uttering a string of common-place that every one can write, and no one can deny. But you brought it on yourself. You expected that I would say something, and I resolved to try. I can bear witness to the fact of Mrs. Brockenbrough's prediction respecting Bonaparte's retirement. I wish I were permitted to name five ladies who should constitute the Cabinet of this country; our affairs would be conducted in another guess manner. This reminds me of Mrs. G., of whom I have at last heard. Mr. G. wrote me late in February, from London. They were going to Bath, and "if circumstances on the continent would permit, meant to take a tour through France." How well-timed their trip to Europe has been.

with

I am here completely hors du monde. My neighbor, whom I have made a violent effort to establish an intercourse, has been here twice, by invitation-W. Leigh, as often, on his way to court; and on Saturday, I was agreeably surprised, by stumbling on Frank Gilmer, who was wandering to and fro in the woods, seeking my cabin. He left on Tuesday for his brother's in Henry. Except my standing dish, you have my whole society for nine weeks. On the terms by which I hold it, life is a curse, from which I would willingly escape, if I knew where to fly. I have lost my relish for reading; indeed, I could not devour even the Corsair with the zest that Lord Byron's pen generally inspires. It is very inferior to the Giaour, or the Bride. The character of Conrad is unnatural. Blessed with his mistress, he had no motive for desperation.

My plantation affairs, always irksome, are now revolting. I have lost three-fourths of the finest and largest crop I ever had. My best respects and regard to Mrs. B.

I am, as ever, yours,

JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

Dr. Dudley is (as you may suppose) a treasure to me above all price. Without him, what should I do? He desires his respects to you both.

As to an English Constitution for France, they will have one when they all speak the English language, and not before. Have you read Morris's oration on the 29th of June? His description of Bonaparte, "taking money for his crown," is very fine. It is a picI see him. There are some cuts in the same page that our fulminating statesmen will not like.

ture.

Sunday the 17th.-I am compelled to be at Prince Edward Court to-morrow, and the weather is so intolerably hot, that I shall go a part of the way this afternoon, and put my letter in the Farmville post-office, whence it will go direct to Richmond, instead of waiting five days on the road. Our crops, lately drowned, are now burning up. I begin to feel the effects of the fresh in my health as well as my purse. Dudley and myself both have experienced the ill

consequences of our daily visits to the low grounds. The negroes, however, continue healthy. Out of more than two hundred, not a patient since I came home.

Who is it that says "il-y-a tant de plaisir à bavarder avec un ami!" Perhaps you will reply that the pleasure is not so great ctre bavardí.

Randolph to Key.

ROANOKE, July 31, 1814. Affliction has assailed me in a new shape. My younger nephew whom you saw in G. Town two years ago has fallen, I fear, into a confirmed pulmonary consumption. He was the pride, the sole hope of our family. How shall I announce to his wretched mother that the last stay of her widowed life is falling? Give me some comfort, my good friend, I beseech you. He is now travelling by slow journeys home. What a scene awaits him there! His birth-place in ashes, his mother worn to a skeleton with disease and grief, his brother cut off from all that distinguishes man to his advantage from the brute beast. I do assure you that my own reason has staggered under this cruel blow. I know, or rather have a confused conception of what I ought to do, and sometimes strive, not altogether ineffectually I hope, to do it; but again all is chaos and misery. My faculties are benumbed; I feel suffocated; let me hear from you, I pray.

Yours, in truth,

J. R.

St. George, my elder nephew, is calm and governable, but entirely irrational. Commend me to Mrs. Key, and to Ridgely and West. Since writing the above my whole crop (tobacco and corn) is destroyed by a fresh, the greatest that has been known within twenty years. fear a famine next summer; for this country, if we had the means of buying, is out of the way of a supply, except by distant land-carriage, and the harvests of Rappahannock, &c., cannot be brought up to Richmond by water. The poor slaves I fear will suffer dreadfully.

Randolph to Brockenbrough.

ROANOKE, Aug. 1, 1814. You find in me, I fear, not merely an unprofitable but a troublesome correspondent; all my conversation is on paper. I have no one to converse with, for I have hardly seen Dudley since my return from Farmville, and I try to forget myself, or to obtain some relief from my own thoughts, by pouring them out on one who has heretofore lent to me perhaps too partial an ear. I have lived to feel that there are "many

things worse than poverty or death," those bugbears that terrify the great children of the world, and sometimes drive them to eternal ruin. It requires, however, firmer nerves than mine to contemplate, without shrinking, even in prospect, the calamities which await this unhappy district of country-famine and all its concomitant horrors of disease and misery. To add to the picture, a late requisition of militia for Norfolk carries dismay and grief into the bosoms of many families in this country; and to have a just conception of the scene, it is necessary to be on the spot. This is our court day, when the conscripts are to report themselves, and I purposely abstain from the sight of wretchednes that I cannot relieve. I have indeed enough of it at home. The river did not abate in its rise until last night at sunset. It has, after twenty-four hours, just retired within its banks. The ruin is tremendous. The granary of this part of the State is rifled of its stores. Where then are the former furnishers of the great support of life to look for a supply? With a family of more than two hundred mouths looking up to me for food, I feel an awful charge on my hands. It is easy to rid myself of the burthen if I could shut my heart to the cry of humanity and the voice of duty. But in these poor slaves I have found my best and most faithful friends; and I feel that it would be more difficult to abandon them to the cruel fate to which our laws would consign them, than to suffer with them.

