The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
 |
|
TO BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE. |
|
|
|
|
|
 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
TO BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE.
Dr. Sir I have recd. your friendly letter of June
30, and congratulate you on your safe return from so
long a journey. The fact you confirm with respect
to Gen: Hull furnishes the best apology for the
imbecility which occasioned his downfall; and his
friends would shew more discretion in availing
themselves of it, than in attempts to decorate him
with artificial laurels. I am truly sorry for the injury
sustained by our friend, Genl. Dearborn; whose
character forms such a contrast to that of the Mock
Hero of Detroit.[74]
I hope, as I am sure you wish,
that your ominous inferences may be followed by
rule which suggested them.
You ask whether you are too old or too deficient
in political information for public service abroad.
To the latter question, none, I presume would say
no; and, judging from what I have seen, I could not
give a different answer to the former. If there be
precedents of an adverse sort, there are so many
on the favorable side, that every individual case
ought at least to be decided on its own merits.
In such an appeal, you will doubtless find better
testimony than mine, in those more free from a suspicion
of chronological sympathies with three score
and ten.
Mrs M. desires me to express for her the respectful
& cordial sentiments with which your interesting
conversations inspired her, and to include her in all
the good wishes, which I tender you with the assurances
of my great esteem
The apoplectic attack & its effect as related by Dr Waterhouse
should be extracted from his letter and accompany this.—Madison's
Note. Waterhouse wrote June 30th from Cambridge:
"You may have seen in the papers that the miserable General H[ull]
has been treated with a public dinner; at which presided a son of the
late worthy Govr. Sullivan, and nephew to the General—a degenerate
plant of a strange (foreign) vine—the bitterest, & most inveterate of
the whole high-federal gang—a man notorious for having dishonored
his Father and his Mother, and who had doubtless congenial feelings
with the military convict.
"I mentioned that Hull had a stroke of apoplexy, a year, perhaps,
before his appointment of General on the Canada expedition. I have
refreshed my memory since I came home, and therefore repeat, that
a few miles from my house, at a review of the Middlesex militia, whereof
the late Speaker General Varnum was commanding officer, General
Hull fell senseless, and, if I recollect rightly, was carried home in that
condition; from which time, he never appeared to be the man he was
before, insomuch that I remember people spoke of it, when his appointment
was announced.—The gallant General Miller called on me
yesterday when we refreshed each other's memories on the events
of Hull."—Mad. MSS.
| The writings of James Madison, | |