WILLIAM PURCELL (DECLINING STAFF APPOINTMENT)
"Office of the 'Daily Union and Advertiser,'
"Rochester, Dec. 10, 1874.
"My dear Governor,—Your favor of the 8th was this morning received. It is hardly necessary for me to say that I thank you most sincerely for your very kind offer of a position on your staff with rank of Brigadier-General. But I feel constrained to decline for two principal reasons: 1st, I have no taste whatever, but rather an aversion, for military display, and could not persuade myself to appear in uniform on occasion; and I never want to take my position without doing the full duty pertaining to it. 2d, if I were to accept I might lay myself open to the suspicion or charge that while I had recommended a fellow-citizen for position necessary to serve you that I should accept, the case would be different, and I would be willing to yield my own preferences and meet the suggested thoughts of others. But I feel that by declining I enable you to give the place to some one of the many seekers after it, who have a taste for and will be glad to get it. I appreciate your reasons for declining to appoint the gentleman recommended by me, and if I were in your place I would have no one about me tainted with Hoffmanism in any way.
"Yours, &c.,
"Wm. Purcell."