Alexa, Febry 28th 1824
Sir
Having just heard that it was always agreable to you to receive from every applicant for a Cadets Warrant, a statement of his age, studies, &c, made by himself, I take the earliest opportunity of sending you the following.
I completed my eighteenth year on the 29th of last January, I have read, besides the small authors which are generally begun with, Caesar, Sallust, Virgil, Cicero, Horace, and Tacitus of the Latin Authors, and the Graeca Minora, the Graeca Majora, Xenophon, Homer, Longinus of the Greek, and have studied Arithmetic, Alegebra, and the first six books of Euclid.
In confirmation of my statement I enclose you the certificate of Mr Leary which though less flattering and rhetorical than that which Mr Garnett was so kind as to send you is more precise and satisfactory.
I remain Sir your most
Obedient Servant R E Lee
Source: Virginia Magazine of Virginia and Biography, Vol. 115, No. 1 (2007), pp. 108-121.
Transcribed by Colin Woodward, 2016 February 22
