“ & propositions have been made for the reformation of their orthography. passing over these two of our countrymen, D ^r. Franklin and Doct ^r. Thornton have also engaged in the enterprize; the former proposing an addition of two or three new characters only, the latter a reformation of the whole alphabet nearly. but these attempts in England, as well as here, have been without effect. about the middle of the last century an attempt was made to banish the letter d , from the words bridge, judge, hedge, knowledge, & others of that termination, & to write them as we write, age, cage, sacrilege privilege; but with little success. the attempt also was made, which you mention in your 2 ^d part to drop the letter u in words of Latin derivation ending in our , and to write honor, candor, rigor, &c, instead of honour, candour, rigour. but the u having been picked up in the passage of these words from the Latin, thro the French, to us, is still preserved by those who consider it as a memorial of our title to the words. other partial attempts have been made by individual writers but with as little success. pluralising nouns in y, & ey by adding s only, as you propose would certainly simplify the spelling, and be analogous to the general idiom of the language, it would be a step gained in the progress of general reformation if it could prevail. but my opinion being requested, I must give it candidly, that, judging of the future by the past, I expect no better fortune to this than similar preceding propositions have experienced. it is very difficult to persuade the great body of mankind to give up what they have once learned, & are now masters of, for something to be learnt anew. time alone insensibly wears down old habits, and produces small changes at long intervals, and to this process we must all accomodate outselves, and be content to follow those who will not follow us. our Anglo-Saxon ancestors had 20. ways of spelling the word ‘many’. ten centuries have dropped all of them and substituted that which we now use. I now return your MS. without being able with the gentlemen whose letters are cited to encourage hope as to it’s effect. I am bound however to acknolege that this is a subject to which I have not paid much attention; and that my doubts therefore should weigh nothing against their more favorable expectations. that these may be fulfilled, and mine prove unfounded, I sincerely wish, because I am a friend to the reformation generally of whatever can be made better, and because it could not fail of gratifying you to be instrumental in this work. Accept the assurance of my respects. ”

A passage from this letter is quoted as a recommendation at the beginning of this book.

In a letter to Jefferson written in November 1814, John Wilson mentioned that he had been a clerk in the Accountants Office, War Department, for nearly ten years. It seems probable that he sent to Jefferson a copy of this book. There were three copies in the Library of Congress, of which one has disappeared, and one is a signed presentation copy from the author to James Monroe, President of the United States.