“I fear you will find this letter more extravagant than any you have ever received from me, but I have made it a rule to follow where the current of my ideas carried me, and to give them to you in a perfect undress. My reading has been too general, and too diffuse to be very beneficial. French authors have occupied my attention the largest portion of my life, but their venom was destroyed, by the events which were continually passing almost before my eyes, and which showed how wicked was the practice resulting from such theories. You, my dear sir, have ever possessed a nature too ardent, too full of benevolent feelings to all your race, with a mind too noble, and a capacity too enlarged, to sink into the cold and thankless state of stoicism. Your heart is too full of all the generous and kindly affections for you ever to acquire such a cold and selfish doctrine. No, my dear sir, it was, it is impossible. Look at your past life, retrace all the eminent services you have rendered to your country, and to mankind, and if you, by unforeseen and uncontrollable events, have been prevented from doing all you wished, all you desired, toward promoting their felicity, let their unequalled prosperity (in producing which, you had so large a share) sooth your latest hours, and cheer your heart with the conviction, that to you, in a great measure, they owe it; and this sentiment alone will be sufficient reward. I set out in life with the most elevated notions of honor and principle; ere I had entered it fairly, my hopes were blasted, and my ideas of mankind, that is, all the favorable ones almost, were suddenly chilled, and I was very near forming the horrid and erroneous opinion, that no such thing as virtue existed. This was a dreadful doctrine at the age of little more than twenty, but it taught me to reflect and not to ‘build my house in the sand.’ My life has been a life of changes, and I had early accustomed myself to the idea of retirement. The nature of our institutions, the various turns of policy to which an elective government is ever liable, has long occupied my thoughts, and I trust I may find strength to sustain any of the changes which may be in store for me, with fortitude, dignity, and I trust cheerfulness. To these changes, I can never attach the idea of disgrace. Popular governments are peculiarly liable to factions, to cabals, to intrigue, to the juggling tricks of party, and the people may often be deceived for a time, by some fair speaking demagogue, but they will never be deceived long; and though they may, in a moment of excitement, sanction an injustice toward an old and faithful servant, they appreciate his worth, and hand his name down with honor to posterity, even though that ‘name may not be agreeable to the fashionables.’ It is one which I take a pride in bearing, and one that I hope and pray my children may never dishonor.