According to the statement of General Jesup, already given, this information' was a misapprehension, Mr. Clay not having applied for a prolongation of time for the purpose of getting sure aim, but only to enable his unused hand, long unfamiliar with the pistol, to fire within the limited time. There was no prolongation, in fact, either granted or insisted upon; but Mr. Randolph was in doubt, and General Jesup having won the word, he was having him repeat it in the way he was to give it out, when his finger touched the hair trigger. The inquiry, May I not disable him?' was still on Mr. Randolph's mind, and dependent for its solution on the rising incidents of the moment, when the accidental fire of his pistol, gave the turn to his feelings which solved the

was to disable him, and spoil his aim. And then he added, with the deepest feeling

"I would not have seen him fall mortally, or even doubtfully, wounded, for all the land that is watered by the King of Floods and all his tributary streams."

Saying this, Mr. Randolph left Colonel Benton to resume his post, utterly refusing to explain out of the senate anything that he had said in it, and with the positive declaration that he would not return the next fire. Colonel Benton concludes his reminiscences of this most remarkable affair, as follows: I withdrew a little way into the woods, and kept my eyes fixed upon Mr. Randolph, whom I then knew to be the only one in danger. I saw him receive the fire of Mr. Clay, saw the

half-way, shook hands, Mr. Randolph saying jocosely, "You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay," (the bullet had passed through the skirt of the coat, very near the hip) -to which Mr. Clay promptly and happily replied, "I am glad the debt is no greater." I had come up, and was prompt to proclaim what I had been obliged to keep secret for eight days. The joy of all was extreme at this happy termination of a most critical affair, and we immediately. left, with lighter hearts than we brought. I stopped to sup with Mr. Randolph and his friends, none of us wanted dinner,and had a characteristic time of it. A runner came in from the bank, to say that they had overpaid him, by mistake, one hundred and thirty dollars that day. Mr. Randolph answered, "I believe it is your rule not to correct mistakes, except at the time and at your counter." And with that answer the runner had to return. When gone, Mr. Randolph said, "I will pay it on Monday; people must be honest, if banks are not." He asked for the sealed paper he had given me, opened it, took out a check for one thousand dollars, drawn in my favor, and with which I was requested to have him carried, if killed, to Virginia, and buried under his patrimonial oaks, not let him be buried at Washington, with an hundred hacks after him. He took the gold from his left breeches pocket, and said to us (Hamilton, Tatnall, and I),—

"Gentlemen, Clay's bad shooting shan't rob you of your seals. I am going to London, and will have them made for you."

This he did (says Colonel Benton), and most characteristically, so far as mine was concerned. He went to the heraldry office in London, and inquired for the Benton family, of which I had often told him there was none, as we only dated on that side from my grandfather in North Carolina. But the name was found, and with it a coat of arms,-among the quarterings a lion rampant. "This is the family," said he; and had the arms engraved on the seal.

The account given by General James Hamilton, of this duel, states that, in company with Colonel Tatnall, he repaired, at midnight, to Mr. Randolph's lodgings, and found him reading Milton's great poem. For some moments he did not permit them to say one word in relation to the approaching duel, for he at once commenced one of those delightful criticisms on a passage of this poet, in which he was wont so enthusiastically to indulge. After a pause, Colonel Tatnall remarked :

"Mr. Randolph, I am told you have determined not to return Mr. Clay's fire; I must say to you, my dear sir, if I am only to go out to see you shot down, you must find some other friend."

"Well, Tatnall," said Mr. Randolph, after much conversation on the subject, "I promise you one thing; if I see the devil in Clay's eye, and that, with malice prepense, he means to take my life, I may change my mind."

As the sequel showed, however, he saw no 'devil in Clay's eye,' but a man fearless, and expressing the mingled sensibility and firmness pertaining to the occasion. For, whilst Tatnall was loading Mr. Randolph's pistol, Hamilton approached Randolph, took his hand,-in the touch of which there was not the quivering of one pulsation,—and then, turning to Hamilton, Randolph said:

"Clay is calm, but not vindictive; I hold my purpose, Hamilton, in any event; remember this."

