University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIV

Mission to Russia

Before the Convention met, Randolph had received
the offer of a foreign mission from President Jackson,
who entertained a partiality for him; mainly, perhaps,
because of the fearless spirit so closely akin to his own, and
the searching talents which had done so much to bring the
administration of Adams to the block; but not a little, too,
doubtless, because of the antagonism which Randolph had
always sustained to Jackson's bête noir—Henry Clay.

The office tendered to Randolph was that of Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia,
and in the letter by which it was tendered the President
said:

The offer of the Mission was attended besides by a cordial
expression of personal respect and esteem on the part of
the President, and, in his reply accepting it, Randolph said:

When the appointment was communicated to the
Senate, after the adjournment of the Virginia Convention,
it was called up by John Tyler, and was unanimously
confirmed[3] ; which would hardly seem to be consistent
with the statement made by Henry Adams in his John
Randolph that President Jackson offered the mission to
Randolph "amid the jeers of the entire country."[4] Indeed,
the assent of the opposition was given with some
degree of empressement. Several of its members called
for the question as soon as Tyler sat down; the voices of
Josiah S. Johnston, of Louisiana, and Daniel Webster being
especially audible.

Before leaving the United States for Russia, Randolph
wrote to Jackson, saying: "In case that I shall be so
fortunate as to `carry into effect the object of my mission
in season for your annual message,' shall I be deemed too
encroaching, if I ask leave to spend the winter in the
South of Europe, provided I see no prospect that the public
interest may suffer thereby?"[5] Endorsed on this letter,
which is now in the possession of the Library of Congress,

is this pencilled instruction by Jackson: "Let the request
be granted. Well aware that he will be always at his post
when duty calls. A. J."

The first official act of Randolph was to appoint John
Randolph Clay Secretary of the Legation at St. Petersburg.

The voyage to Russia he made in the United States
man-of-war Concord, Captain Matthew C. Perry, who
afterwards opened up Japan to intercourse with the
Occident, taking with him three of his slaves—John, Juba,
and Eboe—and also a lot of wine and books, and some
firearms, and, whimsically enough in the light of modern
conditions, some bags of hams, a barrel of bread, and a
coffee-pot and mill.[6]

Before the Concord sailed from Norfolk, Va., a banquet
was given to Randolph in that City on Saturday, June 26,
1830.[7] The toasts, offered on this occasion, re-animate
the political issues of the time for us as nothing else could
do. One was to "the Sovereignty of the States, the Keystone
of the Union"; another was "to Virginia," attended
by the proud vaunt that she would neither ask nor receive
the largesses of the General Government; and another read
to "Our guest, John Randolph of Roanoke, identified
during his whole political career with the sturdy maxims
and honest doctrines of Republicanism. As Republicans,
we tender him the most acceptable homage by adhering
to his principles." This last toast was drunk standing,
and bears additional testimony to the impression which
the people of Virginia have always entertained that
Randolph was the most unwaveringly consistent of all
their public men of his era. In reply to this toast, Randolph
delivered a brief address, which, so far as we can
judge from the imperfect report that has come down to us,
was a pointed and apt one. After being toasted, he
requited the kindness of his hosts by offering a number of

