separated me-perhaps for ever-from some who have a strong hold on my esteem and on my affections. It would indeed have been gratifying to me to see once more yourself, Mr. Meade, Ridgely, and some few others; and the thought that this may never be, is the only one that infuses any thing of bitterness into what may be termed my disappointment, if a man can be said to be disappointed when things happen according to his expectations; on every other account, I have cause of self-congratulation at being disenthralled from a servitude at once irksome and degrading. The grapes are not sour -you know the manner in which you always combated my wish to retire. Although I have not, like you, the spirit of a martyr, yet I could not but allow great force to your representations. To say the truth, a mere sense of duty alone might have been insufficient to restrain me from indulging the very strong inclination which I have felt for many years to return to private life. It is now gratified in a way that takes from me every shadow of blame. No man can reproach me with the desertion of my friends, or the abandonment of my post in a time of danger and of trial. "I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith." I owe the public nothing; my friends, indeed, are entitled to every thing at my hands; but I have received my discharge, not indeed honestam dimissionem, but passable enough, as times go, when delicacy is not over fastidious. I am again free, as it respects the public at least, and have but one more victory to achieve, to be so in the true sense of the word. Like yourself and Mr. Meade, I cannot be contented with endeavoring to do good for goodness' sake, or rather for the sake of the Author of all goodness. In spite of me, I cannot help feeling something very like contempt for my poor foolish fellow-mortals, and would often consign them to Bonaparte in this world, and the devil, his master, in the next; but these are but temporary fits of misanthropy, which soon give way to better and juster feelings.

When I came away I left at Crawford's a number of books, letters, papers, &c., in (and out of) an open trunk; also a gun, flask, shot-belt, &c. Pray take them in charge for me, for although onehalf of them are of no consequence, the rest are; and you may justly ask why I have been so careless respecting them ?-because I am the most lazy and careless man on earth (La Bruyere's absent man is nothing to me), and because I am in love. Pray give the letters special protection.

To the same.

ROANOKE, May 22, 1813. MY DEAR FRIEND:-Your letter being addressed to Farmville, did not reach me until yesterday, when my nephew brought it up. Charlotte Court House is my post-office. By my last you will per

ceive that I have anticipated your kind office in regard to my books and papers at Crawford's: pray give them protection "until the Chesapeake shall be fit for service." It is, I think, nearly eight years since I ventured to play upon those words in a report of the Secretary of the Navy. I have read your letter again and again, and cannot express to you how much pleasure the perusal has given me.

I had taken so strong a disgust against public business, conducted as it has been for years past, that I doubt my fitness for the situation from which I have been dismissed. The House of R was as odious to me as ever school-room was to a truant boy. To be under the dominion of such wretches as (with a few exceptions) composed the majority, was intolerably irksome to my feelings; and although my present situation is far from enviable, I feel the value of the exchange. To-day, for the first time, we have warm weather; and as I enjoy the breeze in my cool cabin, where there is scarce a fly to be seen, I think with loathing of that "compound of villanous smells" which at all times inhale through the H. of R., but which in a summer session are absolutely pestilential. Many of those, too, whose society lessened the labors of our vocation are gone; Bleecker, Elliott, Quincy, Baker, and (since) Bayard; so that I should find myself in Congress among enemies or strangers. Breckenridge, Stanford, and Ridgely, and Lloyd in the Senate, are left; and I am glad that they are not in a minority so forlorn as the last. They have my best wishes-all the aid that I shall ever give to the public cause. The great master of political philosophy has said that "mankind has no title to demand that we should serve them in spite of themselves." It is not upon this plea, however, that I shall stand aloof from the bedside of my delirious country. My course is run. I acquiesce in the decision that has been passed against me, and seek neither for appeal nor new trial.

I shall not go northward until towards the autumn, when I must visit Philadelphia. My late friend Clay's youngest son will return with me; and that journey over, I shall probably never cross James River again.

You are mistaken in supposing that "we Virginians like the war better the nearer it approaches us;" so far from it, there is a great change in the temper of this State, and even in this district, paradoxical as it may seem, against the war. More than half of those who voted against me, were persuaded that I was the cause of the war; that the Government wished for peace (e. g. the Russian Embassy), but that I thwarted them in every thing, and that without unanimity amongst ourselves, peace could not be obtained. If you are acquainted with Daschoff, tell him that the Russian mediation was (strange as it may appear) made the instrument of my ejection. It gave a temporary popularity to the ministry-the people believing

that peace was their object. Its effect on the elections generally has been very great. Some were made to believe that the British fleet in the Chesapeake was to aid my election.

My kinsman, Dudley--now M. D.—is with me, and his society serves to cheer the solitude in which I am plunged. He desires to be remembered to you. Present my best love to Mrs. Key and the little folks. When you see the family at Blenheim, present me to them also to Mr. Stone-and believe me, always, dear sir, and most affectionately,

Yours

JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

To the Same.

May 23d, 1813.

Your letter of the 14th was received to-day-many thanks for it. By the same mail, Mr. Quincy sent me a copy of his speech of the 30th of last month. It is a composition of much ability and depth of thought; but it indicates a spirit and a temper to the North which is more a subject of regret than of surprise. The grievances of Lord North's administration were but as a feather in the scale, when compared with those inflicted by Jefferson and Madison.

I fervently hope that we may meet again. I do not wish you so ill as to see you banished to this Sinope; and yet to see you here would give me exceeding great pleasure. Every blessing attend you.

