Page:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson - Volume 1.djvu/168

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any future occasion, if 1 affirm to you any facts, your knowledge of me will enable you to decide on their credibility; if I hazard opinions on the dispositions of men or other speculative points, you can only know they are my opinions. My best wishes for your felicity, attend you, where ever you go, and believe me to be, assuredly,

Your friend and servant,

Th: JEFFERSON.

LETTER III. d TO JOHN RANDOLPH, ESQ.

Philadelphia, November 29, 1775. Dear Sir,

I am to give you the melancholy intelligence of the death of gur most worthy Speaker, which happened here on the 22nd of the last month. He was struck with an apoplexy, and expired within five hours.

I have it in my power to acquaint you, that the success of our arms has corresponded with the justice of our cause. Chambly and St. Johns were taken some weeks ago, and in them the whole regular army in Canada, except about forty or fifty men. This day, certain intelligence has reached us, that our General, Montgomery, is received into Montreal : and we expect, every hour, to be informed that Quebec has opened its arms to Colonel Ar- nold, who, with eleven hundred men, was sent from Boston up the Kennebec, and down the Chaudiere river to that place. He ex- pected to be there early this month. Montreal acceded to us on the 13th, and Carlion set out, with the shattered remains of his little army, for Quebec, where we hope he will be taken up by Arnold. In a short time, we have reason to hope, the delegates of Canada will join us in Congress, and complete the American union, as far as we wish to have it completed. We hear that one of the British transports has arrived at Boston; the rest are beat- ing off the coast, in very bad weather. You will have heard, be- fore this reaches you, that Lord Dunmore has commenced hostili- ties in Virginia. 'That people bore with every thing, till he at- tempted to burn the town’ of Hampton. ‘They opposed and re- pelled him, with considerable loss on his side, and none on ours. It has raised our countrymen into a perfect phrenzy. It is an im- mense misfortune, to the whole empire, to have a King of such a