toasts himself. Two were highly characteristic, in the
light of his violent hostility to internal improvements by
the Federal Government and to the tariff, namely: "The
rejection of the Maysville Road Bill (an internal improvement
bill vetoed by Jackson); it falls upon the ear
like the music of other days," and "The Tariff, `a piece of
tesselated mosaic without cement.' Let domestic industry
be protected but not with that partial protection
which filches the earnings of millions to lavish bounties on
the few." Better still was the following: "The two modern
discoveries—the Non-Intercourse Act, buying without
selling; and the Tariff Act, selling without buying; in other
words, husbands without wives, and wives without
husbands."[8] Indeed, Randolph, death's-head as he was,
seems to have been the liveliest individual at the feast.
Not content with offering numerous toasts himself, he
suggested felicitous amendments to several offered by
others. When John S. Millson offered the toast: "The
ultimate operation of the `American System,' seeming
splendor and actual want—Midas starving on his golden
banquet," Randolph promptly gave additional point to it
by suggesting the insertion immediately after the word
"Midas" of the words "with his ass' ears." And so,
when T. G. Broughton offered the toast: "John Randolph,
however we may sometimes differ from him, we
cannot say that he ever gave a vote to impose a burthen
on the people," the words "or to abridge their liberties"
were added at Randolph's rather self-complacent request.
But, when a toast was offered by W. E. Cunningham in the
words: "The birthday of Thomas Jefferson; may its
anniversary celebrations aid in bringing back the government
to the principles of 98," the old prejudice asserted
its force, and Randolph remarked dryly: "It will require
stronger physic to do that."[9] (a)

The voyage to Russia was entirely uneventful except
that Randolph had some little friction with the Captain of
the Concord, arising out of the fact that the former claimed
that the ship had been placed under his control as
Minister[10] ; a claim that, for the sake of all on board, including
Randolph himself, Captain Perry might very well have
been slow to concede.

The Concord left Norfolk on June 28, 1830, and Randolph
landed at St. Petersburg on August 10, 1830.[11]
Shortly after his arrival there, he was presented at Court.
This presentation, as well as much else connected with his
mission, has been the subject of the grossest misrepresentation.
One absurd rumor represented Randolph, who
had moved in the very best society of his own country and
England, and was always much of a stickler for good form
in everything, as addressing the Czar of all the Russias
at the presentation in these words: "How are you
Emperor? How is madam?"; meaning the Empress.[12]
Equally untrustworthy is what Henry Adams says in
regard to the bearing of Randolph at Court:

Just what written evidence, if any, there is of this oral
narration by Madame Bonaparte, we have been unable to
ascertain. If there is any, as we suppose there must be, we

should like to see it; since it has escaped our research.
But we do know that the various acts of extravagant
behavior, which were imputed to Randolph, in connection
with his presentation, were flatly contradicted in a letter
to the Richmond Enquirer, dated Jan. 17, 1831, by John
Randolph Clay, who was certainly in a position to know all
about them if they had had any actual existence. In this
letter, he denied that Randolph had conducted himself in a
ridiculous manner before the Emperor, and further said:
"Mr. Randolph's conduct on all occasions was that of a
perfect gentleman."[14] (a) In his Recollections of Randolph,
Jacob Harvey also tells us that, in a conversation
which he had with Randolph, after the return of the latter
from the Russian Mission, Randolph "declared solemnly
that he had not gone down on his knee to the Empress, as
was stated in the newspapers."[15] The origin of the falsehood
was explained to Washington Irving in London by
Randolph shortly after the audience; and it is a very good
illustration of how a whispered molehill becomes a
trumpeted mountain in the province of human gossip and
slander.

An excellent and just summary of the whole matter!

Babble, it will be observed, was not even certain as to
whether it was the Empress or the Emperor before whom
the genuflexion had been made. But why did not Henry
Adams mention the fact that, on March 2, 1831, Washington
Irving wrote a letter from London, which was published
first in the New York Evening Post, and afterwards
in the Richmond Enquirer, in which he stated that Prince
Lieven, who was the Russian Prime Minister, when Randolph
was presented, had recently told him that the
report that Randolph had been guilty of an absurd and
undignified act of homage in the presence of the Emperor
was entirely destitute of truth?[17]

Other stories, put into circulation about Randolph,
when he was at St. Petersburg, that he had been rude to
Prince Lieven, that he had violated diplomatic usages,
that he had become involved in an unseemly strife with
various persons, that he had been presented at Court in a
fantastic dress, and the like, were traversed by him in a
letter written to Dr. Brockenbrough from London on Dec.
18, 1830:

An interesting supplement to this letter has been furnished
us by Garland, who lived near enough to Randolph's
time to secure much valuable oral, as well as
written, material for his biography:

