1834
My dear Carter – Washington Decr. 12th
This is a hasty letter, merely to say I have recd your most kind one of 30th ulto.
I am most happy to find myself again among my dear Friends & relations, & in my native land. There is no other to compare to it, either for moral or physical enjoyments, to an american of a right-mind. I have undoubtedly been all this while in eclipse, & I halt the transit with its entire obscuration has forever passed o’er my desk.
My dear Daughters are all well & I am sure wd reciprocate your kind affections when they have the pleasure of seeing you.
About the hardy lands, to be sold for taxes & bought-in, pray what amt of taxes has accrued? Your suggestion may be a very good one.
‘Tis true about yr uncle Fitz, as I hear, a bad business! The prosperity of Jacksonism astounds me, & I confess I have great fears for the greater value of my Bank: stock tho’ it is still better than any investment I can see. What is to become of the whole country under such regime I know not. The virtue of dear old Washington has departed from the presidential seat & lies buried at Mt. Vernon.
I am thus far on the way to James River & Broad-neck, that classic ground of my affections. I doubt wether you are farther from that point of rendezvous than I was at N=York, where I left the ocean.
I have brought an old Hunter with me from England & bought an “Eclipse” colt in N-York – you see them at spring=camp next sum[m]er if not at Broad Neck this winter. I am determined to visit you & the deers & the ferns & the laurels &c. &c.
God bless you my dear Son=Nephew – yr devoted B.M.C.
Anne Marshall was well
(In the margin: I shall see Robert tomorrow)
The Major’s1 life of Napoleon, (according to a paragraph in Walsh’s paper of a few days past, taken from a french paper,) has been published in Paris & London, & is republishing in New York.
The French paper commends it, & says that it is in a new view of the subject, particularly as regards the Emperor’s early life.
To
Charles Carter Lee Esqr.
Spring Bank
Stoney Fork, Floyd County
Virginia
Source: The Archives of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation, Papers of the Lee Family, Box 3, M2009.184
Transcribed by Caitlin Connelly, 2016 May 27
1. Henry Lee, IV (1787-1837)
