University of Virginia Library

TO HENRY LEE.

Dear Sir,—I have received your favor of the 11th.
Instant.—Having never felt an intermission of my

regard for you I cannot be insensible either to the
friendship which it speaks on your part or the failure
of it, which it supposes on mine—That the latter sentiment
should have resulted from a communication
which could have no motive but one that ought to
have prevented such a consequence, may well fill me
with surprise—To the former, as well as to my own
feelings, I owe an explanation which might perhaps be
put into a more striking dress, if I were less unused
to that mode of justifying my friendships—I observe
in the first place, that I was not fully aware of the extent
to which the event shewed that prejudices had
been diffused against you—and that my intimations
on that head were meant only to break the force of a
disappointment which might fall upon you—This miscalculation
of danger was also more natural as I had
taken it for granted that one of the gentlemen elected
would have been withheld or withdrawn from the
nomination—2d. that my own nomination was not
suffered to be a bar to any steps in your behalf, which
the occasion seemed to call for, and propriety seemed
to admit—That it was properly a bar to some steps
which in other circumstances might have been taken
will be felt by every man who shuns the imputation
of arrogantly presuming on his own appointment—
and still more arrogantly seeking to annex to it, that
of others with whom he chuses to be associated—
Whenever indeed an assent to my own nomination to
office, shall proceed from no other motive but that of
"supporting the temporary wishes of myself," a possibility
only of its interference with the consideration
of private friendship, shall not fail to recall it—As long
as I continue to be carried into public service by
motives more consonant to my professions, a presumption
at least of such an interference will be held a
necessary apology to myself for yielding to that consideration
—What share the affair of the Mississippi
had in the prejudices raised against you I am not able
to say exactly—As far as I could learn the subject was
little talked of previous to the election, and I believe
your opinions known to but few—As I perceive your
suspicions strongly connect this cause with the injury
you have sustained, I feel a satisfaction in declaring
that in the instances which came within my knowledge,
I made it a point to urge the fact that you had invariably
obeyed your instructions—that any further instructions
therefore might be safely confided to you,
and that it would be cruel to sacrifice to possible
dangers the feelings of a public servant, who was
charged with no breach of duty whatever, and who in
other respects had gained distinguished honor to himself
and to his country—

In stating these facts I discharge a debt due to truth,
to candour, and to the friendship which has subsisted
between us—The full approbation which my own
mind gives to the part taken by me, leaves nothing to
be added, but a return of my wishes for your health
and happiness—