xvii. Had he proposed to state with more minuteness how much of the

scriptures had been made a part of the common law, he might have added that in the laws of Alfred, where he found the ten commandments, two or three other chapters of Exodus are copied almost verbatim. But the adoption of a part proves rather a rejection of the rest, as municipal law. We might as well say that the Newtonian system of philosophy is a part of the common law, as that the Christian religion is. The truth is that Christianity and Newtonianism being reason and verity itself, in the opinion of all but infidels and Cartesians, they are protected under the wings of the common law from the dominion of other sects, but not erected into dominion over them. An eminent Spanish physician affirmed that the lancet had slain more men than the sword. Doctor Sangrado, on the contrary, affirmed that with plentiful bleedings, and draughts of warm water, every disease was to be cured. The common law protects both opinions, but enacts neither into law. See post. 879.

879. Howard, in his Contumes Anglo-Normandes, 1. 87, notices the falsification of the laws of Alfred, by prefixing to them four chapters of the Jewish law, to wit: the 20th, 21st, 22d and 23d chapters of Exodus, to which he might have added the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, v. 23, and precepts from other parts of the scripture. These he calls a _hors d'œuvre_ of some pious copyist. This awkward monkish fabrication makes the preface to Alfred's genuine laws stand in the body of the work, and the very words of Alfred himself prove the fraud; for he declares, in that preface, that he has collected these laws from those of Ina, of Offa, Aethelbert and his ancestors, saying nothing of any of them being taken from the Scriptures. It is still more certainly proved by the inconsistencies it occasions. For example, the Jewish legislator Exodus xxi. 12, 13, 14, (copied by the Pseudo Alfred § 13,) makes murder, with the Jews, death. But Alfred himself, Le. xxvi., punishes it by a fine only, called a Weregild, proportioned to the condition of the person killed. It is remarkable that Hume (append. 1 to his History) examining this article of the laws of Alfred, without perceiving the fraud, puzzles himself with accounting for the inconsistency it had introduced. To strike a pregnant woman so that she die is death by Exodus, xxi. 22, 23, and Pseud. Alfr. § 18; but by the laws of Alfred ix., pays a Weregild for both woman and child. To smite out an eye, or a tooth, Exod. xxi. 24-27. Pseud. Alfr. § 19, 20, if of a servant by his master, is freedom to the servant; in every other case retaliation. But by Alfr. Le. xl. a fixed indemnification is paid. Theft of an ox, or a sheep, by the Jewish law, Exod. xxii. 1, was repaid five-fold for the ox and four-fold for the sheep; by the Pseudograph § 24, the ox double, the sheep four-fold; but by Alfred Le. xvi., he who stole a cow and a calf was to repay the worth of the cow and 401 for the calf. Goring by an ox was the death of the ox, and the flesh not to be eaten. Exod. xxi. 28. Pseud. Alfr. § 21 by Alfred Le. xxiv., the wounded person had the ox. The Pseudograph makes municipal laws of the ten commandments, § 1--10, regulates concubinage, § 12, makes it death to strike or to curse father or mother, § 14, 15, gives an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, strife for strife, § 19; sells the thief to repay his theft, § 24; obliges the fornicator to marry the woman he has lain with, § 29; forbids interest on money, § 35; makes the laws of bailment, § 28, very different from what Lord Holt delivers in Coggs v. Bernard, ante 92, and what Sir William Jones tells us they were; and punishes witchcraft with death, § 30, which Sir Matthew Hale, 1 H. P. C. B. 1, ch. 33, declares was not a felony before the Stat. 1, Jac. 12. It was under that statute, and not this forgery, that he hung Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, 16 Car. 2, (1662,) on whose trial he declared "that there were such creatures as witches he made no doubt at all; for first the Scripture had affirmed so much, secondly the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons, and such hath been the judgment of this kingdom, as appears by that act of Parliament which hath provided punishment proportionable to the quality of the offence." And we must certainly allow greater weight to this position that "it was no felony till James' Statute," laid down deliberately in his H. P. C., a work which he wrote to be printed, finished, and transcribed for the press in his life time, than to the hasty scripture that "at _common law_ witchcraft was punished with death as heresy, by writ de Heretico Comburendo" in his Methodical Summary of the P. C. p. 6, a work "not intended for the press, not fitted for it, and which he declared himself he had never read over since it was written;" Pref. Unless we understand his meaning in that to be that witchcraft could not be punished at common law as witchcraft, but as heresy. In either sense, however, it is a denial of this pretended law of Alfred. Now, all men of reading know that these pretended laws of homicide, concubinage, theft, retaliation, compulsory marriage, usury, bailment, and others which might have been cited, from the Pseudograph, were never the laws of England, not even in Alfred's time; and of course that it is a forgery. Yet palpable as it must be to every lawyer, the English judges have piously avoided lifting the veil under which it was shrouded. In truth, the alliance between Church and State in England has ever made their judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and even bolder than they are. For instead of being contented with these four surreptitious chapters of Exodus, they have taken the whole leap, and declared at once that the whole Bible and Testament in a lump, make a part of the common law; ante 873: the first judicial declaration of which was by this same Sir Matthew Hale. And thus they incorporate into the English code laws made for the Jews alone, and the precepts of the gospel, intended by their benevolent author as obligatory only in _foro concientiæ_; and they arm the whole with the coercions of municipal law. In doing this, too, they have not even used the Connecticut caution of declaring, as is done in their blue laws, that the laws of God shall be the laws of their land, except where their own contradict them; but they swallow the yea and nay together. Finally, in answer to Fortescue Aland's question why the ten commandments should not now be a part of the common law of England? we may say they are not because they never were made so by legislative authority, the document which has imposed that doubt on him being a manifest forgery.

TO DR. JOHN MANNERS.

MONTICELLO, February 22, 1814.

SIR,--The opinion which, in your letter of January 24, you are pleased to ask of me, on the comparative merits of the different methods of classification adopted by different writers on Natural History, is one which I could not have given satisfactorily, even at the earlier period at which the subject was more familiar; still less, after a life of continued occupation in civil concerns has so much withdrawn me from studies of that kind. I can, therefore, answer but in a very general way. And the text of this answer will be found in an observation in your letter, where, speaking of nosological systems, you say that disease has been found to be an unit. Nature has, in truth, produced units only through all her works. Classes, orders, genera, species, are not of her work. Her creation is of individuals. No two animals are exactly alike; no two plants, nor even two leaves or blades of grass; no two crystallizations. And if we may venture from what is within the cognizance of such organs as ours, to conclude on that beyond their powers, we must believe that no two particles of matter are of exact resemblance. This infinitude of units or individuals being far beyond the capacity of our memory, we are obliged, in aid of that, to distribute them into masses, throwing into each of these all the individuals which have a certain degree of resemblance; to subdivide these again into smaller groups, according to certain points of dissimilitude observable in them, and so on until we have formed what we call a system of classes, orders, genera and species. In doing this, we fix arbitrarily on such characteristic resemblances and differences as seem to us most prominent and invariable in the several subjects, and most likely to take a strong hold in our memories. Thus Ray formed one classification on such lines of division as struck him most favorably; Klein adopted another; Brisson a third, and other naturalists other designations, till Linnæus appeared. Fortunately for science, he conceived in the three kingdoms of nature, modes of classification which obtained the approbation of the learned of all nations. His system was accordingly adopted by all, and united all in a general language. It offered the three great desiderata: First, of aiding the memory to retain a knowledge of the productions of nature. Secondly, of rallying all to the same names for the same objects, so that they could communicate understandingly on them. And Thirdly, of enabling them, when a subject was first presented, to trace it by its character up to the conventional name by which it was agreed to be called. This classification was indeed liable to the imperfection of bringing into the same group individuals which, though resembling in the characteristics adopted by the author for his classification, yet have strong marks of dissimilitude in other respects. But to this objection every mode of classification must be liable, because the plan of creation is inscrutable to our limited faculties. Nature has not arranged her productions on a single and direct line. They branch at every step, and in every direction, and he who attempts to reduce them into departments, is left to do it by the lines of his own fancy. The objection of bringing together what are disparata in nature, lies against the classifications of Blumenbach and of Cuvier, as well as that of Linnæus, and must forever lie against all. Perhaps not in equal degree; on this I do not pronounce. But neither is this so important a consideration as that of uniting all nations under one language in Natural History. This had been happily effected by Linnæus, and can scarcely be hoped for a second time. Nothing indeed is so desperate as to make all mankind agree in giving up a language they possess, for one which they have to learn. The attempt leads directly to the confusion of the tongues of Babel. Disciples of Linnæus, of Blumenbach, and of Cuvier, exclusively possessing their own nomenclatures, can no longer communicate intelligibly with one another. However much, therefore, we are indebted to both these naturalists, and to Cuvier especially, for the valuable additions they have made to the sciences of nature, I cannot say they have rendered her a service in this attempt to innovate in the settled nomenclature of her productions; on the contrary, I think it will be a check on the progress of science, greater or less, in proportion as their schemes shall more or less prevail. They would have rendered greater service by holding fast to the system on which we had once all agreed, and by inserting into that such new genera, orders, or even classes, as new discoveries should call for. Their systems, too, and especially that of Blumenbach, are liable to the objection of giving too much into the province of anatomy. It may be said, indeed, that anatomy is a part of natural history. In the broad sense of the word, it certainly is. In that sense, however, it would comprehend all the natural sciences, every created thing being a subject of natural history in extenso. But in the subdivisions of general science, as has been observed in the particular one of natural history, it has been necessary to draw arbitrary lines, in order to accommodate our limited views. According to these, as soon as the structure of any natural production is destroyed by art, it ceases to be a subject of natural history, and enters into the domain ascribed to chemistry, to pharmacy, to anatomy, &c. Linnæus' method was liable to this objection so far as it required the aid of anatomical dissection, as of the heart, for instance, to ascertain the place of any animal, or of a chemical process for that of a mineral substance. It would certainly be better to adopt as much as possible such exterior and visible characteristics as every traveller is competent to observe, to ascertain and to relate. But with this objection, lying but in a small degree, Linnæus' method was received, understood, and conventionally settled among the learned, and was even getting into common use. To disturb it then was unfortunate. The new system attempted in botany, by Jussieu, in mineralogy, by Haüy, are subjects of the same regret, and so also the no-system of Buffon, the great advocate of individualism in opposition to classification. He would carry us back to the days and to the confusion of Aristotle and Pliny, give up the improvements of twenty centuries, and co-operate with the neologists in rendering the science of one generation useless to the next by perpetual changes of its language. In botany, Wildenow and Persoon have incorporated into Linnæus the new discovered plants. I do not know whether any one has rendered us the same service as to his natural history. It would be a very acceptable one. The materials furnished by Humboldt, and those from New Holland particularly, require to be digested into the Catholic system. Among these, the Ornithorhyncus mentioned by you, is an amusing example of the anomalies by which nature sports with our schemes of classification. Although without mammæ, naturalists are obliged to place it in the class of mammiferæ; and Blumenbach, particularly, arranges it in his order of Palmipeds and toothless genus, with the walrus and manatie. In Linnæus' system it might be inserted as a new genus between the anteater and manis, in the order of Bruta. It seems, in truth, to have stronger relations with that class than any other in the construction of the heart, its red and warm blood, hairy integuments, in being quadruped and viviparous, and may we not say, in its _tout ensemble_, which Buffon makes his sole principle of arrangement? The mandible, as you observe, would draw it towards the birds, were not this characteristic overbalanced by the weightier ones before mentioned. That of the Cloaca is equivocal, because although a character of birds, yet some mammalia, as the beaver and sloth, have the rectum and urinary passage terminating at a common opening. Its ribs also, by their number and structure, are nearer those of the bird than of the mammalia. It is possible that further opportunities of examination may discover the mammæ. Those of the Opossum are asserted, by the Chevalier d'Aboville, from his own observations on that animal, made while here with the French army, to be not discoverable until pregnancy, and to disappear as soon as the young are weaned. The Duckbill has many additional particularities which liken it to other genera, and some entirely peculiar. Its description and history needs yet further information.

In what I have said on the method of classing, I have not at all meant to insinuate that that of Linnæus is intrinsically preferable to those of Blumenbach and Cuvier. I adhere to the Linnean because it is sufficient as a ground-work, admits of supplementary insertions as new productions are discovered, and mainly because it has got into so general use that it will not be easy to displace it, and still less to find another which shall have the same singular fortune of obtaining the general consent. During the attempt we shall become unintelligible to one another, and science will be really retarded by efforts to advance it made by its most favorite sons. I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science. My reluctance is to give up an universal language of which we are in possession, without an assurance of general consent to receive another. And the higher the character of the authors recommending it, and the more excellent what they offer, the greater the danger of producing schism.

I should seem to need apology for these long remarks to you who are so much more recent in these studies, but I find it in your particular request and my own respect for it, and with that be pleased to accept the assurance of my esteem and consideration.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, February, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I was nibbing my pen and brushing my faculties, to write a polite letter of thanks to Mr. Counsellor Barton, for his valuable memoirs of Dr. Rittenhouse, (though I could not account for his sending it to me), when I received your favor of January 25th. I now most cordially endorse my thanks over to you. The book is in the modern American style, an able imitation of Marshall's Washington, though far more entertaining and instructive; a Washington Mausoleum; an Egyptian pyramid. I shall never read it any more than Taylor's aristocracy. Mrs. Adams reads it with great delight, and reads to me what she finds interesting, and that is indeed the whole book. I have not time to hear it all.

Rittenhouse was a virtuous and amiable man, an exquisite mechanician, master of the astronomy known in his time; an expert mathematician, a patient calculator of numbers. But we have had a Winthrop, an Andrew Oliver, a Willard, a Webber, his equals, and we have a Bowditch his superior in all these particulars, except the mechanism. But you know Philadelphia is the heart, the censorium, the pineal gland of the United States.

In politics, Rittenhouse was a good, simple, ignorant, well-meaning, Franklinian democrat, totally ignorant of the world. As an anchorite, an honest dupe of the French Revolution; a mere instrument of Jonathan Dickinson Sargent, Dr. Hutchinson, Genet, and Mifflin, I give him all the credit of his Planetarium. The improvement of the Orrery to the Planetarium was an easy, natural thought, and nothing was wanting but calculations of orbits Distranus, and periods of revolutions; all of which were made to his hands long before he existed. Patience, perseverance, and sleight of hand, is his undoubted merit and praise. I had read Taylor in the Senate, till his style was so familiar to me that I had not read three pages, before I suspected the author. I wrote a letter to him, and he candidly acknowledged that the six hundred and fifty pages were sent me with his consent. I wait with impatience for the publication, and annunciation of the work. Arator ought not to have been adulterated with politics, but his precept "Gather up the fragments that nothing be lost," is of inestimable value in agriculture and horticulture. Every weed, cob, husk, stalk, ought to be saved for manure.

Your researches in the laws of England establishing Christianity as the law of the land, and part of the common law, are curious and very important. Questions without number will arise in this country. Religious controversies, and ecclesiastical contests, are as common, and will be as sharp as any in civil politics, foreign and domestic. In what sense, and to what extent the Bible is law, may give rise to as many doubts and quarrels as any of our civil, political, military, or maritime laws, and will intermix with them all, to irritate factions of every sort. I dare not look beyond my nose into futurity. Our money, our commerce, our religion, our National and State Constitutions, even our arts and sciences, are so many seed plots, of division, faction, sedition and rebellion. Everything is transmuted into an instrument of electioneering. Election is the grand Brahma, the immortal Lama, I had almost said, the Juggernaut; for wives are almost ready to burn upon the pile, and children to be thrown under the wheel. You will perceive, by these figures, that I have been looking into oriental history, and Hindoo religion. I have read voyages, and travels, and everything I could collect, and the last is Priestley's "Comparison of the Institutions of Moses with those of the Hindoos, and other Ancient Nations," a work of great labor, and not less haste. I thank him for the labor, and forgive, though I lament the hurry. You would be fatigued to read, and I, just recruiting from a little longer confinement and indisposition than I have had for thirty years, have not strength to write many observations. But I have been disappointed in the principal points of my curiosity:

1st. I am disappointed by finding that no just comparison can be made, because the original Shasta, and the original Vedams are not obtained, or if obtained, not yet translated into any European language.

2d. In not finding such morsels of the sacred books as have been translated and published, which are more honorable to the original Hindoo religion than anything he has quoted.

3d. In not finding a full development of the history of the doctrine of the Metempsichosis which originated--

4th. In the history of the rebellion of innumerable hosts of angels in Heaven against the Supreme Being, who after some thousands of years of war, conquered them, and hurled them down to the regions of total darkness, where they have suffered a part of the punishment of their crime, and then were mercifully released from prison, permitted to ascend to earth, and migrate into all sorts of animals, reptiles, birds, beasts, and men, according to their rank and character, and even into vegetables, and minerals, there to serve on probation. If they passed without reproach their several gradations, they were permitted to become cows and men. If as men they behaved well, _i. e._ to the satisfaction of the priests, they were restored to their original rank and bliss in Heaven.

5th. In not finding the Trinity of Pythagoras and Plato, their contempt of matter, flesh, and blood, their almost adoration of fire and water, their metempsichosis, and even the prohibition of beans, so evidently derived from India.

6th. In not finding the prophecy of Enoch deduced from India, in which the fallen angels make such a figure. But you are weary. Priestley has proved the superiority of the Hebrews to the Hindoos, as they appear in the Gentoo laws, and institutes of Menu; but the comparison remains to be made with the Shasta.

In his remarks on Mr. Dupuis, page 342, Priestley says: "The History of the fallen angels is another circumstance, on which Mr. Dupuis lays much stress. According to the Christians, he says, Vol. I, page 336, there was from the beginning a division among the angels; some remaining faithful to the light, and others taking the part of darkness, &c.; but this supposed history is not found in the Scriptures. It has only been inferred, from a wrong interpretation of one passage in the 2d epistle of Peter, and a corresponding one in that of Jude, as has been shown by judicious writers. That there is such a person as the Devil, is not a part of my faith, nor that of many other Christians, nor am I sure that it was the belief of any of the Christian writers. Neither do I believe the doctrine of demoniacal possessions, whether it was believed by the sacred writers or not; and yet my unbelief in these articles does not affect my faith in the great facts of which the Evangelists were eye and ear witnesses. They might not be competent judges in the one case, though perfectly so with respect to the other."

I will ask Priestley, when I see him, do you believe those passages in Peter and Jude to be interpolations? If so, by whom made? And when? And where? And for what end? Was it to support, or found, the doctrine of the fall of man, original sin, the universal corruption, depravation and guilt of human nature and mankind; and the subsequent incarnation of God to make atonement and redemption? Or do you think that Peter and Jude believed the book of Enoch to have been written by the seventh from Adam, and one of the sacred canonical books of the Hebrew Prophets? Peter, 2d epistle, c. 2d, v. 4th, says "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to _hell_, and delivered them into chains of _darkness_ to be reserved unto Judgment." Jude, v. 6th says, "and the angels which kept their first estate, but left their own habitations, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." Verse 14th, "And Enoch, also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these sayings, behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all," &c. Priestley says, "a wrong interpretation" has been given to these texts. I wish he had favored us with his right interpretation of them. In another place, page 326, Priestley says, "There is no circumstance of which Mr. Dupuis avails himself so much, or repeats so often, both with respect to the Jewish and Christian religions, as the history of the _Fall of Man_, in the book of Genesis." I believe with him, and have maintained in my writings, that this history is either an allegory, or founded on uncertain tradition, that it is an hypothesis to account for the origin of evil, adopted by Moses, which by no means accounts for the facts.

_March 3d._ So far was written almost a month ago; but sickness has prevented progress. I had much more to say about this work. I shall never be a disciple of Priestley. He is as absurd, inconsistent, credulous and incomprehensible, as Athanasius. Read his letter to the Jews in this volume. Could a rational creature write it? Aye! such rational creatures as Rochefoucauld, and Condorcet, and John Taylor, in politics, and Towers' Jurieus, and French Prophets in Theology. Priestley's account of the philosophy and religion of India, appears to me to be such a work as a man of busy research would produce--who should undertake to describe Christianity from the sixth to the twelfth century, when a deluge of wonders overflowed the world; when miracles were performed and proclaimed from every convent, and monastery, hospital, churchyard, mountain, valley, cave and cupola.

There is a book which I wish I possessed. It has never crossed the Atlantic. It is entitled Acta Sanctorum, in forty-seven volumes in folio. It contains the lives of the Saints. It was compiled in the beginning of the sixteenth century by Bollandus, Henschenius and Papebrock. What would I give to possess in one immense mass, one stupendous draught, all the legends, true, doubtful and false.

These Bollandists dared to discuss some of the facts, and hint that some of them were doubtful. E. G. Papebrock doubted the antiquity of the Carmellites from Elias; and whether the face of Jesus Christ was painted on the handkerchief of St. Véronique; and whether the prepuce of the Saviour of the world, which was shown in the church of Antwerp, could be proved to be genuine? For these bold scepticisms he was libelled in pamphlets, and denounced by the Pope, and the Inquisition in Spain. The Inquisition condemned him; but the Pope not daring to acquit or condemn him, prohibited all writings pro. and con. But as the physicians cure one disease by exciting another, as a fever by a salivation, this Bull was produced by a new claim. The brothers of the Order of Charity asserted a descent from Abraham, nine hundred years anterior to the Carmellites.

A philosopher who should write a description of Christianism from the Bollandistic Saints of the sixth and tenth century would probably produce a work tolerably parallel to Priestley's upon the Hindoos.

TO GIDEON GRANGER, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, March 9, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of February 22d came to hand on the 4th instant. Nothing is so painful to me as appeals to my memory on the subject of past transactions. From 1775 to 1809, my life was an unremitting course of public transactions, so numerous, so multifarious, and so diversified by places and persons, that, like the figures of a magic lanthern, their succession was with a rapidity that scarcely gave time for fixed impressions. Add to this the decay of memory consequent on advancing years, and it will not be deemed wonderful that I should be a stranger as it were even to my own transactions. Of some indeed I retain recollections of the particular, as well as general circumstances; of others a strong impression of the general fact, with an oblivion of particulars; but of a great mass, not a trace either of general or particular remains in my mind. I have duly pondered the facts stated in your letter, and for the refreshment of my memory have gone over the letters which passed between us while I was in the administration of the government, have examined my private notes, and such other papers as could assist me in the recovery of the facts, and shall now state them seriatim from your letter, and give the best account of them I am able to derive from the joint sources of memory and papers.

"I have been denounced as a Burrite; but you know that in 1800 I sent Erving from Boston to inform Virginia of the danger resulting from his intrigues." I well remember Mr. Erving's visit to this State about that time, and his suggestions of the designs meditated in the quarter you mention; but as my duties on the occasion were to be merely passive, he of course, as I presume, addressed his communications more particularly to those who were free to use them. I do not recollect his mentioning you; but I find that in your letter to me of April 26, 1804, you state your agency on that occasion, so that I have no reason to doubt the fact.

"That in 1803-4, on my advice, you procured Erastus Granger to inform De Witt Clinton of the plan to elevate Burr in New York." Here I do not recollect the particulars; but I have a general recollection that Colonel Burr's conduct had already, at that date rendered his designs suspicious; that being for that reason laid aside by his constituents as Vice President, and aiming to become the Governor of New York, it was thought advisable that the persons of influence in that State should be put on their guard; and Mr. Clinton being eminent, no one was more likely to receive intimations from us, nor any one more likely to be confided in for their communication than yourself. I have no doubt therefore of the fact, and the less because in your letter to me of October 9, 1806, you remind me of it.

About the same period, that is, in the winter of 1803-4, another train of facts took place which, although not specifically stated in your letter, I think it but justice to yourself that I should state. I mean the intrigues which were in agitation, and at the bottom of which we believed Colonel Burr to be; to form a coalition of the five eastern States, with New York and New Jersey, under the new appellation of the seven eastern States; either to overawe the Union by the combination of their power and their will, or by threats of separating themselves from it. Your intimacy with some of those in the secret gave you opportunities of searching into their proceedings, of which you made me daily and confidential reports. This intimacy to which I had such useful recourse, at the time, rendered you an object of suspicion with many as being yourself a partisan of Colonel Burr, and engaged in the very combination which you were faithfully employed in defeating. I never failed to justify you to all those who brought their suspicions to me, and to assure them of my knowledge of your fidelity. Many were the individuals, then members of the legislature, who received these assurances from me, and whose apprehensions were thereby quieted. This first project of Colonel Burr having vanished in smoke, he directed to the western country those views which are the subject of your next article.

"That in 1806, I communicated by the first mail after I had got knowledge of the fact, the supposed plans of Burr in his western expedition; upon which communication your council was first called together to take measures in relation to that subject." Not exactly on that single communication; on the 15th and 18th of September, I had received letters from Colonel George Morgan, and from a Mr. Nicholson of New York, suggesting in a general way the manœuvres of Colonel Burr. Similar information came to the Secretary of State from a Mr. Williams of New York. The indications, however, were so vague that I only desired their increased attention to the subject, and further communications of what they should discover. Your letter of October 16, conveying the communications of General Eaton to yourself and to Mr. Ely gave a specific view of the objects of this new conspiracy, and corroborating our previous information, I called the Cabinet together, on the 22d of October, when specific measures were adopted for meeting the dangers threatened in the various points in which they might occur. I say your letter of October 16 gave this information, because its date, with the circumstance of its being no longer on my files, induce me to infer it was that particular letter, which having been transferred to the bundle of the documents of that conspiracy, delivered to the Attorney General, is no longer in my possession.

Your mission of Mr. Pease on the route to New Orleans, at the time of that conspiracy, with powers to see that the mails were expected, and to dismiss at once every agent of the Post Office whose fidelity could be justly doubted, and to substitute others on the spot was a necessary measure, taken with my approbation; and he executed the trusts to my satisfaction. I do not know however that my subsequent appointment of him to the office of Surveyor General was influenced, as you suppose, by those services. My motives in that appointment were my personal knowledge of his mathematical qualifications and satisfactory informations of the other parts of his character.

With respect to the dismission of the prosecutions for sedition in Connecticut, it is well known to have been a tenet of the republican portion of our fellow citizens, that the sedition law was contrary to the constitution and therefore void. On this ground I considered it as a nullity wherever I met it in the course of my duties; and on this ground I directed _nolle prosequis_ in all the prosecutions which had been instituted under it, and as far as the public sentiment can be inferred from the occurrences of the day, we may say that this opinion had the sanction of the nation. The prosecutions, therefore, which were afterwards instituted in Connecticut, of which two were against printers, two against preachers, and one against a judge, were too inconsistent with this principle to be permitted to go on. We were bound to administer to others the same measure of law, not which they had meted to us, but we to ourselves, and to extend to all equally the protection of the same constitutional principles. These prosecutions, too, were chiefly for charges against myself, and I had from the beginning laid it down as a rule to notice nothing of the kind. I believed that the long course of services in which I had acted on the public stage, and under the eye of my fellow citizens, furnished better evidence to them of my character and principles, than the angry invectives of adverse partisans in whose eyes the very acts most approved by the majority were subjects of the greatest demerit and censure. These prosecutions against them, therefore, were to be dismissed as a matter of duty. But I wished it to be done with all possible respect to the worthy citizens who had advised them, and in such way as to spare their feelings which had been justly irritated by the intemperance of their adversaries. As you were of that State and intimate with these characters, the business was confided to you, and you executed it to my perfect satisfaction.

These I think are all the particular facts on which you have asked my testimony, and I add with pleasure, and under a sense of duty, the declaration that the increase of rapidity in the movement of the mails which had been vainly attempted before, were readily undertaken by you on your entrance into office, and zealously and effectually carried into execution, and that the affairs of the office were conducted by you with ability and diligence, so long as I had opportunities of observing them.

With respect to the first article mentioned in your letter, in which I am neither concerned nor consulted, I will yet, as a friend, volunteer my advice. I never knew anything of it, nor would ever listen to such gossiping trash. Be assured, my dear Sir, that the dragging such a subject before the public will excite universal reprobation, and they will drown in their indignation all the solid justifications which they would otherwise have received and weighed with candor. Consult your own experience, reflect on the similar cases which have happened within your own knowledge, and see if ever there was a single one in which such a mode of recrimination procured favor to him who used it. You may give pain where perhaps you wish it, but be assured it will re-act on yourself with double though delayed effect, and that it will be one of those incidents of your life on which you will never reflect with satisfaction. Be advised, then; erase it even from your memory, and stand erect before the world on the high ground of your own merits, without stooping to what is unworthy either of your or their notice. Remember that we often repent of what we have said, but never, never of that which we have not. You may have time enough hereafter to mend your hold, if ever it can be mended by such matter as that. Take time then, and do not commit your happiness and public estimation by too much precipitancy. I am entirely uninformed of the state of things which you say exists, and which will oblige you to make a solemn appeal to the nation, in vindication of your character. But whatever that be, I feel it a duty to bear testimony to the truth, and I have suggested with frankness other considerations occurring to myself, because I wish you well, and I add sincere assurances of my great respect and esteem.

TO HORATIO G. SPAFFORD.

MONTICELLO, March 17, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I am an unpunctual correspondent at best. While my affairs permit me to be within doors, I am too apt to take up a book and to forget the calls of the writing-table. Besides this, I pass a considerable portion of my time at a possession so distant, and uncertain as to its mails, that my letters always await my return here. This must apologise for my being so late in acknowledging your two favors of December 17th and January 28th, as also that of the Gazetteer, which came safely to hand. I have read it with pleasure, and derived from it much information which I did not possess before. I wish we had as full a statement as to all our States. We should know ourselves better, our circumstances and resources, and the advantageous ground we stand on as a whole. We are certainly much indebted to you for this fund of valuable information. I join in your reprobation of our merchants, priests, and lawyers, for their adherence to England and monarchy, in preference to their own country and its constitution. But merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purposes. With the lawyers it is a new thing. They have, in the mother country, been generally the firmest supporters of the free principles of their constitution. But there too they have changed. I ascribe much of this to the substitution of Blackstone for my Lord Coke, as an elementary work. In truth, Blackstone and Hume have made tories of all England, and are making tories of those young Americans whose native feelings of independence do not place them above the wily sophistries of a Hume or a Blackstone. These two books, but especially the former, have done more towards the suppression of the liberties of man, than all the million of men in arms of Bonaparte and the millions of human lives with the sacrifice of which he will stand loaded before the judgment seat of his Maker. I fear nothing for our liberty from the assaults of force; but I have seen and felt much, and fear more from English books, English prejudices, English manners, and the apes, the dupes, and designs among our professional crafts. When I look around me for security against these seductions, I find it in the wide-spread of our agricultural citizens, in their unsophisticated minds, their independence and their power, if called on, to crush the Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England. I see our safety in the extent of our confederacy, and in the probability that in the proportion of that the sound parts will always be sufficient to crush local poisons. In this hope I rest, and tender you the assurance of my esteem and respect.

TO MR. GIRARDIN.

MONTICELLO, March 18, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--According to your request of the other day, I send you my formula and explanation of Lord Napier's theorem, for the solution of right-angled spherical triangles. With you I think it strange that the French mathematicians have not used or noticed this method more than they have done. Montucla, in his account of Lord Napier's inventions, expresses a like surprise at this fact, and does justice to the ingenuity, the elegance, and convenience of the theorem, which, by a single rule easily preserved in the memory, supplies the whole table of cases given in the books of spherical trigonometry. Yet he does not state the rule, but refers for it to Wolf, Cours de Mathematiques. I have not the larger work of Wolf; and in the French translation of his abridgement, (by some member of the congregation of St. Maur,) the branch of spherical trigonometry is entirely omitted. Potter, one of the English authors of Courses of Mathematics, has given the Catholic proposition, as it is called, but in terms unintelligible, and leading to error, until, by repeated trials, we have ascertained the meaning of some of his equivocal expressions. In Robert Simson's Euclid we have the theorem with its demonstrations, but less aptly for the memory, divided into two rules, and these are extended as the original was, only to the cases of right-angled triangles. Hutton, in his Course of Mathematics, declines giving the rules, as "too artificial to be applied by young computists." But I do not think this. It is true that when we use them, their demonstration is not always present to the mind; but neither is this the case generally in using mathematical theorems, or in the various steps of an algebraical process. We act on them, however, mechanically, and with confidence, as truths of which we have heretofore been satisfied by demonstration, although we do not at the moment retrace the processes which establish them. Hutton, however, in his Mathematical Dictionary, under the terms "circular parts," and "extremes," has given us the rules, and in all their extensions to oblique spherical, and to plane triangles. I have endeavored to reduce them to a form best adapted to my own frail memory, by couching them in the fewest words possible, and such as cannot, I think, mislead, or be misunderstood. My formula, with the explanation which may be necessary for your pupils, is as follows:

Lord Napier noted first the parts, or elements of a triangle, to wit, the sides and angles; and expunging from these the right-angle, as if it were a non-existence, he considered the other five parts, to wit, the three sides, and two oblique angles, as arranged in a circle, and therefore called them the circular parts; but chose, (for simplifying the result,) instead of the hypothenuse and two oblique angles, themselves, to substitute their complements. So that his five circular parts are the two legs themselves, and the complements of the hypothenuse and of the two oblique angles. If the three of these, given and required, were all adjacent, he called it the case of conjunct parts, the middle element the MIDDLE PART, and the two others the EXTREMES disjunct from the middle or EXTREMES DISJUNCT. He then laid down his catholic rule, to wit:

"The rectangle of the radius, and sine of the middle part, is equal to the rectangle of the _tangents_ of the two EXTREMES CONJUNCT, and to that of the _cosines_ of the two EXTREMES DISJUNCT."

And to aid our recollection in which case the tangents, and in which the cosines are to be used, preserving the original designations of the inventor, we may observe that the _tangent_ belongs to the _conjunct_ case, terms of sufficient affinity to be associated in the memory; and the sine _complement_ remains of course for the _disjunct case_; and further, if you please, that the initials of radius and sine, which are to be used together, are alphabetical consecutives.

