contest found us. Mr. Adams had the art with the aid of Webster, Everett &c. early to enlist this corps: Sam. Bell came home from Washington in May 1826, determined to carry over the democratic party to Adams, and to prostrate all who would not declare for him "right or wrong." His first effort was directed against the New Hampshire Patriot and its editor, to whose labors in his behalf he owed all the political consequence he ever had. The whole clan of office seekers entered the coalition: all of them, while considered republicans, had been sustained by the Patriot; but they now considered the Patriot as the only obstacle in their way. They proceeded to establish republican administration papers to aid the numerous federal papers already in existence, and employed agents to make personal application to every subscriber of the Patriot to discontinue that and take theirs, alledging that I had turned federalist, &c. Their success, after expending thousands of dollars, obtained somewhere, was much less than might have been anticipated. Instead of putting down the Patriot, their exertions against it had the tendency to increase its circulation during a single year from 3500 to more than 5000!

I verily believe, that even with our "leaders" turned most inveterate traitors, we should have carried the last March election, had not the outrageous falsehood at the very moment of the election been palmed on the people by Sam Bell from Washington, that Madison and Monroe would stand as Adams candidates for Electors in Virginia; and had not at the same time about 100,000 of Binns' vile Coffin Handbills been circulated, to operate among the electors who had not at hand the means of refutation. Two hundred votes rightly disposed would have given us, as it was, a Jackson majority in 220 State representatives, and the same number would have given us a majority in the Executive Council.

Since that time there is evidence of an increase of the Jackson party in every town from which we get information: assurances are made that they will gain enough in the several towns, to give us a majority in November; and such are the indications. But the Adams party fight for their lives — their cause is desperate; and besides the Presidential question, they fight for the State ascendancy. Their recent defeats in the West dishearten them as to the great national result: but the late success of the Adams party in Maine encourages them to persevere and hold on to New Hampshire as a New England federal State. Heretofore in the fall elections, we have not polled so large a vote as at the annual elections in March; and the falling off has generally been more on our side than theirs the aristocracy living in the villages near the polls, and the democracy embracing more of the yeomanry at a distance.

As it is our efficient men are all at work; they are men of principle,

1909.]

ISAAC HILL TO HENRY LEE.

who are not disheartened at reverses, and will persevere. If we had not lost the election in Maine, I should have calculated confidently on the success of the Jackson ticket here in November. As the case stands, I believe the chance to be at least equal. At any rate, this State will be restored next March, if, contrary to all calculation, Jackson and the cause of the people shall not fall before the vast means arrayed against them: in such a case, I should fear that the people will not in the present age again obtain the ascendancy.

Permit me here, sir, to introduce through you to our political friends For twenty years, during which at the South my own peculiar case.

I have stood at my present post in this State, I have been under the "wrath and curse" of the vindictive Aristocracy. No effort has been spared to destroy the good opinion which the people have entertained of me. During the war I had "all the talents and all the religion" arrayed against me, and the whole force of New England clannish prejudice to resist. I withstood the enemy as a writer alone here in the centre of the State, and fearlessly repelled the assaults of open and secret foes to the cause of the country, urging every motive to patriotism. The cowardly or more prudent rascals who skulked at that time, on the first return of democratic sunshine and prosperity, came in and bore off the spoils, leaving me and such as me to be still "hewers of wood and drawers of water" under the idea that we had been too decided and too open to be popular! Yet such was the estimation in which the republican yeomanry in my neighborhood held my services, they took me up for the State Senate four years (and I have never pressed myself into the service, having always in view the advancement of principles, rather than personal honor or emolument) and I was elected in spite of the most strenuous efforts of the aristocracy. My greatest triumph over my personal enemies here, however, was in the election as a member of the House of Representatives in 1826 for this town by about 100 majority, where we had during the war 100 against us. That election, strange as may seem, was a greater mortification to my political enemies in this State than had been in other contested elections the loss of their Governor. But every thing that has been done for me has been done by the people: one reason probably has been that I have at no time been an applicant for executive favors. Last March my re-election to the State Senate was prevented, although I received more votes than any successful candidate had ever before received in the same district. The question now was, Jackson and Adams: hired voters were brought into the district to turn the scale against me in this district which was always federal during the war: much money was expended and applied from without; and the result was in the whole 1800 to 2000 votes, being 500 more than was ever before polled in the district.

!

This presidential contest has brought upon me new trials, and personal sacrifices that I had never anticipated. I found in the early part of 1826, as soon as I discovered the course Bell, Bartlett, &c. were pursuing at Washington, that with me it was "fight or die." And against all the weapons and the means in their hands, I have had to interpose my little personal property as well as all my powers of mind. My extra expenditures in the way of pamphlet publications, &c. in this State for the last year have exceeded $1000. I knew that the State of Vermont was radically democratic: we wanted all the aid of the democracy of New England; and about the beginning of 1826, I went to Boston, purchased press and types, and started a newspaper with a younger brother at Montpelier, the seat of the State government. To the influence of this press I have good reason to believe is it owing that at the election which has just taken place more than half of the State representatives in the northerly half of that State are friends of Gen. Jackson. I have advanced in all for the support of that press little short of $4000. Whether any portion of it will return to me is extremely problematical.

Your personal acquaintance with the leading democrats of the South will enable you to lay before them the hard case of those who have fought the battles in New-England. It should be the policy of a republican administration to foster that moral courage which has here stemmed the torrent to brush off those hungry insects who will buzz around Gen. Jackson as though they constituted all the political and moral worth in the North. You will see as soon as the contest is decided those men who have descended to the depths of infamy in search of materials to blacken his name, the very first to fawn around him like spaniels.

