Your favor of August the 4th came to hand by our last post, together with the ’extract of a letter from a gentleman of Philadelphia, dated July the 10th,’ cut from a newspaper, stating some facts which respect me.  I shall notice these facts.  The writer says, that ’the day after the last despatches were communicated to Congress, Bache, Leib, &c, and a Dr. Reynolds, were closeted with me.’  If the receipt of visits in my public room, the door continuing free to every one who should call at the same time, may be called closeting, then it is true that I was closeted with every person who visited me; in no other sense is it true as to any person.  I sometimes received visits from Mr. Bache and Dr. Leib.  I received them always with pleasure, because they are men of abilities, and of principles the most friendly to liberty and our present form of government.  Mr. Bache has another claim on my respect, as being the grandson of Dr. Franklin, the greatest man and ornament of the age and country in which he lived.  Whether I was visited by Mr. Bache or Dr. Leib the day after the communication referred to, I do not remember.  I know that all my motions at Philadelphia, here, and every where, are watched and recorded.  Some of these spies, therefore, may remember, better than I do, the dates of these visits.  If they say these two gentlemen visited me the day after the communication, as their trade proves their accuracy, I shall not contradict them, though I affirm that I do not recollect it.  However, as to Dr. Reynolds, I can be more particular, because I never saw him but once, which was on an introductory visit he was so kind as to pay me.  This, I well remember, was before the communication alluded to, and that during the short conversation I had with him, not one word was said on the subject of any of the communications.  Not that I should not have spoken freely on their subject to Dr. Reynolds, as I should also have done to the letter-writer, or to any other person who should have introduced the subject.  I know my own principles to be pure, and therefore am not ashamed of them.  On the contrary, I wish them known, and therefore willingly express them to every one.  They are the same I have acted on from the year 1775 to this day, and are the same, I am sure, with those of the great body of the American people.  I only wish the real principles of those who censure mine were also known.  But warring against those of the people, the delusion of the people is necessary to the dominant party.  I see the extent to which that delusion has been already carried, and I see there is no length to which it may not be pushed by a party in possession of the revenues and the legal authorities of the United States, for a short time indeed, but yet long enough to admit much particular mischief.  There is no event, therefore, however atrocious, which may not be expected.  I have contemplated every event which the Maratists of the day can perpetrate, and am prepared to meet every one in such a way, as