Lord Napier's rule may also be used for the solution of oblique spherical triangles. For this purpose a perpendicular must be let fall from an angle of the given triangle internally on the base, forming it into two right-angled triangles, one of which may contain two of the data. Or, if this cannot be done, then letting it fall externally on the prolongation of the base, so as to form a right-angled triangle comprehending the oblique one, wherein two of the data will be common to both. To secure two of the data from mutilation, this perpendicular must always be let fall from the end of a given side, and opposite to a given angle.

But there will remain yet two cases wherein Lord Napier's rule cannot be used, to wit, where all the sides, or all the angles alone are given. To meet these two cases, Lord Buchan and Dr. Minto devised an analogous rule. They considered the sides themselves, and the supplements of the angles as circular parts in these cases; and, dropping a perpendicular from any angle from which it would fall internally on the opposite side, they assumed that angle, or that side, as the MIDDLE part, and the other angles, or other sides, as the OPPOSITE or EXTREME parts, disjunct in both cases. Then "the rectangle under the tangents of half the sum, and half the difference of the segments of the MIDDLE part, is equal to the rectangle under the tangents of half the sums, and half the difference of the OPPOSITE PARTS."

And, since every plane triangle may be considered as described on the surface of a sphere of an infinite radius, these two rules may be applied to plane right-angled triangles, and through them to the oblique. But as Lord Napier's rule gives a direct solution only in the case of two sides, and an uncomprised angle, one, two, or three operations, with this combination of parts, may be necessary to get at that required.

You likewise requested for the use of your school, an explanation of a method of platting the courses of a survey, which I mentioned to you as of my own practice. This is so obvious and simple, that as it occurred to myself, so I presume it has to others, although I have not seen it stated in any of the books. For drawing parallel lines, I use the triangular rule, the hypothenusal side of which being applied to the side of a common straight rule, the triangle slides on that, as thus, always parallel to itself. Instead of drawing meridians on his paper, let the pupil draw a parallel of latitude, or east and west line, and note in that a point for his first station, then applying to it his protractor, lay off the first course and distance in the usual way to ascertain his second station. For the second course, lay the triangular rule to the east and west line, or first parallel, holding the straight or guide rule firmly against its hypothenusal side. Then slide up the triangle (for a northerly course) to the point of his second station, and pressing it firmly there, lay the protractor to that, and mark off the second course, and distance as before, for the third station. Then lay the triangle to the first parallel again, and sliding it as before to the point of the third station, there apply to it the protractor for the third course and distance, which gives the fourth station; and so on. Where a course is southwardly, lay the protractor, as before, to the northern edge of the triangle, but prick its reversed course, which reversed again in drawing, gives the true course. When the station has got so far from the first parallel, as to be out of the reach of the parallel rule sliding on its hypothenuse, another parallel must be drawn by laying the edge, or longer leg of the triangle to the first parallel as before, applying the guide-rule to the end, or short leg, (instead of the hypothenuse,) as in the margin, and sliding the triangle up to the point for the new parallel. I have found this, in practice, the quickest and most correct method of platting which I have ever tried, and the neatest also, because it disfigures the paper with the fewest unnecessary lines.

If these mathematical trifles can give any facilities to your pupils, they may in their hands become matters of use, as in mine they have been of amusement only.

Ever and respectfully yours.

TO M. DUFIEF.

MONTICELLO, April 19, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 6th instant is just received, and I shall with equal willingness and truth, state the degree of agency you had, respecting the copy of M. de Becourt's book, which came to my hands. That gentleman informed me, by letter, that he was about to publish a volume in French, "Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation Primitive," which, its title promised to be, either a geological or astronomical work. I subscribed; and, when published, he sent me a copy; and as you were my correspondent in the book line in Philadelphia, I took the liberty of desiring him to call on you for the price, which, he afterwards informed me, you were so kind as to pay him for me, being, I believe, two dollars. But the sole copy which came to me was from himself directly, and, as far as I know, was never seen by you.

I am really mortified to be told that, _in the United States of America_, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If M. de Becourt's book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose. I know little of its contents, having barely glanced over here and there a passage, and over the table of contents. From this, the Newtonian philosophy seemed the chief object of attack, the issue of which might be trusted to the strength of the two combatants; Newton certainly not needing the auxiliary arm of the government, and still less the holy author of our religion, as to what in it concerns him. I thought the work would be very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but, if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy, and to read what he pleases. I have been just reading the new constitution of Spain. One of its fundamental basis is expressed in these words: "The _Roman Catholic_ religion, the only true one, is, and always shall be, that of the Spanish nation. The government protects it by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other whatever." Now I wish this presented to those who question what you may sell, or we may buy, with a request to strike out the words, "Roman Catholic," and to insert the denomination of their own religion. This would ascertain the code of dogmas which each wishes should domineer over the opinions of all others, and be taken, like the Spanish religion, under the "protection of wise and just laws." It would shew to what they wish to reduce the liberty for which one generation has sacrificed life and happiness. It would present our boasted freedom of religion as a thing of theory only, and not of practice, as what would be a poor exchange for the theoretic thraldom, but practical freedom of Europe. But it is impossible that the laws of Pennsylvania, which set us the first example of the wholesome and happy effects of religious freedom, can permit the inquisitorial functions to be proposed to their courts. Under them you are surely safe.

At the date of yours of the 6th, you had not received mine of the 3d inst., asking a copy of an edition of Newton's Principia, which I had seen advertised. When the cost of that shall be known, it shall be added to the balance of $4.93, and incorporated with a larger remittance I have to make to Philadelphia. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO LE CHEVALIER DE ONIS.

MONTICELLO, April 28, 1814.

I thank you, Sir, for the copy of the new constitution of Spain which you have been so kind as to send me; and I sincerely congratulate yourself and the Spanish nation on this great stride towards political happiness. The invasion of Spain has been the most unprecedented and unprincipled of the transactions of modern times. The crimes of its enemies, the licentiousness of its associates in defence, the exertions and sufferings of its inhabitants under slaughter and famine, and its consequent depopulation, will mark indelibly the baneful ascendancy of the tyrants of the sea and continent, and characterize with blood and wretchedness the age in which they have lived. Yet these sufferings of Spain will be remunerated, her population restored and increased, under the auspices and protection of this new constitution; and the miseries of the present generation will be the price, and even the cheap price of the prosperity of endless generations to come.

There are parts of this constitution, however, in which you would expect of course that we should not concur. One of these is the intolerance of all but the Catholic religion; and no security provided against the re-establishment of an Inquisition, the exclusive judge of Catholic opinions, and authorized to proscribe and punish those it shall deem anti-Catholic. Secondly, the aristocracy, _quater sublimata_, of her legislators; for the ultimate electors of these will themselves have been three times sifted from the mass of the people, and may choose from the nation at large persons never named by any of the electoral bodies. But there is one provision which will immortalize its inventors. It is that which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read and write. This is new, and is the fruitful germ of the improvement of everything good, and the correction of everything imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government. On the whole I hail your country as now likely to resume and surpass its ancient splendor among nations. This might perhaps have been better secured by a just confidence in the self-sufficient strength of the peninsula itself; everything without its limits being its weakness not its force. If the mother country has not the magnanimity to part with the colonies in friendship, thereby making them, what they would certainly be, her natural and firmest allies, these will emancipate themselves, after exhausting her strength and resources in ineffectual efforts to hold them in subjection. They will be rendered enemies of the mother country, as England has rendered us by an unremitting course of insulting injuries and silly provocations. I do not say this from the impulse of national interest, for I do not know that the United States would find an interest in the independence of neighbor nations, whose produce and commerce would rivalize ours. It could only be that kind of interest which every human being has in the happiness and prosperity of every other. But putting right and reason out of the question, I have no doubt that on calculations of interest alone, it is that of Spain to anticipate voluntarily, and as a matter of grace, the independence of her colonies, which otherwise necessity will enforce.

* * * * *

TO MR. DELAPLAINE.

MONTICELLO, May 3, 1814.

SIR,--Your favors of April 16 and 19, on the subject of the portraits of Columbus and Americus Vespucius were received on the 30th. While I resided at Paris, knowing that these portraits and those of some other of the early American worthies were in the gallery of Medicis at Florence, I took measures for engaging a good artist to take and send me copies of them. I considered it as even of some public concern that our country should not be without the portraits of its first discoverers. These copies have already run the risks of transportations from Florence to Paris, to Philadelphia, to Washington, and lastly to this place, where they are at length safely deposited. You request me "to forward them to you at Philadelphia for the purpose of having engravings taken from them for a work you propose to publish, and you pledge your honor that they shall be restored to me in perfect safety." I have no doubt of the sincerity of your intentions in this pledge; and that it would be complied with as far as it would be in your power. But the injuries and accidents of their transportation to Philadelphia and back again are not within your control. Besides the rubbing through a land carriage of six hundred miles, a carriage may overset in a river or creek, or be crashed with everything in it. The frequency of such accidents to the stages renders all insurance against them impossible. And were they to escape the perils of this journey I should be liable to the same calls, and they to the same or greater hazards from all those in other parts of the continent who should propose to publish any work in which they might wish to employ engravings of the same characters. From public, therefore, as well as private considerations, I think that these portraits ought not to be hazarded from their present deposit. Like public records, I make them free to be copied, but, being as originals in this country, they should not be exposed to the accidents or injuries of travelling post. While I regret, therefore, the necessity of declining to comply with your request, I freely and with pleasure offer to receive as a guest any artist whom you shall think proper to engage, and will make them welcome to take copies at their leisure for your use. I wish them to be multiplied for safe preservation, and consider them as worthy a place in every collection. Indeed I do not know how it happened that Mr. Peale did not think of copying them while they were in Philadelphia; and I think it not impossible that either the father or the son might now undertake the journey for the use of their museum. On the ground of our personal esteem for them, they would be at home in my family.

When I received these portraits at Paris, Mr. Daniel Parker of Massachusetts happened to be there, and determined to procure for himself copies from the same originals at Florence; and I think he did obtain them, and that I have heard of their being in the hands of some one in Boston. If so, it might perhaps be easier to get some artist there to take and send you copies. But be this as it may, you are perfectly welcome to the benefit of mine in the way I have mentioned.

The two original portraits of myself taken by Mr. Stewart, after which you enquire, are both in his possession at Boston. One of them only is my property. The President has a copy from that which Stewart considered as the best of the two; but I believe it is at his seat in his State.

I thank you for the print of Dr. Rush. He was one of my early and intimate friends, and among the best of men. The engraving is excellent as is everything from the hand of Mr. Edwin. Accept the assurance of my respect, and good wishes for the success of your work.

TO MR. JOHN F. WATSON.

MONTICELLO, May 17, 1814.

SIR,--I have long been a subscriber to the edition of the Edinburgh Review first published by Mr. Sargeant, and latterly by Eastburn, Kirk & Co., and already possess from No. 30 to 42 inclusive; except that Nos. 31 and 37 never came to hand. These two and No. 29, I should be glad to receive, with all subsequently published, through the channel of Messrs. Fitzwhylson & Potter of Richmond, with whom I originally subscribed, and to whom it is more convenient to make payment by a standing order on my correspondent at Richmond. I willingly also subscribe for the republication of the first twenty-eight numbers to be furnished me through the same channel, for the convenience of payment. This work is certainly unrivalled in merit, and if continued by the same talents, information and principles which distinguish it in every department of science which it reviews, it will become a real Encyclopedia, justly taking its station in our libraries with the most valuable depositories of human knowledge. Of the Quarterly Review I have not seen many numbers. As the antagonist of the other it appears to me a pigmy against a giant. The precept "audi alteram partem," on which it is republished here, should be sacred with the judge who is to decide between the contending claims of individual and individual. It is well enough for the young who have yet opinions to make up in questions of principle in ethics or politics. But to those who have gone through this process with industry, reflection, and singleness of heart, who have formed their conclusions and acted on them through life, to be reading over and over again what they have already read, considered and condemned, is an idle waste of time. It is not in the history of modern England or among the advocates of the principles or practices of her government, that the friend of freedom, or of political morality, is to seek instruction. There has indeed been a period, during which both were to be found, not in her government, but in the band of worthies who so boldly and ably reclaimed the rights of the people, and wrested from their government theoretic acknowledgments of them. This period began with the Stuarts, and continued but one reign after them. Since that, the vital principle of the English constitution is _corruption_, its practices the natural results of that principle, and their consequences a pampered aristocracy, annihilation of the substantial middle class, a degraded populace, oppressive taxes, general pauperism, and national bankruptcy. Those who long for these blessings here will find their generating principles well developed and advocated by the antagonist of the Edinburgh Review. Still those who doubt should read them; every man's reason being his own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed. Accept the assurances of my respect.

TO MR. ABRAHAM SMALL.

MONTICELLO, May 20, 1814.

SIR,--I thank you for the copy of the American Speaker which you have been so kind as to send me. It is a judicious selection of what has been excellently spoken on both sides of the Atlantic; and according to your request, I willingly add some suggestions, should another edition be called for. To the speeches of Lord Chatham might be added his reply to Horace Walpole, on the Seamen's bill, in the House of Commons, in 1740, one of the severest which history has recorded. Indeed, the subsequent speeches in order, to which that reply gave rise being few, short and pithy, well merit insertion in such a collection as this. They are in the twelfth volume of Chandler's Debates of the House of Commons. But the finest thing, in my opinion, which the English language has produced, is the defence of Eugene Aram, spoken by himself at the bar of the York assizes, in 1759, on a charge of murder, and to be found in the Annual Register of that date, or a little after. It had been upwards of fifty years since I had read it, when the receipt of your letter induced me to look up a MS. copy I had preserved, and on re-perusal at this age and distance of time, it loses nothing of its high station in my mind for classical style, close logic, and strong representation. I send you this copy which was taken for me by a school-boy, replete with errors of punctuation, of orthography, and sometimes substitutions of one word for another. It would be better to recur to the Annual Register itself for correctness, where also I think are stated the circumstances and issue of the case. To these I would add the short, the nervous, the unanswerable speech of Carnot, in 1803, on the proposition to declare Bonaparte consul for life. This creed of republicanism should be well translated, and placed in the hands and heart of every friend to the rights of self-government. I consider these speeches of Aram and Carnot, and that of Logan, inserted in your collection, as worthily standing in a line with those of Scipio and Hannibal in Livy, and of Cato and Cæsar in Sallust. On examining the Indian speeches in my possession, I find none which are not already in your collection, except that my copy of the corn-planter's has much in it which yours has not. But observing that the omissions relate to special subjects only, I presume they are made purposely and indeed properly.

I must add more particular thanks for the kind expressions of your letter towards myself. These testimonies of approbation from my fellow-citizens, offered too when the lapse of time may have cooled and matured their opinions, are an ample reward for such services as I have been able to render them, and are peculiarly gratifying in a state of retirement and reflection. I pray you to accept the assurance of my respect.

TO THOMAS LAW, ESQ.

POPLAR FOREST, June 13, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--The copy of your Second Thoughts on Instinctive Impulses, with the letter accompanying it, was received just as I was setting out on a journey to this place, two or three days' distant from Monticello. I brought it with me and read it with great satisfaction, and with the more as it contained exactly my own creed on the foundation of morality in man. It is really curious that on a question so fundamental, such a variety of opinions should have prevailed among men, and those, too, of the most exemplary virtue and first order of understanding. It shows how necessary was the care of the Creator in making the moral principle so much a part of our constitution as that no errors of reasoning or of speculation might lead us astray from its observance in practice. Of all the theories on this question, the most whimsical seems to have been that of Wollaston, who considers _truth_ as the foundation of morality. The thief who steals your guinea does wrong only inasmuch as he acts a lie in using your guinea as if it were his own. Truth is certainly a branch of morality, and a very important one to society. But presented as its foundation, it is as if a tree taken up by the roots, had its stem reversed in the air, and one of its branches planted in the ground. Some have made the _love of God_ the foundation of morality. This, too, is but a branch of our moral duties, which are generally divided into duties to God and duties to man. If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to-wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

The Το καλον of others is founded in a different faculty, that of taste, which is not even a branch of morality. We have indeed an innate sense of what we call beautiful, but that is exercised chiefly on subjects addressed to the fancy, whether through the eye in visible forms, as landscape, animal figure, dress, drapery, architecture, the composition of colors, &c., or to the imagination directly, as imagery, style, or measure in prose or poetry, or whatever else constitutes the domain of criticism or taste, a faculty entirely distinct from the moral one. Self-interest, or rather self-love, or _egoism_, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. But I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality. With ourselves we stand on the ground of identity, not of relation, which last, requiring two subjects, excludes self-love confined to a single one. To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed it is exactly its counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others. Accordingly, it is against this enemy that are erected the batteries of moralists and religionists, as the only obstacle to the practice of morality. Take from man his selfish propensities, and he can have nothing to seduce him from the practice of virtue. Or subdue those propensities by education, instruction or restraint, and virtue remains without a competitor. Egoism, in a broader sense, has been thus presented as the source of moral action. It has been said that we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the wounds of the man beaten by thieves, pour oil and wine into them, set him on our own beast and bring him to the inn, because we receive ourselves pleasure from these acts. So Helvetius, one of the best men on earth, and the most ingenious advocate of this principle, after defining "interest" to mean not merely that which is pecuniary, but whatever may procure us pleasure or withdraw us from pain, [_de l'esprit_ 2, 1,] says, [ib. 2, 2,] "the humane man is he to whom the sight of misfortune is insupportable, and who to rescue himself from this spectacle, is forced to succor the unfortunate object." This indeed is true. But it is one step short of the ultimate question. These good acts give us pleasure, but how happens it that they give us pleasure? Because nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses, and protests against the language of Helvetius, [ib. 2, 5,] "what other motive than self-interest could determine a man to generous actions? It is as impossible for him to love what is good for the sake of good, as to love evil for the sake of evil." The Creator would indeed have been a bungling artist, had he intended man for a social animal, without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not planted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule. Some men are born without the organs of sight, or of hearing, or without hands. Yet it would be wrong to say that man is born without these faculties, and sight, hearing, and hands may with truth enter into the general definition of man. The want or imperfection of the moral sense in some men, like the want or imperfection of the senses of sight and hearing in others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic of the species. When it is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or rejection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those whose disparity is not too profound to be eradicated. Some have argued against the existence of a moral sense, by saying that if nature had given us such a sense, impelling us to virtuous actions, and warning us against those which are vicious, then nature would also have designated, by some particular ear-marks, the two sets of actions which are, in themselves, the one virtuous and the other vicious. Whereas, we find, in fact, that the same actions are deemed virtuous in one country and vicious in another. The answer is that nature has constituted _utility_ to man the standard and best of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful, and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced. I sincerely, then, believe with you in the general existence of a moral instinct. I think it the brightest gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it as more degrading than the most hideous of the bodily deformities. I am happy in reviewing the roll of associates in this principle which you present in your second letter, some of which I had not before met with. To these might be added Lord Kaims, one of the ablest of our advocates, who goes so far as to say, in his Principles of Natural Religion, that a man owes no duty to which he is not urged by some impulsive feeling. This is correct, if referred to the standard of general feeling in the given case, and not to the feeling of a single individual. Perhaps I may misquote him, it being fifty years since I read his book.

The leisure and solitude of my situation here has led me to the indiscretion of taxing you with a long letter on a subject whereon nothing new can be offered you. I will indulge myself no farther than to repeat the assurances of my continued esteem and respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, July 5, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Since mine of January the 24th, yours of March the 14th has been received. It was not acknowledged in the short one of May the 18th, by Mr. Rives, the only object of that having been to enable one of our most promising young men to have the advantage of making his bow to you. I learned with great regret the serious illness mentioned in your letter; and I hope Mr. Rives will be able to tell me you are entirely restored. But our machines have now been running seventy or eighty years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way; and however we may tinker them up for awhile, all will at length surcease motion. Our watches, with works of brass and steel, wear out within that period. Shall you and I last to see the course the seven-fold wonders of the times will take? The Attila of the age dethroned, the ruthless destroyer of ten millions of the human race, whose thirst for blood appeared unquenchable, the great oppressor of the rights and liberties of the world, shut up within the circle of a little island of the Mediterranean, and dwindled to the condition of an humble and degraded pensioner on the bounty of those he had most injured. How miserably, how meanly, has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present! He should have perished on the swords of his enemies, under the walls of Paris.

"Leon piagato a morte Sente mancar la vita, Guarda la sua ferita, Ne s'avilisce ancor. Cosi fra l'ire estrema Rugge, minaccia, e freme, Che fa tremar morendo Tal volta il cacciator."--Metast. Adriano.

But Bonaparte was a lion in the field only. In civil life, a cold-blooded, calculating, unprincipled usurper, without a virtue; no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption. I had supposed him a great man until his entrance into the Assembly _des cinq cens_, eighteen Brumaire (an. 8.) From that date, however, I set him down as a great scoundrel only. To the wonders of his rise and fall, we may add that of a Czar of Muscovy, dictating, _in Paris_, laws and limits to all the successors of the Cæsars, and holding even the balance in which the fortunes of this new world are suspended. I own, that while I rejoice, for the good of mankind, in the deliverance of Europe from the havoc which would never have ceased while Bonaparte should have lived in power, I see with anxiety the tyrant of the ocean remaining in vigor, and even participating in the merit of crushing his brother tyrant. While the world is thus turned up side down, on which of its sides are we? All the strong reasons, indeed, place us on the side of peace; the interests of the continent, their friendly dispositions, and even the interests of England. Her passions alone are opposed to it. Peace would seem now to be an easy work, the causes of the war being removed. Her orders of council will no doubt be taken care of by the allied powers, and, war ceasing, her impressment of our seamen ceases of course. But I fear there is foundation for the design intimated in the public papers, of demanding a cession of our right in the fisheries. What will Massachusetts say to this? I mean her majority, which must be considered as speaking through the organs it has appointed itself, as the index of its will. She chooses to sacrifice the liberties of our seafaring citizens, in which we were all interested, and with them her obligations to the co-States, rather than war with England. Will she now sacrifice the fisheries to the same partialities? This question is interesting to her alone; for to the middle, the southern and western States, they are of no direct concern; of no more than the culture of tobacco, rice and cotton, to Massachusetts. I am really at a loss to conjecture what our refractory sister will say on this occasion. I know what, as a citizen of the Union, I would say to her. "Take this question _ad referendum_. It concerns you alone. If you would rather give up the fisheries than war with England, we give them up. If you had rather fight for them, we will defend your interests to the last drop of our blood, choosing rather to set a good example than follow a bad one." And I hope she will determine to fight for them. With this, however, you and I shall have nothing to do; ours being truly the case wherein "_non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis tempus eget_." Quitting this subject, therefore I will turn over another leaf.

I am just returned from one of my long absences, having been at my other home for five weeks past. Having more leisure there than here for reading, I amused myself with reading seriously Plato's Republic. I am wrong, however, in calling it amusement, for it was the heaviest task-work I ever went through. I had occasionally before taken up some of his other works, but scarcely ever had patience to go through a whole dialogue. While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been, that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this? How the _soi-disant_ Christian world, indeed, should have done it, is a piece of historical curiosity. But how could the Roman good sense do it? And particularly, how could Cicero bestow such eulogies on Plato? Although Cicero did not wield the dense logic of Demosthenes, yet he was able, learned, laborious, practised in the business of the world, and honest. He could not be the dupe of mere style, of which he was himself the first master in the world. With the moderns, I think, it is rather a matter of fashion and authority. Education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato. They give the tone while at school, and few in their after years have occasion to revise their college opinions. But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? In truth, he is one of the race of genuine sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren, first, by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly, by the adoption and incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity. His foggy mind is forever presenting the semblances of objects which, half seen through a mist, can be defined neither in form nor dimensions. Yet this, which should have consigned him to early oblivion, really procured him immortality of fame and reverence. The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticism of Plato materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them; and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained. Their purposes, however, are answered. Plato is canonized; and it is now deemed as impious to question his merits as those of an Apostle of Jesus. He is peculiarly appealed to as an advocate of the immortality of the soul; and yet I will venture to say, that were there no better arguments than his in proof of it, not a man in the world would believe it. It is fortunate for us, that Platonic republicanism has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should now have been all living, men, women and children, pell mell together, like beasts of the field or forest. Yet "Plato is a great philosopher," said La Fontaine. But, says Fontenelle, "do you find his ideas very clear?" "Oh no! he is of an obscurity impenetrable." "Do you not find him full of contradictions?" "Certainly," replied La Fontaine, "he is but a sophist." Yet immediately after, he exclaims again, "Oh, Plato was a great philosopher." Socrates had reason, indeed, to complain of the misrepresentations of Plato; for in truth, his dialogues are libels on Socrates.

But why am I dosing you with these antediluvian topics? Because I am glad to have some one to whom they are familiar, and who will not receive them as if dropped from the moon. Our post-revolutionary youth are born under happier stars than you and I were. They acquire all learning in their mother's womb, and bring it into the world ready made. The information of books is no longer necessary; and all knowledge which is not innate, is in contempt, or neglect at least. Every folly must run its round; and so, I suppose, must that of self-learning and self-sufficiency; of rejecting the knowledge acquired in past ages, and starting on the new ground of intuition. When sobered by experience, I hope our successors will turn their attention to the advantages of education. I mean of education on the broad scale, and not that of the petty _academies_, as they call themselves, which are starting up in every neighborhood, and where one or two men, possessing Latin and sometimes Greek, a knowledge of the globes, and the first six books of Euclid, imagine and communicate this as the sum of science. They commit their pupils to the theatre of the world, with just taste enough of learning to be alienated from industrious pursuits, and not enough to do service in the ranks of science. We have some exceptions, indeed. I presented one to you lately, and we have some others. But the terms I use are general truths. I hope the necessity will, at length, be seen of establishing institutions here, as in Europe, where every branch of science, useful at this day, may be taught in its highest degree. Have you ever turned your thoughts to the plan of such an institution? I mean to a specification of the particular sciences of real use in human affairs, and how they might be so grouped as to require so many professors only as might bring them within the views of a just but enlightened economy? I should be happy in a communication of your ideas on this problem, either loose or digested. But to avoid my being run away with by another subject, and adding to the length and ennui of the present letter, I will here present to Mrs. Adams and yourself, the assurance of my constant and sincere friendship and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July 16, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I received this morning your favor of the 5th, and as I can never let a sheet of yours rest, I sit down immediately to acknowledge it.

Whenever Mr. Reeves, of whom I have heard nothing, shall arrive, he shall receive all the cordial civilities in my power.

I am sometimes afraid that my "machine" will not "surcease motion" soon enough; for I dread nothing so much as "dying at top," and expiring like Dean Swift, "a driveler and a show;" or like Sam Adams, a grief and distress to his family, a weeping helpless object of compassion for years.

I am bold to say, that neither you nor I will live to see the course which the "wonders of the times" will take. Many years, and perhaps centuries must pass, before the current will acquire a settled direction. If the Christian religion, as I understand it, or as you understand it, should maintain its ground, as I believe it will, yet Platonic, Pythagonic, Hindoo, Cabalistical Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound of which the monster must finally die; yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.

Government has never been much studied by mankind, but their attention has been drawn to it in the latter part of the last century, and the beginning of this, more than at any former period; and the vast variety of experiments that have been made of constitutions in America, in France, in Holland, in Geneva, in Switzerland, and even in Spain and South America, can never be forgotten. They will be catastrophes noted. The result, in time, will be improvements; and I have no doubt that the honors we have experienced for the last forty years, will ultimately terminate in the advancement of civil and religious liberty, and ameliorations in the condition of mankind; for I am a believer in the probable improvability and improvement, the ameliorability and amelioration in human affairs; though I never could understand the doctrine of the perfectability of the human mind. This has always appeared to me like the philosophy, or theology of the Gentoos, viz., that a Brachman, by certain studies, for a certain time pursued, and by certain ceremonies, a certain number of times repeated, becomes omniscient and almighty.

Our hopes, however, of sudden tranquillity, ought not to be too sanguine. Fanaticism and superstition will still be selfish, subtle, intriguing, and at times furious. Despotism will still struggle for domination; monarchy will still study to rival nobility in popularity; aristocracy will continue to envy all above it, and despise and oppress all below it; democracy will envy all, contend with all, endeavor to pull down all; and when by chance it happens to get the upper hand for a short time, it will be revengeful, bloody, and cruel. These, and other elements of fanaticism and anarchy, will yet, for a long time, continue a fermentation, which will excite alarms and require vigilance.

Napoleon is a military fanatic like Achilles, Alexander, Cæsar, Mahomet, Zingis, Kouli, Charles XII., &c. The maxim and principle of all of them was the same: "Jura negat sibi lata, nihil non arrogat armis."

But is it strict to call him an usurper? Was not his elevation to the empire of France as legitimate and authentic a national act as that of William the III., or the House of Hanover to the throne of the three kingdoms? or as the election of Washington to the command of our army, or to the chair of the States?

Human nature, in no form of it, ever could bear prosperity. That peculiar tribe of men called conquerors, more remarkably than any other, have been swelled with vanity by any series of victories.

Napoleon won so many mighty battles in such quick succession, and for so long a time, that it was no wonder his brain became completely intoxicated, and his enterprises rash, extravagant, and mad.

Though France is humbled, Britain is not. Though Bonaparte is banished, a greater tyrant and miser usurper still domineers. John Bull is quite as unfeeling, as unprincipled, more powerful, has shed more blood, than Bonaparte. John, by his money, his intrigues, and arms, by exciting coalition after coalition against him, made him what he was, and, at last, what he is. How shall the tyrant of tyrants be brought low? Aye! there's the rub! I still think Bonaparte great, at least as any of the conquerors. The wonders "of his rise and fall," may be seen in the life of king Theodore, or Pascal Paoli, or Mazionetti, or Jack Cade, or Wat Tyler, or Rienzi, or Dionicus. The only difference is that between miniatures and full-length pictures. The schoolmaster at Corinth was a greater _man_ than the tyrant of Syracuse, upon the principle that he who conquers himself is greater than he who takes a city. Though the ferocious roar of the wounded lion may terrify the hunter with the possibility of another dangerous leap, Bonaparte was shot dead at once by France. He could no longer roar or struggle, growl or paw; he could only gasp the death. I wish that France may not still regret him. But these are speculations in the clouds. I agree with you that the milk of human kindness in the Bourbons, is safer for mankind than the fierce ambition of Napoleon.

The Autocrator appears in an imposing light. Fifty years ago, English writers held up terrible consequences from "thawing out the monstrous northern snake." If Cossacks, and Tartars, and Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, and Riparians, should get a taste of European sweets, what may happen? Could Wellingtons or Bonapartes resist them?

The greatest trait of sagacity that Alexander has yet exhibited to the world, is his courtship of the United States. But whether this is a mature, well-digested policy, or only a transient gleam of thought, still remains to be explained and proved by time.

The refractory siston will not give up the fisheries. Not a man here dares to hint at so base a thought.

I am very glad you have seriously read Plato; and still more rejoiced to find that your reflections upon him so perfectly harmonize with mine. Some thirty years ago I took upon me the severe task of going through all his works. With the help of two Latin translations, and one English and one French translation, and comparing some of the most remarkable passages with the Greek, I labored through the tedious toil. My disappointment was very great, my astonishment was greater, and my disgust shocking. Two things only did I learn from him. 1. That Franklin's ideas of exempting husbandmen, and mariners, &c., from the depredations of war, was borrowed from him. 2. That sneezing is a cure for the hickups. Accordingly, I have cured myself, and all my friends, of that provoking disorder, for thirty years, with a pinch of snuff.

Some parts of some of his dialogues are entertaining like the writings of Rousseau, but his laws and his republic, from which I expected most, disappointed me most.

I could scarcely exclude the suspicion that he intended the latter as a bitter satire upon all republican government, as Xenophon undoubtedly designed, by his essay on democracy, to ridicule that species of republic. In a letter to the learned and ingenious Mr. Taylor, of Haslewood, I suggested to him the project of writing a novel, in which the hero should be sent upon his travels through Plato's republic, and all his adventures, with his observations on the principles and opinions, the arts and sciences, the manners, customs, and habits of the citizens, should be recorded. Nothing can be conceived more destructive of human happiness; more infallibly contrived to transform men and women into brutes, Yahoos, or demons, than a community of wives and property. Yet in what are the writings of Rousseau and Helvetius, wiser than those of Plato? The man who first fenced a tobacco yard, and said this is mine, ought instantly to have been put to death, says Rousseau. The man who first pronounced the barbarous word _Dieu_, ought to have been immediately destroyed, says Diderot. In short, philosophers, ancient and modern, appear to me as mad as Hindoos, Mahometans, and Christians. No doubt they would all think me mad, and, for anything I know, this globe may be the bedlam, _Le Bicêtre_ of the universe. After all, as long as property exists, it will accumulate in individuals and families. As long as marriage exists, knowledge, property, and influence will accumulate in families. Your and our equal partition of intestate estates, instead of preventing, will, in time, augment the evil, if it is one.

The French revolutionists saw this, and were so far consistent. When they burned pedigrees and genealogical trees, they annihilated, as far as they could, marriages, knowing that marriage, among a thousand other things, was an infallible source of aristocracy. I repeat it, so sure as the idea and existence of _property_ is admitted and established in society, accumulations of it will be made; the snow-ball will grow as it rolls.

Cicero was educated in the Groves of Academus, where the name and memory of Plato were idolized to such a degree, that if he had wholly renounced the prejudices of his education, his reputation would have been lessened, if not injured and ruined. In his two volumes of Discourses on Government, we may presume that he fully examined Plato's laws and republic, as well as Aristotle's writings on government. But these have been carefully destroyed, not improbably with the general consent of philosophers, politicians and priests. The loss is as much to be regretted as that of any production of antiquity.

