excellent institution, those individuals who have
acquired so much credit by its original formation, and
whose success and perseverance have procured them
the approbation of all the valuable and right-thinking
part of America, and also those of the same spirit of
benevolent research in Great Britain, who have had
access to know and to admire what has been achieved.

I am much obliged to you for the reports sent me
by Captain Matlack

, which I hope to receive in a few
days. I have in readiness to be sent you, a series of
reports, published by our Society for bettering the
condition of the Poor, since the last that I forwarded;
and it is my intention to send you the succeeding
numbers, as they are published; also the reports of a
very active society for the suppression of vice, which
was instituted in this metropolis about three years
ago, and which has been productive of a great deal
of good, in disclosing and bringing to punishment
the perpetrators of acts of debauchery and wicked-
ness, which, from the degree of turpitude annexed to
it, almost exceeds credibility. Such are the evils
which affect large societies, that it requires the con-
stant and watchful eye of the moralist and the
philanthropist, to keep them in check. You are hap-
pily free as yet from many of these evils; and an
attention to the education of youth will be the only
means of prevention; since, in the course of time, large
cities will arise in America, and a population equal
to all Europe will cover its forests in less than a
century.

I am much gratified to find that my remarks on
public education and preventive police met your
approbation. Notwithstanding the unexampled be-
nevolence and munificence which pervades this
country, the interruptions we experience in obtaining
wise and salutary laws, in consequence of the wars
in which we are unhappily involved, is very great.
This excessive calamity obstructs the adoption of
many wise and salutary regulations, which the state