Thomas Jefferson Randolph to John Ramsay
| Sir— | Charlotteville, (Va.) Feb. 24, 1827. |
I am desired by my mother, Mrs. Randolph, to tender to you her grateful acknowledgement for the kind interest you have been pleased to take in her affairs, and to say to you, that your eloquence, communicating the spark to the generosity of South-Carolina, has ministered a soothing balm to her broken spirit and agonized feelings; it has been inhanced an hundred fold by the fact of its enabling her to preserve from the hammer of the auctioneer the furniture of her father’s bed-room and some few articles in themselves of little value, but rendered of intense interest from their intimate association with her dearest recollections. The unfortunate result to his family of a life of devotion to the public service, she never suffered herself to regret; she believed her country had been benefitted: he honored, its consequent poverty to herself, she would not deplore. She believed it due to him and to her country, that the reputation of a republican leader should not be sustained by a failure to discharge any just debt. The beneficence of South-Carolina has done much to insure this.
We owe it to ourselves to offer you some apology for delaying thus long the expression of our gratitude. My mother’s absence in Boston, whither I carried her, to remove her from the painful scenes incidental to the tearing from us those things with which our dearest recollections are entwined, and my own continued absence from home, in the discharge of my executorial duties, preventing my receiving her desires upon the subject at an earlier day.
With feelings of the utmost gratitude and respect, your obedient servant,
| TH. J. RANDOLPH, |
| Ex’r. of Thos. Jefferson. |