There are two letters from the hand of Randolph, in
which he imparts to us the impressions left upon his mind
by St. Petersburg. One is a letter to his friend Nathan
Loughborough, which, so far as we are aware, has never
been published, and the other is a letter to Dr. Brockenbrough
which has been preserved for us by Garland. This
is the letter to Loughborough in part:

The letter to Dr. Brockenbrough, to which we have
referred, is dated Sept. 4, 1830:

Upon arriving at St. Petersburg, Randolph promptly
proceeded, after his presentation at court, to negotiate a
treaty with Russia in relation to commerce and maritime
rights which were the two special objects of his mission;
but very soon his health, under the effects of his strange
surroundings, became so bad that he was compelled to
leave his post, and to take his feeble constitution to a
milder air. Accordingly, he embarked at St. Petersburg
for London on Sept. 7, 1830, delegating to John Randolph
Clay, until his return, the duty of looking after the interests
of the United States in Russia. So reduced was his
condition at the time of his departure that he had to be
lifted into the coach which took him to the steamboat
that was to convey him to Cronstadt, and into the
steamboat itself; and, even when he landed on the customhouse
wharf at London, he was able to walk only a few
steps.[21] Subsequently, in a letter to Martin Van Buren,
Clay stated that, during the month preceding Randolph's
departure, his disease had taken so decided a turn
for the worst that all near him were seriously alarmed lest
his dissolution was at hand.[22] (a) At one time, after he
reached London, there was a slight improvement in his
health, which, with his unconquerable resolution of purpose,
enabled him to gratify some of the tastes to which
England was always so successful in ministering. But his
physical health, and, indeed, his mental health as well,
were now hopelessly impaired; struggle as he might, to use
his own later phrase, against snivelling his life away on a

bed, like a breeding woman, instead of dying in harness
with his spurs on.[23] On one occasion, he wrote to Clay from
London that he could not walk at all without suffocation,
and that his days (bad as they were) were heavenly to his
nights.[24]

Shortly before he left England for the United States,
after giving up the idea of returning to Russia, he had a
hemorrhage from his lungs[25] ; and, upon arriving in New
York, after a "distressing" passage of six weeks from
Portsmouth, on the Hannibal, he wrote to President
Jackson: "I have passed the night without sleep in a high
fever; almost incessantly coughing and expectorating
blood."[26] A few days later, he wrote to the same correspondent,
when he was on the point of proceeding from
Baltimore to Roanoke by the most direct route: "I
would go on to Washington, notwithstanding your permission
to the contrary, if I were not a mass of disease and
misery, disgusting to myself, and no doubt loathsome to
others."[27]

When he landed at New York, his friend, Jacob Harvey,
called on him and was greatly shocked at his cadaverous
appearance. "His eagle eye," says Harvey, "detected by
my countenance what was passing in my mind, and he
said in a mournful tone of voice: `Ah, Sir, I am going at
last; the machine is worn out; nature is exhausted, and I
have tried in vain to restore her.' "

"Why," replied I, forcing a smile, "you told me the
same thing some years ago, and yet here you are still."

"True," rejoined he, "but I am seven years nearer the
grave."[28]

In speaking of the amounts paid to Randolph as Minister

to Russia, for which no legislative appropriation had
been made when he left the United States, Henry Adams
says in his John Randolph:

Randolph was paid a total sum of $21,207.71, made up
as follows: for outfit $9,000.00; for salary, from June 9,
1830, to July 17, 1831, at the rate of $9,000.00 per
annum, $9,957.71; and for the expenses of his return,
$2,250.00.[30]

It is not true that he paid off his old British debt with
any of this money. The final balance of that debt was
completely discharged by him during the sittings of the
Convention.[31] (a) Nor, when he sailed from the United
States on his Russian Mission, were his personal finances
in an embarrassed condition, as Bouldin seems to think;
for, we know from a letter, which he wrote to Andrew
Jackson at that time, that he had an amount equal to one-half
of the outfit in bank, and enough money in anticipation
from his last year's tobacco crop to pay the charges
of the current year upon his estate; for, by God's blessing,
he said (quite in the spirit of Franklin) he had kept clear of
debt and thus had been able to preserve his independence.[32]

The judgment passed by Adams on Randolph in this
matter is, of course, but a repetition of the abortive attack

that was made upon him by the partisans of John Quincy
Adams and Clay in the House while he was still abroad.

