Philadelphia, June 26, 1787
Mrs. Ellsworth
Our business is yet unfinished and it yet remains uncertain when I shall return home. I am sure I wish for the tie for this city has no charms for me. I mix with company without enjoying it and am perfectly tired with flattery and forms. To be very fashionable we must be very trifling and make and receive a thousand professions which everyone knows there is no truth in. Give me a little domestick circle where affection is natural and friendship sincere and I do not care who takes the rest.
I seldom write long letters to anybody and I am sure I need not to you to convince you that I am with the truest and tenderest affection.
Yours Oliver Ellsworth
Love to the little ones
Chauncey is well through the smallpox