Winchester Gazette

MR. RANDOLPH'S VALEDICTORY.

To the Freeholders of Charlotte, Buckingham, Prince Edward and Cumberland.

My Friends: For such have proved yourselves to be, through good and through evil report—I throw myself on your indulgence, to which I never yet appealed in vain. It is now just five years since the state of my health reluctantly compelled me to resist your solicitations, (backed by my own wish,) to offer my services to your suffrages.

The recurrence of a similar calamity obliges me to retire, for a while, from the field of duty, and if I shall find it impracticable to return by December next, my resignation, (already written,) will be tendered to the Governor in time to prevent your being unrepresented in the next session of Congress.

It would be offered now, but that the approaching close of the session would render a re-election nugatory as to present purposes.

The state of my affairs, (as is well known to some of you,) requires my presence at home—but self preservation imperiously enjoins a suspension of all business whatsoever—and indeed, with all my deficiencies for the station in which your partiality has been pleased to place me, I have never yet postponed your interest to my own.

Should the mild climate of France, and the change of air, restore my health, you will again find me a candidate for your independent suffrages next election, (1823.)

I have an especial desire to be in that Congress which will decide (probably by indirection) the character of the Executive government of the confederation for at least four years—perhaps forever—since now, for the first time since the institution of this government, we have presented to the people the army candidate for the Presidency in the person of him who, judging from present appearance, will receive the support of the Bank of the United States also. This is an union of the purse and the sword with a vengeance; one which even the sagacity of Patrick Henry never anticipated, in this shape at least. Let the people look to it, or they are lost forever. They will fall into that gulf which, under the artificial military and paper systems of Europe, divides Dives from Lazarus, and grows daily and hourly broader, deeper, and more appalling. To this state of things we are rapidly approaching under an administration, the head of which sits an incubus upon the state, while the lieutenants of this new mayor of the palace are already contending for the succession, and their retainers and adherents are with difficulty kept from coming to blows even on the floor of Congress. We are arrived at that pitch of degeneracy when the mere lust of power, the retention of place and patronage, can prevail not only over every consideration of public duty, but stifle the suggestions of personal honor, which even the ministers of the decayed governments of Europe have not yet learnt entirely to disregard. Should God spare me, you shall be informed how it has come to pass that, after settling the Florida question at the expense of a vast sacrifice of territory "south of 35 and a half of north latitude"—we are yet embroiled with Spain—and, in passing, it may be as well to recollect that the command of the River and the Arkansas, (the gates of New Orleans,) will have to be contested, not with the imbecile and puny government of Spain, but with a young and rising, and therefore ambitious Republic.

Should it, however, be His will, that we never meet again—be that will done on Earth as it is in Heaven—amen.

JOHN RANDOLPH, of Roanoke.

On board the steam boat Nautilus, under way to the Atlantic, Saturday, Mar. 16, 1822.

P. S. I did not leave my seat until the fate of the bankrupt bill (to which my mite was contributed) was ascertained. In case of need I was ready to vote on the 3d reading.

J. R. of R.

Letters via New York, to the care of the Post-Master, will reach me, My address is "care of John and Wm. Gilliat. London."