On Jan. 12, 1831, Mr. Stanberry of Ohio, moved in the
House to strike out the appropriation for the salary for a
Minister to Russia in the Appropriation Bill then pending
in the House, and this motion precipitated a debate, in
which it was contended, on the one hand, that Randolph
had deserted his post, and that it was really vacant; and,
on the other, that his absence from it, under the circumstances,
was entirely justifiable. By more than one
party foe Randolph was assailed in the debate with
intense acrimony, especially by Tristam Burges, of Rhode
Island[33] ; but he was not more trenchantly assailed than
defended, and the motion came to nothing. Before it was
disposed of, however, Mr. Cambreling, of New York, paid
this glowing tribute to Randolph:

When news of the debate reached Randolph in London,
he received it in the spirit that the terror formerly excited
by his index-finger in the House naturally aroused.

In our judgment, the acceptance by Randolph of the
sum allowed him for his salary, outfit, and return expenses
is entirely reconcilable with the stainless probity which
had marked the earlier stages of his public career; though
his mind was so gravely affected, during the latter years of
his life, that it would be unjust, in any view of the case,
to hold him to the same measure of moral responsibility
for his conduct then as before. No one, we are certain,
can read a letter, headed "particularly private and confidential,"
which he wrote from St. Petersburg to President
Jackson, without saying with Cowper in The Task:

and, if he did not get down on his knees before the Empress
or Emperor, it must be confessed that it might well have
been simply because the mental state in which this letter
was written was intermittent, and it was not until after his
return from Russia that madness became for a time the
habitual livery of his mind. In the letter, to which we
refer, he told Jackson, whom he termed "Cincinnatus, the
Warriour Ploughman," that he would "give $20,000" to be
minister either at Paris or London, instead of being "in
the Bastile, cut off by despotism from the surrounding

