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    To Sarah Savage Thatcher

    Boston        2 January 1821

    My dear—

    I wish you a very happy new-year, & wish I were present with you to express the devoted feeling of my heart in propria person1 as Lawyers say, in their Court language—I begin to be tired of the Convention, & I beleive the members of that body are most heartily tired with themselves, and one & all wish themselves at home with their beautifull wives as much as I do—Now is not this a good flourish for an old man almost three score & ten? I have heard a number of the members declare, that were they not members of the Convention, nothing could satisfy them for giving such constant attention as I have to their debates—

    But where I am not obliged to take part in a debate I can listen with great pleasure to what others say; & can approve or disapprove & run no risque of giving offence.

    I have contemplated to go home on the morrow, & had got all things prepared to start off early in the morning so as to be with you by early tea-time; but since twelve oClock it has grown cold so fast, & the cold still continues to increase, that Mr. & Mrs. Waite and all the Girls every one of them join in saying I must not think of going till the weather moderates2—So that I shall not be at home till the wind changes & blows from the south, when I may ride before it & not be cold.

    I should have wrote you some account of my tour to Plymouth [Massachusetts], & told you what & whom we saw there, & what we heard,3 but I have refused to attempt any thing like a description of the grand scene because it is as much impossible to put in writing any thing adequate to the occasion, as it was for the Queen of Sheba to conceive justly of the wisdom of Solomon before she had seen him with her own eyes,4 & heard the music wisdom of his voice; or for St. Paul to utter the things he had seen & heard when, in vision, he was caught up above the reagions of this terestral Globe5

    The only answer I have given to the many enquiries made to me on the occasion has been, that for a person to have any adequate idea of the whole transaction from the entering the Temple to hear the address of the orator, to the leaving the ball room, at three or four oClock next morning, he must actually see, hear & feel the whole6—Neither poetry, the canvis, or retoric, or all combined can do justice to the Sublime festival!

    Yesterday Mr. Waite & I in the afternoon rode to Cambridge [Massachusetts]; we called a moment to pay our respects to the Reverend Dr. Holmes7 & his two beautifull daughters & Miss— —Smith the daughter of my old friend Governer Smith of New-Hampshire,8 all whom we saw at Plymouth, & put up with us at Dr. Thacher’s9—we then called & drank tea with our friend Mr. [Abraham] Biglow—& returned to Town about seven—I then went to Club & spent a scientific evening—till ten oClock—

    And am my dear, your very affectionate husband

    [P.S.] Your Spectacles are not to be found in Boston—Tis possible you may have left them where we dined in Danverse [Massachusetts]—I shall call and enquire of the people of the house on my return—

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    ALS, TFP. Addressed to Newburyport, Mass.; postmarked 2 Jan.