“If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing these imperfect characters thus far⁠—which may be, or may not be, as circumstances arise⁠—you will naturally inquire by what object am I influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to develop it; premising that it is

not

an object of a pecuniary nature.