Nothing seizes the attention of the staring animal so surely as paradox, riddle, mystery, invention, discovery, wonder, temerity. Plato and his disciples, from the fourth-century Christians to Rousseau and Tom Paine, have been fully sensible of this weakness in mankind, and have too successfully grounded upon it their pretensions to fame.

I might, indeed, have mentioned Bolingbroke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Turgot, Helvetius, Diderot, Condorcet, Buffon, and fifty others, all a little cracked. Be to their faults a little blind, to their virtues ever kind.

Education! Oh Education! The greatest grief of my heart, and the greatest affliction of my life! To my mortification I must confess that I have never closely thought, or very deliberately reflected upon the subject which never occurs to me now without producing a deep sigh, a heavy groan, and sometimes tears.

My cruel destiny separated me from my children, almost continually from their birth to their manhood. I was compelled to leave them to the ordinary routine of reading, writing and Latin school, academy and college. John, alone, was much with me, and he but occasionally. If I venture to give you any thoughts at all, they must be very crude. I have turned over Locke, Milton, Condilac, Rousseau, and even Miss Edgeworth, as a bird flies through the air. The Preceptor I have thought a good book.

Grammar, rhetoric, logic, ethics, mathematics, cannot be neglected. Classics, in spite of our friend Rush, I must think indispensable. Natural history, mechanics and experimental philosophy, chemistry, &c., at least their rudiments, cannot be forgotten. Geography, astronomy, and even history and chronology, (although I am myself afflicted with a kind of Pyrrhonism in the two latter,) I presume cannot be omitted. Theology I would leave to Ray, Derham, Nicuentent, and Paley, rather than to Luther, Zinzindorf, Swedenborg, Wesley or Whitefield, or Thomas Aquinas or Wollebius. Metaphysics I would leave in the clouds with the materialists and spiritualists, with Leibnitz, Berkley, Priestley and Edwards, and I might add Hume and Reed, or if permitted to be read, it should be with romances and novels. What shall I say of music, drawing, fencing, dancing and gymnastic exercises? What of languages, oriental and occidental? Of French, Italian, German or Russian? of Sanscrit or Chinese?

The task you have prescribed to me of grouping these sciences or arts under professors, within the views of an enlightened economy, is far beyond my forces. Loose indeed, and indigested, must be all the hints I can note. Might grammar, rhetoric, logic, and ethics, be under one professor? Might mathematics, mechanics, natural philosophy, be under another? Geography and astronomy under a third? Laws and government, history and chronology, under a fourth? Classics might require a fifth.

Condilac's Course of Study has excellent parts. Among many systems of mathematics, English, French and American, there is none preferable to Besout's Course. La Harpe's Course of Literature is very valuable.

But I am ashamed to add any more to the broken innuendos, except assurances of my continued friendship.

TO THE BARON DE MOLL, PRIVY COUNSELLOR OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF BAVARIA, SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES FOR THE CLASS OF MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES, AND OF THE AGRONOMIC SOCIETY OF BAVARIA, AT MUNICH.

MONTICELLO, July 31, 1814.

SIR,--Within a few days only, I have received the letter which you did me the honor to write on the 22d of July, 1812; a delay which I presume must be ascribed to the interruption of the intercourse of the world by the wars which have lately desolated it by sea and land. Still involved ourselves with a nation possessing almost exclusively the ocean which separates us, I fear the one I have now the honor of addressing you may experience equal delay. I receive with much gratification the diploma of the Agronomic Society of Bavaria, conferring on me the distinction of being honorary member of their society. For this mark of their good will, I pray you to be the channel of communicating to them my respectful thanks. Age and distance will add their obstacles to the services I shall ardently wish to render the society. Yet sincerely devoted to this art, the basis of the subsistence, the comforts and the happiness of man, and sensible of the general interest which all nations have in communicating freely to each other discoveries of new and useful processes and implements in it, I shall with zeal at all times meet the wishes of the society, and especially rejoice in every opportunity which their commands may present of being useful to them. With the homage of my respects to them, be pleased to accept for yourself the assurances of my particular and high consideration.

TO MR. WIRT.

MONTICELLO, August 14, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I have been laying under contribution my memory, my private papers, the printed records, gazettes and pamphlets in my possession, to answer the inquiries of your letter of July 27, and I will give you the result as correctly as I can. I kept no copy of the paper I sent you on a former occasion on the same subject, nor do I retain an exact recollection of its contents. But if in that I stated the question on the loan office to have been in 1762, I did it with too slight attention to the date, although not to the fact. I have examined the journals of the House of Burgesses, of 1760-1-2, in my possession, and find no trace of the proceeding in them. By those of 1764, I find that the famous address to the king, and memorials to the Houses of Lords and Commons, on the proposal of the Stamp Act, were of that date; and I know that Mr. Henry was not a member of the legislature when they were passed. I know also, because I was present, that Robinson, (who died in May, 1766,) was in the chair on the question of the loan office. Mr. Henry, then, must have come in between these two epochs, and consequently in 1765. Of this year I have no journals to refresh my memory. The first session was in May, and his first remarkable exhibition there was on the motion for the establishment of an office for lending money on mortgages of real property. I find in Royle's Virginia Gazette, of the 17th of that month this proposition for the loan office brought forward, its advantages detailed, and the plan explained; and it seems to have been done by a borrowing member, from the feeling with which the motives are expressed; and to have been preparatory to the intended motion. This was probably made immediately after that date, and certainly before the 30th, which was the date of Mr. Henry's famous resolutions. I had been intimate with Mr. Henry since the winter of 1759-60, and felt an interest in what concerned him, and I can never forget a particular exclamation of his in the debate in which he electrified his hearers. It had been urged that from certain unhappy circumstances of the colony, men of substantial property had contracted debts, which, if exacted suddenly, must ruin them and their families, but, with a little indulgence of time, might be paid with ease. "What, Sir!" exclaimed Mr. Henry, in animadverting on this, "is it proposed then to reclaim the spendthrift from his dissipation and extravagance, by filling his pockets with money." These expressions are indelibly impressed on my memory. He laid open with so much energy the spirit of favoritism on which the proposition was founded, and the abuses to which it would lead, that it was crushed in its birth. Abortive motions are not always entered on the journals, or rather, they are rarely entered. It is the modern introduction of yeas and nays which has given the means of placing a rejected motion on the journals; and it is likely that the speaker, who, as treasurer, was to be the loan officer, and had the direction of the journals, would choose to omit an entry of the motion in this case. This accounts sufficiently for the absence of any trace of the motion in the journals. There was no suspicion then, (as far, at least, as I know,) that Robinson had used the public money in private loans to his friends, and that the secret object of this scheme was to transfer those debtors to the public, and thus clear his accounts. I have diligently examined the names of the members on the journals of 1764, to see if any were still living to whose memory we might recur on this subject, but I find not a single one now remaining in life.

Of the parson's cause I remember nothing remarkable. I was at school with Mr. Maury during the years 1758 and 1759, and often heard them inveigh against the iniquity of the act of 1758, called the two-penny act. In 1763, when that cause was decided in Hanover, I was a law-student in Williamsburg, and remember only that it was a subject of much conversation, and of great paper-controversy, in which Camm, and Colonel Bland, were the principal champions.

The disputed election in which Mr. Henry made himself remarkable, must have been that of Dandridge and Littlepage, in 1764, of which, however, I recollect no particulars, although I was still a student in Williamsburg, and paid attention to what was passing in the legislature.

I proceed now to the resolution of 1765. The copies you enclose me, and that inserted by Judge Marshall in his history, and copied verbatim by Burke, are really embarrassing by their differences. 1. That of the four resolutions taken from the records of the House, is the genuine copy of what they passed, _as amended_ by themselves, cannot be doubted. 2. That the copy which Mr. Henry left sealed up, is a true copy of these four resolutions, _as reported_ by the committee, there is no reason to doubt. 3. That Judge Marshall's version of three of these resolutions, (for he has omitted one altogether,) is from an unauthentic source is sufficiently proved by their great variation from the record in diction, although equivalent in sentiment. But what are we to say of Mr. Henry's fifth, and Mr. Marshall's two last, which we may call the sixth and seventh resolutions? The fifth has clearly nothing to justify the debate and proceedings which one of them produced. But the sixth is of that character, and perfectly tallies with the idea impressed on my mind, of that which was expunged. Judge Marshall tells us that two were disagreed to by the House, which may be true. I do not indeed recollect it, but I have no recollection to the contrary. My hypothesis, then, is this, that the two disagreed to were the fifth and seventh. The fifth, because merely tautologous of the third and fourth, and the seventh, because leading to individual persecution, for which no mind was then prepared. And that the sixth was the one passed by the House, by a majority of a single vote, and expunged from the journals the next day. I was standing at the door of communication between the house and lobby during the debates and vote, and well remember, that after the numbers on the division were told, and declared from the chair, Peyton Randolph (then Attorney General) came out at the door where I was standing, and exclaimed, "By God, I would have given one hundred guineas for a single vote." For one vote would have divided the house, and Robinson was in the chair, who he knew would have negatived the resolution. Mr. Henry left town that evening, or the next morning; and Colonel Peter Randolph, then a member of the Council, came to the House of Burgesses about 10 o'clock of the forenoon, and sat at the clerk's table till the House-bell rang, thumbing over the volumes of Journals to find a precedent of expunging a vote of the House, which he said had taken place while he was a member or clerk of the House, I do not recollect which. I stood by him at the end of the table a considerable part of the time, looking on as he turned over the leaves, but I do not recollect whether he found the erasure. In the meantime, some of the timid members, who had voted for the strongest resolution, had become alarmed, and as soon as the House met, a motion was made, and carried, to expunge it from the journals. And here I will observe, that Burke's statement with his opponents, is entirely erroneous. I suppose the original journal was among those destroyed by the British, or its obliterated face might be appealed to. It is a pity this investigation was not made a few years sooner, when some of the members of the day were still living. I think inquiry should be made of Judge Marshall for the source from which he derived his copy of the resolutions. This might throw light on the sixth and seventh, which I verily believe, and especially the sixth, to be genuine in substance. On the whole, I suppose the four resolutions which are on the record, were passed and retained by the House; that the sixth is that which was passed by a single vote and expunged, and the fifth and seventh, the two which Judge Marshall says were disagreed to. That Mr. Henry's copy, then, should not have stated all this, is the remaining difficulty. This copy he probably sealed up long after the transaction, for it was long afterwards that these resolutions, instead of the address and memorials of the preceding year, were looked back to as the commencement of legislative opposition. His own judgment may, at a later date, have approved of the rejection of the sixth and seventh, although not of the fifth, and he may have left and sealed up a copy, in his own handwriting, as approved by his ultimate judgment. This, to be sure, is conjecture, and may rightfully be rejected by any one to whom a more plausible solution may occur; and there I must leave it. The address of 1764 was drawn by Peyton Randolph. Who drew the memorial to the Lords I do not recollect, but Mr. Wythe drew that to the Commons. It was done with so much freedom, that, as he has told me himself, his colleagues of the committee shrank from it as bearing the aspect of treason, and smoothed its features to its present form. He was, indeed, one of the very few, (for I can barely speak of them in the plural number,) of either character, who, from the commencement of the contest, hung our connection with Great Britain on its true hook, that of a common king. His unassuming character, however, made him appear as a follower, while his sound judgment kept him in a line with the freest spirit. By these resolutions, Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands of those who had heretofore guided the proceedings of the House, that is to say, of Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Randolph, Nicholas. These were honest and able men, had begun the opposition on the same grounds, but with a moderation more adapted to their age and experience. Subsequent events favored the bolder spirits of Henry, the Lees, Pages, Mason, &c., with whom I went in all points. Sensible, however, of the importance of unanimity among our constituents, although we often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part, differing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation than, perhaps, existed in any other part of the Union.

I do not remember the topics of Mr. Henry's argument, but those of his opposers were that the same sentiments had been expressed in the address and memorials of the preceding session, to which an answer was expected and not yet received. I well remember the cry of treason, the pause of Mr. Henry at the name of George the III., and the presence of mind with which he closed his sentence, and baffled the charge vociferated. I do not think he took the position in the middle of the floor which you mention. On the contrary, I think I recollect him standing in the very place which he continued afterwards habitually to occupy in the house.

The censure of Mr. E. Randolph on Mr. Henry in the case of Philips, was without foundation. I remember the case, and took my part in it. Philips was a mere robber, who availing himself of the troubles of the times, collected a banditti, retired to the Dismal Swamp, and from thence sallied forth, plundering and maltreating the neighboring inhabitants, and covering himself, without authority, under the name of a British subject. Mr. Henry, then Governor, communicated the case to me. We both thought the best proceeding would be by bill of attainder, unless he delivered himself up for trial within a given time. Philips was afterwards taken; and Mr. Randolph being Attorney General, and apprehending he would plead that he was a British subject, taken in arms, in support of his lawful sovereign, and as a prisoner of war entitled to the protection of the law of nations, he thought the safest proceeding would be to indict him at common law as a felon and robber. Against this I believe Philips urged the same plea: he was overruled and found guilty.

I recollect nothing of a doubt on the re-eligibility of Mr. Henry to the government when his term expired in 1779, nor can I conceive on what ground such a doubt could have been entertained, unless perhaps that his first election in June, 1776, having been before we were nationally declared independent, some might suppose it should not be reckoned as one of the three constitutional elections.

Of the projects for appointing a Dictator there are said to have been two. I know nothing of either but by hearsay. The first was in Williamsburg in December, 1776. The Assembly had the month before appointed Mr. Wythe, Mr. Pendleton, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee, and myself, to revise the whole body of laws, and adapt them to our new form of government. I left the House early in December to prepare to join the Committee at Fredericksburg, the place of our first meeting. What passed, therefore, in the House in December, I know not, and have not the journals of that session to look into. The second proposition was in June, 1781, at the Staunton session of the legislature. No trace of this last motion is entered on the journals of that date, which I have examined. This is a further proof that the silence of the journals is no evidence against the fact of an abortive motion. Among the names of the members found on the journal of the Staunton session, are John Taylor of Caroline, General Andrew Moore, and General Edward Stevens of Culpeper, now living. It would be well to ask information from each of them, that their errors of memory, or of feeling, may be corrected by collation.

You ask if I would have any objection to be quoted as to the fact of rescinding the last of Mr. Henry's resolutions. None at all as to that fact, or its having been passed by a majority of one vote only; the scene being as present to my mind as that in which I am now writing. But I do not affirm, although I believe it was the sixth resolution.

It is truly unfortunate that those engaged in public affairs so rarely make notes of transactions passing within their knowledge. Hence history becomes fable instead of fact. The great outlines may be true, but the incidents and coloring are according to the faith or fancy of the writer. Had Judge Marshall taken half your pains in sifting and scrutinizing facts, he would not have given to the world, as true history, a false copy of a record under his eye. Burke again has copied him, and being a second writer on the spot, doubles the credit of the copy. When writers are so indifferent as to the correctness of facts, the verification of which lies at their elbow, by what measure shall we estimate their relation of things distant, or of those given to us through the obliquities of their own vision? Our records, it is true, in the case under contemplation, were destroyed by the malice and Vandalism of the British military, perhaps of their government, under whose orders they committed so much useless mischief. But printed copies remained, as your examination has proved. Those which were apocryphal, then, ought not to have been hazarded without examination. Should you be able to ascertain the genuineness of the sixth and seventh resolutions, I would ask a line of information, to rectify or to confirm my own impressions respecting them. Ever affectionately yours.

TO THOMAS COOPER.

MONTICELLO, August 25, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--In my letter of January 16th, I mentioned to you that it had long been in contemplation to get an University established in this State, in which all the branches of science useful _to us_, and _at this day_, should be taught in their highest degree, and that this institution should be incorporated with the College and funds of William and Mary. But what are the sciences useful to us, and at this day thought useful to anybody? A glance over Bacon's _arbor scientiæ_ will show the foundation for this question, and how many of his ramifications of science are now lopt off as nugatory. To be prepared for this new establishment, I have taken some pains to ascertain those branches which men of sense, as well as of science, deem worthy of cultivation. To the statements which I have obtained from other sources, I should highly value an addition of one from yourself. You know our country, its pursuits, its faculties, its relations with others, its means of establishing and maintaining an institution of general science, and the spirit of economy with which it requires that these should be administered. Will you then so far contribute to our views as to consider this subject, to make a statement of the branches of science which you think worthy of being taught, as I have before said, at this day, and in this country? But to accommodate them to our economy, it will be necessary further to distribute them into groups, each group comprehending as many branches as one industrious Professor may competently teach, and, as much as may be, a duly associated family, or class, of kindred sciences. The object of this is to bring the whole circle of useful science under the direction of the smallest number of professors possible, and that our means may be so frugally employed as to effect the greatest possible good. We are about to make an effort for the introduction of this institution.

On the subject of patent rights, on which something has passed between us before, you may have noted that the patent board, while it existed, had proposed to reduce their decisions to a system of rules as fast as the cases presented should furnish materials. They had done but little when the business was turned over to the courts of justice, on whom the same duty has now devolved. A rule has occurred to me, which I think would reach many of our cases, and go far towards securing the citizen against the vexation of frivolous patents. It is to consider the invention of any new mechanical power, or of any new combination of the mechanical powers already known, as entitled to an exclusive grant; but that the purchaser of the right to use the invention should be free to apply it to every purpose of which it is susceptible. For instance, the combination of machinery for threshing wheat, should be applicable to the threshing of rye, oats, beans, &c. The spinning machine to everything of which it may be found capable; the chain of buckets, of which we have been possessed thousands of years, we should be free to use for raising water, ore, grains, meals, or anything else we can make it raise. These rights appear sufficiently distinct, and the distinction sound enough, to be adopted by the judges, to whom it could not be better suggested than through the medium of the Emporium, should any future paper of that furnish place for the hint.

Since the change of government in France, I am in hopes the author of the Review of Montesquieu will consent to be named, and perhaps may publish there his original work; not that their press is free, but that the present government will be restrained by public opinion, whereas the late military despotism respected that of the army only. I salute you with friendship and respect.

TO MR. DELAPLAINE.

MONTICELLO, August 28, 1814.

SIR,--Your letter of the 17th is received. I have not the book of Munoz containing the print of Columbus. That work came out after I left Europe, and we have not the same facility of acquiring new continental publications here as there. I have no doubt that entire credit is to be given to the account of the print rendered by him in the extract from his work which you have sent me; and as you say that several have attempted translations of it, each differing from the other, and none satisfactory to yourself, I will add to your stock my understanding of it, that by a collation of the several translations, the author's meaning may be the better elicited.

Translation. "This first volume presents at the beginning the portrait of the discoverer, designed and engraved with care. Among many paintings and prints which are falsely sold as his likenesses, I have seen one only which can be such, and it is that which is preserved in the house of the most excellent Duke of Berwick and Lina, a descendant of our hero; a figure of the natural size, painted, as would seem, in the last century, by an indifferent copyist, in which, nevertheless, appear some catches from the hand of Antonio del Rincon, a celebrated painter of the Catholic kings. The description given by Fernando Colon, of the countenance of his father, has served to render the likeness more resembling, and to correct the faults which are observable in some of the features either imperfectly seized by the artist, or disfigured by the injuries of time."

Paraphrase explanatory of the above. Columbus was employed by Ferdinand and Isabella, on his voyage of discovery in 1492. Debry tells us that "before his departure, his portrait was taken by order of the king and queen," and most probably by Rincon, their first painter. Rincon died in 1500, and Columbus in 1506. Fernando, his son, an ecclesiastic, wrote the life of his father in 1530, and describes in that his father's countenance. An indifferent hand in the 17th century, copied Rincon's painting, which copy is preserved in the house of the Duke of Berwick. In 1793, when a print of Columbus was wanting for the history of Munoz, the artist from this copy, injured as it was by time, but still exhibiting some catches of Rincon's style, and from the verbal description of the countenance of Columbus in the history by his son, has been enabled to correct the faults of the copy, whether those of the copyist or proceeding from the injuries of time, and thus to furnish the best likeness.

The Spanish text admits this construction, and well-known dates and historical facts verify it.

I have taken from the second volume of Debry a rough model of the leaf on which is the print he has given of Columbus and his preface. It gives the exact size and outline of the print which, with a part of the preface, is on the first page of the leaf, and the rest on the second. I have extracted from it what related to the print, which you will perceive could not be cut out without a great mutilation of the book. This would not be regarded as to its cost, which was twelve guineas for the three volumes in Amsterdam, but that it seems to be the only copy of the work in the United States, and I know from experience the difficulty, if not impossibility, of getting another. I had orders lodged with several eminent booksellers in the principal book-marts of Europe, to-wit: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Madrid, several years before this copy was obtained at the accidental sale of an old library in Amsterdam, on the death of its proprietor.

We have, then, three likenesses of Columbus, from which a choice is to be made.

1. The print in Munoz' work, from a copy of Rincon's original, taken in the 17th century by an indifferent hand, with conjectural alterations suggested by the verbal description of the younger Columbus of the countenance of his father.

2. The miniature of Debry, from a copy taken in the sixteenth century from the portrait made by order of the king and queen, probably that of Rincon.

3. The copy in my possession of the size of life, taken for me from the original, which is in the gallery of Florence. I say from an original, because it is well known that in collections of any note, and that of Florence is the first in the world, _no copy_ is ever admitted; and an original existing in Genoa would readily be obtained for a royal collection in Florence. Vasari, in his lives of the painters, names this portrait in his catalogue of the paintings in that gallery, but does not say by whom it was made. It has the aspect of a man of thirty-five, still smooth-faced and in the vigor of life, which would place its date about 1477, fifteen years earlier than that of Rincon. Accordingly, in the miniature of Debry, the face appears more furrowed by time. On the whole, I should have no hesitation at giving this the preference over the conjectural one of Munoz, and the miniature of Debry.

The book from which I cut the print of Vespucius which I sent you, has the following title and date: "Elogio d'Amerigo Vespucci che ha riportato il premio dalla nobile accademia Etrusca de Cortona nel dè 15 d'Ottobre dell' Anno 1788, del P. Stanislao Canovai della scuole prie publico professore di fisica. Matematica in Firenze 1788, nella stamp di Pietro Allegrini." This print is unquestionably from the same original in the gallery of Florence from which my copy was also taken. The portrait is named in the catalogue of Vasari, and mentioned also by Bandini, in his life of Americus Vespucius; but neither gives its history. Both tell us there was a portrait of Vespucius taken by Domenico, and a fine head of him by Da Vinci, which, however, are lost, so that it would seem that this of Florence is the only one existing.

With this offering of what occurs to me on the subject of these prints, accept the assurance of my respect.

TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, September 10, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I regret much that I was so late in consulting you on the subject of the academy we wish to establish here. The progress of that business has obliged me to prepare an address to the President of the Board of Trustees,--a plan for its organization. I send you a copy of it with a broad margin, that, if your answer to mine of August 25th be not on the way, you may be so good as to write your suggestions either in the margin or on a separate paper. We shall still be able to avail ourselves of them by way of amendments.

Your letter of August 17th is received. Mr. Ogilvie left us four days ago, on a tour of health, which is to terminate at New York, from whence he will take his passage to Britain to receive livery and seisin of his new dignities and fortunes. I am in the daily hope of seeing M. Corrica, and the more anxious as I must in two or three weeks commence a journey of long absence from home.

A comparison of the conditions of Great Britain and the United States, which is the subject of your letter of August 17th, would be an interesting theme indeed. To discuss it minutely and demonstratively would be far beyond the limits of a letter. I will give you, therefore, in brief only, the result of my reflections on the subject. I agree with you in your facts, and in many of your reflections. My conclusion is without doubt, as I am sure yours will be, when the appeal to your sound judgment is seriously made. The population of England is composed of three descriptions of persons, (for those of minor note are too inconsiderable to affect a general estimate.) These are, 1. The aristocracy, comprehending the nobility, the wealthy commoners, the high grades of priesthood, and the officers of government. 2. The laboring class. 3. The eleemosynary class, or paupers, who are about one-fifth of the whole. The aristocracy, which has the laws and government in their hands, have so managed them as to reduce the third description below the means of supporting life, even by labor; and to force the second, whether employed in agriculture or the arts, to the maximum of labor which the construction of the human body can endure, and to the minimum of food, and of the meanest kind, which will preserve it in life, and in strength sufficient to perform its functions. To obtain food enough, and clothing, not only their whole strength must be unremittingly exerted, but the utmost dexterity also which they can acquire; and those of great dexterity only can keep their ground, while those of less must sink into the class of paupers. Nor is it manual dexterity alone, but the acutest resources of the mind also which are impressed into this struggle for life; and such as have means a little above the rest, as the master-workmen, for instance, must strengthen themselves by acquiring as much of the philosophy of their trade as will enable them to compete with their rivals, and keep themselves above ground. Hence the industry and manual dexterity of their journeymen and day-laborers, and the science of their master-workmen, keep them in the foremost ranks of competition with those of other nations; and the less dexterous individuals, falling into the eleemosynary ranks, furnish materials for armies and navies to defend their country, exercise piracy on the ocean, and carry conflagration, plunder and devastation, on the shores of all those who endeavor to withstand their aggressions. A society thus constituted possesses certainly the means of defence. But what does it defend? The pauperism of the lowest class, the abject oppression of the laboring, and the luxury, the riot, the domination and the vicious happiness of the aristocracy. In their hands, the paupers are used as tools to maintain their own wretchedness, and to keep down the laboring portion by shooting them whenever the desperation produced by the cravings of their stomachs drives them into riots. Such is the happiness of scientific England; now let us see the American side of the medal.

And, first, we have no paupers, the old and crippled among us, who possess nothing and have no families to take care of them, being too few to merit notice as a separate section of society, or to affect a general estimate. The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families. They are not driven to the ultimate resources of dexterity and skill, because their wares will sell although not quite so nice as those of England. The wealthy, on the other hand, and those at their ease, know nothing of what the Europeans call luxury. They have only somewhat more of the comforts and decencies of life than those who furnish them. Can any condition of society be more desirable than this? Nor in the class of laborers do I mean to withhold from the comparison that portion whose color has condemned them, in certain parts of our Union, to a subjection to the will of others. Even these are better fed in these States, warmer clothed, and labor less than the journeymen or day-laborers of England. They have the comfort, too, of numerous families, in the midst of whom they live without want, or fear of it; a solace which few of the laborers of England possess. They are subject, it is true, to bodily coercion; but are not the hundreds of thousands of British soldiers and seamen subject to the same, without seeing, at the end of their career, when age and accident shall have rendered them unequal to labor, the certainty, which the other has, that he will never want? And has not the British seaman, as much as the African, been reduced to this bondage by force, in flagrant violation of his own consent, and of his natural right in his own person? and with the laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave? But do not mistake me. I am not advocating slavery. I am not justifying the wrongs we have committed on a foreign people, by the example of another nation committing equal wrongs on their own subjects. On the contrary, there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity. But I am at present comparing the condition and degree of suffering to which oppression has reduced the man of one color, with the condition and degree of suffering to which oppression has reduced the man of another color; equally condemning both. Now let us compute by numbers the sum of happiness of the two countries. In England, happiness is the lot of the aristocracy only; and the proportion they bear to the laborers and paupers, you know better than I do. Were I to guess that they are four in every hundred, then the happiness of the nation would be to its misery as one in twenty-five. In the United States it is as eight millions to zero, or as all to none. But it is said they possess the means of defence, and that we do not. How so? Are we not men? Yes; but our men are so happy at home that they will not hire themselves to be shot at for a shilling a day. Hence we can have no standing armies for defence, because we have no paupers to furnish the materials. The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so. In the beginning of our government we were willing to introduce the least coercion possible on the will of the citizen. Hence a system of military duty was established too indulgent to his indolence. This is the first opportunity we have had of trying it, and it has completely failed; an issue foreseen by many, and for which remedies have been proposed. That of classing the militia according to age, and allotting each age to the particular kind of service to which it was competent, was proposed to Congress in 1805, and subsequently; and, on the last trial, was lost, I believe, by a single vote only. Had it prevailed, what has now happened would not have happened. Instead of burning our Capitol, we should have possessed theirs in Montreal and Quebec. We must now adopt it, and all will be safe. We had in the United States in 1805, in round numbers of free, able-bodied men,

120,000 of the ages of 18 to 21 inclusive. 200,000 " " 22 " 26 " 200,000 " " 27 " 35 " 200,000 " " 35 " 45 " ------- In all, 720,000 " " 18 " 45 "

With this force properly classed, organized, trained, armed and subject to tours of a year of military duty, we have no more to fear for the defence of our country than those who have the resources of despotism and pauperism.

But, you will say, we have been devastated in the meantime. True, some of our public buildings have been burnt, and some scores of individuals on the tide-water have lost their movable property and their houses. I pity them, and execrate the barbarians who delight in unavailing mischief. But these individuals have their lands and their hands left. They are not paupers, they have still better means of subsistence than 24/25 of the people of England. Again, the English have burnt our Capitol and President's house by means of their force. We can burn their St. James' and St. Paul's by means of our money, offered to their own incendiaries, of whom there are thousands in London who would do it rather than starve. But it is against the laws of civilized warfare to employ secret incendiaries. Is it not equally so to destroy the works of art by armed incendiaries? Bonaparte, possessed at times of almost every capital of Europe, with all his despotism and power, injured no monument of art. If a nation, breaking through all the restraints of civilized character, uses its means of destruction (power, for example) without distinction of objects, may we not use our means (_our_ money and _their_ pauperism) to retaliate their barbarous ravages? Are we obliged to use for resistance exactly the weapons chosen by them for aggression? When they destroyed Copenhagen by superior force, against all the laws of God and man, would it have been unjustifiable for the Danes to have destroyed their ships by torpedoes? Clearly not; and they and we should now be justifiable in the conflagration of St. James' and St. Paul's. And if we do not carry it into execution, it is because we think it more moral and more honorable to set a good example, than follow a bad one.

So much for the happiness of the people of England, and the morality of their government, in comparison with the happiness and the morality of America. Let us pass to another subject.

The crisis, then, of the abuses of banking is arrived. The banks have pronounced their own sentence of death. Between two and three hundred millions of dollars of their promissory notes are in the hands of the people, for solid produce and property sold, and they formally declare they will not pay them. This is an act of bankruptcy of course, and will be so pronounced by any court before which it shall be brought. But _cui bono_? The law can only uncover their insolvency, by opening to its suitors their empty vaults. Thus by the dupery of our citizens, and tame acquiescence of our legislators, the nation is plundered of two or three hundred millions of dollars, treble the amount of debt contracted in the revolutionary war, and which, instead of redeeming our liberty, has been expended on sumptuous houses, carriages, and dinners. A fearful tax! if equalized on all; but overwhelming and convulsive by its partial fall. The crush will be tremendous; very different from that brought on by our paper money. That rose and fell so gradually that it kept all on their guard, and affected severely only early or long-winded contracts. Here the contract of yesterday crushes in an instant the one or the other party. The banks stopping payment suddenly, all their mercantile and city debtors do the same; and all, in short, except those in the country, who, possessing property, will be good in the end. But this resource will not enable them to pay a cent on the dollar. From the establishment of the United States Bank, to this day, I have preached against this system, but have been sensible no cure could be hoped but in the catastrophe now happening. The remedy was to let banks drop gradation at the expiration of their charters, and for the State governments to relinquish the power of establishing others. This would not, as it should not, have given the power of establishing them to Congress. But Congress could then have issued treasury notes payable within a fixed period, and founded on a specific tax, the proceeds of which, as they came in, should be exchangeable for the notes of that particular emission only. This depended, it is true, on the will of the State legislatures, and would have brought on us the phalanx of paper interest. But that interest is now defunct. Their gossamer castles are dissolved, and they can no longer impede and overawe the salutary measures of the government. Their paper was received on a belief that it was cash on demand. Themselves have declared it was nothing, and such scenes are now to take place as will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself, to the dangers of a paper medium abandoned to the discretion of avarice and of swindlers. It is impossible not to deplore our past follies, and their present consequences, but let them at least be warnings against like follies in future. The banks have discontinued themselves. We are now without any medium; and necessity, as well as patriotism and confidence, will make us all eager to receive treasury notes, if founded on specific taxes. Congress may now borrow of the public, and without interest, all the money they may want, to the amount of a competent circulation, by merely issuing their own promissory notes, of proper denominations for the larger purposes of circulation, but not for the small. Leave that door open for the entrance of metallic money. And, to give readier credit to their bills, without obliging themselves to give cash for them on demand, let their collectors be instructed to do so, when they have cash; thus, in some measure, performing the functions of a bank, as to their own notes. Providence seems, indeed, by a special dispensation, to have put down for us, without a struggle, that very paper enemy which the interest of our citizens long since required ourselves to put down, at whatever risk. The work is done. The moment is pregnant with futurity, and if not seized at once by Congress, I know not on what shoal our bark is next to be stranded. The State legislatures should be immediately urged to relinquish the right of establishing banks of discount. Most of them will comply, on patriotic principles, under the convictions of the moment; and the non-complying may be crowded into concurrence by legitimate devices. _Vale, et me, ut amaris, ama._

TO SAMUEL H. SMITH, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, September 21, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I learn from the newspapers that the Vandalism of our enemy has triumphed at Washington over science as well as the arts, by the destruction of the public library with the noble edifice in which it was deposited. Of this transaction, as of that of Copenhagen, the world will entertain but one sentiment. They will see a nation suddenly withdrawn from a great war, full armed and full handed, taking advantage of another whom they had recently forced into it, unarmed, and unprepared, to indulge themselves in acts of barbarism which do not belong to a civilized age. When Van Ghent destroyed their shipping at Chatham, and De Ruyter rode triumphantly up the Thames, he might in like manner, by the acknowledgment of their own historians, have forced all their ships up to London bridge, and there have burnt them, the tower, and city, had these examples been then set. London, when thus menaced, was near a thousand years old, Washington is but in its teens.

