May 1781
Dear Miʃs Hamilton,
Six months have now paʃsed without my hearing from
you, not that I mean any reproof, tho' at the same time
I must aʃsure you that I lost no time in making my
acknowledgements for your last very obliging letter. I hope
you are now perfectly settled and happy in your new depart=
ment; if I understand your disposition, trifling difficulties
will not disturb you more than they ought to do; & where
there are none, there is the leʃs room for addreʃs1 & ingenuity.
Seeing the little ground I have made in consequence of
my personal application to my Friends, when I was last
in England, I think I may very properly give up all thoughts
of further Preferment, which I do with perfect contented=
neʃs of mind. I am now paʃsed the age in which I might
with any prospect of succeʃs attempt to create an interest
with Men in power, besides I am of myself totally unpro=
vided with the indispensable requisites, the ability of
making them any return. And this is an age in which
Notes:
1 The now-rare sense of address here is ‘state or quality of being prepared or ready to do something; adroitness, resourcefulness; ability, skill, dexterity’ (OED s.v. address n. 7a).