State affairs have evidently lost their interest, however, and his soul is in arms for the wider fray. "Be sure to send me as many copies of the Life of Harrison as you can spare. Be very sure to send me the Senate Journal of New York for September, 1814,"--he had seen in a newspaper a charge of disloyalty made against Mr. Van Buren during the war with Great Britain, but, as usual, wanted to be sure of his facts,--"and in general," he adds, "send me everything you think will be a good war-club, The nomination of Harrison takes first-rate. You know I am never sanguine; but I believe we will carry the State. The chance for doing so appears to me twenty-five per cent, better than it did for you to beat Douglas. A great many of the grocery sort of Van Buren men are out for Harrison. Our Irish blacksmith Gregory is for Harrison.... You have heard that the Whigs and Locos had a political discussion shortly after the meeting of the Legislature. Well, I made a big speech which is in progress of printing in pamphlet form. To enlighten you and the rest of the world, I shall send you a copy when it is finished." The "big speech" was the one from which we have just quoted. The sanguine mood continued in his next letter, March 1: "I have never seen the prospects of our party so bright in these parts as they are now. We shall carry this county by a larger majority than we did in 1836 when you ran against May. I do not think my prospects individually are very flattering, for I think it probable I shall not be permitted to be a candidate; but the party ticket will succeed triumphantly. Subscriptions to the 'Old Soldier' pour in without abatement. This morning I took from the post-office a letter from Dubois, inclosing the names of sixty subscribers, and on carrying it to Francis [Simeon Francis, editor of the 'Sangamo Journal'] I found he had received one hundred and forty more from other quarters by the same day's mail.... Yesterday Douglas, having chosen to consider himself insulted by something in the 'Journal,' undertook to cane Francis in the street. Francis caught him by the hair and jammed him back against a market-cart, where the matter ended by Francis being pulled away from him. The whole affair was so ludicrous that Francis and everybody else, Douglas excepted, have been laughing about it ever since."