world." Randolph, of course, should never have been
appointed Minister to Russia, and he should not have
accepted the appointment when tendered to him. His
uncalculating candor of character, his impetuous temper,
his eccentric deportment, and the proneness of his mind to
occasional derangement tended to unfit him for a diplomatic
post even at an earlier stage of his career; and now
to these disqualifications were added a highly precarious
state of bodily health and a trembling mental balance
which was in the succeeding year to be entirely lost. (a)
Apparently, he had his own misgivings about the wisdom
of acceptance. In his testimony in the litigation which
arose out of the wills left by Randolph, Wm. Leigh, then
Judge Leigh, said that, shortly after Jackson and Van
Buren wrote to Randolph, offering him the appointment,
Randolph sent their letters to him, and asked him to give
him his best advice; that first by letter and then in conversation
he suggested to Randolph reasons why he should
not accept the offer; that, during the conversation, Randolph
did not say what he intended to do, but, when Leigh
left him, told him that he would let him know his conclusion
as soon as he should have made up his mind; and
that in the mail, which was borne by Randolph's door
at Roanoke a few hours later, was a paper for Leigh, on
which Randolph had written laconically "I go."[37] Randolph
lived to realize that Judge Leigh was right. "This
Russian campaign," he wrote to Andrew Jackson, after his
return to the United States, "has been a Pultowa or
Beresina to me, although I am neither Charles XII of
Sweden nor Buonaparte, but a poor and half-ruined
Virginia planter."[38] But, in passing upon the degree of
discretion shown by Jackson in proffering, and by Randolph
in accepting, the Russian Mission, we should bear
in mind that Jackson was not the kind of man to say insincerely
what he had said in his letter making the proffer
about Randolph's talents, public experience, and devotion
to sound principles and the popular interests;[39] that Randolph
was at the time of the tender but 57 years of age;
and that, while his physical health had for many years
been bad, and his sanity at times overthrown, he had
recently been sound enough both corporeally and mentally
to exercise a remarkable ascendancy over the Democrats
in the House. Indeed, his health was unusually good for
him when the Virginia Convention met a few days later.
As for the inconsistency between the manner in which
Randolph had scouted in his speech on Retrenchment and
Reform the idea of his accepting a diplomatic office and his
actual acceptance of the Russian Mission, it is enough to
say that, while a nice sense of personal dignity should be
careful to keep clear of inconsistency of this sort, even
though it involves no breach of any moral obligation, a
failure to do so is commonly regarded by a Democratic
electorate as hardly less venial than the rash assertion of
the girl in Sir Walter Scott's graceful little poem, Nora's
Vow, who said that she would not marry the earlie's son,
even were Ben Cruaichan to fall and crush Kilchurn, and
Awe's fierce stream backward to turn, and yet lived to
see herself married to him, though Ben Cruaichan stood as
fast as ever, and Awe's fierce river still foamed downward
to the sea. It is denied by no one that Randolph's
physical condition was all but desperate when he left St.
Petersburg, and that, if there was no hope for his recovery
in a change of climate, there was no hope for his recovery
at all. Why, then, whether his salary should have
continued during his absence from St. Petersburg or not,
should he not have received his outfit, which by right as
he said in one of his letters to Andrew Jackson should
have been in his pocket when he sailed from Hampton
Roads, if not sooner,[40] and the amount as well customarily
allowed to our foreign ministers for the expenses of their
return voyages? He, at least, did not charge the Federal
Government, as John Quincy Adams did in 1814, when
he had been one of our Peace Commissioners at Ghent, for
the expenses of a return journey to his post at St. Petersburg
which he had never actually made.[41] If he had left
St. Petersburg without the justification of extreme ill
health, or, if he had never returned to it without a good
reason for not doing so, a very different case would be
presented. But neither the one nor the other of these
things is true. He left when he was almost in the
article of death; he never sufficiently regained his health
to make his return anything but an even greater risk than
that which he had originally faced; and he did not return
partly because he found that his health, though not in
such an acutely critical condition as it was when he was at
St. Petersburg, was steadily growing worse; and partly
because, before the spring of 1831, when he expected to
return, the fact had been established that, whether he was
at St. Petersburg or not, there was no reasonable probability
of his receiving from the Russian Court within any
definite time any reply to the proposals arising out of the
special character of his mission which he had made to the
Russian Government immediately after his arrival in
Russia. Nor can he be justly reproached for not realizing
sooner, when in London, that his health was irretrievably
bad and surrendering his mission; for, while, as he truly
said afterwards on his deathbed, he had been sick all his
life, the extraordinary resiliency of his constitution had
repeatedly rescued him from what seemed to be a condition
of almost hopeless physical prostration. Such was
his indomitable vitality that Dr. Coleman tells us in his
Diary that, even when Randolph found in his last hours
that the frail case, which had been fretted by his proud
and restless spirit for so many years, was at last really
going to pieces, and was unequal to the strain of another
transatlantic voyage, he was planning a trip to New England
for the purpose of meeting Andrew Jackson, who happened
to be there at that time. Leaving out of sight the sums
received by Randolph for outfit and return expenses,
the amount of the flagrant jobbery, against which Henry
Adams inveighs, comes down to $9,957.71, or a sum just
$957.71 in excess of the amount which John Quincy
Adams did not scruple to accept for outfit in 1813, when, in
addition to being our minister at St. Petersburg, he was
made one of our Commissioners to negotiate peace with
Great Britain, though, at that time, it was supposed that
the peace conference would be held at St. Petersburg
instead of at Ghent; in which event, of course, he would not
have needed a second outfit to establish himself elsewhere
at all.[42]