Francis Scott Key, Esq.

John Randolph to Dr. John Brockenbrough.

ROANOKE, June 2d, 1813.

The

I did not receive your letter of the 26th until last evening, and then I was obliged for it to my good old neighbor, Colonel Morton, who never omits an occasion of doing a favor, however small. gentleman by whom you wrote is very shy of me; nor can I blame him for it. No man likes to feel the embarrassment which a consciousness of having done wrong to another is sure to inspire, and which the sight of the object towards whom the wrong has been done never fails to excite, in the most lively and painful degree.

My neighbor, Colonel C-k, who goes down to Petersburg and Richmond to-morrow, enables me (after a fashion) to answer your question, "How and where I shall pass the summer months?" To which I can only reply-as it pleases God! If I go to any wateringplace, it will be to our hot springs, for the purpose of stewing the rheumatism out of my carcase, if it be practicable.

It would have been peculiarly gratifying to me to have been with you when Leigh, Garnett, W. Meade, and, I must add, M―, were in Richmond. If we exclude every "party-man, and man of ambition," from our church, I fear we shall have as thin a congregation as Dean Swift had, when he addressed his clerk, "Dearly beloved Roger !" What I like M-for, is neither his courtesy, nor his intelligence, but a certain warm-heartedness, which is now-a-days the rarest of human qualities. His manner I think peculiarly unfortunate. There is an ostentation of ornament (which school-boys lay aside when they reach the senior class), and a labored infelicity of expression, that is hateful to one's feelings. We are in terror for the speaker. But this fault he has already in some degree corrected; and by the time he is as old as you or I, it will have worn off. I was greatly revolted by it on our first acquaintance, and even now, am occasionally offended; but the zeal with which he devotes himself to the service of his friends and of his country, makes amends for all. It is sometimes a bustling activity, of little import to its object, but which is to be valued in reference to its motive.

We live

I am not surprised at what you tell me of our friend. in fearful times, and it is a perilous adventure that he is about to undertake. In a few years more, those of us who are alive will have to move off to Kaintuck, or the Massissippi, where corn can be had for sixpence a bushel, and pork for a penny a pound. I do not wonder at the rage for emigration. What do the bulk of the people get here, that they cannot have for one-fifth of the labor in the western country? Surely that must be the Yahoo's paradise, where he can get dead drunk for the hundredth part of a dollar.

What you tell me of Milnor is quite unexpected. He was one of the last men whom I should have expected to take orders; not so much on account of his quitting a lucrative profession, as from his fondness for gay life. I am not sure that it is the safest path. The responsibility is awful-it is tremendous.

Thanks for your intelligence respecting my poor sister. If human skill could save her, Dr. Robinson would do it; but there is nothing left, except to smooth her path to that dwelling whither we must all soon follow her. I can give Mrs. B. no comfort on the subject of her son. For my part, it requires an effort to take an interest in any thing; and it seems to me strange that there should be found inducements strong enough to carry on the business of the world. I believe you have given the true solution of this problem, by way of corollary from another, when you pronounce that free-will and necessity are much the same. I used formerly to puzzle myself, as abler men have puzzled others, by speculations on this opprobrium of philosophy. If you have not untied the Gordian knot, you have cut it, which is the approved methodus medendi of this disease.

Write to me when you can do no better. Worse you cannot do for yourself, nor better for me. You can't imagine what an epoch in my present life a letter from you constitutes. If I did not know that you could find nothing here beyond the satisfaction of mere animal necessity, I should entreat Mrs. B. and yourself to visit my solitary habitation. May every blessing attend you both. Yours, unchangeably,

JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

John Randolph to Francis S. Key.

ROANOKE, July 17th, 1813

DEAR FRANK,-I rode twenty miles this morning, in the hope of receiving letters from some of those few persons who honor me with their regard. Nor have I been disappointed. Your letter, and one from Dr. B., had arrived a few moments before me. I received the pamphlets through friend Stanford, who has too much on his hands to think of me every post; and I am not at all obliged to the gentleman who detained them on their passage, and who annotated one of them, I suppose for my edification. It is certainly not all emendation, for this critical labor.

I heartily wish that I were qualified in any shape to advise you on the subject of a new calling in life. Were I Premier, I should certainly translate you to the see of Canterbury; and if I were not too conscious of my utter incompetency, I should like to take a professorship in some college where you were principal; for, like you, "my occupation (tobacco-making) is also gone." Some sort of employment is absolutely necessary to keep me from expiring with ennui. I "see no reviews," nor any thing else of that description. My time passes in uniform monotony. For weeks together I never see a new face; and, to tell you the truth, I am so much of Captain Gulliver's way of thinking respecting my fellow-Yahoos, (a few excepted, whose souls must have transmigrated from the generous Houyhnhnms,) that I have as much of their company as is agreeable to me, and I suspect that they are pretty much of my opinion; that I am not only ennuyé myself, but the cause of ennui in others. In fact, this business of living is, like Mr. Barlow's reclamations on the French Government, dull work; and I possess so little of pagan philosophy, or of Christian patience, as frequently to be driven to the brink of despair. "The uses of this world have long seemed to me stale, flat, and unprofitable;" but I have worried along, like a worn-out horse in a mail coach, by dint of habit and whipcord, and shall at last die in the traces, running the same dull stage, day after day.