y, labor; for as
to public duty, it could not be a topic of consideration in my case. If
these general considerations were sufficient to ground a firm resolution
never to permit myself to think of the office, or be thought of for it,
the special ones, which have supervened on my retirement, still more
insuperably bar the door to it. My health is entirely broken down within
the last eight months; my age requires that I should place my affairs
in a clear state; these are sound if taken care of, but capable of
considerable dangers if longer neglected; and above all things, the
delights I feel in the society of my family, and in the agricultural
pursuits in which I am so eagerly engaged. The little spice of ambition
which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set
still less store by a posthumous than present name. In stating to you
the heads of reasons which have produced my determination, I do not mean
an opening for future discussion, or that I may be reasoned out of it.
The question is for ever closed with me; my sole object is to avail
myself of the first opening ever given me from a friendly quarter (and I
could not with decency do it before) of preventing any division or loss
of votes, which might be fatal to the republican interest. If that has
any chance of prevailing, it must be by avoiding the loss of a single
vote, and by concentrating all its strength on one object. Who this
should be, is a question I can more freely discuss with any body than
yourself. In this I painfully feel the loss of Monroe. Had he been here,
I should have been at no loss for a channel through which to make
myself understood; if I have been misunderstood by any body through the
instrumentality of Mr. Fenno and his abettors. I long to see you. I am
proceeding in my agricultural plans with a slow but sure step. To
get under full way will require four or five years. But patience and
perseverance, will accomplish it. My little essay in red-clover, the
last year, has had the most encouraging success. I sowed then about
forty acres. I have sowed this year about one hundred and twenty, which
the rain now falling comes very opportunely on. From one hundred and
sixty to two hundred acres, will be my yearly sowing. The seed-box
described in the agricultural transactions of New York, reduces the
expense of seeding from six shillings to two shillings and three pence
the acre, and does the business better than is possible to be done b