in my case.  If these general considerations were sufficient to ground a firm resolution never to permit myself to think of the office, or be thought of for it, the special ones, which have supervened on my retirement, still more insuperably bar the door to it.  My health is entirely broken down within the last eight months; my age requires that I should place my affairs in a clear state; these are sound if taken care of, but capable of considerable dangers if longer neglected; and above all things, the delights I feel in the society of my family, and in the agricultural pursuits in which I am so eagerly engaged.  The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present name.  In stating to you the heads of reasons which have produced my determination, I do not mean an opening for future discussion, or that I may be reasoned out of it.  The question is for ever closed with me; my sole object is to avail myself of the first opening ever given me from a friendly quarter (and I could not with decency do it before) of preventing any division or loss of votes, which might be fatal to the republican interest.  If that has any chance of prevailing, it must be by avoiding the loss of a single vote, and by concentrating all its strength on one object.  Who this should be, is a question I can more freely discuss with any body than yourself.  In this I painfully feel the loss of Monroe.  Had he been here, I should have been at no loss for a channel through which to make myself understood; if I have been misunderstood by any body through the instrumentality of Mr. Fenno and his abettors.  I long to see you.  I am proceeding in my agricultural plans with a slow but sure step.  To get under full way will require four or five years.  But patience and perseverance, will accomplish it.  My little essay in red-clover, the last year, has had the most encouraging success.  I sowed then about forty acres.  I have sowed this year about one hundred and twenty, which the rain now falling comes very opportunely on.  From one hundred and sixty to two hundred acres, will be my yearly sowing.  The seed-box described in the agricultural transactions of New York, reduces the expense of seeding from six shillings to two shillings and three pence the acre, and does the business better than is possible to be done by the human hand.  May we hope a visit from you?  If we may, let it be after the middle of May, by which time I hope to be returned from Bedford.  I have had a proposition to meet Mr. Henry there this month, to confer on the subject of a convention, to the calling of which he is now become a convert.  The session of our district court furnished me a just excuse for the time; but the impropriety of my entering into consultation on a measure in which I would take no part, is a permanent one.

Present my most respectful compliments to Mrs. Madison, and be assured of the warm attachment of, Dear Sir, yours affectionately,