To James Madison from Francis Corbin, 17 January 1815
From Francis Corbin
The Reeds. Jany. 17th. 1815
White Chimnies Post office Virginia.
Dear Sir
If the War continues, my family connections will go a great way, I believe, to recruit both our Army and Navy. My Nephew Major Gawin, L. Corbin seems to have gathered fresh military ardour from his wounds, and, like Hannibal, has sworn his Son to take up, and never to lay down his Arms against the Enemies of his Country.1 He is very desirous to get a birth for this Son in the Military Academy at West-Point. Being personally acquainted wth Col: Monroe (and a friend, as he tells me, in the Legislature to Col: Monroe’s last Election as Governor of this State;) he has made an application to him, but desires me to back it by requesting your kind recommendetion and “Conge d’elire.”2 The name of his Son is Richard Randolph Corbin.3
The next Post, after the receipt of the Major’s letter, brought me one from his Lady—begging me, “whilst my hand was in,” to solicit a Midshipman’s Warrant for her Son Peter, B, Randolph, and to add her wish that, if successful, he may be ordered to join the Flotilla at Norfolk, where, from its contiguity to King’s Creek, she can fit him out with more pecuniary convenience than she could do, if he be ordered elsewhere.4
I hope, My dear Sir, you will pardon my repeated trespasses on your goodness which is itself the cause of them.
My eldest Son Robert Beverley, who is going to join his Brother Francis Porteus at the College in Philada., under the auspices of my friends Mr. T. Coxe and the Bishop of Pennsylvania, will do himself the honor to present this to you. He is an amiable, diffident and sensible youth, only just 18, and, after being one year more at College, will be fitted to attend in the suite of some of our foreign Ministers, or to obey your commands, as a Messenger abroad, or in any other way whatever. I dare not overload you with my requests by soliciting your Patronage of this beloved Boy, the eldest of five, but I ask permission, thro’ you, to solicit that of Mrs. Madison, to whom you will do me a favor to make my most respectful compliments acceptable. With the greatest Respect and Sincerest Esteem, I am, Dear Sir, Your much Obliged and Most faithful Hle. Servt.
Francis Corbin
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Corbin probably had in mind Hannibal’s recollection that as a boy no more than nine years old, he had taken an oath of eternal enmity to Rome at the demand of his father, Hamilcar (John Clarke, Cornelii Nepotis Vitœ Excellentium Imperatorum: Cum Versione Anglicana … or, Cornelius Nepos’s Lives of the Excellent Commanders: With an English Translation … [New York, 1806; 10944], 193–95).
2. Permission to choose.
3. Richard Randolph Corbin (1801–1853) entered West Point in 1815 but did not graduate; in 1820 he was enrolled at the College of William and Mary. He moved to Lafayette County, Mississippi, in 1827 (“The Corbin Family,” VMHB 31 [1923]: 80, 83).
4. Peter B. Randolph was granted a midshipman’s warrant on 1 Jan. 1817. He died of typhus fever in late 1818 while on a cruise in the Macedonian (ASP, Naval Affairs, 1:465; New York Commercial Advertiser, 9 Mar. 1819).