I presume it will be among the early objects of Congress to re-commence their collection. This will be difficult while the war continues, and intercourse with Europe is attended with so much risk. You know my collection, its condition and extent. I have been fifty years making it, and have spared no pains, opportunity or expense, to make it what it is. While residing in Paris, I devoted every afternoon I was disengaged, for a summer or two, in examining all the principal bookstores, turning over every book with my own hand, and putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every science. Besides this, I had standing orders during the whole time I was in Europe, on its principal book-marts, particularly Amsterdam, Frankfort, Madrid and London, for such works relating to America as could not be found in Paris. So that in that department particularly, such a collection was made as probably can never again be effected, because it is hardly probable that the same opportunities, the same time, industry, perseverance and expense, with some knowledge of the bibliography of the subject, would again happen to be in concurrence. During the same period, and after my return to America, I was led to procure, also, whatever related to the duties of those in the high concerns of the nation. So that the collection, which I suppose is of between nine and ten thousand volumes, while it includes what is chiefly valuable in science and literature generally, extends more particularly to whatever belongs to the American statesman. In the diplomatic and parliamentary branches, it is particularly full. It is long since I have been sensible it ought not to continue private property, and had provided that at my death, Congress should have the refusal of it at their own price. But the loss they have now incurred, makes the present the proper moment for their accommodation, without regard to the small remnant of time and the barren use of my enjoying it. I ask of your friendship, therefore, to make for me the tender of it to the library committee of Congress, not knowing myself of whom the committee consists. I enclose you the catalogue, which will enable them to judge of its contents. Nearly the whole are well bound, abundance of them elegantly, and of the choicest editions existing. They may be valued by persons named by themselves, and the payment made convenient to the public. It may be, for instance, in such annual instalments as the law of Congress has left at their disposal, or in stock of any of their late loans, or of any loan they may institute at this session, so as to spare the present calls of our country, and await its days of peace and prosperity. They may enter, nevertheless, into immediate use of it, as eighteen or twenty wagons would place it in Washington in a single trip of a fortnight. I should be willing indeed, to retain a few of the books, to amuse the time I have yet to pass, which might be valued with the rest, but not included in the sum of valuation until they should be restored at my death, which I would carefully provide for, so that the whole library as it stands in the catalogue at this moment should be theirs without any garbling. Those I should like to retain would be chiefly classical and mathematical. Some few in other branches, and particularly one of the five encyclopedias in the catalogue. But this, if not acceptable, would not be urged. I must add, that I have not revised the library since I came home to live, so that it is probable some of the books may be missing, except in the chapters of Law and Divinity, which have been revised and stand exactly as in the catalogue. The return of the catalogue will of course be needed, whether the tender be accepted or not. I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer. But such a wish would not correspond with my views of preventing its dismemberment. My desire is either to place it in their hands entire, or to preserve it so here. I am engaged in making an alphabetical index of the author's names, to be annexed to the catalogue, which I will forward to you as soon as completed. Any agreement you shall be so good as to take the trouble of entering into with the committee, I hereby confirm. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, September 24, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--It is very long since I troubled you with a letter, which has proceeded from discretion and not want of inclination, because I have really had nothing to write which ought to have occupied your time. But in the late events at Washington I have felt so much for you that I cannot withhold the expression of my sympathies. For although every reasonable man must be sensible that all you can do is to order that execution must depend on others, and failures be imputed to them alone, yet I know that when such failures happen, they afflict even those who have done everything they could to prevent them. Had General Washington himself been now at the head of our affairs, the same event would probably have happened. We all remember the disgraces which befell us in his time in a trifling war with one or two petty tribes of Indians, in which two armies were cut off by not half their numbers. Every one knew, and I personally knew, because I was then of his council, that no blame was imputable to him, and that his officers alone were the cause of the disasters. They must now do the same justice. I am happy to turn to a countervailing event, and to congratulate you on the destruction of a second hostile fleet on the lakes by McDonough; of which, however, we have not the details. While our enemies cannot but feel shame for their barbarous achievements at Washington, they will be stung to the soul by these repeated victories over them on that element on which they wish the world to think them invincible. We have dissipated that error. They must now feel a conviction themselves that we can beat them gun to gun, ship to ship and fleet to fleet, and that their early successes on the land have been either purchased from traitors, or obtained from raw men entrusted of necessity with commands for which no experience had qualified them, and that every day is adding that experience to unquestioned bravery.

I am afraid the failure of our banks will occasion embarrassment for awhile, although it restores to us a fund which ought never to have been surrendered by the nation, and which now, prudently used, will carry us through all the fiscal difficulties of the war. At the request of Mr. Eppes, who was chairman of the committee of finance at the preceding session, I had written him some long letters on this subject. Colonel Monroe asked the reading of them some time ago, and I now send him another, written to a member of our legislature, who requested my ideas on the recent bank events. They are too long for your reading, but Colonel Monroe can, in a few sentences, state to you their outline.

Learning by the papers the loss of the library of Congress, I have sent my catalogue to S. H. Smith, to make to their library committee the offer of my collection, now of about nine or ten thousand volumes, which may be delivered to them instantly, on a valuation by persons of their own naming, and be paid for in any way, and at any term they please; in stock, for example, of any loan they have unissued, or of any one they may institute at this session; or in such annual instalments as are at the disposal of the committee. I believe you are acquainted with the condition of the books, should they wish to be ascertained of this. I have long been sensible that my library would be an interesting possession for the public, and the loss Congress has recently sustained, and the difficulty of replacing it, while our intercourse with Europe is so obstructed, renders this the proper moment for placing it at their service. Accept assurances of my constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

TO MR. MILES KING.

MONTICELLO, September 26, 1814.

SIR,--I duly received your letter of August 20th, and I thank you for it, because I believe it was written with kind intentions, and a personal concern for my future happiness. Whether the particular revelation which you suppose to have been made to yourself were real or imaginary, your reason alone is the competent judge. For dispute as long as we will on religious tenets, our reason at last must ultimately decide, as it is the only oracle which God has given us to determine between what really comes from him and the phantasms of a disordered or deluded imagination. When he means to make a personal revelation, he carries conviction of its authenticity to the reason he has bestowed as the umpire of truth. You believe you have been favored with such a special communication. Your reason, not mine, is to judge of this; and if it shall be his pleasure to favor me with a like admonition, I shall obey it with the same fidelity with which I would obey his known will in all cases. Hitherto I have been under the guidance of that portion of reason which he has thought proper to deal out to me. I have followed it faithfully in all important cases, to such a degree at least as leaves me without uneasiness; and if on minor occasions I have erred from its dictates, I have trust in him who made us what we are, and know it was not his plan to make us always unerring. He has formed us moral agents. Not that, in the perfection of his state, he can feel pain or pleasure in anything we may do; he is far above our power; but that we may promote the happiness of those with whom he has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own. I must ever believe that religion substantially good which produces an honest life, and we have been authorized by one whom you and I equally respect, to judge of the tree by its fruit. Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our God alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friends or our foes, are exactly the right. Nay, we have heard it said that there is not a Quaker or a Baptist, a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian, a Catholic or a Protestant in heaven; that, on entering that gate, we leave those badges of schism behind, and find ourselves united in those principles only in which God has united us all. Let us not be uneasy then about the different roads we may pursue, as believing them the shortest, to that our last abode; but, following the guidance of a good conscience, let us be happy in the hope that by these different paths we shall all meet in the end. And that you and I may there meet and embrace, is my earnest prayer. And with this assurance I salute you with brotherly esteem and respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, September 30, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--In my letter of the 23d, an important fact escaped me which, lest it should not occur to you, I will mention. The monies arising from the sales of the glebe lands in the several counties, have generally, I believe, and under the sanction of the legislature, been deposited in some of the banks. So also the funds of the literary society. These debts, although parcelled among the counties, yet the counties constitute the State, and their representatives the legislature, united into one whole. It is right then that owing $300,000 to the banks, they should stay so much of that sum in their own hands as will secure what the banks owe to their constituents as divided into counties. Perhaps the loss of these funds would be the most lasting of the evils proceeding from the insolvency of the banks. Ever yours with great esteem and respect.

TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, October 7, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Your several favors of September 15th, 21st, 22d, came all together by our last mail. I have given to that of the 15th a single reading only, because the hand writing (not your own) is microscopic and difficult, and because I shall have an opportunity of studying it in the Portfolio in print. According to your request I return it for that publication, where it will do a great deal of good. It will give our young men some idea of what constitutes a well-educated man; that Cæsar and Virgil, and a few books of Euclid, do not really contain the sum of all human knowledge, nor give to a man figure in the ranks of science. Your letter will be a valuable source of consultation for us in our Collegiate courses, when, and if ever, we advance to that stage of our establishment.

I agree with yours of the 22d, that a professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution. But we cannot always do what is absolutely best. Those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. Truth advances, and error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we can not, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step. Perhaps I should concur with you also in excluding the _theory_ (not the _practice_) of medicine. This is the charlatanerie of the body, as the other is of the mind. For classical learning I have ever been a zealous advocate; and in this, as in his theory of bleeding and mercury, I was ever opposed to my friend Rush, whom I greatly loved; but who has done much harm, in the sincerest persuasion that he was preserving life and happiness to all around him. I have not, however, carried so far as you do my ideas of the importance of a hypercritical knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages. I have believed it sufficient to possess a substantial understanding of their authors.

In the exclusion of Anatomy and Botany from the eleventh grade of education, which is that of the man of independent fortune, we separate in opinion. In my view, no knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame, its parts, their functions and actions. And Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences, whether we consider its subjects as furnishing the principal subsistence of life to man and beast, delicious varieties for our tables, refreshments from our orchards, the adornments of our flower-borders, shade and perfume of our groves, materials for our buildings, or medicaments for our bodies. To the gentlemen it is certainly more interesting than mineralogy (which I by no means, however, undervalue), and is more at hand for his amusement; and to a country family it constitutes a great portion of their social entertainment. No country gentleman should be without what amuses every step he takes into his fields.

I am sorry to learn the fate of your Emporium. It was adding fast to our useful knowledge. Our artists particularly, and our statesmen, will have cause to regret it. But my hope is that its suspension will be temporary only; and that as soon as we get over the crisis of our disordered circulation, your publishers will resume it among their first enterprises. Accept my thanks for the benefit of your ideas to our scheme of education, and the assurance of my constant esteem and respect.

To ----[12].

MONTICELLO, October 15, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for the information of your letter of the 10th. It gives, at length, a fixed character to our prospects. The war, undertaken, on both sides, to settle the questions of impressment, and the orders of council, now that these are done away by events, is declared by Great Britain to have changed its object, and to have become a war of conquest, to be waged until she conquers from us our fisheries, the province of Maine, the lakes, States and territories north of the Ohio, and the navigation of the Mississippi; in other words, till she reduces us to unconditional submission. On our part, then, we ought to propose, as a counterchange of object, the establishment of the meridian of the mouth of the Sorel northwardly, as the western boundary of all her possessions. Two measures will enable us to effect it, and without these, we cannot even defend ourselves. 1. To organize the militia into classes, assigning to each class the duties for which it is fitted, (which, had it been done when proposed, years ago, would have prevented all our misfortunes,) abolishing by a declaratory law the doubts which abstract scruples in some, and cowardice and treachery in others, have conjured up about passing imaginary lines, and limiting, at the same time, their services to the _contiguous_ provinces of the enemy. The 2d is the ways and means. You have seen my ideas on this subject, and I shall add nothing but a rectification of what either I have ill expressed, or you have misapprehended. If I have used any expression restraining the emissions of treasury notes to a _sufficient_ medium, as your letter seems to imply, I have done it inadvertently, and under the impression then possessing me, that the war would be very short. A _sufficient_ medium would not, on the principles of any writer, exceed thirty millions of dollars, and on those of some not ten millions. Our experience has proved it may be run up to two or three hundred millions, without more than doubling what would be the prices of things under a _sufficient_ medium, or say a metallic one, which would always keep itself at the _sufficient_ point; and, if they rise to this term, and the descent from it be gradual, it would not produce sensible revolutions in private fortunes. I shall be able to explain my views more definitely by the use of numbers. Suppose we require, to carry on the war, an annual loan of twenty millions, then I propose that, in the first year, you shall lay a tax of two millions, and emit twenty millions of treasury notes, of a size proper for circulation, and bearing no interest, to the redemption of which the proceeds of that tax shall be inviolably pledged and applied, by recalling annually their amount of the identical bills funded on them. The second year lay another tax of two millions, and emit twenty millions more. The third year the same, and so on, until you have reached the maximum of taxes which ought to be imposed. Let me suppose this maximum to be one dollar a head, or ten millions of dollars, merely as an exemplification more familiar than would be the algebraical symbols _x_ or _y_. You would reach this in five years. The sixth year, then, still emit twenty millions of treasury notes, and continue all the taxes two years longer. The seventh year twenty millions more, and continue the whole taxes another two years; and so on. Observe, that although you emit ten millions of dollars a year, you call in ten millions, and, consequently, add but ten millions annually to the circulation. It would be in thirty years, then, _primâ facie_, that you would reach the present circulation of three hundred millions, or the ultimate term to which we might adventure. But observe, also, that in that time we shall have become thirty millions of people to whom three hundred millions of dollars would be no more than one hundred millions to us now; which sum would probably not have raised prices more than fifty per cent. on what may be deemed the standard, or metallic prices. This increased population and consumption, while it would be increasing the proceeds of the redemption tax, and lessening the balance annually thrown into circulation, would also absorb, without saturation, more of the surplus medium, and enable us to push the same process to a much higher term, to one which we might safely call indefinite, because extending so far beyond the limits, either in time or expense, of any supportable war. All we should have to do would be, when the war should be ended, to leave the gradual extinction of these notes to the operation of the taxes pledged for their redemption; not to suffer a dollar of paper to be emitted either by public or private authority, but let the metallic medium flow back into the channels of circulation, and occupy them until another war should oblige us to recur, for its support, to the same resource, and the same process, on the circulating medium.

The citizens of a country like ours will never have unemployed capital. Too many enterprises are open, offering high profits, to permit them to lend their capitals on a regular and moderate interest. They are too enterprizing and sanguine themselves not to believe they can do better with it. I never did believe you could have gone beyond a first or a second loan, not from a want of confidence in the public faith, which is perfectly sound, but from a want of disposable funds in individuals. The circulating fund is the only one we can ever command with certainty. It is sufficient for all our wants; and the impossibility of even defending the country without its aid as a borrowing fund, renders it indispensable that the nation should take and keep it in their own hands, as their exclusive resource.

I have trespassed on your time so far, for explanation only. I will do it no further than by adding the assurances of my affectionate and respectful attachment.

Years. Emissions. Taxes & Redemptions. Bal. in circulation at end of year.

1815 20 millions 2 millions 18 millions 1816 20 " 4 " 34 " 1817 20 " 6 " 48 " 1818 20 " 8 " 60 " 1819 20 " 10 " 70 " 1820 20 " 10 " 80 " 1821 20 " 10 " 90 " ---- 140

Suppose the war to terminate here, to wit, at the end of seven years, the reduction will proceed as follows:

Years. Taxes & Redemptions. Bal. in cir. at end of year. 1822 10 millions 80 millions 1823 10 " 70 " 1824 10 " 60 " 1825 10 " 50 " 1826 10 " 40 " 1827 10 " 30 " 1828 10 " 20 " 1829 10 " 10 " 1830 10 " 0 " ---- 140

This is a tabular statement of the amount of emission, taxes, redemptions, and balances left in circulation every year, on the plan above sketched.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Address lost. Probably to the President.

TO JAMES MONROE.

MONTICELLO, October 16, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 10th has been duly received. The objects of our contest being thus entirely changed by England, we must prepare for interminable war. To this end we should put our house in order, by providing men and money to indefinite extent. The former may be done by classing our militia, and assigning each class to the description of duties for which it is fit. It is nonsense to talk of regulars. They are not to be had among a people so easy and happy at home as ours. We might as well rely on calling down an army of angels from heaven. I trust it is now seen that the refusal to class the militia, when proposed years ago, is the real source of all our misfortunes in this war. The other great and indispensable object is to enter on such a system of finance, as can be permanently pursued to any length of time whatever. Let us be allured by no projects of banks, public or private, or ephemeral expedients, which, enabling us to gasp and flounder a little longer, only increase, by protracting the agonies of death.

Perceiving, in a letter from the President, that either I had ill expressed my ideas on a particular part of this subject, in the letters I sent you, or he had misapprehended them, I wrote him yesterday an explanation; and as you have thought the other letters worth a perusal, and a communication to the Secretary of the Treasury, I enclose you a copy of this, lest I should be misunderstood by others also. Only be so good as to return me the whole when done with, as I have no other copies.

Since writing the letter now enclosed, I have seen the Report of the committee of finance, proposing taxes to the amount of twenty millions. This is a dashing proposition. But, if Congress pass it, I shall consider it sufficient evidence that their constituents generally can pay the tax. No man has greater confidence than I have, in the spirit of the people, to a rational extent. Whatever they can, they will. But, without either market or medium, I know not how it is to be done. All markets abroad, and all at home, are shut to us; so that we have been feeding our horses on wheat. Before the day of collection, bank-notes will be but as oak leaves; and of specie, there is not within all the United States, one-half of the proposed amount of the taxes. I had thought myself as bold as was safe in contemplating, as possible, an annual taxation of ten millions, as a fund for emissions of treasury notes; and, when further emissions should be necessary, that it would be better to enlarge the time, than the tax for redemption. Our position, with respect to our enemy, and our markets, distinguishes us from all other nations; inasmuch, as a state of war, with us, annihilates in an instant all our surplus produce, that on which we depended for many comforts of life. This renders peculiarly expedient the throwing a part of the burdens of war on times of peace and commerce. Still, however, my hope is that others see resources, which, in my abstraction from the world, are unseen by me; that there will be both market and medium to meet these taxes, and that there are circumstances which render it wiser to levy twenty millions at once on the people, than to obtain the same sum on a tenth of the tax.

I enclose you a letter from Colonel James Lewis, now of Tennessee, who wishes to be appointed Indian agent, and I do it lest he should have relied solely on this channel of communication. You know him better than I do, as he was long your agent. I have always believed him an honest man, and very good-humored and accommodating. Of his other qualifications for the office, you are the best judge. Believe me to be ever affectionately yours.

TO DOCTOR ROBERT PATTERSON.

MONTICELLO, November 23, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I have heretofore confided to you my wishes to retire from the chair of the Philosophical Society, which, however, under the influence of your recommendations, I have hitherto deferred. I have never, however, ceased from the purpose, and from everything I can observe or learn at this distance, I suppose that a new choice can now be made with as much harmony as may be expected at any future time. I send therefore, by this mail, my resignation, with such entreaties to be omitted at the ensuing election as I must hope will be yielded to, for in truth I cannot be easy in holding, as a sinecure, an honor so justly due to the talents and services of others. I pray your friendly assistance in assuring the society of the sentiments of affectionate respect and gratitude with which I retire from the high and honorable relation in which I have stood with them, and that you will believe me to be ever and affectionately yours.

TO ROBERT M. PATTERSON, SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

MONTICELLO, November 23, 1814.

SIR,--I solicited, on a former occasion, permission from the American Philosophical Society, to retire from the honor of their chair, under a consciousness that distance as well as other circumstances, denied me the power of executing the duties of the station, and that those on whom they devolved were best entitled to the honors they confer. It was the pleasure of the society at that time, that I should remain in their service, and they have continued since to renew the same marks of their partiality. Of these I have been ever duly sensible, and now beg leave to return my thanks for them with humble gratitude. Still, I have never ceased, nor can I cease to feel that I am holding honors without yielding requital, and justly belonging to others. As the period of election is now therefore approaching, I take the occasion of begging to be withdrawn from the attention of the society at their ensuing choice, and to be permitted now to resign the office of president into their hands, which I hereby do. I shall consider myself sufficiently honored in remaining a private member of their body, and shall ever avail myself with zeal of every occasion which may occur, of being useful to them, retaining indelibly a profound sense of their past favors.

I avail myself of the channel through which the last notification of the pleasure of the society was conveyed to me, to make this communication, and with the greater satisfaction, as it gratifies me with the occasion of assuring you personally of my high respect for yourself, and of the interest I shall ever take in learning that your worth and talents secure to you the successes they merit.

TO W. SHORT, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, November 28, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of October 28th came to hand on the 15th instant only. The settlement of your boundary with Colonel Monroe, is protracted by circumstances which seem foreign to it. One would hardly have expected that the hostile expedition to Washington could have had any connection with an operation one hundred miles distant. Yet preventing his attendance, nothing could be done. I am satisfied there is no unwillingness on his part, but on the contrary a desire to have it settled; and therefore, if he should think it indispensable to be present at the investigation, as is possible, the very first time he comes here I will press him to give a day to the decision, without regarding Mr. Carter's absence. Such an occasion must certainly offer soon after the fourth of March, when Congress rises of necessity and be assured I will not lose one possible moment in effecting it.

Although withdrawn from all anxious attention to political concerns, yet I will state my impressions as to the present war, because your letter leads to the subject. The essential grounds of the war were, 1st, the orders of council; and 2d, the impressment of our citizens; (for I put out of sight from the love of peace the multiplied insults on our government and aggressions on our commerce, with which our pouch, like the Indian's, had long been filled to the mouth.) What immediately produced the declaration was, 1st, the proclamation of the Prince Regent that he would never repeal the orders of council as to us, until Bonaparte should have revoked his decrees as to all other nations as well as ours; and 2d, the declaration of his minister to ours that no arrangement whatever could be devised, admissible in lieu of impressment. It was certainly a misfortune that _they_ did not know themselves at the date of this silly and insolent proclamation, that within one month they would repeal the orders, and that _we_, at the date of our declaration, could not know of the repeal which was then going on one thousand leagues distant. Their determinations, as declared by themselves, could alone guide us, and they shut the door on all further negotiation, throwing down to us the gauntlet of war or submission as the only alternatives. We cannot blame the government for choosing that of war, because certainly the great majority of the nation thought it ought to be chosen, not that they were to gain by it in dollars and cents; all men know that war is a losing game to both parties. But they know also that if they do not resist encroachment at some point, all will be taken from them, and that more would then be lost even in dollars and cents by submission than resistance. It is the case of giving a part to save the whole, a limb to save life. It is the melancholy law of human societies to be compelled sometimes to choose a great evil in order to ward off a greater; to deter their neighbors from rapine by making it cost them more than honest gains. The enemy are accordingly now disgorging what they had so ravenously swallowed. The orders of council had taken from us near one thousand vessels. Our list of captures from them is now one thousand three hundred, and, just become sensible that it is small and not large ships which gall them most, we shall probably add one thousand prizes a year to their past losses. Again, supposing that, according to the confession of their own minister in parliament, the Americans they had impressed were something short of two thousand, the war against us alone cannot cost them less than twenty millions of dollars a year, so that each American impressed has already cost them ten thousand dollars, and every year will add five thousand dollars more to his price. We, I suppose, expend more; but had we adopted the other alternative of submission, no mortal can tell what the cost would have been. I consider the war then as entirely justifiable on our part, although I am still sensible it is a deplorable misfortune to us. It has arrested the course of the most remarkable tide of prosperity any nation ever experienced, and has closed such prospects of future improvement as were never before in the view of any people. Farewell all hopes of extinguishing public debt! farewell all visions of applying surpluses of revenue to the improvements of peace rather than the ravages of war. Our enemy has indeed the consolation of Satan on removing our first parents from Paradise: from a peaceable and agricultural nation, he makes us a military and manufacturing one. We shall indeed survive the conflict. Breeders enough will remain to carry on population. We shall retain our country, and rapid advances in the art of war will soon enable us to beat our enemy, and probably drive him from the continent. We have men enough, and I am in hopes the present session of Congress will provide the means of commanding their services. But I wish I could see them get into a better train of finance. Their banking projects are like dosing dropsy with more water. If anything could revolt our citizens against the war, it would be the extravagance with which they are about to be taxed. It is strange indeed that at this day, and in a country where English proceedings are so familiar, the principles and advantages of funding should be neglected, and expedients resorted to. Their new bank, if not abortive at its birth, will not last through one campaign; and the taxes proposed cannot be paid. How can a people who cannot get fifty cents a bushel for their wheat, while they pay twelve dollars a bushel for their salt, pay five times the amount of taxes they ever paid before? Yet that will be the case in all the States south of the Potomac. Our resources are competent to the maintenance of the war if duly economized and skillfuly employed in the way of anticipation. However, we must suffer, I suppose, from our ignorance in funding, as we did from that of fighting, until necessity teaches us both; and, fortunately, our stamina are so vigorous as to rise superior to great mismanagement. This year I think we shall have learnt how to call forth our force, and by the next I hope our funds, and even if the state of Europe should not by that time give the enemy employment enough nearer home, we shall leave him nothing to fight for here. These are my views of the war. They embrace a great deal of sufferance, trying privations, and no benefit but that of teaching our enemy that he is never to gain by wanton injuries on us. To me this state of things brings a sacrifice of all tranquillity and comfort through the residue of life. For although the debility of age disables me from the services and sufferings of the field, yet, by the total annihilation in value of the produce which was to give me subsistence and independence, I shall be like Tantalus, up to the shoulders in water, yet dying with thirst. We can make indeed enough to eat, drink and clothe ourselves; but nothing for our salt, iron, groceries and taxes, which must be paid in money. For what can we raise for the market? Wheat? we can only give it to our horses, as we have been doing ever since harvest. Tobacco? it is not worth the pipe it is smoked in. Some say Whiskey; but all mankind must become drunkards to consume it. But although we feel, we shall not flinch. We must consider now, as in the revolutionary war, that although the evils of resistance are great, those of submission would be greater. We must meet, therefore, the former as the casualties of tempests and earthquakes, and like them necessarily resulting from the constitution of the world. Your situation, my dear friend, is much better. For, although I do not know with certainty the nature of your investments, yet I presume they are not in banks, insurance companies or any other of those gossamer castles. If in ground-rents, they are solid; if in stock of the United States, they are equally so. I once thought that in the event of a war we should be obliged to suspend paying the interest of the public debt. But a dozen years more of experience and observation on our people and government, have satisfied me it will never be done. The sense of the necessity of public credit is so universal and so deeply rooted, that no other necessity will prevail against it; and I am glad to see that while the former eight millions are steadfastly applied to the sinking of the old debt, the Senate have lately insisted on a sinking fund for the new. This is the dawn of that improvement in the management of our finances which I look to for salvation; and I trust that the light will continue to advance, and point out their way to our legislators. They will soon see that instead of taxes for the whole year's expenses, which the people cannot pay, a tax to the amount of the interest and a reasonable portion of the principal will command the whole sum, and throw a part of the burthens of war on times of peace and prosperity. A sacred payment of interest is the only way to make the most of their resources, and a sense of that renders your income from our funds more certain than mine from lands. Some apprehend danger from the defection of Massachusetts. It is a disagreeable circumstance, but not a dangerous one. If they become neutral, we are sufficient for one enemy without them, and in fact we get no aid from them now. If their administration determines to join the enemy, their force will be annihilated by equality of division among themselves. Their federalists will then call in the English army, the republicans ours, and it will only be a transfer of the scene of war from Canada to Massachusetts; and we can get ten men to go to Massachusetts for one who will go to Canada. Every one, too, must know that we can at any moment make peace with England at the expense of the navigation and fisheries of Massachusetts. But it will not come to this. Their own people will put down these factionists as soon as they see the real object of their opposition; and of this Vermont, New Hampshire, and even Connecticut itself, furnish proofs.

You intimate a possibility of your return to France, now that Bonaparte is put down. I do not wonder at it, France, freed from that monster, must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune gives a preference to some other one, and the first of all not under those ties. Yet I doubt if the tranquillity of France is entirely settled. If her Pretorian bands are not furnished with employment on her external enemies, I fear they will recall the old, or set up some new cause.

God bless you and preserve you in bodily health. Tranquillity of mind depends much on ourselves, and greatly on due reflection "how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened." Affectionately adieu.

TO MR. MELLISH.

MONTICELLO, December 10, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for your favor of the map of the _sine quâ non_, enclosed in your letter of November 12th. It was an excellent idea; and if, with the Documents distributed by Congress, copies of these had been sent to be posted up in every street, on every townhouse and court-house, it would have painted to the eyes of those who cannot read without reflecting, that reconquest is the ultimate object of Britain. The first step towards this is to set a limit to their expansion by taking from them that noble country which the foresight of their fathers provided for their multiplying and needy offspring; to be followed up by the compression, land-board and sea-board, of that Omnipotence which the English fancy themselves now to possess. A vain and foolish imagination! Instead of fearing and endeavoring to crush our prosperity, had they cultivated it in friendship, it might have become a bulwark instead of a breaker to them. There has never been an administration in this country which would not gladly have met them more than half way on the road to an equal, a just and solid connection of friendship and intercourse. And as to repressing our growth, they might as well attempt to repress the waves of the ocean.

Your American Atlas is a useful undertaking for those who will live to see and to use it. To me every mail, in the departure of some cotemporary, brings warning to be in readiness myself also, and to cease from new engagements. It is a warning of no alarm. When faculty after faculty is retiring from us, and all the avenues to cheerful sensation closing, sight failing now, hearing next, then memory, debility of body, trepitude of mind, nothing remaining but a sickly vegetation, with scarcely the relief of a little locomotion, the last cannot be but a _coup de grace_.

You propose to me the preparation of a new edition of the Notes on Virginia. I formerly entertained the idea, and from time to time noted some new matter, which I thought I would arrange at leisure for a posthumous edition. But I now begin to see that it is impracticable for me. Nearly forty years of additional experience in the affairs of mankind would lead me into dilatations ending I know not where. That experience indeed has not altered a single principle. But it has furnished matter of abundant development. Every moment, too, which I have to spare from my daily exercise and affairs is engrossed by a correspondence, the result of the extensive relations which my course of life has necessarily occasioned. And now the act of writing itself is becoming slow, laborious and irksome. I consider, therefore, the idea of preparing a new copy of that work as no more to be entertained. The work itself indeed is nothing more than the measure of a shadow, never stationary, but lengthening as the sun advances, and to be taken anew from hour to hour. It must remain, therefore, for some other hand to sketch its appearance at another epoch, to furnish another element for calculating the course and motion of this member of our federal system. For this, every day is adding new matter and strange matter. That of reducing, by impulse instead of attraction, a sister planet into its orbit, will be as new in our political as in the planetary system. The operation, however, will be painful rather than difficult. The sound part of our wandering star will probably, by its own internal energies, keep the unsound within its course; or if a foreign power is called in, we shall have to meet it but so much the nearer, and with a more overwhelming force. It will probably shorten the war. For I think it probable that the _sine quâ non_ was designedly put into an impossible form to give time for the development of their plots and concerts with the factionists of Boston, and that they are holding off to see the issue, not of the Congress of Vienna, but that of Hartford. This will begin a new chapter in our history, and with a wish that you may live in health to see its easy close, I tender you the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO M. CORREA DE SERRA.

MONTICELLO, December 27, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 9th has been duly received, and I thank you for the recipe for imitating purrolani, which I shall certainly try on my cisterns the ensuing summer. The making them impermeable to water is of great consequence to me. That one chemical subject may follow another, I enclose you two morsels of ore found in this neighborhood, and supposed to be of antimony. I am not certain, but I believe both are from the same piece, and although the very spot where that was found is not known, yet it is known to be within a certain space not too large to be minutely examined, if the material be worth it. This you can have ascertained in Philadelphia, where it is best known to the artists how great a desideratum antimony is with them.

You will have seen that I resigned the chair of the American Philosophical Society, not awaiting your further information as to the settlement of the general opinion on a successor without schism. I did it because the term of election was too near to admit further delay.

On the subject which entered incidentally into our conversation while you were here, when I came to reflect maturely, I concluded to be silent. To do wrong is a melancholy resource, even where retaliation renders it indispensably necessary. It is better to suffer much from the scalpings, the conflagrations, the rapes and rapine of savages, than to countenance and strengthen such barbarisms by retortion. I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one. The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world. I therefore have never proposed or mentioned the subject to any one.

I have received a letter from Mr. Say, in which he expresses a thought of removing to this country, having discontinued the manufactory in which he was engaged; and he asks information from me of the prices of land, labor, produce, &c., in the neighborhood of Charlottesville, on which he has cast his eye. Its neighborhood has certainly the advantages of good soil, fine climate, navigation to market, and rational and republican society. It would be a good enough position too for the re-establishment of his cotton works, on a moderate scale, and combined with the small plan of agriculture to which he seems solely to look. But when called on to name prices, what is to be said? We have no fixed prices now. Our dropsical medium is long since divested of the quality of a medium of value; nor can I find any other. In most countries a fixed quantity of wheat is perhaps the best permanent standard. But here the blockade of our whole coast, preventing all access to a market, has depressed the price of that, and exalted that of other things, in opposite directions, and, combined with the effects of the paper deluge, leaves really no common measure of values to be resorted to. This paper, too, received now without confidence, and for momentary purposes only, may, in a moment, be worth nothing. I shall think further on the subject, and give to Mr. Say the best information in my power. To myself such an addition to our rural society would be inestimable; and I can readily conceive that it may be for the benefit of his children and their descendants to remove to a country where, for enterprise and talents, so many avenues are open to fortune and fame. But whether, at his time of life, and with habits formed for the state of society in France, a change for one so entirely different will be for his personal happiness, you can better judge than myself.