Your estimate of Judge Woodbury's popularity may be true at this time in relation to Portsmouth; but, I believe, is not correct in regard to the State. He enjoys a deserved popularity with the mass of the democratic party. To this popularity his zeal and labors (particularly while in Congress, and especially on the bill for the relief of the revolutionary officers) have essentially contributed. The Jackson party in Portsmouth does not embrace the fashion, or what Charles King calls "good society": and with this part Woodbury and family have generally associated. Nevertheless, it embraces not less intelligence and more worth, but is confined to those in more humble and more laborious walks. Woodbury fails there in not mixing more with his friends. Decatur is sui generis: we can pardon in him what could be scarcely forgiven in others. He has done much for our cause in one town of Maine, to wit, Kittery. Perhaps he has gained few friends to Jackson elsewhere. Still we may give him credit for good intentions.

I shall send to the care of Dr. Ingalls for you, half a dozen copies of

1909.]

my

FREDERICK S. BLOUNT TO JOHN H. BRYAN.

73

the

address on the 8th Jan, half a dozen Address at Portsmouth same number of a pamphlet exhibiting the spirit of the Jacksonians in this State on the 4th July, 1828, and two copies of the proceedings of the Jackson Convention in June, 11,000 copies of which have been circulated. The address accompanying these proceedings was a hasty effort of my own-it can claim no credit for originality; but I think it a successful effort in proving the consistency of those principles I have contended for during the term of twenty five years, having commenced politician when an unlettered apprentice in a printing office at the age of fourteen years!

I shall, if I have not tired you out with this long epistle, be happy to continue a correspondence with the man who has discovered so much and so transcendant powers of mind in defending the most deserving, but most abused citizen of our Republic. Your friend and most obedient,

ISAAC HILL.

The Secretary of the Historical Commission of North Carolina, Mr. R. D. W. Connor, courteously sent a copy of the following letter from a North Carolinian visiting in Boston in 1831:

FREDERICK S. BLOUNT TO JOHN H. BRYAN.

TREMONT HOUSE, BOSTON, June 29, 1831.

MY DEAR BROTHER, I feel gratified that I concluded some week or two since in New York to visit this City before my return to the South; and I can assure you I feel amply repaid for the time I have spent here in the enjoyment of the refined and intellectual society which one meets with in this city. Mr. Webster was absent when I arrived here; he has not yet returned, and as I shall leave here this afternoon for Hartford I shall not have the pleasure of seeing him. Through the kind offices of Dr. Channing, a medical gentleman of high standing in this city and brother to the celebrated Rev. Dr. Channing I have been introduced into the families of the most eminent citizens. Among them that of Mr. Quincy President of Cambridge who asked many questions relative to his old friend Mr. Gaston; his lady was minute in her inquiries respecting a young Mr. Bryan1 who accompanied Mr. G. and his daughter Susan, on a visit to this City some two or three years ago. I found a young Mr. Jones 2 of Shocco in our State a Student in the Law School attached to Harvard and in company with him called upon the Ex-President Adams at Quincy. He was cordial in his welcome, and the grand exposé lately at Washington was the principal

1 John H. Bryan, to whom this letter was written.

2 Joseph Seawell Jones, author of "Defence of the Revolutionary History of the State of North Carolina from the Aspersions of Mr. Jefferson " (Boston, 1834).

topic of conversation. He (very much to my surprise) advocated Mr. Eaton's conduct, and expressed much disapprobation of the manner in which he had been persecuted. He however thought it would have been best if he had retired without putting the character of his lady at issue before the American people. Mr. Adams is very unpopular in Boston, and is treated without attention by many of the first families here. The cause of this coolness towards him originated in the celebrated charge made by him against certain citizens of this city who were members of the Hartford Convention. I understood from a son of Mr. Dearborn that the vindication and appeal of Messrs. Otis &c was the joint production of each one of the gentlemen who were implicated in the charge, and that they all prepared a reply which they embodied into

one.

I attended on Monday at 12 o'clock in the lecture room of the Harvard Law School a lecture by Judge Story on Constitutional Law. He discussed the question " Whether the Constitution was a compact, agreement or covenant, touched slightly upon the doctrine so fashionable in South Carolina, and closed with a most beautiful and elegant eulogium on the prosperity & happiness of our federated form of government." I was very much pleased with his simple and unaffected manners — and received from him a very polite invitation to call and spend an evening with him.

The Southern Mail of last night brought us intelligence of the destruction of the State House at Raleigh and the Statute [sic] of Washington by Canova. This is a truly distressing and appalling catastrophe, distressing from the carelessness with which those to whom we owe the misfortune, manifested in their conduct, and appalling from the loss of a specimen of art which can never be replaced. Mr. Buxton the minister of the Episcopal Church in Fayetteville is now in this City on his return from the towns to the Northward of this, whither he has been to solicit donations for rebuilding the Church in Fayetteville. He informs me that he has been successful beyond his most sanguine expectations, and has no doubt but he will receive ample means for the accomplishment of his purpose. The citizens here have subscribed largely to the wants of the destitute & suffering inhabitants of Fayetteville and have already remitted them the sum of $10,500.1 I have visited in the neighbourhood all the scenes which our Revolution have alike made matters of interest and history, Breeds and Bunker Hills, the Lakes in the interior, the Athenæum containing a splendid and valuable Library [torn], Medals, specimens of sculpture, natural and artificial [torn] &c. &c. They are admirably arranged and kept in a state of fine preservation. The cause of Mr. Clay prospers most gloriously here, and the present administration suffers from daily desertion. The late proceedings at

1 The town had recently been visited by a destructive fire.