At my time of life, and under my circumstances, nothing in this world can ever draw me from it, unless it be a _conviction_ that the partiality of my countrymen had made my services absolutely necessary, joined to a _fear_ that my refusal might induce a belief that I preferred the conservation of my own reputation and private ease, to the good of my country.

After all, if I should conceive myself in a manner constrained to accept, I call heaven to witness, that this very act would be the greatest sacrifice of my personal feelings and wishes, that ever I have been called upon to make.

It would be to forego repose and domestic enjoyment for trouble, perhaps for public obloquy: for I should consider myself as entering upon an unexplored field, enveloped on every side with clouds and darkness.
"From this embarrassing situation I had naturally supposed that my declarations at the close of the war would have saved me; and that my sincere intentions, then publicly made known, would have effectually precluded me forever afterwards from being looked upon as a candidate for any office.

This hope, as a last anchor of worldly happiness in old age, I had still carefully preserved; until the public papers and private letters from my correspondents in almost every quarter, taught me to apprehend that I might soon be obliged to answer the question, whether I would go again into public life or not ?" "I can say little or nothing new," said he in a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, "in consequence of the repetition of your opinion on the expediency there will be, for my accepting the office to which you refer.

Your sentiments indeed coincide much more nearly with those of my ether friends, than with my own feelings.