Mr. Say will be surprised to find, that forty years after the development of sound financial principles by Adam Smith and the Economists, and a dozen years after he has given them to us in a corrected, dense, and lucid form, there should be so much ignorance of them in our country; that instead of funding issues of paper on the hypothecation of specific redeeming taxes, (the only method of anticipating, in a time of war, the resources of times of peace, tested by the experience of nations,) we are trusting to tricks of jugglers on the cards, to the illusions of banking schemes for the resources of the war, and for the cure of colic to inflations of more wind. The wise proposition of the Secretary at War, too, for filling our ranks with regulars, and putting our militia into an effective form, seems to be laid aside. I fear, therefore, that, if the war continues, it will require another year of sufferance for men and money to lead our legislators into such a military and financial regimen as may carry us through a war of any length. But my hope is in peace. The negotiators at Ghent are agreed now on every point save one, the demand and cession of a portion of Maine. This, it is well known, cannot be yielded by us, nor deemed by them an object for continuing a war so expensive, so injurious to their commerce and manufactures, and so odious in the eyes of the world. But it is a thread to hold by until they can hear the result, not of the Congress of Vienna, but of Hartford. When they shall know, as they will know, that nothing will be done there, they will let go their hold, and complete the peace of the world, by agreeing to the _status ante bellum_. Indemnity for the past, and security for the future, which was our motto at the beginning of this war, must be adjourned to another, when, disarmed and bankrupt, our enemy shall be less able to insult and plunder the world with impunity. This will be after my time. One war, such as that of our Revolution, is enough for one life. Mine has been too much prolonged to make me the witness of a second, and I hope for a _coup de grace_ before a third shall come upon us. If, indeed, Europe has matters to settle which may reduce this _hostis humani generis_ to a state of peace and moral order, I shall see that with pleasure, and then sing, with old Simeon, _nunc dimittas Domine_. For yourself, _cura ut valeas, et me, ut amaris, ama_.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

MONTICELLO, January 1, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Your letters of November the 30th and December the 21st have been received with great pleasure. A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of newspaper lies, serves like head-lands to correct our course. Indeed, my scepticism as to everything I see in a newspaper, makes me indifferent whether I ever see one. The embarrassments at Washington, in August last, I expected would be great in any state of things; but they proved greater than expected. I never doubted that the plans of the President were wise and sufficient. Their failure we all impute, 1, to the insubordinate temper of Armstrong; and 2, to the indecision of Winder. However, it ends well. It mortifies ourselves, and so may check, perhaps, the silly boasting spirit of our newspapers, and it enlists the feelings of the world on our side; and the advantage of public opinion is like that of the weather-gauge in a naval action. In Europe, the transient possession of our Capital can be no disgrace. Nearly every Capital there was in possession of its enemy; some often and long. But diabolical as they paint that enemy, he burnt neither public edifices nor private dwellings. It was reserved for England to show that Bonaparte, in atrocity, was an infant to their ministers and their generals. They are taking his place in the eyes of Europe, and have turned into our channel all its good will. This will be worth the million of dollars the repairs of their conflagration will cost us. I hope that to preserve this weather-gauge of public opinion, and to counteract the slanders and falsehoods disseminated by the English papers, the government will make it a standing instruction to their ministers at foreign courts, to keep Europe truly informed of occurrences here, by publishing in their papers the naked truth always, whether favorable or unfavorable. For they will believe the good, if we candidly tell them the bad also.

But you have two more serious causes of uneasiness; the want of men and money. For the former, nothing more wise or efficient could have been imagined than what you proposed. It would have filled our ranks with regulars, and that, too, by throwing a just share of the burthen on the purses of those whose persons are exempt either by age or office; and it would have rendered our militia, like those of the Greeks and Romans, a nation of warriors. But the go-by seems to have been given to your proposition, and longer sufferance is necessary to force us to what is best. We seem equally incorrigible to our financial course. Although a century of British experience has proved to what a wonderful extent the funding on specific redeeming taxes enables a nation to anticipate in war the resources of peace, and although the other nations of Europe have tried and trodden every path of force or folly in fruitless quest of the same object, yet we still expect to find in juggling tricks and banking dreams, that money can be made out of nothing, and in sufficient quantity to meet the expenses of a heavy war by sea and land. It is said, indeed, that money cannot be borrowed from our merchants as from those of England. But it can be borrowed from our people. They will give you all the necessaries of war they produce, if, instead of the bankrupt trash they now are obliged to receive for want of any other, you will give them a paper promise funded on a specific pledge, and of a size for common circulation. But you say the merchants will not take this paper. What the people take the merchants must take, or sell nothing. All these doubts and fears prove only the extent of the dominion which the banking institutions have obtained over the minds of our citizens, and especially of those inhabiting cities or other banking places; and this dominion must be broken, or it will break us. But here, as in the other case, we must make up our minds to suffer yet longer before we can get right. The misfortune is, that in the meantime we shall plunge ourselves in unextinguishable debt, and entail on our posterity an inheritance of eternal taxes, which will bring our government and people into the condition of those of England, a nation of pikes and gudgeons, the latter bred merely as food for the former. But, however these difficulties of men and money may be disposed of, it is fortunate that neither of them will affect our war by sea. Privateers will find their own men and money. Let nothing be spared to encourage them. They are the dagger which strikes at the heart of the enemy, their commerce. Frigates and seventy-fours are a sacrifice we must make, heavy as it is, to the prejudices of a part of our citizens. They have, indeed, rendered a great moral service, which has delighted me as much as any one in the United States. But they have had no physical effect sensible to the enemy; and now, while we must fortify them in our harbors, and keep armies to defend them, our _privateers_ are bearding and blockading the enemy in their own seaports. Encourage them to burn all their prizes, and let the public pay for them. They will cheat us enormously. No matter; they will make the merchants of England feel, and squeal, and cry out for peace.

I much regretted your acceptance of the war department. Not that I know a person who I think would better conduct it. But, conduct it ever so wisely, it will be a sacrifice of yourself. Were an angel from Heaven to undertake that office, all our miscarriages would be ascribed to him. Raw troops, no troops, insubordinate militia, want of arms, want of money, want of provisions, all will be charged to want of management in you. I speak from experience, when I was Governor of Virginia. Without a regular in the State, and scarcely a musket to put into the hands of the militia, invaded by two armies, Arnold's from the sea-board and Cornwallis' from the southward, when we were driven from Richmond and Charlottesville, and every member of my council fled from their homes, it was not the total destitution of means, but the mismanagement of them, which, in the querulous voice of the public, caused all our misfortunes. It ended, indeed, in the capture of the whole hostile force, but not till means were brought us by General Washington's army, and the French fleet and army. And although the legislature, who were personally intimate with both the means and measures, acquitted me with justice and thanks, yet General Lee has put all those imputations among the romances of his historical novel, for the amusement of credulous and uninquisitive readers. Not that I have seen the least disposition to censure you. On the contrary, your conduct on the attack of Washington has met the praises of every one, and your plan for regulars and militia, their approbation. But no campaign is as yet opened. No Generals have yet an interest in shifting their own incompetence on you, no army agents their rogueries. I sincerely pray you may never meet censure where you will deserve most praise, and that your own happiness and prosperity may be the result of your patriotic services.

Ever and affectionately yours.

TO MR. GIRARDIN.

MONTICELLO, January 15, 1815.

I have no document respecting Clarke's expedition, except the letters of which you are in possession, one of which, I believe, gives some account of it; nor do I possess Imlay's history of Kentucky.

Of Mr. Wythe's early history I scarcely know anything, except that he was self-taught; and perhaps this might not have been as to the Latin language, Dr. Small was his bosom friend, and to me as a father. To his enlightened and affectionate guidance of my studies while at College, I am indebted for everything.

He was Professor of Mathematics at William and Mary, and, for some time, was in the philosophical chair. He first introduced into both schools rational and elevated courses of study, and, from an extraordinary conjunction of eloquence and logic, was enabled to communicate them to the students with great effect. He procured for me the patronage of Mr. Wythe, and both of them, the attentions of Governor Fauquier, the ablest man who ever filled the chair of government here. They were inseparable friends, and at their frequent dinners with the Governor, (after his family had returned to England,) he admitted me always, to make it a _partie quarrée_. At these dinners I have heard more good sense, more rational and philosophical conversations, than in all my life besides. They were truly Attic societies. The Governor was musical also, and a good performer, and associated me with two or three other amateurs in his weekly concerts. He merits honorable mention in your history, if any proper occasion offers. So also does Dabney Carr, father of Peter Carr, mover of the proposition of March, 1773, for committees of correspondence, the first fruit of which was the call of an American Congress. I return your two pamphlets with my thanks, and salute you with esteem and respect.

TO CHARLES CLAS, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, January 29, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of December 20th was four weeks on its way to me. I thank you for it; for although founded on a misconception, it is evidence of that friendly concern for my peace and welfare, which I have ever believed you to feel. Of publishing a book on religion, my dear Sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. Of these there must be, at least, ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all wrong but his own. To undertake to bring them all right, would be like undertaking, single-handed, to fell the forests of America. Probably you have heard me say I had taken the four Evangelists, had cut out from them every text they had recorded of the moral precepts of Jesus, and arranged them in a certain order, and although they appeared but as fragments, yet fragments of the most sublime edifice of morality which had ever been exhibited to man. This I have probably mentioned to you, because it is true; and the idea of its publication may have suggested itself as an inference of your own mind. I not only write nothing on religion, but rarely permit myself to speak on it, and never but in a reasonable society. I have probably said more to you than to any other person, because we have had more hours of conversation in _duetto_ in our meetings at the Forest. I abuse the priests, indeed, who have so much abused the pure and holy doctrines of their master, and who have laid me under no obligations of reticence as to the tricks of their trade. The genuine system of Jesus, and the artificial structures they have erected, to make them the instruments of wealth, power, and preëminence to themselves, are as distinct things in my view as light and darkness; and while I have classed them with soothsayers and necromancers, I place him among the greatest reformers of morals, and scourges of priest-craft that have ever existed. They felt him as such, and never rested until they had silenced him by death. But his heresies against Judaism prevailing in the long run, the priests have tacked about, and rebuilt upon them the temple which he destroyed, as splendid, as profitable, and as imposing as that.

Government, as well as religion, has furnished its schisms, its persecutions, and its devices for flattering idleness on the earnings of the people. It has its hierarchy of emperors, kings, princes, and nobles, as that has of popes, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and priests. In short, cannibals are not to be found in the wilds of America only, but are revelling on the blood of every living people. Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of Church and State, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.

I have received from Philadelphia, by mail, the spectacles you had desired, and now forward them by the same conveyance, as equally safe and more in time, than were they to await my own going. In a separate case is a complete set of glasses, from early use to old age. I think the pair now in the frames will suit your eyes, but should they not, you will easily change them by the screws. I believe the largest numbers are the smallest magnifiers, but am not certain. Trial will readily ascertain it. You must do me the favor to accept them as a token of my friendship, and with them the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO GOVERNOR PLUMER.

MONTICELLO, January 31, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of December 30th has been received. In answer to your question whether in the course of my reading I have ever found that any country or even considerable island was without inhabitants when first discovered? I must answer, with Mr. Adams, in the negative. Although the fact is curious, it had never before struck my attention. Some small islands have been found, and are at this day, without inhabitants, but this is easily accounted for. Man being a gregarious animal, will not remain but where there can be a sufficient herd of his own kind to satisfy his social propensities. Add to this that insulated settlements, if small, would be liable to extirpations by occasional epidemics.

I thank you for the pamphlet you have been so kind as to send me, and have read it with much satisfaction. But with those to whom it is addressed Moses and the prophets have no authority but when administering to their worldly gain. The paradox with me is how any friend to the union of our country can, in conscience, contribute a cent to the maintenance of any one who perverts the sanctity of his desk to the open inculcation of rebellion, civil war, dissolution of government, and the miseries of anarchy. When England took alarm lest France, become republican, should recover energies dangerous to her, she employed emissaries with means to engage incendiaries and anarchists in the disorganization of all government there. These, assuming exaggerated zeal for republican government and the rights of the people, crowded their inscriptions into the Jacobin societies, and overwhelming by their majorities the honest and enlightened patriots of the original institution, distorted its objects, pursued its genuine founders under the name of Brissotines and Girondists unto death, intrigued themselves into the municipality of Paris, controlled by terrorism the proceedings of the legislature, in which they were faithfully aided by their costipendaries there, the Dantons and Marats of the Mountain, murdered their king, septembrized the nation, and thus accomplished their stipulated task of demolishing liberty and government with it. England now fears the rising force of this republican nation, and by the same means is endeavoring to effect the same course of miseries and destruction here; it is impossible where one sees like courses of events commence, not to ascribe them to like causes. We know that the government of England, maintaining itself by corruption at home, uses the same means in other countries of which she has any jealousy, by subsidizing agitators and traitors among themselves to distract and paralyze them. She sufficiently manifests that she has no disposition to spare ours. We see in the proceedings of Massachusetts, symptoms which plainly indicate such a course, and we know as far as such practices can ever be dragged into light, that she has practiced, and with success, on leading individuals of that State. Nay further, we see those individuals acting on the very plan which our information had warned us was settled between the parties. These elements of explanation history cannot fail of putting together in recording the crime of combining with the oppressors of the earth to extinguish the last spark of human hope, that here, at length, will be preserved a model of government, securing to man his rights and the fruits of his labor, by an organization constantly subject to his own will. The crime indeed, if accomplished, would immortalize its perpetrators, and their names would descend in history with those of Robespierre and his associates, as the guardian genii of despotism, and demons of human liberty. I do not mean to say that all who are acting with these men are under the same motives. I know some of them personally to be incapable of it. Nor was that the case with the disorganizers and assassins of Paris. Delusions there, and party perversions here, furnish unconscious assistants to the hired actors in these atrocious scenes. But I have never entertained one moment's fear on this subject. The people of this country enjoy too much happiness to risk it for nothing; and I have never doubted that whenever the incendiaries of Massachusetts should venture openly to raise the standard of separation, its citizens would rise in mass and do justice themselves to their own parricides.

I am glad to learn that you persevere in your historical work. I am sure it will be executed on sound principles of Americanism, and I hope your opportunities will enable you to make the abortive crimes of the present, useful as a lesson for future times.

In aid of your general work I possess no materials whatever, or they should be entirely at your service; and I am sorry that I have not a single copy of the pamphlet you ask, entitled "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." It was the draught of an instruction which I had meant to propose for our delegates to the first Congress. Being prevented by sickness from attending our convention, I sent it to them, and they printed without adopting it, in the hope that conciliation was not yet desperate. Its only merit was in being the first publication which carried the claim of our rights their whole length, and asserted that there was no rightful link of connection between us and England but that of being under the same king. Haring's collection of our statutes is published, I know, as far as the third volume, bringing them down to 1710; and I rather believe a fourth has appeared. One more will probably complete the work of the revolution, and will be to us an inestimable treasure, as being the only collection of all the acts of our legislatures now extant in print or manuscript.

Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO JOHN VAUGHAN, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 5, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Your very friendly letter of January 4th is but just received, and I am much gratified by the interest taken by yourself, and others of my colleagues of the Philosophical Society, in what concerned myself on withdrawing from the presidency of the Society. My desire to do so had been so long known to every member, and the continuance of it to some, that I did not suppose it can be misunderstood by the public. Setting aside the consideration of distance, which must be obvious to all, nothing is more incumbent on the old, than to know when they should get out of the way, and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform. I rejoice in the election of Dr. Wistar, and trust that his senior standing in the society will have been considered as a fair motive of preference of those whose merits, standing alone, would have justly entitled them to the honor, and who, as juniors, according to the course of nature, may still expect their turn.

I have received, with very great pleasure, the visit of Mr. Ticknor, and find him highly distinguished by science and good sense. He was accompanied by Mr. Gray, son of the late Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, of great information and promise also. It gives me ineffable comfort to see such subjects coming forward to take charge of the political and civil rights, the establishment of which has cost us such sacrifices. Mr. Ticknor will be fortunate if he can get under the wing of Mr. Correa; and, if the happiness of Mr. Correa requires (as I suppose it does) his return to Europe, we must sacrifice it to that which his residence here would have given us, and acquiesce under the regrets which our transient acquaintance with his worth cannot fail to embody with our future recollections of him. Of Michaux's work I possess three volumes, or rather _catriers_, one on Oaks, another on Beeches and Birches, and a third on Pines.

I salute you with great friendship and respect.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY MR. CRAWFORD.

MONTICELLO, February 11, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--I have to thank you for your letter of June 16th. It presents those special views of the state of things in Europe, for which we look in vain into newspapers. They tell us only of the downfall of Bonaparte, but nothing of the temper, the views, the secret workings of the high agents in these transactions. Although we neither expected, nor wished any act of friendship from Bonaparte, and always detested him as a tyrant, yet he gave employment to much of the force of the nation who was our common enemy. So far, his downfall was illy timed for us; it gave to England an opportunity to turn full-handed on us, when we were unprepared. No matter, we can beat her on our own soil, leaving the laws of the ocean to be settled by the maritime powers of Europe, who are equally oppressed and insulted by the usurpations of England on that element. Our particular and separate grievance is only the impressment of our citizens. We must sacrifice the last dollar and drop of blood to rid us of that badge of slavery; and it must rest with England alone to say whether it is worth eternal war, for eternal it must be if she holds to the wrong. She will probably find that the six thousand citizens she took from us by impressment have already cost her ten thousand guineas a man, and will cost her, in addition, the half of that annually, during the continuance of the war, besides the captures on the ocean, and the loss of our commerce. She might certainly find cheaper means of manning her fleet, or, if to be manned at this expense, her fleet will break her down. The first year of our warfare by land was disastrous. Detroit, Queenstown, Frenchtown, and Beaver Dam, witness that. But the second was generally successful, and the third entirely so, both by sea and land. For I set down the _coup de main_ at Washington as more disgraceful to England than to us. The victories of the last year at Chippewa, Niagara, Fort Erie, Plattsburg, and New Orleans, the capture of their two fleets on Lakes Erie and Champlain, and repeated triumphs of our frigates over hers, whenever engaging with equal force, show that we have officers now becoming prominent, and capable of making them feel the superiority of our means, in a war on our own soil. Our means are abundant both as to men and money, wanting only skilful arrangement; and experience alone brings skill. As to men, nothing wiser can be devised than what the Secretary at War (Monroe) proposed in his Report at the commencement of Congress. It would have kept our regular army always of necessity full, and by classing our militia according to ages, would have put them into a form ready for whatever service, distant or at home, should require them. Congress have not adopted it, but their next experiment will lead to it. Our financial system is, at least, arranged. The fatal possession of the whole circulating medium by our banks, the excess of those institutions, and their present discredit, cause all our difficulties. Treasury notes of small as well as high denomination, bottomed on a tax which would redeem them in ten years, would place at our disposal the whole circulating medium of the United States; a fund of credit sufficient to carry us through any probable length of war. A small issue of such paper is now commencing. It will immediately supersede the bank paper; nobody receiving that now but for the purposes of the day, and never in payments which are to lie by for any time. In fact, all the banks having declared they will not give cash in exchange for their own notes, these circulate merely because there is no other medium of exchange. As soon as the treasury notes get into circulation, the others will cease to hold any competition with them. I trust that another year will confirm this experiment, and restore this fund to the public, who ought never more to permit its being filched from them by private speculators and disorganizers of the circulation.

Do they send you from Washington the Historical Register of the United States? It is published there annually, and gives a succinct and judicious history of the events of the war, not too long to be inserted in the European newspapers, and would keep the European public truly informed, by correcting the lying statements of the British papers. It gives, too, all the public documents of any value. Niles' Weekly Register is also an excellent repository of facts and documents, and has the advantage of coming out weekly, whereas the other is yearly.

This will be handed you by Mr. Ticknor, a young gentleman of Boston, of high education and great promise. After going through his studies here, he goes to Europe to finish them, and to see what is to be seen there. He brought me high recommendations from Mr. Adams and others, and from a stay of some days with me, I was persuaded he merited them, as he will whatever attentions you will be so good as to show him. I pray you to accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

P. S. _February 26th._ On the day of the date of this letter the news of peace reached Washington, and this place two days after. I am glad of it, although no provision being made against the impressment of our seamen, it is in fact but an armistice, to be terminated by the first act of impressment committed on an American citizen. It may be thought that useless blood was spilt at New Orleans, after the treaty of peace had been actually signed and ratified. I think it had many valuable uses. It proved the fidelity of the Orleanese to the United States. It proved that New Orleans can be defended both by land and water; that the western country will fly to its relief (of which ourselves had doubted before); that our militia are heroes when they have heroes to lead them on; and that, when unembarrassed by field evolutions, which they do not understand, their skill in the fire-arm, and deadly aim, give them great advantages over regulars. What nonsense for the manakin Prince Regent to talk of their conquest of the country east of the Penobscot river! Then, as in the revolutionary war, their conquests were never more than of the spot on which their army stood, never extended beyond the range of their cannon shot. If England is now wise or just enough to settle peaceably the question of impressment, the late treaty may become one of peace, and of long peace. We owe to their past follies and wrongs the incalculable advantage of being made independent of them for every material manufacture. These have taken such root, in our private families especially, that nothing now can ever extirpate them.

TO THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE.

MONTICELLO, February 14, 1815.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your letter of August the 14th has been received and read again, and again, with extraordinary pleasure. It is the first glimpse which has been furnished me of the interior workings of the late unexpected but fortunate revolution of your country. The newspapers told us only that the great beast was fallen; but what part in this the patriots acted, and what the egotists, whether the former slept while the latter were awake to their own interests only, the hireling scribblers of the English press said little and knew less. I see now the mortifying alternative under which the patriot there is placed, of being either silent, or disgraced by an association in opposition with the remains of Bonapartism. A full measure of liberty is not now perhaps to be expected by your nation, nor am I confident they are prepared to preserve it. More than a generation will be requisite, under the administration of reasonable laws favoring the progress of knowledge in the general mass of the people, and their habituation to an independent security of person and property, before they will be capable of estimating the value of freedom, and the necessity of a sacred adherence to the principles on which it rests for preservation. Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes, with an unprepared people, a tyranny still, of the many, the few, or the one. Possibly you may remember, at the date of the _jeu de paume_, how earnestly I urged yourself and the patriots of my acquaintance, to enter then into a compact with the king, securing freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, _habeas corpus_, and a national legislature, all of which it was known he would then yield, to go home, and let these work on the amelioration of the condition of the people, until they should have rendered them capable of more, when occasions would not fail to arise for communicating to them more. This was as much as I then thought them able to bear, soberly and usefully for themselves. You thought otherwise, and that the dose might still be larger. And I found you were right; for subsequent events proved they were equal to the constitution of 1791. Unfortunately, some of the most honest and enlightened of our patriotic friends, (but closet politicians merely, unpractised in the knowledge of man,) thought more could still be obtained and borne. They did not weigh the hazards of a transition from one form of government to another, the value of what they had already rescued from those hazards, and might hold in security if they pleased, nor the imprudence of giving up the certainty of such a degree of liberty, under a limited monarch, for the uncertainty of a little more under the form of a republic. You differed from them. You were for stopping there, and for securing the constitution which the National Assembly had obtained. Here, too, you were right; and from this fatal error of the republicans, from their separation from yourself and the constitutionalists, in their councils, flowed all the subsequent sufferings and crimes of the French nation. The hazards of a second change fell upon them by the way. The foreigner gained time to anarchise by gold the government he could not overthrow by arms, to crush in their own councils the genuine republicans, by the fraternal embraces of exaggerated and hired pretenders, and to turn the machine of Jacobinism from the change to the destruction of order; and, in the end, the limited monarchy they had secured was exchanged for the unprincipled and bloody tyranny of Robespierre, and the equally unprincipled and maniac tyranny of Bonaparte. You are now rid of him, and I sincerely wish you may continue so. But this may depend on the wisdom and moderation of the restored dynasty. It is for them now to read a lesson in the fatal errors of the republicans; to be contented with a certain portion of power, secured by formal compact with the nation, rather than, grasping at more, hazard all upon uncertainty, and risk meeting the fate of their predecessor, or a renewal of their own exile. We are just informed, too, of an example which merits, if true, their most profound contemplation. The gazettes say that Ferdinand of Spain is dethroned, and his father re-established on the basis of their new constitution. This order of magistrates must, therefore, see, that although the attempts at reformation have not succeeded in their whole length, and some secession from the ultimate point has taken place, yet that men have by no means fallen back to their former passiveness, but on the contrary, that a sense of their rights, and a restlessness to obtain them, remain deeply impressed on every mind, and, if not quieted by reasonable relaxations of power, will break out like a volcano on the first occasion, and overwhelm everything again in its way. I always thought the present king an honest and moderate man; and having no issue, he is under a motive the less for yielding to personal considerations. I cannot, therefore, but hope, that the patriots in and out of your legislature, acting in phalanx, but temperately and wisely, pressing unremittingly the principles omitted in the late capitulation of the king, and watching the occasions which the course of events will create, may get those principles engrafted into it, and sanctioned by the solemnity of a national act.

With us the affairs of war have taken the most favorable turn which was to be expected. Our thirty years of peace had taken off, or superannuated, all our revolutionary officers of experience and grade; and our first draught in the lottery of untried characters had been most unfortunate. The delivery of the fort and army of Detroit by the traitor Hull; the disgrace at Queenstown, under Van Rensselaer; the massacre at Frenchtown under Winchester; and surrender of Boerstler in an open field to one-third of his own numbers, were the inauspicious beginnings of the first year of our warfare. The second witnessed but the single miscarriage occasioned by the disagreement of Wilkinson and Hampton, mentioned in my letter to you of November the 30th, 1813, while it gave us the capture of York by Dearborne and Pike; the capture of Fort George by Dearborne also; the capture of Proctor's army on the Thames by Harrison, Shelby and Johnson, and that of the whole British fleet on Lake Erie by Perry. The third year has been a continued series of victories, to-wit: of Brown and Scott at Chippewa; of the same at Niagara; of Gaines over Drummond at Fort Erie; that of Brown over Drummond at the same place; the capture of another fleet on Lake Champlain by M'Donough; the entire defeat of their army under Prevost, on the same day, by M'Comb, and recently their defeats at New Orleans by Jackson, Coffee and Carroll, with the loss of four thousand men out of nine thousand and six hundred, with their two Generals, Packingham and Gibbs killed, and a third, Keane, wounded, mortally, as is said.

This series of successes has been tarnished only by the conflagrations at Washington, a _coup de main_ differing from that at Richmond, which you remember, in the revolutionary war, in the circumstance only, that we had, in that case, but forty-eight hours' notice that an enemy had arrived within our capes; whereas, at Washington, there was abundant previous notice. The force designated by the President was double of what was necessary; but failed, as is the general opinion, through the insubordination of Armstrong, who would never believe the attack intended until it was actually made, and the sluggishness of Winder before the occasion, and his indecision during it. Still, in the end, the transaction has helped rather than hurt us, by arousing the general indignation of our country, and by marking to the world of Europe the Vandalism and brutal character of the English government. It has merely served to immortalize their infamy. And add further, that through the whole period of the war, we have beaten them single-handed at sea, and so thoroughly established our superiority over them with equal force, that they retire from that kind of contest, and never suffer their frigates to cruize singly. The Endymion would never have engaged the frigate President, but knowing herself backed by three frigates and a razee, who, though somewhat slower sailers, would get up before she could be taken. The disclosure to the world of the fatal secret that they can be beaten at sea with an equal force, the evidence furnished by the military operations of the last year that experience is rearing us officers who, when our means shall be fully under way, will plant our standard on the walls of Quebec and Halifax, their recent and signal disaster at New Orleans, and the evaporation of their hopes from the Hartford convention, will probably raise a clamor in the British nation, which will force their ministry into peace. I say _force_ them, because, willingly, they would never be at peace. The British ministers find in a state of war rather than of peace, by riding the various contractors, and receiving _douceurs_ on the vast expenditures of the war supplies, that they recruit their broken fortunes, or make new ones, and therefore will not make peace as long as by any delusions they can keep the temper of the nation up to the war point. They found some hopes on the state of our finances. It is true that the excess of our banking institutions, and their present discredit, have shut us out from the best source of credit we could ever command with certainty. But the foundations of credit still remain to us, and need but skill which experience will soon produce, to marshal them into an order which may carry us through any length of war. But they have hoped more in their Hartford convention. Their fears of republican France being now done away, they are directed to republican America, and they are playing the same game for disorganization here, which they played in your country. The Marats, the Dantons and Robespierres of Massachusetts are in the same pay, under the same orders, and making the same efforts to anarchise us, that their prototypes in France did there.

I do not say that all who met at Hartford were under the same motives of money, nor were those of France. Some of them are Outs, and wish to be Inns; some the mere dupes of the agitators, or of their own party passions, while the Maratists alone are in the real secret; but they have very different materials to work on. The yeomanry of the United States are not the _canaille_ of Paris. We might safely give them leave to go through the United States recruiting their ranks, and I am satisfied they could not raise one single regiment (gambling merchants and silk-stocking clerks excepted) who would support them in any effort to separate from the Union. The cement of this Union is in the heart-blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis. Let them, in any State, even in Massachusetts itself, raise the standard of separation, and its citizens will rise in mass, and do justice themselves on their own incendiaries. If they could have induced the government to some effort of suppression, or even to enter into discussion with them, it would have given them some importance, have brought them into some notice. But they have not been able to make themselves even a subject of conversation, either of public or private societies. A silent contempt has been the sole notice they excite; consoled, indeed, some of them, by the _palpable_ favors of Philip. Have then no fears for us, my friend. The grounds of these exist only in English newspapers, edited or endowed by the Castlereaghs or the Cannings, or some other such models of pure and uncorrupted virtue. Their military heroes, by land and sea, may sink our oyster boats, rob our hen roosts, burn our negro huts, and run off. But a campaign or two more will relieve them from further trouble or expense in defending their American possessions.

You once gave me a copy of the journal of your campaign in Virginia, in 1781, which I must have lent to some one of the undertakers to write the history of the revolutionary war, and forgot to reclaim. I conclude this, because it is no longer among my papers, which I have very diligently searched for it, but in vain. An author of real ability is now writing that part of the history of Virginia. He does it in my neighborhood, and I lay open to him all my papers. But I possess none, nor has he any, which can enable him to do justice to your faithful and able services in that campaign. If you could be so good as to send me another copy, by the very first vessel bound to any port in the United States, it might be here in time; for although he expects to begin to print within a month or two, yet you know the delays of these undertakings. At any rate it might be got in as a supplement. The old Count Rochambeau gave me also his _memoire_ of the operations at York, which is gone in the same way, and I have no means of applying to his family for it. Perhaps you could render them as well as us, the service of procuring another copy.

I learn, with real sorrow, the deaths of Monsieur and Madame de Tessé. They made an interesting part in the idle reveries in which I have sometimes indulged myself, of seeing all my friends of Paris once more, for a month or two; a thing impossible, which, however, I never permitted myself to despair of. The regrets, however, of seventy-three at the loss of friends, may be the less, as the time is shorter within which we are to meet again, according to the creed of our education.

This letter will be handed you by Mr. Ticknor, a young gentleman of Boston, of great erudition, indefatigable industry, and preparation for a life of distinction in his own country. He passed a few days with me here, brought high recommendations from Mr. Adams and others, and appeared in every respect to merit them. He is well worthy of those attentions which you so kindly bestow on our countrymen, and for those he may receive I shall join him in acknowledging personal obligations.

I salute you with assurances of my constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

P. S. February 26th. My letter had not yet been sealed, when I received news of our peace. I am glad of it, and especially that we closed our war with the eclat of the action at New Orleans. But I consider it as an armistice only, because no security is provided against the impressment of our seamen. While this is unsettled we are in hostility of mind with England, although actual deeds of arms may be suspended by a truce. If she thinks the exercise of this outrage is worth eternal war, eternal war it must be, or extermination of the one or the other party. The first act of impressment she commits on an American, will be answered by reprisal, or by a declaration of war here; and the interval must be merely a state of preparation for it. In this we have much to do, in further fortifying our seaport towns, providing military stores, classing and disciplining our militia, arranging our financial system, and above all, pushing our domestic manufactures, which have taken such root as never again can be shaken. Once more, God bless you.

TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

MONTICELLO, February 28, 1815.

MY DEAR AND RESPECTED FRIEND,--My last to you was of November 29th and December 13th, 14th, since which I have received yours of July 14th. I have to congratulate you, which I do sincerely on having got back from Robespierre and Bonaparte, to your anti-revolutionary condition. You are now nearly where you were at the _jeu de paume_ on the 20th of June, 1789. The king would then have yielded, by convention, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, _habeas corpus_, and a representative legislature. These I consider as the essentials constituting free government, and that the organization of the Executive is interesting, as it may ensure wisdom and integrity in the first place, but next as it may favor or endanger the preservation of these fundamentals. Although I do not think the late capitulation of the king quite equal to all this, yet believing his dispositions to be moderate and friendly to the happiness of the people, and seeing that he is without the bias of issue, I am in hopes your patriots may, by constant and prudent pressure, obtain from him what is still wanting to give you a temperate degree of freedom and security. Should this not be done, I should really apprehend a relapse into discontents, which might again let in Bonaparte.

Here, at length, we have peace. But I view it as an armistice only, because no provision is made against the practice of impressment. As this, then, will revive in the first moment of a war in Europe, its revival will be a declaration of war here. Our whole business, in the meantime, ought to be a sedulous preparation for it, fortifying our seaports, filling our magazines, classing and disciplining our militia, forming officers, and above all, establishing a sound system of finance. You will see by the want of system in this last department, and even the want of principles, how much we are in arrears in that science. With sufficient means in the hands of our citizens, and sufficient will to bestow them on the government, we are floundering in expedients equally unproductive and ruinous; and proving how little are understood here those sound principles of political economy first developed by the economists, since commented and dilated by Smith, Say, yourself, and the luminous reviewer of Montesquieu. I have been endeavoring to get the able paper on this subject, which you addressed to me in July, 1810, and enlarged in a copy received the last year, translated and printed here, in order to draw the attention of our citizens to this subject; but have not as yet succeeded. Our printers are enterprising only in novels and light reading. The readers of works of science, although in considerable number, are so sparse in their situations, that such works are of slow circulation. But I shall persevere.

