Meanwhile, what had become of the candidates and what were their feelings as to the prospects? While scarcely due to the strain of the campaign, all three, Jackson, Clay, and Wirt, were threatened with serious illness. As we have seen, Clay was threatened with paralysis about the time of his retirement from the Cabinet. During the summer and autumn of 1832 the old trouble returned. His friend, Brooke, who became concerned over his health, urged him to caution, and Clay, much moved by his friend’s solicitude, promised to be more careful of his diet, to abstain from wine, and to reduce his consumption of tobacco to “one form.”[531] At times, during the summer session, he had been forced to leave Washington for a brief period of rest at his friend’s home at St. Julien, Virginia; and as soon as Congress adjourned, he hastened to White Sulphur Springs for two weeks in hope of relief from the waters. Skeptical at first of his election, his confidence increased until he and Webster were exchanging letters of congratulation on its certainty. Wirt, who had a serious attack, and was in a weakened condition, was forced by his physician to leave Baltimore, rather than take a chance with the cholera. After a brief sojourn at Bedford Springs, he went with his family to Berkley Springs where he remained through September. Here, with no thought of his own election, but with ardent hopes for Clay, he ignored the clamor of the campaign. Riding and lounging about the grounds during the day, regaling company with ghost stories in the evening, he bore no resemblance to a presidential candidate.[532] Soon after Congress adjourned, the scourge reached Washington, taking heavy toll of the Irish and Swedish laborers engaged in the first macadamizing of Pennsylvania Avenue, and spreading rapidly from the poorer parts to the White House section. Because of Jackson’s weakened condition, his physicians insisted that he spend three months at the Hermitage, and near the middle of August, accompanied part of the way by Amos Kendall, Frank Blair, “Ike” Hill, Major Lewis, Lewis Cass, and Benton, he left the sweltering and infected capital and went down the Ohio. He was in high glee. Never for a moment had he doubted the result of the election. During the congressional fight over the recharter bill he had not punished those who had withheld their support by denying them patronage, except in the case of his most bitter foes. Just before the vote in the House, an Ohio Representative solicited an appointment for a constituent, and, upon being granted the favor, he explained that he thought it due Jackson for him to know that the favor was being granted a member who would vote for the Bank. “I can’t help that, sir, but I already knew it. See here--I can take a roll of the House and check off every Democrat who will vote for the Bank. In fact I have one here.”