In our opinion, Randolph's right to receive the salary
too is indisputable. In dealing with this question, it is
important to remember that, whatever may have been its
formal character, his mission was really a special one.
The main purposes, for which he was appointed, were to
negotiate a treaty between the United States and Russia,
regulating the commercial intercourse between the two
countries in accordance with just principles of reciprocity,
and creating a working concert between them touching
the new maxim that "free ships make free goods"; the
proper definition of an effective blockade; and the proper
specification of articles of contraband. This fact is made
manifest by the terms of Jackson's letter, appointing
Randolph, and of Randolph's letter of acceptance, and by
the memorandum of instructions from the hand of Van
Buren, as Secretary of State, which Randolph took with
him when he left the United States. Indeed, in his very

censure of Randolph for receiving money which he had not
fairly earned, Henry Adams speaks of the mission as a
"special" one. Besides, at that time, the general duties
of an American minister at St. Petersburg were of very
little importance. All the papers of every sort that were
handed over to Randolph as the papers of the American
Legation, when he took charge there, were contained in a
trunk 2 feet 8 inches long, 13 inches wide, and 9½ inches
deep[43] ; and, of these papers, only one was of any real
moment. The others were mere waste. The whole value
of the imports from Russia to the United States in the year
1830 amounted to but $1,621,899.00; and of the exports
from the United States to Russia to only $35,461.00[44] ;
and, when Randolph was at St. Petersburg in that year,
the United States had a Consul there to look after all such
routine American interests involved in this volume of
exchanges as might require care or protection. In a letter
to Count Nesselrode, the Russian Vice-Chancellor, James
Buchanan, who succeeded Randolph at St. Petersburg,
stated that the American Consul at Odessa had written to
him that but one American vessel had entered that port
during the summer of 1832.[45] (a)

After Randolph left St. Petersburg, John Randolph
Clay, who was an active and intelligent young man, first,
as Secretary of Legation, and then, as Chargé d'Affaires,
when promoted to that position by Randolph, remained
on the ground to perform the routine functions of the
American Minister, and to carry out such special instructions
as Randolph might from time to time send him. It
is not true that Randolph was at St. Petersburg only ten
days, as Henry Adams states.[46] He arrived there on Aug.
10, 1830,[47] and he left there on Sept. 7, 1830;[48] which makes

the interval between his arrival and departure 26 days.
This was time enough, as the event demonstrated, to
enable him to do all that it was possible for him or anyone
to do then towards the accomplishment of the special
objects of his mission. While he was at St. Petersburg, he
applied himself with his usual untiring energy to his duties,
and, before he left, he deposited with the Russian Government
the general instructions to him in which the views
of President Jackson were explained to him at full length,
his full powers to treat as well on the subject of maritime
rights as of navigation, and the memorandum drawn up
for his guidance by Van Buren—everything in short that
could develop the wishes and views of the Government of
the United States,[49] except the project of a proposed treaty
in relation to maritime rights, which he, sick as he was, yet
found enough strength on his way to London to instruct
Clay to lay before the Imperial Ministry at such time and
in such manner as His Highness, Prince Lieven, should be
pleased to indicate.[50] Before he left St. Petersburg, he had
drawn from Prince Lieven, through John Randolph Clay,
at a time when he was too low to call in person on the
Prince, the statement that the subject of Navigation and
Commerce was one of great importance, and that he
thought that it would be impossible to give an answer in
time to meet the wishes of the President. To the diligence
with which Randolph prosecuted the purposes of his mission,
so long as he remained at St. Petersburg, James
Buchanan afterwards testified in pointed terms. Writing
to Edward Livingston, who was then Secretary of State,
from St. Petersburg, Buchanan said:

In other words, Buchanan, as well as Randolph, found
himself at St. Petersburg, to quote Hudibras, "Like words
congeal'd in Northern air," and he could think of nothing
better to add than to say:

