Washington March 3d 1822 Dear Samuel, Your letter of the 14th of February has been received since  I wrote last week - and it gives me great pleasure to learn  by it that the family continue so well. I have waited thro this  day hoping to receive another letter, as this is the day for  the letters from Burlington to arrive, but I now learn that the  mails has again failed, which has often been the case of late,  owing to the extreme badness of the roads at this season of the year.  I have concluded therefore not to risk waiting longer, lest my  letter should not reach you at the usual time.  You will see by the Intelligencer that the Senate has lost  another of its members the week past. This circumstance I  hope will excite no alarm for the rest of us; for I assure you  that it has been uncommonly healthy here this winter; and  so far as respects me, I hardly remember a winter, thro' which  my own health has continued so good. This I impute to the  fever I had in the fall, or rather to the medicine I took while  sick, which evidently cleansed the system. I hope the same ben- eficial effects has been experienced by all those who had the  fever at Craftsbury last fall.  We have had one week of pleasant and moderate weather,  something like the middle of April in Vermont; the snow and  ice is all gone, and the frost nearly or quite out of the ground,  but the roads in general continue very miry. To day however