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My dear friend: Your note received. What you say in it shows me that you entertain some fears lest I should have been offended by Mr. Hume's remarks. Be at ease, pray, for I never could be. It is not anything contained in his observations that annoyed me, but the persistence with which he was following out a line of argument that I knew was pregnant with future mischief. This argumentum ad hominem — renewed and taken up from where we had left it off last year was as little calculated as possible to draw the Chohan from his principles, or force him into some very desirable concessions. I dreaded the consequences and my apprehensions had a very good foundation, I can assure you. Please assure Mr. Hume of my personal sympathy