Saturday, January 20, 2024

Henry A. Wise to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, November 10, 1852

ONLY, NEAR ONANCOCK, [VA.], November 10, 1852.

MY DEAR HUNTER: Inclosed is a letter from one of the most worthy of men I know in the world, Dr. Jesse I. Simkins of Northampton.

He needs what he asks and yet is no beggar though he is earnest in his appeal to me and through me to you. He is one of the purest and most intelligent of men and has any number of backers and any amount of family influence in and about Norfolk. There, he will not be considered an intruder and he is just such a politician as you should delight to promote and put in places of usefulness and influence; and his appointment would probably be more acceptable to aspirants in Norfolk than would be that of a more immediate rival in the Town. I bespeak for him your influence because he asks me to do so. He seems in a previous letter to make the mistake of supposing mine will be something, and in this the greater mistake of imagining that "to me you owe a heavy debt of gratitude," I claim none such and don't mean to be so understood in sending you his letter so saying. The majority for Pierce is so unwieldy that the effects of factions are to be apprehended.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 151-2

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