On Randolph's pistol going off without the word, General Jesup, Mr. Clay's friend, called out that he would instantly leave the ground with his friend, if that occurred again. On the word being given, Mr. Clay fired without effect, Mr. Randolph discharging his pistol in the air. On seeing this, Mr. Clay instantly approached Mr. Randolph, and with a gush of the deepest emotion, said,—

"I trust in God, my dear sir, you are untouched; after what has occurred, I would not have harmed you for a thousand worlds!"

On the ensuing Monday, Mr. Clay and

the memorials of the occasion furnished by Mr. March, and, subsequently, by Mr. Lanman, Dr. Tefft, Louis Gaylord Clark, Edward Everett, and others, leave nothing to be supplied. Mr. March's notes are adopted by Mr. Everett, in his memoirs of Mr. Webster, and, in an abridged form, are given below, in connection with the perspicuous statements of Tefft and others relating to the general issue. The speech was also reported by Mr. Joseph Gales, at the request of Judge Burnett, of Ohio, and other senators. On canvas, too, Healey, the master-painter, has commemorated in an enduring manner, the orator and the occasion.

The subject of discussion before the senate, in the persons of these two intellectual gladiators, grew out of a resolution brought forward by Senator Foot, of Connecticut, just at the close of the previous year, with a view to some arrangement concerning the sale of the public lands. But this immediate question was soon lost sight of in the discussion of a great, vital principle of constitutional law, namely: the relative powers of the states and the national government. Upon this, Mr. Benton and Mr. Hayne addressed the senate, condemning the policy of the eastern states, as illiberal toward the west. Mr. Webster replied, in vindication of New England and of the policy of the government. It was then that Mr. Hayne made his attack-sudden, unexpected, and certainly unexampled,-on Mr. Webster personally, upon Massachusetts and the other northern states politically, and upon the constitution itself; in respect to the latter, Mr. Hayne taking the position, that it is constitutional to interrupt the administration of the constitution itself, in the hands of those who are chosen and sworn to administer it, by the direct interference, in form of law, of the states, in virtue of their sovereign capacity. All of these points were handled by Mr. Hayne with that rhetorical brilliancy and power which characterized him as the oratorical champion of the south, on the floor of the senate; and it is not saying too much,

that the speech produced a profound impression.

Mr. Hayne's great effort appeared to be the result of premeditation, concert and arrangement. He selected his own time, and that, too, peculiarly inconvenient to Mr. Webster, for, at that moment, the supreme court were proceeding in the hearing of a cause of great importance, in which he was a leading counsel. For this reason, he requested, through a friend, a postponement of the debate; Mr. Hayne objected, however, and the request was refused. The time, the matter, and the manner, indicated that the attack was made with a design to crush so formidable a political opponent as Mr. Webster had become. To this end, personal history, the annals of New England and of the federal party, were ransacked for materials. It was attempted, with the usual partisan unfairness of political harangues, to make him responsible, not only for what was his own, but for the conduct and opinions of others. All the errors and delinquencies, real or supposed, of Massachusetts, and the eastern states, and of the federal party, during the war of 1812, and, indeed, prior and subsequent to that period, were accumulated upon him.

Thus it was, that Mr. Hayne heralded his speech with a bold declaration of war, with taunts and threats, vaunting anticipated triumph, as if to paralyze by intimidation; saying that he would carry the war into Africa, until he had obtained indemnity for the past and security for the future. It was supposed that, as a distinguished representative man, Mr. Webster would be driven to defend what was indefensible, and to uphold what could not be sustained, and, as a federalist, to oppose the popular resolutions of '98.

The severe nature of Mr. Hayne's charges, the ability with which he brought them to bear upon his opponents, his great reputation as a brilliant and powerful declaimer, filled the minds of his friends with anticipations of complete triumph. For two days, Mr. Hayne had the control of the floor. The vehemence of his lan