It is now almost three months since I left you, in every part of which,
my anxiety about you and the children, as well as our country, has been
extreme. The business I have had upon my mind has been as great and
important as can be entrusted to man, and the difficulty and intricacy
of it prodigious. When fifty or sixty men have a Constitution to form
for a great empire, at the same time that they have a country of fifteen
hundred miles in extent to fortify, millions to arm and train, a naval
power to begin, an extensive commerce to regulate, numerous tribes of
Indians to negotiate with, a standing army of twenty-seven thousand men
to raise, pay, victual, and officer, I really shall pity those fifty or
sixty men. I must see you erelong. Rice has written me a very good
letter. So has Thaxter, for which I thank them both. Love to the
children.