This letter will be delivered to you by Mr. Ticknor, a young gentleman from Massachusetts, of much erudition and great merit. He has completed his course of law and reading, and, before entering on the practice, proposes to pass two or three years in seeing Europe, and adding to his stores of knowledge which he can acquire there. Should he enter the career of politics in his own country, he will go far in obtaining its honors and powers. He is worthy of any friendly offices you may be so good as to render him, and to his acknowledgments of them will be added my own. By him I send you a copy of the Review of Montesquieu, from my own shelf, the impression being, I believe, exhausted by the late President of the College of Williamsburg having adopted it as the elementary book there. I am persuading the author to permit me to give his name to the public, and to permit the original to be printed in Paris. Although your presses, I observe, are put under the leading strings of your government, yet this is such a work as would have been licensed at any period, early or late, of the reign of Louis XVI. Surely the present government will not expect to repress the progress of the public mind further back than that. I salute you with all veneration and affection.

TO JEAN BATISTE SAY.

MONTICELLO, March 2, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of June 15th came to hand in December, and it is not till the ratification of our peace, that a safe conveyance for an answer could be obtained. I thank you for the copy of the new edition of your work which accompanied your letter. I had considered it in its first form as superseding all other works on that subject; and shall set proportional value on any improvement of it. I should have been happy to have received your son here, as expected from your letter, on his passage through this State; and to have given proofs through him of my respect for you. But I live far from the great stage road which forms the communication of our States from north to south, and such a deviation was probably not admitted by his business. The question proposed in my letter of February 1st, 1804, has since become quite a "question viseuse." I had then persuaded myself that a nation, distant as we are from the contentions of Europe, avoiding all offences to other powers, and not over-hasty in resenting offence from them, doing justice to all, faithfully fulfilling the duties of neutrality, performing all offices of amity, and administering to their interests by the benefits of our commerce, that such a nation, I say, might expect to live in peace, and consider itself merely as a member of the great family of mankind; that in such case it might devote itself to whatever it could best produce, secure of a peaceable exchange of surplus for what could be more advantageously furnished by others, as takes place between one county and another of France. But experience has shown that continued peace depends not merely on our own justice and prudence, but on that of others also; that when forced into war, the interception of exchanges which must be made across a wide ocean, becomes a powerful weapon in the hands of an enemy domineering over that element, and to the other distresses of war adds the want of all those necessaries for which we have permitted ourselves to be dependent on others, even arms and clothing. This fact, therefore, solves the question by reducing it to its ultimate form, whether profit or preservation is the first interest of a State? We are consequently become manufacturers to a degree incredible to those who do not see it, and who only consider the short period of time during which we have been driven to them by the suicidal policy of England. The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves, without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency. And this circumstance may be worthy of your consideration, should you continue in the disposition to emigrate to this country. Your manufactory of cotton, on a moderate scale combined with a farm, might be preferable to either singly, and the one or the other might become principal, as experience should recommend. Cotton ready spun is in ready demand, and if woven, still more so.

I will proceed now to answer the inquiries which respect your views of removal; and I am glad that, in looking over our map, your eye has been attracted by the village of Charlottesville, because I am better acquainted with that than any other portion of the United States, being within three or four miles of the place of my birth and residence. It is a portion of country which certainly possesses great advantages. Its soil is equal in natural fertility to any high lands I have ever seen; it is red and hilly, very like much of the country of Champagne and Burgundy, on the route of Sens, Vermanton, Vitteaux, Dijon, and along the Cote to Chagny, excellently adapted to wheat, maize, and clover; like all mountainous countries it is perfectly healthy, liable to no agues and fevers, or to any particular epidemic, as is evidenced by the robust constitution of its inhabitants, and their numerous families. As many instances of nonagenaires exist habitually in this neighborhood as in the same degree of population anywhere. Its temperature may be considered as a medium of that of the United States. The extreme of cold in ordinary winters being about 7° of Reaumur below zero (French. =16°), and in the severest, 12° (French. =5°), while the ordinary mornings are above zero. The maximum of heat in summer is about 28° (French. =96°), of which we have one or two instances in a summer for a few hours. About ten or twelve days in July and August, the thermometer rises for two or three hours to about 23° (French. =84°), while the ordinary mid-day heat of those months is about 21° (French. =80°), the mercury continuing at that two or three hours, and falling in the evening to about 17° (French. =70°). White frosts commence about the middle of October, tender vegetables are in danger from them till nearly the middle of April. The mercury begins, about the middle of November, to be occasionally at the freezing point, and ceases to be so about the middle of March. We have of freezing nights about fifty in the course of the winter, but not more than ten days in which the mercury does not rise above the freezing point. Fire is desirable even in close apartments whenever the outward air is below 10, (=55° Fahrenheit,) and that is the case with us through the day, one hundred and thirty two days in the year, and on mornings and evenings sixty-eight days more. So that we have constant fires five months, and a little over two months more on mornings and evenings. Observations made at Yorktown in the lower country, show that they need seven days less of constant fires, and thirty-eight less of mornings and evenings. On an average of seven years I have found our snows amount in the whole to fifteen inches depth, and to cover the ground fifteen days; these, with the rains, give us four feet of water in the year. The garden pea, which we are now sowing, comes to table about the 12th of May; strawberries and cherries about the same time; asparagus the 1st of April. The artichoke stands the winter without cover; lettuce and endive with a slight one of bushes, and often without any; and the fig, protected by a little straw, begins to ripen in July; if unprotected, not till the 1st of September. There is navigation for boats of six tons from Charlottesville to Richmond, the nearest tide-water, and principal market for our produce. The country is what we call well inhabited, there being in our county, Albemarle, of about seven hundred and fifty square miles, about twenty thousand inhabitants, or twenty-seven to a square mile, of whom, however, one half are people of color, either slaves or free. The society is much better than is common in country situations; perhaps there is not a better _country_ society in the United States. But do not imagine this a Parisian or an academical society. It consists of plain, honest, and rational neighbors, some of them well informed and men of reading, all superintending their farms, hospitable and friendly, and speaking nothing but English. The manners of every nation are the standard of orthodoxy within itself. But these standards being arbitrary, reasonable people in all allow free toleration for the manners, as for the religion of others. Our culture is of wheat for market, and of maize, oats, peas, and clover, for the support of the farm. We reckon it a good distribution to divide a farm into three fields, putting one into wheat, half a one into maize, the other half into oats or peas, and the third into clover, and to tend the fields successively in this rotation. Some woodland in addition, is always necessary to furnish fuel, fences, and timber for constructions. Our best farmers (such as Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law) get from ten to twenty bushels of wheat to the acre; our worst (such as myself) from six to eighteen, with little or more manuring. The bushel of wheat is worth in common times about one dollar. The common produce of maize is from ten to twenty bushels, worth half a dollar the bushel, which is of a cubic foot and a quarter, or, more exactly, of two thousand one hundred and seventy-eight cubic inches. From these data you may judge best for yourself of the size of the farm which would suit your family; bearing in mind, that while you can be furnished by the farm itself for consumption, with every article it is adapted to produce, the sale of your wheat at market is to furnish the fund for all other necessary articles. I will add that both soil and climate are admirably adapted to the vine, which is the abundant natural production of our forests, and that you cannot bring a more valuable laborer than one acquainted with both its culture and manipulation into wine.

Your only inquiry now unanswered is, the price of these lands. To answer this with precision, would require details too long for a letter; the fact being, that we have no metallic measure of values at present, while we are overwhelmed with bank paper. The depreciation of this swells nominal prices, without furnishing any stable index of real value. I will endeavor briefly to give you an idea of this state of things by an outline of its history.

In 1781 we had 1 bank, its capital $1,000,000 " 1791 " 6 " 13,135,000 " 1794 " 17 " 18,642,000 " 1796 " 24 " 20,472,000 " 1803 " 34 " 29,112,000 " 1804 " 66 their amount of capital not known.

And at this time we have probably one hundred banks, with capitals amounting to one hundred millions of dollars, on which they are authorized by law to issue notes to three times that amount, so that our circulating medium may now be estimated at from two to three hundred millions of dollars, on a population of eight and a half millions. The banks were able, for awhile, to keep this trash at par with metallic money, or rather to depreciate the metals to a par with their paper, by keeping deposits of cash sufficient to exchange for such of their notes as they were called on to pay in cash. But the circumstances of the war draining away all our specie, all these banks have stopped payment, but with a promise to resume specie exchanges whenever circumstances shall produce a return of the metals. Some of the most prudent and honest will possibly do this; but the mass of them never will nor can. Yet, having no other medium, we take their paper, of necessity, for purposes of the instant, but never to lay by us. The government is now issuing treasury notes for circulation, bottomed on solid funds, and bearing interest. The banking confederacy (and the merchants bound to them by their debts) will endeavor to crush the credit of these notes; but the country is eager for them, as something they can trust to, and so soon as a convenient quantity of them can get into circulation, the bank notes die. You may judge that, in this state of things, the holders of bank notes will give free prices for lands, and that were I to tell you simply the present prices of lands in this medium, it would give you no idea on which you could calculate. But I will state to you the progressive prices which have been paid for particular parcels of land for some years back, which may enable you to distinguish between the real increase of value regularly produced by our advancement in population, wealth, and skill, and the bloated value arising from the present disordered and dropsical state of our medium. There are two tracts of land adjoining me, and another not far off, all of excellent quality, which happen to have been sold at different epochs as follows:

One was sold in 1793 for $4 an acre, in 1812, at $10, and is now rated $16. The 2d " 1786 " 5⅓ " 1803 " 10 and is now rated $20. The 3d " 1797 " 7 " 1811 " 16 and is now rated $20.

On the whole, however, I suppose we may estimate that the steady annual rise of our lands is in a geometrical ratio of 5 per cent.; that were our medium now in a wholesome state, they might be estimated at from twelve to fifteen dollars the acre; and I may add, I believe with correctness, that there is not any part of the Atlantic States where lands of equal quality and advantages can be had as cheap. When sold with a dwelling-house on them, little additional is generally asked for the house. These buildings are generally of wooden materials, and of indifferent structure and accommodation. Most of the hired labor here is of people of color, either slaves or free. An able-bodied man has sixty dollars a year, and is clothed and fed by the employer; a woman half that. White laborers may be had, but they are less subordinate, their wages higher, and their nourishment much more expensive. A good horse for the plough costs fifty or sixty dollars. A draught ox twenty to twenty-five dollars. A milch cow fifteen to eighteen dollars. A sheep two dollars. Beef is about five cents, mutton and pork seven cents the pound. A turkey or goose fifty cents apiece, a chicken eight and one-third cents; a dozen eggs the same. Fresh butter twenty to twenty-five cents the pound. And, to render as full as I can the information which may enable you to calculate for yourself, I enclose you a Philadelphia price-current, giving the prices in regular times of most of the articles of produce or manufacture, foreign and domestic.

That it may be for the benefit of your children and their descendants to remove to a country where, for enterprise and talents, so many avenues are open to fortune and fame, I have little doubt. But I should be afraid to affirm that, at your time of life, and with habits formed on the state of society in France, a change for one so entirely different would be for your personal happiness. Fearful therefore to persuade, I shall add with sincere truth, that I shall very highly estimate the addition of such a neighbor to our society, and that there is no service within my power which I shall not render with pleasure and promptitude. With this assurance be pleased to accept that of my great esteem and respect.

P. S. This letter will be handed you by Mr. Ticknor, a young gentleman of Massachusetts, of great erudition and worth, and who will be gratified by the occasion of being presented to the author of the Traité d'Economie Politique.

TO FRANCIS C. GRAY, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, March 4, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Despatching to Mr. Ticknor my packet of letters for Paris, it occurs to me that I committed an error in a matter of information which you asked of me while here. It is indeed of little importance, yet as well corrected as otherwise, and the rather as it gives me an occasion of renewing my respects to you. You asked me in conversation, what constituted a mulatto by our law? And I believe I told you four crossings with the whites. I looked afterwards into our law, and found it to be in these words: "Every person, other than a negro, of whose grandfathers or grandmothers any one shall have been a negro, shall be deemed a mulatto, and so every such person who shall have one-fourth part or more of negro blood, shall in like manner be deemed a mulatto"; L. Virgà 1792, December 17: the case put in the first member of this paragraph of the law is _exempli gratiâ_. The latter contains the true canon, which is that one-fourth of negro blood, mixed with any portion of white, constitutes the mulatto. As the issue has one-half of the blood of each parent, and the blood of each of these may be made up of a variety of fractional mixtures, the estimate of their compound in some cases may be intricate, it becomes a mathematical problem of the same class with those on the mixtures of different liquors or different metals; as in these, therefore, the algebraical notation is the most convenient and intelligible. Let us express the pure blood of the white in the capital letters of the printed alphabet, the pure blood of the negro in the small letters of the printed alphabet, and any given mixture of either, by way of abridgement in MS. letters.

Let the first crossing be of _a_, pure negro, with A, pure white. The unit of blood of the issue being composed of the half of that of each parent, will be _a_/2 + A/2. Call it, for abbreviation, _h_ (half blood.)

Let the second crossing be of _h_ and B, the blood of the issue will be _h_/2 + B/2, or substituting for _h_/2 its equivalent, it will be _a_/4 + A/4 + B/2 call it _q_ (quarteroon) being 1/4 negro blood.

Let the third crossing be of _q_ and C, their offspring will be _q_/2 + C/2 = _a_/8 + A/8 + B/4 + C/2, call this _e_ (eighth), who having less than 1/4 of _a_, or of pure negro blood, to wit 1/8 only, is no longer a mulatto, so that a third cross clears the blood.

From these elements let us examine their compounds. For example, let _h_ and _q_ cohabit, their issue will be _h_/2 + _q_/2 = _a_/4 + A/4 + _a_/8 + A/8 + B/4 = 3_a_/8 + 3A/8 + B/4 wherein we find 3/8 of _a_, or negro blood.

Let _h_ and _e_ cohabit, their issue will be _h_/2 + _e_/2 = _a_/4 + A/4 + _a_/16 + A/16 + B/8 + _c_/4 = 5_a_/16 + 5A/16 + B/8 + _c_/4, wherein 5/16 _a_ makes still a mulatto.

Let _q_ and _e_ cohabit, the half of the blood of each will be _q_/2 + _e_/2 = _a_/8 + A/8 + B/4 + _a_/16 + A/16 + B/8 + C/4 = 3_a_/16 + 3A/16 + 3B/8 + C/4, wherein 3/16 of _a_ is no longer a mulatto, and thus may every compound be noted and summed, the sum of the fractions composing the blood of the issue being always equal to unit. It is understood in natural history that a fourth cross of one race of animals with another gives an issue equivalent for all sensible purposes to the original blood. Thus a Merino ram being crossed, first with a country ewe, second with his daughter, third with his granddaughter, and fourth with the great-granddaughter, the last issue is deemed pure Merino, having in fact but 1/16 of the country blood. Our canon considers two crosses with the pure white, and a third with any degree of mixture, however small, as clearing the issue of the negro blood. But observe, that this does not re-establish freedom, which depends on the condition of the mother, the principle of the civil law, _partus sequitur ventrem_, being adopted here. But if _e_ be emancipated, he becomes a free _white_ man, and a citizen of the United States to all intents and purposes. So much for this trifle by way of correction.

I sincerely congratulate you on the peace, and more especially on the close of our war with so much eclat. Our second and third campaigns here, I trust, more than redeemed the disgraces of the first, and proved that although a republican government is slow to move, yet, when once in motion, its momentum becomes irresistible; and I am persuaded it would have been found so in the last war, had it continued. Experience had just begun to elicit those among our officers who had talents for war, and under the guidance of these one campaign would have planted our standard on the walls of Quebec, and another on those of Halifax. But peace is better for us all; and if it could be followed by a cordial conciliation between us and England, it would ensure the happiness and prosperity of both. The bag of wind, however, on which they are now riding, must be suffered to blow out before they will be able soberly to settle on their true bottom. If they adopt a course of friendship with us, the commerce of one hundred millions of people, which some now born will live to see here, will maintain them forever as a great unit of the European family. But if they go on checking, irritating, injuring and hostilizing us, they will force on us the motto "_Carthago delenda est_." And some Scipio Americanus will leave to posterity the problem of conjecturing where stood once the ancient and splendid city of London! Nothing more simple or certain than the elements of this circulation. I hope the good sense of both parties will concur in travelling rather the paths of peace, of affection, and reciprocations of interest. I salute you with sincere and friendly esteem, and if the homage offered to the virtues of your father can be acceptable to him, place mine at his feet.

TO MR. GIRARDIN.

MONTICELLO, March 12, 1815.

I return the three Cativers, which I have perused with the usual satisfaction. You will find a few pencilled notes merely verbal.

But in one place I have taken a greater liberty than I ever took before, or ever indeed had occasion to take. It is in the case of Josiah Philips, which I find strangely represented by Judge Tucker and Mr. Edmund Randolph, and very negligently vindicated by Mr. Henry. That case is personally known to me, because I was of the legislature at the time, was one of those consulted by Mr. Henry, and had my share in the passage of the bill. I never before saw the observations of those gentlemen, which you quote on this case, and will now therefore briefly make some strictures on them.

Judge Tucker, instead of a definition of the functions of bills of attainder, has given a diatribe against their abuse. The occasion and proper office of a bill of attainder is this: When a person charged with a crime withdraws from justice, or resists it by force, either in his own or a foreign country, no other means of bringing him to trial or punishment being practicable, a special act is passed by the legislature adapted to the particular case. This prescribes to him a sufficient time to appear and submit to a trial by his peers; declares that his refusal to appear shall be taken as a confession of guilt, as in the ordinary case of an offender at the bar refusing to plead, and pronounces the sentence which would have been rendered on his confession or conviction in a court of law. No doubt that these acts of attainder have been abused in England as instruments of vengeance by a successful over a defeated party. But what institution is insusceptible of abuse in wicked hands?

Again, the judge says "the court refused to pass sentence of execution pursuant to the directions of the act." The court could not refuse this, because it was never proposed to them; and my authority for this assertion shall be presently given.

For the perversion of a fact so intimately known to himself, Mr. Randolph can be excused only by our indulgence for orators who, pressed by a powerful adversary, lose sight, in the ardor of conflict of the rigorous accuracies of fact, and permit their imagination to distort and color them to the views of the moment. He was Attorney General at the time, and told me himself, the first time I saw him after the trial of Philips, that when taken and delivered up to justice, he had thought it best to make no use of the act of attainder, and to take no measure under it; that he had indicted him at the common law either for murder or robbery (I forgot which and whether for both); that he was tried on this indictment in the ordinary way, found guilty by the jury, sentenced and executed under the common law; a course which every one approves, because the first object of the act of attainder was to bring him to fair trial. Whether Mr. Randolph was right in this information to me, or when in the debate with Mr. Henry, he represents this atrocious offender as sentenced and executed under the act of attainder, let the record of the case decide.

"Without being confronted with his accusers and witnesses, without the privilege of calling for evidence in his behalf, he was sentenced to death, and afterwards actually executed." I appeal to the universe to produce one single instance from the first establishment of government in this State to the present day, where, in a trial at bar, a criminal has been refused confrontation with his accusers and witnesses, or denied the privilege of calling for evidence in his behalf; had it been done in this case, I would have asked of the Attorney General why he proposed or permitted it. But without having seen the record, I will venture on the character of our courts, to deny that it was done. But if Mr. Randolph meant only that Philips had not these advantages on the passage of the bill of attainder, how idle to charge the legislature with omitting to confront the culprit with his witnesses, when he was standing out in arms and in defiance of their authority, and their sentence was to take effect only on his own refusal to come in and be confronted. We must either therefore consider this as a mere hyperbolism of imagination in the heat of debate, or what I should rather, believe a defective statement by the reporter of Mr. Randolph's argument. I suspect this last the rather because this point in the charge of Mr. Randolph is equally omitted in the defence of Mr. Henry. This gentleman must have known that Philips was tried and executed under the common law, and yet, according to his report, he rests his defence on a justification of the attainder only. But all who knew Mr. Henry, know that when at ease in argument, he was sometimes careless, not giving himself the trouble of ransacking either his memory or imagination for all the topics of his subject, or his audience that of hearing them. No man on earth knew better when he had said enough for his hearers.

Mr. Randolph charges us with having read the bill three times in the same day. I do not remember the fact, nor whether this was enforced on us by the urgency of the ravages of Philips, or of the time at which the bill was introduced. I have some idea it was at or near the close of the session; the journals, which I have not, will ascertain the fact.

After the particular strictures I will proceed to propose, 1st, that the word "substantially," page 92, l. 8., be changed for "which has been charged with," [subjoining a note of reference. 1 Tucker's Blackst. Append., 292. Debates of Virginia Convention.]

2. That the whole of the quotations from Tucker, Randolph and Henry, be struck out, and instead of the text beginning page 92 l. 12, with the words "bills of attainder, &.," to the words "so often merited," page 95 l. 4, be inserted the following, to-wit:

"This was passed on the following occasion. A certain Josiah Philips, laborer of the parish of Lynhaven, in the county of Princess Anne, a man of daring and ferocious disposition, associating with other individuals of a similar cast, spread terror and desolation through the lower country, committing murders, burning houses, wasting farms, and perpetrating other enormities, at the bare mention of which humanity shudders. Every effort to apprehend him proved abortive. Strong in the number of his ruffian associates, or where force would have failed resorting to stratagem and ambush, striking the deadly blow or applying the fatal torch at the midnight hour, and in those places which their insulated situation left almost unprotected, he retired with impunity to his secret haunts, reeking with blood, and loaded with plunder. [So far the text of Mr. Girardin is preserved.] The inhabitants of the counties which were the theatre of his crimes, never secure a moment by day or by night, in their fields or their beds, sent representations of their distresses to the governor, claiming the public protection. He consulted with some members of the legislature then sitting, on the best method of proceeding against the atrocious offender. Too powerful to be arrested by the sheriff and his _posse comitatus_, it was not doubted but an armed force might be sent to hunt and destroy him and his accomplices in their morasses and fastnesses wherever found. But the proceeding concluded to be most consonant with the forms and principles of our government, was that the legislature should pass an act giving him a reasonable but limited day to surrender himself to justice, and to submit to a trial by his peers. According to the laws of the land, to consider a refusal as a confession of guilt, and divesting him as an outlaw of the character of citizen, to pass on him the sentence prescribed by the law; and the public officer being defied, to make every one his deputy, and especially those whose safety hourly depended on his destruction. The case was laid before the legislature, the proofs were ample, his outrages as notorious as those of the public enemy, and well known to the members of both houses from those counties. No one pretended then that the perpetrator of crimes who could successfully resist the officers of justice, should be protected in the continuance of them by the privileges of his citizenship, and that baffling ordinary process, nothing extraordinary could be rightfully adopted to protect the citizens against him. No one doubted that society had a right to erase from the roll of its members any one who rendered his own existence inconsistent with theirs; to withdraw from him the protection of their laws, and to remove him from among them by exile, or even by death if necessary. An enemy in lawful war, putting to death in cold blood the prisoner he has taken, authorizes retaliation, which would be inflicted with peculiar justice on the individual guilty of the deed, were it to happen that he should be taken. And could the murders and robberies of a pirate or outlaw entitle him to more tenderness? They passed the law, therefore, and without opposition. He did not come in before the day prescribed; continued his lawless outrages; was afterwards taken in arms, but delivered over to the ordinary justice of the county. The Attorney General for the commonwealth, the immediate agent of the government, waiving all appeal to the act of attainder, indicted him at the common law as a murderer and robber. He was arraigned on that indictment in the usual forms, before a jury of his vicinage, and no use whatever made of the act of attainder in any part of the proceedings. He pleaded that he was a British subject, authorized to bear arms by a commission from Lord Dunmore; that he was therefore a mere prisoner of war, and under the protection of the law of nations. The court being of opinion that a commission from an enemy could not protect a citizen in deeds of murder and robbery, overruled his plea; he was found guilty by his jury, sentenced by the court, and executed by the ordinary officer of justice, and all according to the forms and rules of the common law."

I recommend an examination of the records for ascertaining the facts of this case, for although my memory assures me of the leading ones, I am not so certain in my recollection of the details. I am not sure of the character of the particular crimes committed by Philips, or charged in his indictment, whether his plea of alien enemy was formally put in and overruled, what were the specific provisions of the act of attainder, the urgency which caused it to be read three times in one day, if the fact were, &c., &c.

TO MR. WENDOVER.[13]

MONTICELLO, March 13, 1815.

SIR,--Your favor of January the 30th was received after long delay on the road, and I have to thank you for the volume of discourses which you have been so kind as to send me. I have gone over them with great satisfaction, and concur with the able preacher in his estimate of the character of the belligerents in our late war, and lawfulness of defensive war. I consider the war, with him, as "made on good advice," that is, for just causes, and its dispensation as providential, inasmuch as it has exercised our patriotism and submission to order, has planted and invigorated among us arts of urgent necessity, has manifested the strong and the weak parts of our republican institutions, and the excellence of a representative democracy compared with the misrule of kings, has rallied the opinions of mankind to the natural rights of expatriation, and of a common property in the ocean, and raised us to that grade in the scale of nations which the bravery and liberality of our citizen soldiers, by land and by sea, the wisdom of our institutions and their observance of justice, entitled us to in the eyes of the world. All this Mr. McLeod has well proved, and from those sources of argument particularly which belong to his profession. On one question only I differ from him, and it is that which constitutes the subject of his first discourse, the right of discussing public affairs _in the pulpit_. I add the last words, because I admit the right in _general conversation_ and in _writing_; in which last form it has been exercised in the valuable book you have now favored me with.

The mass of human concerns, moral and physical, is so vast, the field of knowledge requisite for man to conduct them to the best advantage is so extensive, that no human being can acquire the whole himself, and much less in that degree necessary for the instruction of others. It has of necessity, then, been distributed into different departments, each of which, singly, may give occupation enough to the whole time and attention of a single individual. Thus we have teachers of Languages, teachers of Mathematics, of Natural Philosophy, of Chemistry, of Medicine, of Law, of History, of Government, &c. Religion, too, is a separate department, and happens to be the only one deemed requisite for all men, however high or low. Collections of men associate together, under the name of congregations, and employ a religious teacher of the particular sect of opinions of which they happen to be, and contribute to make up a stipend as a compensation for the trouble of delivering them, at such periods as they agree on, lessons in the religion they profess. If they want instruction in other sciences or arts, they apply to other instructors; and this is generally the business of early life. But I suppose there is not an instance of a single congregation which has employed their preacher for the mixed purposes of lecturing them _from the pulpit_ in Chemistry, in Medicine, in Law, in the science and principles of Government, or in anything but Religion exclusively. Whenever, therefore, preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put them off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art or science. In choosing our pastor we look to his religious qualifications, without inquiring into his physical or political dogmas, with which we mean to have nothing to do. I am aware that arguments may be found, which may twist a thread of politics into the cord of religious duties. So may they for every other branch of human art or science. Thus, for example, it is a religious duty to obey the laws of our country; the teacher of religion, therefore, must instruct us in those laws, that we may know how to obey them. It is a religious duty to assist our sick neighbors; the preacher must, therefore, teach us medicine, that we may do it understandingly. It is a religious duty to preserve our own health; our religious teacher, then, must tell us what dishes are wholesome, and give us recipes in cookery, that we may learn how to prepare them. And so, ingenuity, by generalizing more and more, may amalgamate all the branches of science into any one of them, and the physician who is paid to visit the sick, may give a sermon instead of medicine, and the merchant to whom money is sent for a hat, may send a handkerchief instead of it. But notwithstanding this possible confusion of all sciences into one, common sense draws lines between them sufficiently distinct for the general purposes of life, and no one is at a loss to understand that a recipe in medicine or cookery, or a demonstration in geometry, is not a lesson in religion. I do not deny that a congregation may, if they please, agree with their preacher that he shall instruct them in Medicine also, or Law, or Politics. Then, lectures in these, from the pulpit, become not only a matter of right, but of duty also. But this must be with the consent of every individual; because the association being voluntary, the mere majority has no right to apply the contributions of the minority to purposes unspecified in the agreement of the congregation. I agree, too, that on all other occasions, the preacher has the right, equally with every other citizen, to express his sentiments, in speaking or writing; on the subjects of Medicine, Law, Politics, &c., his leisure time being his own, and his congregation not obliged to listen to his conversation or to read his writings; and no one would have regretted more than myself, had any scruple as to this right withheld from us the valuable discourses which have led to the expression of an opinion as to the true limits of the right. I feel my portion of indebtment to the reverend author for the distinguished learning, the logic and the eloquence with which he has proved that religion, as well as reason, confirms the soundness of those principles on which our government has been founded and its rights asserted.

These are my views on this question. They are in opposition to those of the highly respected and able preacher, and are, therefore, the more doubtingly offered. Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to truth; and that, I am sure, is the ultimate and sincere object of us both. We both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.

Unaccustomed to reserve or mystery in the expression of my opinions, I have opened myself frankly on a question suggested by your letter and present. And although I have not the honor of your acquaintance, this mark of attention, and still more the sentiments of esteem so kindly expressed in your letter, are entitled to a confidence that observations not intended for the public will not be ushered to their notice, as has happened to me sometimes. Tranquillity, at my age, is the balm of life. While I know I am safe in the honor and charity of a McLeod, I do not wish to be cast forth to the Marats, the Dantons, and the Robespierres of the priesthood; I mean the Parishes, the Ogdens, and the Gardiners of Massachusetts.

I pray you to accept the assurances of my esteem and respect.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] [This is endorsed "not sent."]

TO CÆSAR A. RODNEY.

MONTICELLO, March 16, 1815.

MY DEAR FRIEND AND ANCIENT COLLEAGUE,--Your letter of February the 19th has been received with very sincere pleasure. It recalls to memory the sociability, the friendship, and the harmony of action which united personal happiness with public duties, during the portion of our lives in which we acted together. Indeed, the affectionate harmony of our cabinet is among the sweetest of my recollections. I have just received a letter of friendship from General Dearborne. He writes me that he is now retiring from every species of public occupation, to pass the remainder of life as a private citizen; and he promises me a visit in the course of the summer. As you hold out a hope of the same gratification, if chance or purpose could time your visits together, it would make a real jubilee. But come as you will or as you can, it will always be joy enough to me. Only you must give me a month's notice; because I go three or four times a year to a possession ninety miles southwestward, and am absent a month at a time, and the mortification would be indelible of losing such a visit by a mistimed absence. You will find me in habitual good health, great contentedness, enfeebled in body, impaired in memory, but without decay in my friendships.

Great, indeed, have been the revolutions in the world, since you and I have had anything to do with it. To me they have been like the howlings of the winter storm over the battlements, while warm in my bed. The unprincipled tyrant of the land is fallen, his power reduced to its original nothingness, his person only not yet in the mad-house, where it ought always to have been. His equally unprincipled competitor, the tyrant of the ocean, in the mad-house indeed, in person, but his power still stalking over the deep. "_Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat._" The madness is acknowledged; the perdition of course impending. Are we to be the instruments? A friendly, a just, and a reasonable conduct on their part, might make us the main pillar of their prosperity and existence. But their deep-rooted hatred to us seems to be the means which Providence permits to lead them to their final catastrophe. "_Nullam enim in terris gentem esse, nullum infestiorem populum, nomini Romano_," said the General who erased Capua from the list of powers. What nourishment and support would not England receive from an hundred millions of industrious descendants, whom some of her people now born will live to see here? What their energies are, she has lately tried. And what has she not to fear from an hundred millions of such men, if she continues her maniac course of hatred and hostility to them. I hope in God she will change. There is not a nation on the globe with whom I have more earnestly wished a friendly intercourse on equal conditions. On no other would I hold out the hand of friendship to any. I know that their creatures represent me as personally an enemy to England. But fools only can believe this, or those who think me a fool. I am an enemy to her insults and injuries. I am an enemy to the flagitious principles of her administration, and to those which govern her conduct towards other nations. But would she give to morality some place in her political code, and especially would she exercise decency, and at least neutral passions towards us, there is not, I repeat it, a people on earth with whom I would sacrifice so much to be in friendship. They can do us, as enemies, more harm than any other nation; and in peace and in war, they have more means of disturbing us internally. Their merchants established among us, the bonds by which our own are chained to their feet, and the banking combinations interwoven with the whole, have shown the extent of their control, even during a war with her. They are the workers of all the embarrassments our finances have experienced during the war. Declaring themselves bankrupt, they have been able still to chain the government to a dependence on them, and had the war continued, they would have reduced us to the inability to command a single dollar. They dared to proclaim that they would not pay their own paper obligations, yet our government could not venture to avail themselves of this opportunity of sweeping their paper from the circulation, and substituting their own notes bottomed on specific taxes for redemption, which every one would have eagerly taken and trusted, rather than the baseless trash of bankrupt companies; our government, I say, have still been overawed from a contest with them, and has even countenanced and strengthened their influence, by proposing new establishments, with authority to swindle yet greater sums from our citizens. This is the British influence to which I am an enemy, and which we must subject to our government, or it will subject us to that of Britain.

* * * * *

Come, and gratify, by seeing you once more, a friend who assures you with sincerity of his constant and affectionate attachment and respect.

TO GENERAL DEARBORNE.

MONTICELLO, March 17, 1815.

