calculated to affect you injuriously.2 Nothing of the kind has occurred. Neither Mr Bancroft or any one else, has written to me a word to your prejudice. I have known you too long, and too well, to credit idle rumours, and have undiminished confidence in you.

The Presidential election having resulted unfavourably to the Democratic party, it may be that you contemplate resigning your post, in order to avoid a removal, by my successor. If you desire to continue in your consulate, or if it be a matter of indifference to you, whether you do or not, my advice to you is, not to resign, but to hold on for a few months at least. A removal for opinion’s sake could not injuriously affect your reputation, but on the contrary, would endear you still more to the Democratic party. The President elect, in one of [his]3 letters as published, has said, that he was a Whig, but not an ultra Whig. Precding the election his friends in different quarters of the Union, represented him as a no party man, & by this means he obtained many Democratic votes. That this was a fraud I do not doubt. Indeed I have never known a [public]-man who professed to belong to no party, who was not when he obtained power a proscriptive, if not a vindictive partisan. Your case would test the no party professions of the President elect, and of his leading frieds. If [. . .]4 shall prescribe “for opinion’s sake,” the early [an]d constant friend of Jackson, one who fell wounded in battle by his side, and who of all the officers, of all grades who had been under his command, was deemed by him most worthy to intrust his war sword, the public will be at no loss to understand and to appreciate the insincerity of the professions of moderation, which were made before the election.

I am surrounded by company and much engaged in my official duties, and have no time to say a word about public affaires. I anticcipate with sincere pleasure my retirement from the cares, and responsibilities of public life.

Your son William I learn, has passed his preliminary examination, in the Navy, and is now, in Service. Your daughter Hetty is very well. She spent the 1st of January with us.