I have received your favor of the 16th instant, and am happy to learn that no “fair one” has come athwart your regard for your old friends. I know that your heart is so expanded, that love and friendship will both find suitable quarters in it.

I shall deliver your very kind message to Mrs. Johnston, but do not expect to see her for a considerable time. She left here with Mr. Johnston on the day of the wedding, and is now, I believe, in New York. When they will go to Baltimore I do not know, but believe that soon after they intend to visit Cuba. I know that Mrs. Johnston would be delighted to receive your felicitations under your own hand. Her address will be Mrs. Henry E. Johnston, No. 79 Monument Street, Baltimore. I thank you for the offer to send me Mr. De Leon’s review, but I do not wish to have it. If there is anything disagreeable in it, as is doubtless the case, some person will be sure to send it to me. There is a violent and brutal attack on the book and on me in Beecher’s Independent, and I know not the number of extracts from the paper containing it, which I have received anonymously. The book is quietly making its own way, under the disadvantage of a very high price. Several thousands have been already sold, and the Appletons inform me the demand is still increasing.

I am truly happy to learn that my good old friend Dr. Jones is so well pleased with the book. Please to present him my very kindest regards.

Thank you for delivering my message to Mrs. Clay. She is charming, and has behaved beautifully in her trying situation.

When the opportunity offers, please to return my very kindest regards to Mrs. Dr. Houston. She is, indeed, an excellent woman, and I owe her many obligations.

I ought to thank you for the reports “of the condition of the National Metropolitan Bank.” In these I observe you have blended specie with other lawful money, but the amount of each you have not designated. These reports have led to a train of reminiscences. The Democratic party, under the lead of General Jackson, put down one national bank as both unconstitutional and inexpedient. There are now more than sixteen hundred such banks. All over the country, on account of their enormous profits, these have enlisted great numbers of Democrats as stockholders, and they will constitute the most formidable obstacle to the triumph of the Democratic party. But this event must come sooner or later. I presume our friend Carlisle did not receive the book I sent him.

——, I perceive, has returned to Washington. Of all the absurd things I have encountered in my life, the cause of his enmity to me is the most absurd. I did him the greatest kindness which I could do to a father or a friend, by causing the lover of his daughter, to whom I was warmly attached, to be sent away quietly, instead of making the case a subject of diplomatic correspondence with the —— government.

I sat down to write you a few lines, and I have now written an unconscionably long letter.

From your friend, as ever,

James Buchanan.