MY DEAR GENERAL, FRIEND, AND ANCIENT COLLEAGUE,--I have received your favor of February the 27th, with very great pleasure, and sincerely reciprocate congratulations on late events. Peace was indeed desirable; yet it would not have been as welcome without the successes of New Orleans. These last have established truths too important not to be valued; that the people of Louisiana are sincerely attached to the Union; that their city can be defended; that the western States make its defence their peculiar concern; that the militia are brave; that their deadly aim countervails the manœuvering skill of their enemy; that we have officers of natural genius now starting forward from the mass; and that, putting together all our conflicts, we can beat the British by sea and by land, with equal numbers. All this being now proved, I am glad of the pacification of Ghent, and shall still be more so, if, by a reasonable arrangement against impressment, they will make it truly a treaty of peace, and not a mere truce, as we must all consider it, until the principle of the war is settled. Nor, among the incidents of the war, will we forget your services. After the disasters produced by the treason or the cowardice, or both, of Hull, and the follies of some others, your capture of York and Fort George, first turned the tide of success in our favor; and the subsequent campaigns sufficiently wiped away the disgrace of the first. If it were justifiable to look to your own happiness only, your resolution to retire from all public business could not but be approved. But you are too young to ask a discharge as yet, and the public counsels too much needing the wisdom of our ablest citizens, to relinquish their claim on you. And surely none needs your aid more than your own State. Oh, Massachusetts! how have I lamented the degradation of your apostasy! Massachusetts, with whom I went with pride in 1776, whose vote was my vote on every public question, and whose principles were then the standard of whatever was free or fearless. But she was then under the counsels of the two Adamses; while Strong, her present leader, was promoting petitions for submission to British power and British usurpation. While under her present counsels, she must be contented to be nothing; as having a vote, indeed, to be counted, but not respected. But should the State once more buckle on her republican harness, we shall receive her again as a sister, and recollect her wanderings among the crimes only of the parricide party, which would have basely sold what their fathers so bravely won from the same enemy. Let us look forward, then, to the act of repentance, which, by dismissing her venal traitors, shall be the signal of return to the bosom and to the principles of her brethren; and if her late humiliation can just give her modesty enough to suppose that her southern brethren are somewhat on a par with her in wisdom, in information, in patriotism, in bravery, and even in honesty, although not in psalm singing, she will more justly estimate her own relative momentum in the Union. With her ancient principles, she would really be great, if she did not think herself the whole. I should be pleased to hear that you go into her counsels, and assist in bringing her back to those principles, and to a sober satisfaction with her proportionable share in the direction of our affairs.

* * * * *

Be so good as to lay my homage at the feet of Mrs. Dearborne and be assured that I am ever and affectionately yours.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, March 23, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--I duly received your favor of the 12th, and with it the pamphlet on the causes and conduct of the war, which I now return. I have read it with great pleasure, but with irresistible desire that it should be published. The reasons in favor of this are strong, and those against it are so easily gotten over, that there appears to me no balance between them. 1. We need it in Europe. They have totally mistaken our character. Accustomed to rise at a feather themselves, and to be always fighting, they will see in our conduct, fairly stated, that acquiescence under wrong, to a certain degree, is wisdom, and not pusillanimity; and that peace and happiness are preferable to that false honor which, by eternal wars, keeps their people in eternal labor, want, and wretchedness. 2. It is necessary for the people of England, who have been deceived as to the causes and conduct of the war, and do not entertain a doubt, that it was entirely wanton and wicked on our part, and under the order of Bonaparte. By rectifying their ideas, it will tend to that conciliation which is absolutely necessary to the peace and prosperity of both nations. 3. It is necessary for our own people, who, although they have known the details as they went along, yet have been so plied with false facts and false views by the federalists, that some impression has been left that all has not been right. It may be said that it will be thought unfriendly. But truths necessary for our own character, must not be suppressed out of tenderness to its calumniators. Although written, generally, with great moderation, there may be some things in the pamphlet which may perhaps irritate. The characterizing every act, for example, by its appropriate epithet, is not necessary to show its deformity to an intelligent reader. The naked narrative will present it truly to his mind, and the more strongly, from its moderation, as he will perceive that no exaggeration is aimed at. Rubbing down these roughnesses, and they are neither many nor prominent, and preserving the original date, might, I think, remove all the offensiveness, and give more effect to the publication. Indeed, I think that a soothing postscript, addressed to the interests, the prospects, and the sober reason of both nations, would make it acceptable to both. The trifling expense of reprinting it ought not to be considered a moment. Mr. Gallatin could have it translated into French, and suffer it to get abroad in Europe without either avowal or disavowal. But it would be useful to print some copies of an appendix, containing all the documents referred to, to be preserved in libraries, and to facilitate to the present and future writers of history, the acquisition of the materials which test the truth it contains.

I sincerely congratulate you on the peace, and, more especially on the eclat with which the war was closed. The affair of New Orleans was fraught with useful lessons to ourselves, our enemies, and our friends, and will powerfully influence our future relations with the nations of Europe. It will show them we mean to take no part in their wars, and count no odds when engaged in our own. I presume that, having spared to the pride of England her formal acknowledgment of the atrocity of impressment in an article of the treaty, she will concur in a convention for relinquishing it. Without this, she must understand that the present is but a truce, determinable on the first act of impressment of an American citizen, committed by any officer of hers. Would it not be better that this convention should be a separate act, unconnected with any treaty of commerce, and made an indispensable preliminary to all other treaty? If blended with a treaty of commerce, she will make it the price of injurious concessions. Indeed, we are infinitely better without such treaties with any nation. We cannot too distinctly detach ourselves from the European system, which is essentially belligerent, nor too sedulously cultivate an American system, essentially pacific. But if we go into commercial treaties at all, they should be with all, at the same time, with whom we have important commercial relations. France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, all should proceed _pari passu_. Our ministers marching in phalanx on the same line, and intercommunicating freely, each will be supported by the weight of the whole mass, and the facility with which the other nations will agree to equal terms of intercourse, will discountenance the selfish higglings of England, or justify our rejection of them. Perhaps, with all of them, it would be best to have but the single article _gentis amicissimæ_, leaving everything else to the usages and courtesies of civilized nations. But all these things will occur to yourself, with their counter-consideration.

Mr. Smith wrote to me on the transportation of the library, and, particularly, that it is submitted to your direction. He mentioned, also, that Dougherty would be engaged to superintend it. No one will more carefully and faithfully execute all those duties which would belong to a wagon master. But it requires a character acquainted with books, to receive the library. I am now employing as many hours of every day as my strength will permit, in arranging the books, and putting every one in its place on the shelves, corresponding with its order on the catalogue, and shall have them numbered correspondently. This operation will employ me a considerable time yet. Then I should wish a competent agent to attend, and, with the catalogue in his hand, see that every book is on the shelves, and have their lids nailed on, one by one, as he proceeds. This would take such a person about two days; after which, Dougherty's business would be the mere mechanical removal, at convenience. I enclose you a letter from Mr. Milligan, offering his service, which would not cost more than eight or ten days' reasonable compensation. This is necessary for my safety and your satisfaction, as a just caution for the public. You know that there are persons, both in and out of the public councils, who will seize every occasion of imputation on either of us, the more difficult to be repelled in this case, in which a negative could not be proved. If you approve of it, therefore, as soon as I am through the review, I will give notice to Mr. Milligan, or any other person you will name, to come on immediately. Indeed it would be well worth while to add to his duty, that of covering the books with a little paper, (the good bindings, at least,) and filling the vacancies of the presses with paper parings, to be brought from Washington. This would add little more to the time, as he could carry on both operations at once.

Accept the assurance of my constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

TO MR. GIRARDIN.

MONTICELLO, March 27, 1815.

I return your 14th chapter with only two or three unimportant alterations as usual, and with a note suggested, of doubtful admissibility. I believe it would be acceptable to the reader of every nation except England, and I do not suppose that, even without it, your book will be a popular one there, however you will decide for yourself.

As to what is to be said of myself, I of course am not the judge. But my sincere wish is that the faithful historian, like the able surgeon, would consider me in his hands, while living, as a dead subject, that the same judgment may now be expressed which will be rendered hereafter, so far as my small agency in human affairs may attract future notice; and I would of choice now stand as at the bar of posterity, "_Cum semel occidaris, et de te ultima Minos Fecerit arbitria_." The only exact testimony of a man is his actions, leaving the reader to pronounce on them his own judgment. In anticipating this, too little is safer than too much; and I sincerely assure you that you will please me most by a rigorous suppression of all friendly partialities. This candid expression of sentiments once delivered, passive silence becomes the future duty.

It is with real regret I inform you that the day of delivering the library is close at hand. A letter by last mail informs me that Mr. Millegan is ordered to come on the instant I am ready to deliver. I shall complete the arrangement of the books on Saturday. There will then remain only to paste on them their numbers, which will be begun on Sunday. Of this Mr. Millegan has notice, and may be expected every hour after Monday next. He will examine the books by the catalogue, and nail up the presses, one by one, as he gets through them. But it is indispensable for me to have all the books in their places when we begin to number them, and it would be a great convenience to have all you can do without now, to put them into the places they should occupy. Ancient history is numbered. Modern history comes next. The bearer carries a basket to receive what he can bring of those you are done with. I salute you with friendship and respect.

TO MR. BARROW.

MONTICELLO, May 1, 1815.

SIR,--I have duly received your favor of March 20th, and am truly thankful for the favorable sentiments expressed in it towards myself. If, in the course of my life, it has been in any degree useful to the cause of humanity, the fact itself bears its full reward. The particular subject of the pamphlet you enclosed me was one of early and tender consideration with me, and had I continued in the councils of my own State, it should never have been out of sight. The only practicable plan I could ever devise is stated under the 14th quære of the Notes on Virginia, and it is still the one most sound in my judgment. Unhappily it is a case for which both parties require long and difficult preparation. The mind of the master is to be apprized by reflection, and strengthened by the energies of conscience, against the obstacles of self interest to an acquiescence in the rights of others; that of the slave is to be prepared by instruction and habit for self government, and for the honest pursuits of industry and social duty. Both of these courses of preparation require time, and the former must precede the latter. Some progress is sensibly made in it; yet not so much as I had hoped and expected. But it will yield in time to temperate and steady pursuit, to the enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in science. We are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and the power of a superior agent. Our efforts are in his hand, and directed by it; and he will give them their effect in his own time. Where the disease is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the northern States it was merely superficial, and easily corrected. In the southern it is incorporated with the whole system, and requires time, patience, and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally be effected, and its progress hastened, will be the last and fondest prayer of him who now salutes you with respect and consideration.

TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

MONTICELLO, May 15, 1815.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--The newspapers tell us you are arrived in the United States. I congratulate my country on this as a manifestation that you consider its civil advantages as more than equivalent to the physical comforts and social delights of a country which possesses both in the highest degree of any one on earth. You despair of your country, and so do I. A military despotism is now fixed upon it permanently, especially if the son of the tyrant should have virtues and talents. What a treat would it be to me, to be with you, and to learn from you all the intrigues, apostasies and treacheries which have produced this last death's blow to the hopes of France. For, although not in the will, there was in the imbecility of the Bourbons a foundation of hope that the patriots of France might obtain a moderate representative government. Here you will find rejoicings on this event, and by a strange _qui pro quo_, not by the party hostile to liberty, but by its zealous friends. In this they see nothing but the scourge reproduced for the back of England, they do not permit themselves to see in it the blast of all the hopes of mankind, and that however it may jeopardize England, it gives to her self-defence the lying countenance again of being the sole champion of the rights of man, to which in all other nations she is most adverse. I wrote to you on the 28th of February, by a Mr. Ticknor, then proposing to sail for France, but the conclusion of peace induced him to go first to England. I hope he will keep my letter out of the post offices of France; for it was written for the inspection of those now in power. You will now be a witness of our deplorable ignorance in finance and political economy generally. I mentioned in my letter of February that I was endeavoring to get your memoir on that subject printed. I have not yet succeeded. I am just setting out to a distant possession of mine, and shall be absent three weeks. God bless you.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, June 10, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--It is long since we have exchanged a letter, and yet what volumes might have been written on the occurrences even of the last three months. In the first place, peace, God bless it! has returned to put us all again into a course of lawful and laudable pursuits; a new trial of the Bourbons has proved to the world their incompetence to the functions of the station they have occupied; and the recall of the usurper has clothed him with the semblance of a legitimate autocrat. If adversity should have taught him wisdom, of which I have little expectation, he may yet render some service to mankind, by teaching the ancient dynasties that they can be changed for misrule, and by wearing down the maritime power of England to limitable and safe dimensions. But it is not possible he should love us; and of that our commerce had sufficient proof during his power. Our military achievements, indeed, which he is capable of estimating, may, in some degree, moderate the effect of his aversions; and he may perhaps fancy that we are to become the natural enemies of England, as England herself has so steadily endeavored to make us, and as some of our own over-zealous patriots would be willing to proclaim; and, in this view, he may admit a cold toleration of some intercourse and commerce between the two nations. He has certainly had time to see the folly of turning the industry of France from the cultures for which nature has so highly endowed her, to those of sugar, cotton, tobacco, and others, which the same creative power has given to other climates; and, on the whole, if he can conquer the passions of his tyrannical soul, if he has understanding enough to pursue from motives of interest, what no moral motives lead him to, the tranquil happiness and prosperity of his country, rather than a ravenous thirst for human blood, his return may become of more advantage than injury to us. And if, again, some great man could arise in England, who could see and correct the follies of his nation in their conduct as to us, and by exercising justice and comity towards ours, bring both into a state of temperate and useful friendship, it is possible we might thus attain the place we ought to occupy between these two nations, without being degraded to the condition of mere partisans of either.

A little time will now inform us, whether France, within its proper limits, is big enough for its ruler, on the one hand, and whether, on the other, the allied powers are either wicked or foolish enough to attempt the forcing on the French a ruler and government which they refuse? Whether they will risk their own thrones to re-establish that of the Bourbons? If this is attempted, and the European world again committed to war, will the jealousy of England at the commerce which neutrality will give us, induce her again to add us to the number of her enemies, rather than see us prosper in the pursuit of peace and industry? And have our commercial citizens merited from their country its encountering another war to protect their gambling enterprises? That the persons of our citizens shall be safe in freely traversing the ocean, that the transportation of our own produce, in our own vessels, to the markets of our choice, and the return to us of the articles we want for our own use, shall be unmolested, I hold to be fundamental, and the gauntlet that must be for ever hurled at him who questions it. But whether we shall engage in every war of Europe, to protect the mere agency of our merchants and ship-owners in carrying on the commerce of other nations, even were these merchants and ship-owners to take the side of their country in the contest, instead of that of the enemy, is a question of deep and serious consideration, with which, however, you and I shall have nothing to do; so we will leave it to those whom it will concern.

I thank you for making known to me Mr. Ticknor and Mr. Gray. They are fine young men, indeed, and if Massachusetts can raise a few more such, it is probable she would be better counselled as to social rights and social duties. Mr. Ticknor is, particularly, the best bibliograph I have met with, and very kindly and opportunely offered me the means of re-procuring some part of the literary treasures which I have ceded to Congress, to replace the devastations of British Vandalism at Washington. I cannot live without books. But fewer will suffice, where amusement, and not use, is the only future object. I am about sending him a catalogue, to which less than his critical knowledge of books would hardly be adequate.

Present my high respects to Mrs. Adams, and accept yourself the assurance of my affectionate attachment.

TO MR. W. H. TORRANCE.

MONTICELLO, June 11, 1815.

SIR,--I received a few days ago your favor of May 5th, stating a question on a law of the State of Georgia which suspends judgments for a limited time, and asking my opinion whether it may be valid under the inhibition of our constitution to pass laws impairing the obligations of contracts. It is more than forty years since I have quitted the practice of the law, and been engaged in vocations which furnished little occasion of preserving a familiarity with that science. I am far, therefore, from being qualified to decide on the problems it presents, and certainly not disposed to obtrude in a case where gentlemen have been consulted of the first qualifications, and of actual and daily familiarity with the subject, especially too in a question on the law of another State. We have in this State a law resembling in some degree that you quote, suspending executions until a year after the treaty of peace; but no question under it has been raised before the courts. It is also, I believe, expected that when this shall expire, in consideration of the absolute impossibility of procuring coin to satisfy judgments, a law will be passed, similar to that passed in England, on suspending the cash payments of their bank, that provided that on refusal by a party to receive notes of the Bank of England in any case either of past or future contracts, the judgment should be suspended during the continuance of that act, bearing, however, legal interest. They seemed to consider that it was not this law which changed the conditions of the contract, but the circumstances which had arisen, and had rendered its literal execution impossible; by the disappearance of the metallic medium stipulated by the contract, that the parties not concurring in a reasonable and just accommodation, it became the duty of the legislature to arbitrate between them; and that less restrained than the Duke of Venice by the letter of decree, they were free to adjudge to Shylock a reasonable equivalent. And I believe that in our States this umpirage of the legislatures has been generally interposed in cases where a literal execution of contract has, by a change of circumstances, become impossible, or, if enforced, would produce a disproportion between the subject of the contract and its price, which the parties did not contemplate at the time of the contract.

The second question, whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law, has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the constitution which has given that power to them more than to the executive or legislative branches. Questions of property, of character and of crime being ascribed to the judges, through a definite course of legal proceeding, laws involving such questions belong, of course, to them; and as they decide on them ultimately and without appeal, they of course decide _for themselves_. The constitutional validity of the law or laws again prescribing executive action, and to be administered by that branch ultimately and without appeal, the executive must decide for _themselves_ also, whether, under the constitution, they are valid or not. So also as to laws governing the proceedings of the legislature, that body must judge _for itself_ the constitutionality of the law, and equally without appeal or control from its co-ordinate branches. And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately, and without appeal, on any law, is the rightful expositor of the validity of the law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other co-ordinate authorities. It may be said that contradictory decisions may arise in such case, and produce inconvenience. This is possible, and is a necessary failing in all human proceedings. Yet the prudence of the public functionaries, and authority of public opinion, will generally produce accommodation. Such an instance of difference occurred between the judges of England (in the time of Lord Holt) and the House of Commons, but the prudence of those bodies prevented inconvenience from it. So in the cases of Duane and of William Smith of South Carolina, whose characters of citizenship stood precisely on the same ground, the judges in a question of meum and tuum which came before them, decided that Duane was not a citizen; and in a question of membership, the House of Representatives, under the same words of the same provision, adjudged William Smith to be a citizen. Yet no inconvenience has ensued from these contradictory decisions. This is what I believe myself to be sound. But there is another opinion entertained by some men of such judgment and information as to lessen my confidence in my own. That is, that the legislature alone is the exclusive expounder of the sense of the constitution, in every part of it whatever. And they allege in its support, that this branch has authority to impeach and punish a member of either of the others acting contrary to its declaration of the sense of the constitution. It may indeed be answered, that an act may still be valid although the party is punished for it, right or wrong. However, this opinion which ascribes exclusive exposition to the legislature, merits respect for its safety, there being in the body of the nation a control over them, which, if expressed by rejection on the subsequent exercise of their elective franchise, enlists public opinion against their exposition, and encourages a judge or executive on a future occasion to adhere to their former opinion. Between these two doctrines, every one has a right to choose, and I know of no third meriting any respect.

I have thus, Sir, frankly, without the honor of your acquaintance, confided to you my opinion; trusting assuredly that no use will be made of it which shall commit me to the contentions of the newspapers. From that field of disquietude my age asks exemption, and permission to enjoy the privileged tranquillity of a private and unmeddling citizen. In this confidence accept the assurances of my respect and consideration.

TO MR. LEIPER.

MONTICELLO, June 12, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--A journey soon after the receipt of your favor of April the 17th, and an absence from home of some continuance, have prevented my earlier acknowledgment of it. In that came safely my letter of January the 2d, 1814. In our principles of government we differ not at all; nor in the general object and tenor of political measures. We concur in considering the government of England as totally without morality, insolent beyond bearing, inflated with vanity and ambition, aiming at the exclusive dominion of the sea, lost in corruption, of deep-rooted hatred towards us, hostile to liberty wherever it endeavors to show its head, and the eternal disturber of the peace of the world. In our estimate of Bonaparte, I suspect we differ. I view him as a political engine only, and a very wicked one; you, I believe, as both political and religious, and obeying, as an instrument, an unseen hand. I still deprecate his becoming sole lord of the continent of Europe, which he would have been, had he reached in triumph the gates of St. Petersburg. The establishment in our day of another Roman empire, spreading vassalage and depravity over the face of the globe, is not, I hope, within the purposes of Heaven. Nor does the return of Bonaparte give me pleasure unmixed; I see in his expulsion of the Bourbons, a valuable lesson to the world, as showing that its ancient dynasties may be changed for their misrule. Should the allied powers presume to dictate a ruler and government to France, and follow the example he had set of parcelling and usurping to themselves their neighbor nations, I hope he will give them another lesson in vindication of the rights of independence and self-government, which himself had heretofore so much abused; and that in this contest he will wear down the maritime power of England to limitable and safe dimensions. So far, good. It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that his successful perversion of the force (committed to him for vindicating the rights and liberties of his country) to usurp its government, and to enchain it under an hereditary despotism, is of baneful effect in encouraging future usurpations, and deterring those under oppression from rising to redress themselves. His restless spirit leaves no hope of peace to the world; and his hatred of us is only a little less than that he bears to England, and England to us. Our form of government is odious to him, as a standing contrast between republican and despotic rule; and as much from that hatred, as from ignorance in political economy, he had excluded intercourse between us and his people, by prohibiting the only articles they wanted from us, that is, cotton and tobacco. Whether the war we have had with England, and the achievements of that war, and the hope that we may become his instruments and partisans against that enemy, may induce him, in future, to tolerate our commercial intercourse with his people, is still to be seen. For my part, I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all. It is our business to manufacture for ourselves whatever we can, to keep our markets open for what we can spare or want; and the less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe, the better. Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.

The federal misrepresentation of my sentiments, which occasioned my former letter to you, was gross enough; but that and all others are exceeded by the impudence and falsehood of the printed extract you sent me from Ralph's paper. That a continuance of the embargo for two months longer would have prevented our war; that the non-importation law which succeeded it was a wise and powerful measure, I have constantly maintained. My friendship for Mr. Madison, my confidence in his wisdom and virtue, and my approbation of all his measures, and especially of his taking up at length the gauntlet against England, is known to all with whom I have ever conversed or corresponded on these measures. The word _federal_, or its synonyma _lie_, may therefore be written under every word of Mr. Ralph's paragraph. I have ransacked my memory to recollect any incident which might have given countenance to any particle of it, but I find none. For if you will except the bringing into power and importance those who were enemies to himself as well as to the principles of republican government, I do not recollect a single measure of the President which I have not approved. Of those under him, and of some very near him, there have been many acts of which we have all disapproved, and he more than we. We have at times dissented from the measures, and lamented the dilatoriness of Congress. I recollect an instance the first winter of the war, when, from sloth of proceedings, an embargo was permitted to run through the winter, while the enemy could not cruise, nor consequently restrain the exportation of our whole produce, and was taken off in the spring, as soon as they could resume their stations. But this procrastination is unavoidable. How can expedition be expected from a body which we have saddled with an hundred lawyers, whose trade is talking? But lies, to sow division among us, is so stale an artifice of the federal prints, and are so well understood, that they need neither contradiction nor explanation. As to myself, my confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the administration is so entire, that I scarcely notice what is passing, and have almost ceased to read newspapers. Mine remain in our post office a week or ten days, sometimes, unasked for. I find more amusement in studies to which I was always more attached, and from which I was dragged by the events of the times in which I have happened to live.

I rejoice exceedingly that our war with England was single-handed. In that of the Revolution, we had France, Spain, and Holland on our side, and the credit of its success was given to them. On the late occasion, unprepared and unexpecting war, we were compelled to declare it, and to receive the attack of England, just issuing from a general war, fully armed, and freed from all other enemies, and have not only made her sick of it, but glad to prevent, by peace, the capture of her adjacent possessions, which one or two campaigns more would infallibly have made ours. She has found that we can do her more injury than any other enemy on earth, and henceforward will better estimate the value of our peace. But whether her government has power, in opposition to the aristocracy of her navy, to restrain their piracies within the limits of national rights, may well be doubted. I pray, therefore, for peace, as best for all the world, best for us, and best for me, who have already lived to see three wars, and now pant for nothing more than to be permitted to depart in peace. That you also, who have longer to live, may continue to enjoy this blessing with health and prosperity, through as long a life as you desire, is the prayer of yours affectionately.

P. S. June the 14th.--Before I had sent my letter to the post office, I received the new treaty of the allied powers, declaring that the French nation shall not have Bonaparte, and shall have Louis XVIII. for their ruler. They are all then as great rascals as Bonaparte himself. While he was in the wrong, I wished him exactly as much success as would answer our purposes, and no more. Now that they are wrong and he in the right, he shall have all my prayers for success, and that he may dethrone every man of them.

TO MR. MAURY.

MONTICELLO, June 15, 1815.

I congratulate you, my dear and ancient friend, on the return of peace, and the restoration of intercourse between our two countries. What has passed may be a lesson to both of the injury which either can do the other, and the peace now opened may show what would be the value of a cordial friendship; and I hope the first moments of it will be employed to remove the stumbling block which must otherwise keep us eternal enemies. I mean the impressment of our citizens. This was the sole object of the continuance of the late war, which the repeal of the orders of council would otherwise have ended at its beginning. If according to our estimates, England impressed into her navy 6,000 of our citizens, let her count the cost of the war, and a greater number of men lost in it, and she will find this resource for manning her navy the most expensive she can adopt, each of these men having cost her £30,000 sterling, and a man of her own besides. On that point we have thrown away the scabbard, and the moment an European war brings her back to this practice, adds us again to her enemies. But I hope an arrangement is already made on this subject. Have you no statesmen who can look forward two or three score years? It is but forty years since the battle of Lexington. One-third of those now living saw that day, when we were about two millions of people, and have lived to see this, when we are ten millions. One-third of those now living, who see us at ten millions, will live another forty years, and see us forty millions; and looking forward only through such a portion of time as has passed since you and I were scanning Virgil together, (which I believe is near three score years,) we shall be seen to have a population of eighty millions, and of not more than double the average density of the present. What may not such a people be worth to England as customers and friends? and what might she not apprehend from such a nation as enemies? Now, what is the price we ask for our friendship? Justice, and the comity usually observed between nation and nation. Would there not be more of dignity in this, more character and satisfaction, than in her teasings and harassings, her briberies and intrigues, to sow party discord among us, which can never have more effect here than the opposition within herself has there; which can never obstruct the begetting children, the efficient source of growth; and by nourishing a deadly hatred, will only produce and hasten events which both of us, in moments of sober reflection, should deplore and deprecate. One half of the attention employed in decent observances towards our government, would be worth more to her than all the Yankee duperies played off upon her, at a great expense on her part of money and meanness, and of nourishment to the vices and treacheries of the Henrys and Hulls of both nations. As we never can be at war with any other nation, (for no other nation can get at us but Spain, and her own people will manage her,) the idea may be generated that we are natural enemies, and a calamitous one it will be to both. I hope in God her government will come to a sense of this, and will see that honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality. Her ministers have been weak enough to believe from the newspapers that Mr. Madison and myself are personally her enemies. Such an idea is unworthy a man of sense; as we should have been unworthy our trusts could we have felt such a motive of public action. No two men in the United States have more sincerely wished for cordial friendship with her; not as her vassals or dirty partisans, but as members of co-equal States, respecting each other, and sensible of the good as well as the harm each is capable of doing the other. On this ground there was never a moment we did not wish to embrace her. But repelled by their aversions, feeling their hatred at every point of contact, and justly indignant at its supercilious manifestations, that happened which has happened, that will follow which must follow, in progressive ratio, while such dispositions continue to be indulged. I hope they will see this, and do their part towards healing the minds and cooling the temper of both nations. The irritation here is great and general, because the mode of warfare both on the maritime and inland frontiers has been most exasperating. We perceive the English passions to be high also, nourished by the newspapers, that first of all human contrivances for generating war. But it is the office of the rulers on both sides to rise above these vulgar vehicles of passion; to assuage angry feelings, and by examples and expressions of mutual regard in their public intercourse, to lead their citizens into good temper with each other. No one feels more indignation than myself when reflecting on the insults and injuries of that country to this. But the interests of both require that these should be left to history, and in the meantime be smothered in the living mind. I have indeed little personal concern in it. Time is drawing her curtain on me. But I should make my bow with more satisfaction, if I had more hope of seeing our countries shake hands together cordially. In this sentiment I am sure you are with me, and this assurance must apologize for my indulging myself in expressing it to you, with that of my constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

TO MR. MAURY.

MONTICELLO, June 16, 1815.

MY DEAR SIR,--Just as I was about to close my preceding letter, yours of April 29th is put into my hands, and with it the papers your kindness forwards to me. I am glad to see in them expressions of regard for our friendship and intercourse from one side of the houses of parliament. But I would rather have seen them from the other, if not from both. What comes from the opposition is understood to be the converse of the sentiments of the government, and we would not there, as they do here, give up the government for the opposition. The views of the Prince and his ministers are unfortunately to be taken from the speech of Earl Bathurst, in one of the papers you sent me. But what is incomprehensible to me is that the Marquis of Wellesley, advocating us, on the ground of opposition, says that "the aggression which led to the war, was from the United States, not from England." Is there a person in the world who, knowing the circumstances, thinks this? The acts which produced the war were, 1st, the impressment of our citizens by their ships of war, and, 2d, the orders of council forbidding our vessels to trade with any country but England, without going to England to obtain a special license. On the first subject the British minister declared to our Chargé, Mr. Russel, that this practice of their ships of war would not be discontinued, and that no admissible arrangement could be proposed; and as to the second, the Prince Regent, by his proclamation of April 21st, 1812, declared in effect solemnly that he would not revoke the orders of council _as to us_, on the ground that Bonaparte had revoked his decrees _as to us_; that, on the contrary, we should continue under them until Bonaparte should revoke _as to all the world_. These categorical and definite answers put an end to negotiation, and were a declaration of a continuance of the war in which they had already taken from us one thousand ships and six thousand seamen. We determined then to defend ourselves, and to oppose further hostilities by war on our side also. Now, had we taken one thousand British ships and six thousand of her seamen without any declaration of war, would the Marquis of Wellesley have considered a declaration of war by Great Britain as an aggression on her part? They say we denied their maritime rights. We never denied a single one. It was their taking our citizens, native as well as naturalized, for which we went into war, and because they forbade us to trade with any nation without entering and paying duties in their ports on both the outward and inward cargo. Thus to carry a cargo of cotton from Savanna to St. Mary's, and take returns in fruits, for example, our vessel was to go to England, enter and pay a duty on her cottons there, return to St. Mary's, then go back to England to enter and pay a duty on her fruits, and then return to Savanna, after crossing the Atlantic four times, and paying tributes on both cargoes to England, instead of the direct passage of a few hours. And the taking ships for not doing this, the Marquis says, is no aggression. However, it is now all over, and I hope forever over. Yet I should have had more confidence in this, had the friendly expressions of the Marquis come from the ministers of the Prince. On the contrary, we see them scarcely admitting that the war ought to have been ended. Earl Bathurst shuffles together chaotic ideas merely to darken and cover the views of the ministers in protracting the war; the truth being, that they expected to give us an exemplary scourging, to separate from us the States east of the Hudson, take for their Indian allies those west of the Ohio, placing three hundred thousand American citizens under the government of the savages, and to leave the residuum a powerless enemy, if not submissive subjects. I cannot conceive what is the use of your Bedlam when such men are out of it. And yet that such were their views we have evidence, under the hand of their Secretary of State in Henry's case, and of their Commissioners at Ghent. Even now they insinuate the peace in Europe has not suspended the practices which produced the war. I trust, however, they are speaking a different language to our ministers, and join in the hope you express that the provocations which occasioned the late rupture will not be repeated. The interruption of our intercourse with England has rendered us one essential service in planting radically and firmly coarse manufactures among us. I make in my family two thousand yards of cloth a year, which I formerly bought from England, and it only employs a few women, children and invalids, who could do little on the farm. The State generally does the same, and allowing ten yards to a person, this amounts to ten millions of yards; and if we are about the medium degree of manufacturers in the whole Union, as I believe we are, the whole will amount to one hundred millions of yards a year, which will soon reimburse us the expenses of the war. Carding machines in every neighborhood, spinning machines in large families and wheels in the small, are too radically established ever to be relinquished. The finer fabrics perhaps, and even probably, will be sought again in Europe, except broad-cloth, which the vast multiplication of merinos among us will enable us to make much cheaper than can be done in Europe.

Your practice of the cold bath thrice a week during the winter, and at the age of seventy, is a bold one, which I should not, _à priori_, have pronounced salutary. But all theory must yield to experience, and every constitution has its own laws. I have for fifty years bathed my feet in cold water every morning (as you mention), and having been remarkably exempted from colds (not having had one in every seven years of my life on an average), I have supposed it might be ascribed to that practice. When we see two facts accompanying one another for a long time, we are apt to suppose them related as cause and effect.

Our tobacco trade is strangely changed. We no longer know how to fit the plant to the market. Differences of from four to twelve dollars the hundred are now made on qualities appearing to us entirely whimsical. The British orders of council had obliged us to abandon the culture generally; we are now, however, returning to it, and experience will soon decide what description of lands may continue it to advantage. Those which produce the qualities under seven or eight dollars, must, I think, relinquish it finally. Your friends here are well as far as I have heard. So I hope you are; and that you may continue so as long as you shall think the continuance of life itself desirable, is the prayer of yours sincerely and affectionately.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, June 20, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--The fit of recollection came upon both of us so nearly at the same time, that I may, some time or other, begin to think there is something in Priestley's and Hartley's vibrations. The day before yesterday I sent to the post-office a letter to you, and last night I received your kind favor of the 10th.

The question before the human race is, whether the God of Nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles? Or, in other words, whether authority is originally in the people? or whether it has descended for 1800 years in a succession of popes and bishops, or brought down from heaven by the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove, in a phial of holy oil?

Who shall take the side of God and Nature? Brachmans? Mandarins? Druids? or Tecumseh and his brother the prophet? Or shall we become disciples of the Philosophers? And who are the Philosophers? Frederic? Voltaire? Rousseau? Buffon? Diderot? or Condorsett? These philosophers have shown themselves as incapable of governing mankind, as the Bourbons or the Guelphs. Condorsett has let the cat out of the bag. He has made precious confessions. I regret that I have only an English translation of his "Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human mind." But in pages 247, 248, and 249, you will find it frankly acknowledged, that the philosophers of the eighteenth century, adopted all the maxims, and practiced all the arts of the Pharisees, the ancient priests of all countries, the Jesuits, the Machiavillians, &c., &c., to overthrow the institutions that such arts had established. This new philosophy was, by his own account, as insidious, fraudulent, hypocritical, and cruel, as the old policy of the priests, nobles, and kings. When and where were ever found, or will be found, sincerity, honesty, or veracity, in any sect or party in religion, government, or philosophy? Johnson and Burke were more of Catholics than Protestants at heart, and Gibbon became an advocate for the inquisition.

