His friends in the Senate, saw with pain and regret his declining health, and Mr. Peyton himself realizing it determined to abandon all public employment. Accordingly in the month of December, 1843, he announced in the following letter his purpose to retire:
to the people of augusta and rockbridge.
Fellow Citizens:
The term for which I was elected your senator is drawing to a close, and as it is not my intention to become again a candidate for your suffrages, I feel it a duty incumbent on me to apprize you of it thus early, that you may have full time to select for yourselves a suitable successor.
In taking leave of the district I tender you my grateful acknowledgements for the distinguished honor which you conferred upon me four years ago by electing me to the station I now occupy. Whilst acting in the discharge of the duties devolved upon me by this elevated trust, it has been my anxious desire to promote your interests and the general welfare of my native State. That such is the opinion of my constituents I have not had the slightest reason to doubt. Under such circumstances it would be both my pride and pleasure to again serve you were it not for my peculiar situation.
I have now arrived at a period of life when the quiet and repose of the domestic fireside are much better suited to my tastes and more congenial to my feelings than the arena of politics and the strife of parties. Besides this I have duties to discharge to a young and growing family incompatible with a longer continuance in public life.
I have felt the less difficulty in coming to this conclusion because I know I can do so without injury to the Whig cause or Whig principles, in the success of which the people of my district feel so deep an interest. Their intelligence furnishes ample assurance that my place will be filled wisely and judiciously; and that they will call into their service some one fully competent to the discharge of all the high duties of the station, and who will devote himself to the furtherance of those great principles and sound measures of public policy, which in the enlightened judgment of my constituents, lie at the basis of national prosperity.
Your fellow citizen,
John H. Peyton,
Richmond, 1843.