Your favour of the 7th December by Mr. Dowse who arrived [here] on the day before yesterday is handed me. [If only] you had been a little more [...](1) for you why you are not. Mr. D[ow]se has informed me

   Must not every thinking Man view our Repub[l]ican Gover[n]ment as the most intolerable of all Tyranny? Can any Man be safe in his house while the Legislature are sitting? I do not mean to say whether the Persons confined by the Legislature have suffer'd or have not suffered [ac]cording to their Demerit for I am inf[ormed . . .] a few you mention only But [...] there [is] an old and common Exclamation O Temp[ora], O Mores! O Times, O Manners.

    Blessed Fruits of Independence.

   By the Bearer Captain Cossa 50 pounds of Bees Wax were brought to this place on my account which I desired to sell for me and lay the Mony out in Flax for me and deliver the Flax to you. The Wax he sold for 2/3 per lb. and the Flax he tells me will cost him 1/ at least, however he will rendre you I suppose an Account. No Congress yet and uncertain when there will be, only four States represented.

   I feel a very great [dis]position to return home tho' the Object of my [...] here as respects my self appears quite [.... I shall not leave at] any rate before I hear from you. Pray [let] me hear what the Assembly has done. I fear there has been the Devil to pay; and you on the weak side or rather on no side, let me know the bad with the good if good there has been. Among other things tell me what is or what is like to be done with the Public Tobacco. On this be very particular for I am daily questioned about it either by the board of Treasury or by some Persons who I believe want to be medling with it.(2) I have heard Nothing of Tom Blount since the Letters I received by Mr Voss which I forwarded. If you have any Letters for him the Conveyances here are Weekly and sometimes daily.

   I believe Dowse will not come back about the Tobacco tho' he talks [...] he will. I have been taught to understand partly how he proposed to have paid [the mo]ny so that the Tobacco would not really have cost more than about 22/4 per 100 lb Weight, he was only the Instrument & solely so, nor have I been able to learn the Names of more than one of the Principals.

   This to yourself unless you see an Advantage to yourself in leting Government Know or understand it. Let me hear by every post if it is but a Single Line. Compliments to Polly, Your's &c, Wm Blount

   P.S. I [have heard that] Adherents prevented the setting of a Court at [Spring]field the last Week in the [old] Year and no Attempts were made on the part of Government to support it.

   It is said Government are determined to support a Court that is to set on the 23d of this Month and that Shays and his Adherents are as determined it Shall not sit.

   Mr. Ramsays the following is the price of the following Articles --

   Pitch -- 12/ dull

   Turpentine -- 12/ dull

   Tar -- 12/ current

    and you may depend on them as the genuine prices.

   Connecticut Pork [...] >

   Indian Corn -- 4/3 >

   Wheat -- 8/ >

   Flax Seed -- 11/. > Current black eyed Pease -- 6/ >

   Good Tobacco 4d per lb>

   Final Settlements 2/7d in the pound

   RC (Nc-Ar: Blount Papers).