2278. DUANE (William), Assistance to.—
The zeal, the disinterestedness, and the
abilities with which you have supported the
great principles of our [political] revolution,
the persecutions you have suffered, and the
firmness and independence with which you have
suffered them, constitute too strong a claim on
the good wishes of every friend of elective government
to be effaced by a solitary case of difference
in opinion. Thus I think, and thus I
believed my much-esteemed friend Lieper would
have thought; and I am the more concerned he
does not, as it is so much more in his power to
be useful to you than in mine. His residence,
and his standing at the great seat of the moneyed
institutions, command a credit with them,
which no inhabitant of the country, and of agricultural
pursuits only, can have. The two or
three banks in our uncommercial State are too
distant to have any relations with the farmers
of Albemarle. We are persuaded you have not
overrated the dispositions of this State to support
yourself and your paper. They have felt
its services too often to be indifferent in the
hour of trial. They are well aware that the
days of danger are not yet over. And I am
sensible that if there were any means of bringing
into concert the good will of the friends
of the “Aurora” scattered over this State, they
would not deceive your expectations. One
month sooner might have found such an opportunity
in the assemblage of our Legislature in
Richmond. But that is now dispersed not to
meet again under a twelvemonth. We, here,
are but one of a hundred counties, and on consulation
with friends of the neighborhood, it is
their opinion that if we can find an endorser
resident in Richmond, ten (for that is indispensable )
or twelve persons of this county would
readily engage, as you suggest, for their $100
each, and some of them for more. It is believed
that the republicans in that city can and
will do a great deal more; and perhaps their
central position may enable them to communicate
with other counties. We have written to
a distinguished friend to the cause of liberty
there to take the lead in the business, as far as
concerns that place; and for our own, we are
taking measures for obtaining the aid of the
bank of the same place. In all this I am merely
a cipher. Forty years of almost constant absence
from the State have made me a stranger
in it, have left me a solitary tree, from around
which the axe of time has felled all the companions
of its youth and growth. I have, however,
engaged some active and zealous friends
to do what I could not. * * * But our support
can be but partial, and far short, both in
time and measure, of your difficulties. They
will be little more than evidences of our friendship.—
To William Duane. Washington ed. v, 575.
Ford ed., ix, 311.
(M.
1811)