Among other of his tracts, I have been reading to-day Burke on the Policy of the Allies. If the book is within your reach, pray give it a perusal. It has a strong bearing on the present circumstances of France. A thousand conceptions have arisen in my mind on that subject and on the actual condition of our country, which I regret it has not been in my power to commit to paper; but these bubbles of the imagination have vanished: I could not embody them in the happy moment of projection. You see that I speak the language of an adept, although hardly out of my noviciate.

CHAPTER III.

MILITARY CAMPAIGN.

Some time in the month of July, 1814, Cochrane made his appearance in the Chesapeake. This appearance of a formidable enemy within their own borders, spread consternation among the unprotected people along the shores. Many depredations and outrages were

committed at Hampton, Havre de Grace, and other exposed places. Finally an army was landed and marched across the country towards Washington City. They were met by a body of raw militia and a few marines, at Bladensburg, where was fought, or rather was run, the celebrated races of Bladensburg. Washington fell into the hands of the enemy, and the archives and public buildings were destroyed. On the news of this disaster, Randolph hastened to the scene of action, prepared, if occasion required, to lend his aid in defending the shores of Virginia.

The following letter, addressed to Dr. Dudley, will show how the military spirit had come over him :

CAMP FAIRFIELD, September 2, 1814. MY DEAR THEODORE-You may be surprised at not hearing from me. But, first, I lost my horses; secondly, I got a violent bilious complaint, not cholera, but cousin-german to it; thirdly, I heard the news of Washington, and, without delay, proceeded hither. I am now under orders to proceed to the brick house, forty-two miles on York road, just below the confluence of Pamunkey and Mattapony. Should you come down, report yourself to the surgeon-general, Dr. Jones, of Nottoway. But first come to camp, and see Watkins Leigh, the governor's aid.

Finding that the enemy all danger of an imme

But his military career was very brief. meditated an attack on Baltimore, and that diate invasion of the shores of Virginia had passed by, he hastened back to Richmond. On the 8th of September, he writes to Mr. Key from that city:

"I have been here ten days, including four spent in reconnoitering the lower country between York and James River, from the confluence of Mattapony and Pamunkey to the mouth of Chickahomany. You will readily conceive my anxiety on the subject of my friends at Blenheim, the Woodyard, and Alexandria. Thank God! Georgetown is safe. I was in terror for you and yours. Pray, let me hear from you. Tell me something of Sterrett Ridgely, and remember me to him and all who care to remember me. I have witnessed a sad spectacle in my late ride; but I do not wish to depress your spirits. Dudley is at home with St. George. Poor Tudor is ill, very ill, at Mr. Morris's, near New-York.

Mr. Randolph remained in Richmond about a month. Hearing still more unfavorable tidings of his nephew, he set out about the 9th of October on a journey to Morrisania, the family residence of

Governeur Morris, Esq., near the city of New-York. On the 13th, he writes from Baltimore to Dudley:

"I have been detained here since Monday, by the consequences of an accident that befel me at Port Conway (opposite Port Royal), on Monday morning. At three o'clock, I was roused to set out in the stage. Mistaking, in the dark, a very steep staircase for a passage, at the end of which I expected to find the descent,-walking boldly on, I fell from the top to the bottom, and was taken up senseless. My left shoulder and elbow were severely hurt; also the right ankle. My hat saved my head, which was bruised, but not cut. Nevertheless, I persevered, got to Georgetown, and the next day came to this place, where I have been compelled to remain in great pain."

October 23d, 1814, he writes from Morrisania:

"After various accidents, one of which had nearly put an end to my unprosperous life, and confined me nearly a week on the road, I reached this place yesterday. Tudor is better; I have hopes of him, if we can get him to Virginia in his present plight."

November 17th, he again writes to Dr. Dudley:

"On returning from Morrisania, on Sunday, the 24th of October, the driver overturned me in Cortlandt-street, by driving over a pile of stones, &c., before a new house, unfinished, which nuisance extended more than half way across a narrow street. I am very seriously injured. The patella is, in itself, unhurt; but the ligaments are very much wrenched, so that a tight bandage alone enables me to hobble from one room to another with the help of a stick. I hope to be able to bear the motion of a carriage by the last of this week. I shall then go to Philadelphia, and hope to see you by the first of next month; assuredly (God willing) before Christmas. I am a poor miserable cripple, and you are my only support."

He arrived in Philadelphia about the first of December, and remained in that city the greater part of the winter, the weather being too inclement for him to travel. His time was most agreeably spent in the society of some of his old and most valued friends. Mrs. Clay, the widow of his late much lamented friend, Joseph Clay; Dr. Chapman, Mr. Parish, and others. The son of Mr. Clay, who bore his name, John Randolph Clay, he took to Virginia with him, defrayed the expenses of his education for a number of years, and watched over him with the care and anxiety of a father.

On his arrival in Richmond, he thus writes to Mr. Key:

RICHMOND, March 9, 1815.

DEAR FRANK-I have lately got out of the habit of writing to I am so much indebted.

my friends, even to you-you to whom