Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/68

 be more suitable to our situation & circumstances than any other, but I should wish also an independent Judicial department to decide any contest that may happen between the United States and individual States & between one State and another; this however is only a hint, you may not see the necessity of it as forcible as I do and I presume ’tis now too late to offer any reasons for the establishment, as that matter I flatter myself is before this got over; all I can say respecting the Convention is to recommend a perseverence to the end, to the deputies from this State.

LXXI.

New York, July 26, 1787.

I have delivered the paper you committed to me, as it stood altered, to Major Peirce, from whose conduct I am to conclude the affair between you is at an end. He informs me that he is shortly to set out on a jaunt up the North River.

As you intimate a wish to have my sentiments in writing on the transaction, I shall with pleasure declare that the steps you have taken in consequence of Mr. Peirce’s challenge have been altogether in conformity to my opinion of what would be prudent, proper and honorable on your part. They seem to have satisfied Mr. Peirce’s scruples arising from what he apprehended in some particulars to have been your conduct to him, and I presume we are to hear nothing further of the matter.

LXXII.

Philadelphia, July 27th, 1787.

You may think I have been remiss in making you Communications from the Federal Convention, which you had a right to expect from my engagements to you in my last Letter from Carolina. But when you are informed that the Members of that Body are under an Injunction of Secrecy till their Deliberations are moulded firm for the public Eye, You will readily I flatter myself, excuse me. This Caution was thought prudent, least unfavourable Representations might be made by imprudent printers of the many crude matters & things daily uttered & produced in this Body, which are unavoidable, & which in their unfinished state might make an undue impression on the too credulous and unthinking Mobility. How long before the business of Convention will be finished is very uncertain, perhaps not before September, if then. Believe me Sir, it is no small