And nothing could have been more assiduous than the
efforts which Randolph, when in London, still made

through Clay to obtain an answer from the Russian
Ministry to the American proposals. When he left St.
Petersburg, it was with the intention, pursuant to the
license given him by President Jackson at the time of his
appointment, of proceeding to the bland climate of Southern
Europe; but, in a letter to John Randolph Clay,
written after his arrival in London, he told Clay that he
had delayed his journey to the South for the express
purpose of a more ready and prompt communication with
the Governments of Russia and the United States.[52]

Randolph's letters to President Jackson and John Randolph
Clay, while he was in London, evince in the most
striking manner his deep and haunting solicitude about the
failure of the Russian Ministry to reply to the proposals.
At last, he obtained from Count Nesselrode, the successor
of Prince Lieven, a promise that an answer would be communicated
to him through the latter who was to come to
England as the Russian Minister at the Court of St.
James[53] ; but, when Prince Lieven came, he brought no
reply with him[54] ; nor was any reply ever sent by Count
Nesselrode to Randolph, though anxiously awaited week
after week in London by him, until Randolph was again
in the United States when he received a letter from John
Randolph Clay, stating that he had had an interview
with Count Nesselrode, in the course of which the Count
had declared that it was then "impossible for the Imperial
Ministry to examine the proposal of the United
States"[55] ; nor was it until the month of June, 1832, that
James Buchanan could induce the Russian minister even
to take up the proposals with him. "He said," declares
Buchanan, "that the affairs of Poland first and then those
of Belgium had occupied so much of his time as to have

rendered it impossible for him to direct any attention to
this business."[56] This is in keeping with what Randolph
had long before written to Andrew Jackson from London:
"Events have been very untoward for us—the French
Revolution, that of Belgium, the cholera morbus, but,
above all, the Polish Insurrection."[57] And it is difficult to
see how, under the circumstances, he could have reached
any other conclusion than the one that he reached in this
letter:

So long as there was any definite prospect of a favorable
reply to the American proposals, Randolph held himself
ready to return to St. Petersburg at any hazard, unless the
negotiation was transferred to London, as he seems to
have thought at one time, it is significant to state in
connection with the charge made against him of indefensible
absence from his post, that it might be.[58]

Finally, however, discouraged by the persistent silence of
the Russian Ministry, Randolph decided that he should
ask for his recall, and, accordingly, he sent to President
Jackson the following letter, dated April 6, 1831, which
bears witness not only to the honorable motives by which
he had been governed in his relations to the Russian
Mission, but also to the kind heart of Andrew Jackson:

It was not until the 26th day of June that Randolph
received a letter from the President consenting to his
resignation, and from the Secretary of State the official
communication requisite to enable him to bring his mission

to an end.[61] On July 17, he handed his letter of recall to
Prince Lieven in London,[62] and, on Sept. 1, he embarked
for home from Portsmouth.[63] On one page of his John
Randolph, Henry Adams states that Randolph passed near
a year in England[64] ; six pages later he states that Randolph
accepted the Russian Mission, to remain in England for
about 18 months. His chronology is a little confusing.
"Panting time," to quote Dr. Samuel Johnson's sonorous
line, "toils after him in vain." From what we have
already written, it will be seen that Randolph arrived
in England on Sept. 29, 1830, and wrote to President
Jackson on April 6, 1831, expressing his desire to be
recalled; which makes the duration of his stay in England,
so far as it is material in connection with the charge of
jobbery preferred against Randolph by Adams, 189 days,
or a few days in excess of six months. If Randolph was
entitled to salary until the President's letter of recall
reached him, he was certainly entitled to salary until
July 17, the date when his salary actually ceased; that is to
say for such a reasonably longer time as was necessary to
enable him to close the affairs of his mission before sailing
for the United States. Randolph was far from being an
impeccable individual; but it is safe to say that no writer,
however partisan, or revengeful will ever successfully
traduce his public honor.