New York, March 26, 1829.

I duly received, my dear friend, your letter of 10th January last, and it would have been immediately answered had not an accident deprived me of the use of my right hand. Rest has now partly restored it; but I am compelled to employ generally an amanuensis, and to write myself only on special occasions....

I hope that, with your moderate wants, you find yourself now comparatively at ease. After much anxiety, I find that our children must be left to cut their own way and to provide for themselves; and I have no other uneasiness respecting them than so far as concerns their health, that of Albert and Frances being extremely delicate, so much so, indeed, as may perhaps compel me to change once more my place of residence for one more southerly and favorable to their lungs. With great indolence and an anxious wish to be rooted somewhere, I was destined to be always on the wing. It was an ill-contrived plan to think that the banks of the Monongahela, where I was perfectly satisfied to live and die in retirement, could be borne by the female part of my family or by children brought up at Washington and Paris, and, unfortunately for them, in an artificial situation which has produced expectations that can never be realized. Albert was the only one who was happy, and I was obliged to break up a comfortable establishment and to attempt a new one in one of our seaports with means inadequate to our support. Particular circumstances have made Baltimore, which was my choice, objectionable in some respects; and on my return from England, in conformity with the natural wishes of my wife, whose respectable mother, aged eighty-five, is still alive, I settled here. What I may now do is quite uncertain. To Washington I must proceed in a few days on the business of the North-East boundary, which is committed to my care, and will be detained there till the 1st of July. I must add that my public engagements in relation to that important question will cease with the end of this year.

I am not pleased with the present aspect of public affairs, still less with that of the public mind. Perhaps old age makes me querulous. I care little what party and who is in power; but it seems to me that now and for the last eight years people and leaders have been much less anxious about the public service and the manner in which it should be performed than by whom the country should be governed. This feeling appears to me to be growing; and at this moment every movement seems already to be directed towards the next Presidential election, and that not on account of any preference of a system of public measures over another, but solely in relation to persons, or at best to sectional feelings. Amongst other symptoms displeasing to me, I may count the attempt of the West, and particularly of your State, to claim the sovereignty and exclusive right to the public lands. I wish they did of right belong to the several States and not to the United States. But the claim is contrary to positive compact and to common justice, any departure from which, either in our domestic or external policy, is the most fatal injury that can be inflicted on our political institutions, on the reputation of the country, and indeed on the preservation of the Union. But we are going off the scene; I think that we have discharged our duties honestly, and the next generation must provide for itself....

For one moment, however, it seemed possible that Mr. Gallatin might again be employed abroad. The King of the Netherlands could not be expected to arbitrate without assistance and advice, and it was peculiarly important that Mr. Gallatin should be at hand for that purpose. Mr. Van Buren’s conscience appears to have been somewhat tender on the subject of Mr. Gallatin since the secret manipulation of the Vice-Presidency in 1824; and after General Jackson had been chosen President in November, 1828, and events had marked out Mr. Van Buren as highly influential with him, that gentleman seems to have intimated that he considered Mr. Gallatin to have claims upon his good-will. Mr. Gallatin’s eldest son was then eager for a diplomatic position, and his father authorized him to tell Mr. Van Buren, and later wrote himself to say, that he would accept the mission to France, if offered to him, although he was not willing to return to England or even to be Secretary of State. Unfortunately, Mr. Van Buren soon found that he had no power to dispose of his patronage as Secretary, and in the frightful chaos which followed the inauguration of General Jackson the old servants of the government instantly saw that new principles and new practices left no place for them in the national service.

GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.

Washington, 2d May, 1829.

... I have made more progress this week than all the time since my arrival. I was not very well, and felt dispirited. My cold has now entirely left me, and I can see as through a vista the end of my labors.... After next week most of the writing will be over and my hand may rest; but there will be correcting, altering, collating maps and evidence, &c. You call me a pack-horse, but I am used to it, and might, as relates to the public, have taken for my motto, Sic vos non vobis.... I will be more than delighted to see Frances, if she can come.... As to beaux, I know of none but Van Buren, and he is, I think, a little crestfallen....

16th May, 1829.

... I have this day finished dictating to Albert our argument,—two hundred pages of his writing. Mr. Preble promises to return the whole to me on Monday with his proposed emendations, which will not be either long or important; and I hope to have it ready for the President’s inspection by Tuesday.... In giving my love to Maria, tell her that she and Miss Harrison must be out of their senses to think that I can have any influence in placing a clerk or do anything else here; but ... upon every occasion I have freely expressed my entire disapprobation of the system of removal for political opinions, particularly as applied to clerks, inspectors, &c., of which there had been no instance since the commencement of this government....