I wrote you on the 16th of March by a common vessel, and then expected
to have had, on the rising of Congress, an opportunity of peculiar
confidence to you. Mr. Beckley then supposed he should take a flying
trip to London, on private business. But I believe he does not find it
convenient. He could have let you into the _arcana rerum_, which you
have interests in knowing. Mr. Pinckney's pursuits having been confined
to his peculiar line, he has only that general knowledge of what has
passed here, which the public possess. He has a just view of things so
far as known to him. Our old friend, Mercer, broke off from us some time
ago, at first professing to disdain joining the federalists, yet from
the habit of voting together, becoming soon identified with them.
Without carrying over with him one single person, he is now in a state
of as perfect obscurity as if his name had never been known. Mr. J.
Randolph is in the same track, and will end in the same way. His course
has excited considerable alarm. Timid men consider it as a proof of the
weakness of our government, and that it is to be rent into pieces by
demagogues and to end in anarchy. I survey the scene with a different
eye, and draw a different augury from it. In a House of Representatives
of a great mass of good sense, Mr. Randolph's popular eloquence gave him
such advantages as to place him unrivalled as the leader of the House;
and, although not conciliatory to those whom he led, principles of duty
and patriotism induced many of them to swallow humiliations he subjected
them to, and to vote as was right, as long as he kept the path of right
himself. The sudden defection of such a man could not but produce a
momentary astonishment, and even dismay; but for a moment only. The
good sense of the House rallied around its principles, and, without any
leader, pursued steadily the business of the session, did it well, and
by a strength of vote which has never before been seen. Upon all trying
questions, exclusive of the federalists, the minority of republicans