I am sorry that you still suppose the willows to have had any value. I understood from Mr. Waring, that he explained to you why I thought it necessary [285] to cut them, and I can only express regret that you were not informed of the intention to cut them, before the permission was given.

I believe the case has not yet arisen in which a timely expression of your judgment has not arrested any contrary intention of mine & I don’t think I could be more ready than I have always been to inform you of my intentions. There has been but one occasion in regard to which you have for a moment wronged me by supposing otherwise, so far as I know.

This cordiality of intercourse with regard to my duty could have been based on no merely official courtesy or duty, but only on a sincere respect for your final judgment and a willingness to sacrifice my own convictions in matters of small consequence to maintain a hearty cooperation of will in our work. It is, then, simply, a fortunate circumstance that on no question of large consequence as to my duty, have our judgments thoroughly differed.

It may be otherwise any day. It would seem that there would have been a difference in the case of the willows (except as I naturally suppose that I should have convinced you that they were best grubbed up). In case of such difference, if I thought the drains of more consequence than the willows, and a long delay of more serious consequence than their value could possibly be, although you differed with me, whose judgment should have controlled a decision? I suppose, mine; and therefore am concerned at receiving what bears the apparent intention of a persistent reproof for acting in such a matter, as it happened, not in accordance with your judgment.

If I am wrong, I only desire to be informed of it to more scrupulously avoid the like error in future.

An expression of your judgment or your wishes in any matter in which I am to act is always welcome. I only desire to be relieved of any misapprehension by which I might be betrayed into neglecting or overstepping my responsibility.