) Well, but on practically looking into the
matter when the office actually came into my hands, I find it grows
more and more uncertain and abstruse to me whether there is much real
duty that I can do at all. I live four hundred miles away from you,
in an entirely different state of things; and my weak health--now for
many years accumulating upon me--and a total unacquaintance with
such subjects as concern your affairs here,--all this fills me
with apprehension that there is really nothing worth the least
consideration that I can do on that score. You may, however, depend
upon it that if any such duty does arise in any form, I will use my
most faithful endeavour to do whatever is right and proper, according
to the best of my judgment. (Cheers.)
In the meanwhile, the duty I have at present--which might be very
pleasant, but which is quite the reverse, as you may fancy--is to
address some words to you on some subjects more or less cognate to the
pursuits you are engaged in. In fact, I had meant to throw out some
loose observations--loose in point of order, I mean--in such a way as
they may occur to me--the truths I have in me about the business you
are engaged in, the race you have started on, what kind of race it is
you young gentlemen have begun, and what sort of arena you are likely
to find in this world.
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