The reader will keep in mind that this sketch by Mr. Gilmer was written nearly forty years ago, and before Mr. Tazewell appeared in the Senate of the United States. No. IV. EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF MR. TAZEWELL RESPECTING PUBLIC OFFICE. Mr. Tazewell kept no copies of his letters to his friends, and I make the subjoined extracts, explanatory of his views respecting public office, wholly from those in my own possession. I may state here that when a commissioner was appointed to Kentucky, in 1823, Mr. Tazewell was consulted on the subject by some of his friends in the General Assembly, and he agreed to undertake the office; but when he heard that the friends of Benjamin Watkins Leigh, his warm personal friend, desired the appointment of that distinguished jurist, he sent a peremptory withdrawal of his name, and urged the nomination of Mr. Leigh. When he believed that the arbiters of the dispute between Kentucky and Virginia would be chosen at large, he suggested the names of Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire, William Hunter of Rhode Island, and Langdon Cheves of Philadelphia. In a letter, dated January 1, 1823, he says: "I ask nothing from my country, but there is nothing she should ever require of me in vain.... As a citizen of Virginia, I hold myself bound at all times to render any aid which it may be within the compass of my poor abilities to offer in furtherance of the rights, the interests, and even the wishes of its government.... Proud as I should be at being selected as the advocate of my country's rights by the unsolicited voice of her legislature, I could not purchase even this gratification at the expense of any whom I love, esteem, or admire." Under the date of December, 1822, he writes: "If I know myself, there is no situation within the power of government to bestow which I covet or desire, nor is there one which I would not accept, if the discharge of its duties by me was deemed necessary or useful to my country. I have no ambition to gratify, although I have duties to fulfil." Under the date of December 9, 1824, he says: "The public interest shall never be postponed to my individual concerns, although ruin to myself may result from it." When once asked for something like a defence of some parts of his political career, which he declined to give, he said: "There is no act of my whole life, public or private, which I regret; none that I am solicitous should not be scrutinized; none the motives or objects of which I cannot instantly explain, in a way which candor will approve."