There is no act of uniformity in the Church, or State, philosophic. As many sects and systems among them, as among Quakers and Baptists. Bonaparte will not revive inquisitions, Jesuits, or slave trade, for which habitudes the Bourbons have been driven again into exile.

We shall get along with, or without war. I have at last procured the Marquis D'Argens' Occellus, Timæus, and Julian. Three such volumes I never read. They are a most perfect exemplification of Condorsett's precious confessions. It is astonishing they have not made more noise in the world. Our Athanasians have printed in a pamphlet in Boston, your letters and Priestley's from Belsham's Lindsey. It will do you no harm. Our correspondence shall not again be so long interrupted. Affectionately.

Mrs. Adams thanks Mr. Jefferson for his friendly remembrance of her, and reciprocates to him a thousand good wishes.

P. S. Ticknor and Gray were highly delighted with their visit; charmed with the whole family. Have you read Carnot? Is it not afflicting to see a man of such large views, so many noble sentiments, and such exalted integrity, groping in the dark for a remedy, a balance, or a mediator between independence and despotism? How shall his "love of country," "his honor," and his "national spirit," be produced?

I cannot write a hundredth part of what I wish to say to you.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, June 22, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Can you give me any information concerning A. G. Camus? Is he a Chateaubriand? or a Marquis D'Argens? Does he mean to abolish Christianity? or to restore the Inquisition, the Jesuits, the Pope and the Devil?

Within a few days I have received a thing as unexpected to me as an apparition from the dead: Rapport à l'Institut National. Par A. G. Camus, imprimè par ordre de l'Institut, Pluviose An XI.

In page 55 of this report, he says, "Certain pieces which I found in the chamber of accounts in Brussels, gave me useful indications concerning the grand collection of the Bollandists; and conducted me to make researches into the state of that work, unfortunately interrupted at this day. It would add to the Institute to propose to government the means of completing it; as it has done with success for the collection of the historians of France, of diplomas and ordinances.[14]"

Permit me to dwell a few minutes on this important work.

"Almost all the history of Europe, and a part of that of the east, from the seventh century to the thirteenth, is in the lives of personages to whom have been given the title of Saints. Every one may have remarked, that in reading history, there is no event of any importance, in civil order, in which some Bishop, some Abbé, some Monk, or some Saint, did not take a part. It is, therefore, a great service, rendered by the Jesuits (known under the name of the Bollandists) to those who would write history, to have formed the immense collection, extended to fifty-two volumes in folio, known under the title of the Acts of the Saints. The service they have rendered to literature, is considerably augmented, by the insertion, in their acts of the Saints, a great number of diplomas and dissertations, the greatest part of which are models of criticism. There is no man, among the learned, who does not interest himself in this great collection. My intention is not to recall to your recollection the original authors, or their first labors. We may easily know them by turning over the leaves of the collection, or if we would find the result already written, it is in the Historical Library of Mensel, T. 1, part 1, p. 306, or in the Manual of Literary History, by Bougine, T. 2, p. 641.

"I shall date what I have to say to you only from the epoch of the suppression of the society, of which the Bollandists were members.

"At that time, three Jesuits were employed in the collection of the Acts of the Saints; to wit, the Fathers De Bie, De Bue, and Hubens. The Father Gesquière, who had also labored at the Acts of the Saints, reduced a particular collection, entitled Select Fragments from Belgical Writers, and extracts or references to matters contained in a collection entitled Museum of Bellarmine. These four monks inhabited the house of the Jesuits at Antwerp. Independently of the use of the library of the convent, the Bollandists had their particular library, the most important portion of which was a state of the Lives of the Saints for every day of the month, with indications of the books in which were found those which were already printed, and the original manuscripts, or the copies of manuscripts, which were not yet printed. They frequently quote this particular collection in their general collection. The greatest part of the copies they had assembled, were the fruit of a journey of the Fathers Papebrock and Henshen, made to Rome in 1660. They remained there till 1662. Papebrock and his associate brought from Rome copies of seven hundred Lives of Saints, in Greek or in Latin. The citizen La Serna, has in his library a copy, taken by himself, from the originals, of the relation of the journey of Papebrock to Rome, and of the correspondence of Henshen with his colleagues. The relation and the correspondence are in Latin. See Catalogue de la Serna, T. 3, N. 3903.

"After the suppression of the Jesuits, the commissioners apposed their seals upon the library of the Bollandists, as well as on that of the Jesuits of Antwerp. But Mr. Girard, then Secretary of the Academy at Brussels, who is still living, and who furnished me a part of the documents I use, charged with the inventory and sale of the books, withdrew those of the Bollandists, and transported them to Brussels.

"The Academy of Brussels proposed to continue the Acts of the Saints under its own name, and for this purpose to admit the four Jesuits into the number of its members. The Father Gesquière alone consented to this arrangement. The other Jesuits obtained of government, through the intervention of the Bishop of Newstadt, the assurance, that they might continue their collection. In effect, the Empress Maria Theresa approved, by a decree of the 19th of June, 1778, a plan which was presented to her, for the continuation of the works, both by the Bollandists and of Gesquière. This plan is in ample detail. It contains twenty articles, and would be useful to consult, if any persons should resume the Acts of the Saints. The establishment of the Jesuits was fixed in the Abby of Candenberg, at Brussels; the library of the Bollandists was transported to that place; one of the monks of the Abby was associated with them; and the Father Hubens being dead, was replaced by the Father Berthod, a Benedictine, who died in 1789. The Abby of Candenberg having been suppressed, the government assigned to the Bollandists a place in the ancient College of the Jesuits, at Brussels. They there placed their library, and went there to live. There they published the fifty-first volume of their collection in 1786, the fifth tome of the month of October, printed at Brussels, at the printing press Imperial and Royal, (in _typis Cæsario regiis_.) They had then two associates, and they flattered themselves that the Emperor would continue to furnish the expense of their labors. Nevertheless, in 1788, the establishment of the Bollandists was suppressed, and they even proposed to sell the stock of the printed volumes; but, by an instruction (Avis) of the 6th of December, 1788, the ecclesiastical commission superseded the sale, till the result could be known of a negociation which the Father De Bie had commenced with the Abbé of St. Blaise, to establish the authors, and transport the stock of the work, as well as the materials for its continuation at St. Blaise.

"In the meantime, the Abby of Tongerloo offered the government to purchase the library and stock of the Bollandists, and to cause the work to be continued by the ancient Bollandists, with the monks of Tongerloo associated with them. These propositions were accepted. The Fathers De Bie, De Bue, and Gesquière, removed to Tongerloo; the monks of Candenberg refused to follow them, though they had been associated with them. On the entry of the French troops into Belgium, the monks of Tongerloo quitted their Abby; the Fathers De Bie, and Gesquière, retired to Germany, where they died; the Father De Bue retired to the City Hall, heretofore Province of Hainault, his native country. He lives, but is very aged. One of the monks of Tongerloo, who had been associated with them, is the Father Heylen; they were not able to inform me of the place of his residence. Another monk associated with the Bollandists of 1780, is the Father Fonson, who resides at Brussels.

"In the midst of these troubles, the Bollandists have caused to be printed the fifty-second volume of the Acts of the Saints, the sixth volume of the month of October. The fifty-first volume is not common in commerce, because the sale of it has been interrupted by the continual changes of the residence of the Bollandists. The fifty-second volume, or the sixth of the same month of October, is much more rare. Few persons know its existence.

"The citizen La Serna has given me the two hundred and ninety-six first pages of the volume, which he believes were printed at Tongerloo. He is persuaded that the rest of the volume exists, and he thinks it was at Rome that it was finished (_terminé_).

"The citizen De Herbonville, Prefect of the two Niths at Antwerp, has made, for about eighteen months, attempts with the ancient Bollandists, to engage them to resume their labors. They have not had success. Perhaps the present moment would be the most critical, (opportune,) especially if the government should consent to give to the Bollandists assurance of their safety.

"The essential point would be to make sure of the existence of the manuscripts which I have indicated; and which, by the relation of the citizen La Serna, filled a body of a library of about three toises in length, and two in breadth. If these manuscripts still exist, it is easy to terminate the Acts of the Saints; because we shall have all the necessary materials. If these manuscripts are lost, we must despair to see this collection completed.

"I have enlarged a little on this digression on the Acts of the Saints, because it is a work of great importance; and because these documents, which cannot be obtained with any exactitude but upon the spots, seem to me to be among the principal objects which your travellers have to collect, and of which they ought to give you an account."

Now, my friend Jefferson! I await your observations on this morsel. You may think I waste my time and yours. I do not think so. If you will look into the "Nouveau Dictionaire Historique," under the words "Bollandus, Heinshernius, and Papebrock," you will find more particulars of the rise and progress of this great work, "The Acts of the Saints."

I shall make only an observation or two.

1. The Pope never suppressed the work, and Maria Theresa established it. It therefore must be Catholic.

2. Notwithstanding the professions of the Bollandists, to discriminate the true from the false miracles, and the dubious from both, I suspect that the false will be found the fewest, the dubious the next, and the true the most numerous of all.

3. From all that I have read, of the legends, of the lives, and writings of the saints, and even of the Fathers, and of ecclesiastical history in general, I have no doubt that the _Acta Sanctorum_ is the most enormous mass of lies, frauds, hypocrisy, and imposture, that ever was heaped together on this globe. If it were impartially consulted, it would do more to open the eyes of mankind, than all the philosophers of the 18th century, who were as great hypocrites as any of the philosophers or theologians of antiquity.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] "The Committee of the Institute, for proposing and superintending the literary labors, in the month of Frimaire, An XI., wrote to the Minister of the Interior, requesting him to give orders to the Prefect of the Dyle, and to the Prefect of the Two Nithes, to summon the citizens De Bue, Fonson, Heyten, and all others who had taken any part in the sequel of the work of the Bollandists, to confer with these persons, as well concerning the continuation of this work, as concerning the cession of the materials destined for the continuation of it; to promise to the continuators of the Bollandists the support of the French Government, and to render an account of their conferences."

TO MR. CORREA.

MONTICELLO, June 28, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--When I learned that you proposed to give a course of Botanical lectures in Philadelphia, I feared it would retard the promised visit to Monticello. On my return from Bedford, however, on the 4th instant, I received a letter from M. Dupont flattering me with the prospect that he and yourself would be with us as soon as my return should be known. I therefore in the instant wrote him of my return, and my hope of seeing you both shortly. I am still without that pleasure, but not without the hope. Europe has been a second time turned topsy-turvy since we were together; and so many things have happened there that I have lost my compass. As far as we can judge from appearances, Bonaparte, from being a mere military usurper, seems to have become the choice of his nation; and the allies in their turn, the usurpers and spoliators of the European world. The right of nations to self-government being my polar star, my partialities are steered by it, without asking whether it is a Bonaparte or an Alexander towards whom the helm is directed. Believing that England has enough on her hands without us, and therefore has by this time settled the question of impressment with Mr. Adams, I look on this new conflict of the European gladiators, as from the higher forms of the amphitheatre, wondering that man, like the wild beasts of the forest, should permit himself to be led by his keeper into the arena, the spectacle and sport of the lookers on. Nor do I see the issue of this tragedy with the sanguine hopes of our friend M. Dupont. I fear, from the experience of the last twenty-five years, that morals do not of necessity advance hand in hand with the sciences. These, however, are speculations which may be adjourned to our meeting at Monticello, where I will continue to hope that I may receive you with our friend Dupont, and in the meantime repeat the assurances of my affectionate friendship and respect.

TO MADAME LA BARONNE DE STAEL-HOLSTEIN.

MONTICELLO, July 3, 1815.

DEAR MADAM,--I considered your letter of November 10th, 12th, as an evidence of the interest you were so kind as to take in the welfare of the United States, and I was even flattered by your exhortations to avoid taking any part in the war then raging in Europe, because they were a confirmation of the policy I had myself pursued, and which I thought and still think should be the governing canon of our republic. Distance, and difference of pursuits, of interests, of connections and other circumstances, prescribe to us a different system, having no object in common with Europe, but a peaceful interchange of mutual comforts for mutual wants. But this may not always depend on ourselves; and injuries may be so accumulated by an European power, as to pass all bounds of wise forbearance. This was our situation at the date of your letter. A long course of injuries, systematically pursued by England, and finally, formal declarations that she would neither redress nor discontinue their infliction, had fixed the epoch which rendered an appeal to arms unavoidable. In the letter of May 28th, 1813, which I had the honor of writing you, I entered into such details of these injuries, and of our unremitting endeavors to bring them to a peaceable end, as the narrow limits of a letter permitted. Resistance on our part at length brought our enemy to reflect, to calculate, and to meet us in peaceable conferences at Ghent; but the extravagance of the pretensions brought forward by her negotiators there, when first made known in the United States, dissipated at once every hope of a just peace, and prepared us for a war of utter extremity. Our government, in that state of things, respecting the opinion of the world, thought it a duty to present to it a justification of the course which was likely to be forced upon us; and with this view the pamphlet was prepared which I now enclose. It was already printed, when (instead of their ministers whom they hourly expected from a fruitless negotiation) they received the treaty of pacification signed at Ghent and ratified at London. They endeavored to suppress the pamphlet as now unreasonable--but the proof sheets having been surreptitiously withdrawn, soon made their appearance in the public papers, and in the form now sent. This vindication is so exact in its facts, so cogent in its reasonings, so authenticated by the documents to which it appeals, that it cannot fail to bring the world to a single opinion on our case. The concern you manifested on our entrance into this contest, assures me you will take the trouble of reading it; which I wish the more earnestly, because it will fully explain the very imperfect views which my letter had presented; and because we cannot be indifferent as to the opinion which yourself personally shall ultimately form of the course we have pursued.

I learned with great pleasure your return to your native country. It is the only one which offers elements of society analogous to the powers of your mind, and sensible of the flattering distinction of possessing them. It is true that the great events which made an opening for your return, have been reversed. But not so, I hope, the circumstances which may admit its continuance. On these events I shall say nothing. At our distance, we hear too little truth and too much falsehood to form correct judgments concerning them; and they are moreover foreign to our umpirage. We wish the happiness and prosperity of every nation; we did not believe either of these promoted by the former pursuits of the present ruler of France, and hope that his return, if the nation wills it to be permanent, may be marked by those changes which the solid good of his own country, and the peace and well-being of the world, may call for. But these things I leave to whom they belong; the object of this letter being only to convey to you a vindication of my own country, and to have the honor on a new occasion of tendering you the homage of my great consideration, and respectful attachment.

TO ANDREW C. MITCHELL, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, July 16, 1815.

I thank you, Sir, for the pamphlet which you have been so kind as to send me. I have read it with attention and satisfaction. It is replete with sound views, some of which will doubtless be adopted. Some may be checked by difficulties. None more likely to be so than the proposition to amend the Constitution, so as to authorize Congress to tax exports. The provision against this in the framing of that instrument, was a _sine quâ non_ with the States of peculiar productions, as rice, indigo, cotton and tobacco, to which may now be added sugar. A jealousy prevailing that to the few States producing these articles, the justice of the others might not be a sufficient protection in opposition to their interest, they moored themselves to this anchor. Since the hostile dispositions lately manifested by the Eastern States, they would be less willing than before to place themselves at their mercy; and the rather, as the Eastern States have no exports which can be taxed equivalently. It is possible, however, that this difficulty might be got over; but the subject looking forward beyond my time, I leave it to those to whom its burthens and benefits will belong, adding only my prayers for whatever may be best for our country, and assurances to yourself of my great respect.

TO WM. WIRT, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, August 5, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of July 24th came to hand on the 31st, and I will proceed to answer your inquiries in the order they are presented as far as I am able.

I have no doubt that the fifth of the Rhode Island resolutions of which you have sent me a copy, is exactly the one erased from our journals. The Mr. Lees, and especially Richard Henry, who was industrious, had a close correspondence, I know, with the two Adams', and probably with others in that and the other Eastern States; and I think it was said at the time that copies were sent off by them to the northward the very evening of the day on which they were passed. I can readily enough believe these resolutions were written by Mr. Henry himself. They bear the stamp of his mind, strong without precision. That they were written by Johnson who seconded them, was only the rumor of the day, and very possibly unfounded. But how Edmund Randolph should have said they were written by William Fleming, and Mr. Henry should have written that he showed them to William Fleming, is to me incomprehensible. There was no William Fleming then but the judge now living, whom nobody will ever suspect of taking the lead in rebellion. I am certain he was not then a member, and I think was never a member until the revolution had made some progress. Of this, however, he will inform us with candor and truth. His eldest brother, John Fleming, was a member, and a great speaker in debate. To him they may have been shown. Yet I should not have expected this, because he was extremely attached to Robinson, Peyton Randolph, &c., and at their beck, and had no independence or boldness of mind. However, he was attentive to his own popularity, might have been overruled by views to that, and without correction of the christian name, Mr. Henry's note is sufficient authority to suppose he took the popular side on that occasion. I remember nothing to the contrary. The opposers of the resolutions were Robinson, Peyton Randolph, Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, and all the cyphers of the aristocracy. No longer possessing the journals, I cannot recollect nominally the others. They opposed them on the ground that the same principles had been expressed in the petition, &c., of the preceding year, to which an answer, not yet received, was daily expected, that they were therein expressed in more conciliatory terms, and therefore more likely to have good effect. The resolutions were carried chiefly by the vote of the middle and upper country. To state the differences between the classes of society and the lines of demarkation which separated them, would be difficult. The law, you know, admitted none except as to the twelve counsellors. Yet in a country insulated from the European world, insulated from its sister colonies, with whom there was scarcely any intercourse, little visited by foreigners, and having little matter to act upon within itself, certain families had risen to splendor by wealth and the preservation of it from generation to generation under the law entails; some had produced a series of men of talents; families in general had remained stationary on the grounds of their forefathers, for there was no emigration to the westward in those days. The wild Irish, who had gotten possession of the valley between the Blue Ridge and North Mountain, forming a barrier over which none ventured to leap, and would still less venture to settle among. In such a state of things, scarcely admitting any change of station, society would settle itself down into several strata, separated by no marked lines, but shading off imperceptibly from top to bottom, nothing disturbing the order of their repose. There were then aristocrats, half-breeds, pretenders, a solid independent yeomanry, looking askance at those above, yet not venturing to jostle them, and last and lowest, a seculum of beings called overseers, the most abject, degraded and unprincipled race, always cap in hand to the Dons who employed them, and furnishing materials for the exercise of their pride, insolence and spirit of domination. Your characters are inimitably and justly drawn. I am not certain if more might not be said of Colonel Richard Bland. He was the most learned and logical man of those who took prominent lead in public affairs, profound in constitutional lore, a most ungraceful speaker, (as were Peyton Randolph and Robinson, in a remarkable degree.) He wrote the first pamphlet on the nature of the connection with Great Britain which had any pretension to accuracy of view on that subject, but it was a singular one. He would set out on sound principles, pursue them logically till he found them leading to the precipice which he had to leap, start back alarmed, then resume his ground, go over it in another direction, be led again by the correctness of his reasoning to the same place, and again back about, and try other processes to reconcile right and wrong, but finally left his reader and himself bewildered between the steady index of the compass in their hand, and the phantasm to which it seemed to point. Still there was more sound matter in his pamphlet than in the celebrated Farmer's letters, which were really but an _ignus fatuus_, misleading us from true principles.

Landon Carter's measure you may take from the first volume of the American Philosophical transactions, where he has one or more long papers on the weavil, and perhaps other subjects. His speeches, like his writings, were dull, vapid, verbose, egotistical, smooth as the lullaby of the nurse, and commanding, like that, the repose only of the hearer.

You ask if you may quote me, first, for the loan office; second, Phillips' case; and third, the addresses prepared for Congress by Henry and Lee. For the two first certainly, because within my own knowledge, especially citing the record in Phillips' case, which of itself refutes the diatribes published on that subject; but not for the addresses, because I was not present, nor know anything relative to them but by hearsay from others. My first and principal information on that subject I know I had from Ben Harrison, on his return from the first session of the old Congress. Mr. Pendleton, also, I am tolerably certain, mentioned it to me; but the transaction is too distant, and my memory too indistinct, to hazard as with precision, even what I think I heard from them. In this decay of memory Mr. Edmund Randolph must have suffered at a much earlier period of life than myself. I cannot otherwise account for his saying to you that Robert Carter Nicholas came into the Legislature only on the death of Peyton Randolph, which was in 1776. Seven years before that period, I went first into the Legislature myself, to-wit: in 1769, and Mr. Nicholas was then a member, and I think not a new one. I remember it from an impressive circumstance. It was the first assembly of Lord Botetourt, being called on his arrival. On receiving the Governor's speech, it was usual to move resolutions as heads for an address. Mr. Pendleton asked me to draw the resolutions, which I did. They were accepted by the house, and Pendleton, Nicholas, myself and some others, were appointed a committee to prepare the address. The committee desired me to do it, but when presented it was thought to pursue too strictly the diction of the resolutions, and that their subjects were not sufficiently amplified. Mr. Nicholas chiefly objected to it, and was desired by the committee to draw one more at large, which he did with amplification enough, and it was accepted. Being a young man as well as a young member, it made on me an impression proportioned to the sensibility of that time of life. On a similar occasion some years after, I had reason to retain a remembrance of his presence while Peyton Randolph was living. On the receipt of Lord North's propositions, in May or June, 1775, Lord Dunmore called the assembly. Peyton Randolph, then President of Congress and Speaker of the House of Burgesses, left the former body and came home to hold the assembly, leaving in Congress the other delegates who were the ancient leaders of our house. He therefore asked me to prepare the answer to Lord North's propositions, which I did. Mr. Nicholas, whose mind had as yet acquired no tone for that contest, combated the answer from _alpha_ to _omega_, and succeeded in diluting it in one or two small instances. It was firmly supported however, in committee of the whole, by Peyton Randolph, who had brought with him the spirit of the body over which he had presided, and it was carried, with very little alteration, by strong majorities. I was the bearer of it myself to Congress, by whom, as it was the first answer given to those propositions by any legislature, it was received with peculiar satisfaction. I am sure that from 1769, if not earlier, to 1775, you will find Mr. Nicholas' name constantly in the journals, for he was an active member. I think he represented James City county. Whether on the death of Peyton Randolph he succeeded him for Williamsburg, I do not know. If he did, it may account for Mr. Randolph's error.

You ask some account of Mr. Henry's mind, information and manners in 1759-'60, when I first became acquainted with him. We met at Nathan Dandridge's, in Hanover, about the Christmas of that winter, and passed perhaps a fortnight together at the revelries of the neighborhood and season. His manners had something of the coarseness of the society he had frequented; his passion was fiddling, dancing and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and it attached every one to him. The occasion perhaps, as much as his idle disposition, prevented his engaging in any conversation which might give the measure either of his mind or information. Opportunity was not wanting, because Mr. John Campbell was there, who had married Mrs. Spotswood, the sister of Colonel Dandridge. He was a man of science, and often introduced conversations on scientific subjects. Mr. Henry had a little before broke up his store, or rather it had broken him up, and within three months after he came to Williamsburg for his license, and told me, I think, he had read law not more than six weeks. I have by this time, probably, tired you with these old histories, and shall, therefore, only add the assurance of my great friendship and respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, August 10, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--The simultaneous movements in our correspondence have been remarkable on several occasions. It would seem as if the state of the air, or state of the times, or some other unknown cause, produced a sympathetic effect on our mutual recollections. I had sat down to answer your letters of June the 19th, 20th and 22d, with pen, ink and paper before me, when I received from our mail that of July the 30th. You ask information on the subject of Camus. All I recollect of him is, that he was one of the deputies sent to arrest Dumourier at the head of his army, who were, however, themselves arrested by Dumourier, and long detained as prisoners. I presume, therefore, he was a Jacobin. You will find his character in the most excellent revolutionary history of Toulongeon. I believe, also, he may be the same person who has given us a translation of Aristotle's Natural History, from the Greek into French. Of his report to the National Institute on the subject of the Bollandists, your letter gives me the first information. I had supposed them defunct with the society of Jesuits, of which they were; and that their works, although above ground, were, from their bulk and insignificance, as effectually entombed on their shelves, as if in the graves of their authors. Fifty-two volumes in folio, of the acta sanctorum, in dog-Latin, would be a formidable enterprise to the most laborious German. I expect, with you, they are the most enormous mass of lies, frauds, hypocrisy and imposture, that was ever heaped together on this globe. By what chemical process M. Camus supposed that an extract of truth could be obtained from such a farrago of falsehood, I must leave to the chemists and moralists of the age to divine.

On the subject of the history of the American Revolution, you ask who shall write it? Who can write it? And who will ever be able to write it? Nobody; except merely its external facts; all its councils, designs and discussions having been conducted by Congress with closed doors, and no members, as far as I know, having even made notes of them. These, which are the life and soul of history, must forever be unknown. Botta, as you observe, has put his own speculations and reasonings into the mouths of persons whom he names, but who, you and I know, never made such speeches. In this he has followed the example of the ancients, who made their great men deliver long speeches, all of them in the same style, and in that of the author himself. The work is nevertheless a good one, more judicious, more chaste, more classical, and more true than the party diatribe of Marshall. Its greatest fault is in having taken too much from him. I possessed the work, and often recurred to considerable portions of it, although I never read it through. But a very judicious and well-informed neighbor of mine went through it with great attention, and spoke very highly of it. I have said that no member of the old Congress, as far as I knew, made notes of the discussion. I did not know of the speeches you mention of Dickinson and Witherspoon. But on the questions of Independence, and on the two articles of Confederation respecting taxes and votings, I took minutes of the heads of the arguments. On the first, I threw all into one mass, without ascribing to the speakers their respective arguments; pretty much in the manner of Hume's summary digests of the reasonings in parliament for and against a measure. On the last, I stated the heads of the arguments used by each speaker. But the whole of my notes on the question of Independence does not occupy more than five pages, such as of this letter; and on the other questions, two such sheets. They have never been communicated to any one. Do you know that there exists in manuscript the ablest work of this kind ever yet executed, of the debates of the constitutional convention of Philadelphia in 1788? The whole of everything said and done there was taken down by Mr. Madison, with a labor and exactness beyond comprehension.

I presume that our correspondence has been observed at the post offices, and thus has attracted notice. Would you believe, that a printer has had the effrontery to propose to me the letting him publish it? These people think they have a right to everything, however secret or sacred. I had not before heard of the Boston pamphlet with Priestley's letters and mine.

At length Bonaparte has got on the right side of a question. From the time of his entering the legislative hall to his retreat to Elba, no man has execrated him more than myself. I will not except even the members of the Essex Junto; although for very different reasons; I, because he was warring against the liberty of his own country, and independence of others; they, because he was the enemy of England, the Pope, and the Inquisition. But at length, and as far as we can judge, he seems to have become the choice of his nation. At least, he is defending the cause of his nation, and that of all mankind, the rights of every people to independence and self-government. He and the allies have now changed sides. They are parcelling out among themselves Poland, Belgium, Saxony, Italy, dictating a ruler and government to France, and looking askance at our republic, the splendid libel on their governments, and he is fighting for the principles of national independence, of which his whole life hitherto has been a continued violation. He has promised a free government to his own country, and to respect the rights of others; and although his former conduct inspires little confidence in his promises, yet we had better take the chance of his word for doing right, than the certainty of the wrong which his adversaries are doing and avowing. If they succeed, ours is only the boon of the Cyclops to Ulysses, of being the last devoured.

Present me affectionately and respectfully to Mrs. Adams, and Heaven give you both as much more of life as you wish, and bless it with health and happiness.

P. S. August the 11th.--I had finished my letter yesterday, and this morning receive the news of Bonaparte's second abdication. Very well. For him personally, I have no feeling but reprobation. The representatives of the nation have deposed him. They have taken the allies at their word, that they had no object in the war but his removal. The nation is now free to give itself a good government, either with or without a Bourbon; and France unsubdued, will still be a bridle on the enterprises of the combined powers, and a bulwark to others.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, August 24, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--If I am neither deceived by the little information I have, or by my wishes for its truth, I should say that France is the most _Protestant_ country of Europe at this time, though I cannot think it the most _reformed_. In consequence of these reveries, I have imagined that Camus and the Institute, meant, by the revival and continuance of the _Acta Sanctorum_, to destroy the Pope, and the Catholic church and Hierarchies, _de fonde en comble_, or in the language of Frederick Pollair, D'Alembert, &c., "_ecraser le miserable_"--"Crush the wretch." This great work must contain the most complete history of the corruptions of Christianity that has ever appeared, Priestley's not excepted and his history of ancient opinions not excepted.

As to the History of the Revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an effect, and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington. The records of thirteen Legislatures, the pamphlets, newspapers, in all the colonies ought to be consulted, during that period, to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed, concerning the authority of Parliament over the colonies. The Congress of 1774 resembled in some respects, though I hope not in many, the council of Nice in ecclesiastical history. It assembled the Priests from the east and the west, the north and the south, who compared notes, engaged in discussions and debates, and formed results by one vote, and by two votes, which went out to the world as unanimous.

Mr. Madison's Notes of the Convention of 1787 or 1788 are consistent with his indefatigable character. I shall never see them, but I hope posterity will.

That our correspondence has been observed is no wonder; for your hand is more universally known than your face. No printer has asked me for copies; but it is no surprise that you have been requested. These gentry will print whatever will sell; and our correspondence is thought such an oddity by both parties, that the printers imagine an edition would soon go off, and yield them a profit. There has, however, been no tampering with your letters to me. They have all arrived in good order.

Poor Bonaparte! Poor Devil! What has, and what will become of him? Going the way of King Theodore, Alexander, Cæsar, Charles XIIth, Cromwell, Wat Tyler, and Jack Cade, _i.e._, to a bad end. And what will become of Wellington? Envied, hated, despised, by all the barons, earls, viscounts, marquises, as an upstart, a parvenue elevated over their heads. For these people have no idea of any merit, but birth. Wellington must pass the rest of his days buffeted, ridiculed, scorned and insulted by factions, as Marlborough and his Duchess did. Military glory dazzles the eyes of mankind, and for a time eclipses all wisdom and virtue, all laws, human and divine; and after this it would be bathos to descend to services merely civil or political.

Napoleon has imposed kings upon Spain, Holland, Sweden, Westphalia, Saxony, Naples, &c. The combined emperors and kings are about to retaliate upon France, by imposing a king upon her. These are all abominable examples, detestable precedents. When will the rights of mankind, the liberties and independence of nations, be respected? When the perfectibility of the human mind shall arrive at perfection. When the progress of Manillius' _Ratio_ shall have not only _eripuit cœlo fulmen, Jouvisque fulgores_, but made mankind rational creatures.

It remains to be seen whether the allies were honest in their declaration that they were at war only with Napoleon.

Can the French ever be cordially reconciled to the Bourbons again? If not, who can they find for a head? the infant, or one of the generals? Innumerable difficulties will embarrass either project. I am, as ever

TO JUDGE ROANE.

MONTICELLO, October 12, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--I received in a letter from Colonel Monroe the enclosed paper communicated, as he said, with your permission, and even with a wish to know my sentiments on the important question it discusses. It is now more than forty years since I have ceased to be habitually conversant with legal questions; and my pursuits through that period have seldom required or permitted a renewal of my former familiarity with them. My ideas at present, therefore, on such questions, have no claim to respect but such as might be yielded to the common auditors of a law argument.

I well knew that in certain federal cases the laws of the United States had given to a foreign party, whether plaintiff or defendant, a right to carry his cause into the federal court; but I did not know that where he had himself elected the State judicature, he could, after an unfavorable decision there, remove his case to the federal court, and thus take the benefit of two chances where others have but one; nor that the right of entertaining the question in this case had been exercised, or claimed by the federal judiciary after it had been postponed on the party's first election. His failure, too, to place on the record the particular ground which might give jurisdiction to the federal court, appears to me an additional objection of great weight. The question is of the first importance. The removal of it seems to be out of the analogies which guide the two governments on their separate tracts, and claims the solemn attention of both judicatures, and of the nation itself. I should fear to make up a final opinion on it, until I could see as able a development of the grounds of the federal claim as that which I have now read against it. I confess myself unable to foresee what those grounds would be. The paper enclosed must call them forth, and silence them too, unless they are beyond my ken. I am glad, therefore, that the claim is arrested, and made the subject of special and mature deliberation. I hope our courts will never countenance the sweeping pretensions which have been set up under the words "general defence and public welfare." These words only express the motives which induced the Convention to give to the ordinary legislature certain specified powers which they enumerate, and which they thought might be trusted to the ordinary legislature, and not to give them the unspecified also; or why any specification? They could not be so awkward in language as to mean, as we say, "all and some." And should this construction prevail, all limits to the federal government are done away. This opinion, formed on the first rise of the question, I have never seen reason to change, whether in or out of power; but, on the contrary, find it strengthened and confirmed by five and twenty years of additional reflection and experience: and any countenance given to it by any regular organ of the government, I should consider more ominous than anything which has yet occurred.

I am sensible how much these slight observations, on a question which you have so profoundly considered, need apology. They must find this in my zeal for the administration of our government according to its true spirit, federal as well as republican, and in my respect for any wish which you might be supposed to entertain for opinions of so little value. I salute you with sincere and high respect and esteem.

TO CAPT. A. PARTRIDGE OF THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS, WEST POINT, NEW YORK.

MONTICELLO, October 12, 1815.

SIR,--I thank you for the statement of altitudes, which you have been so kind as to send me of our northern mountains. It came opportunely, as I was about making inquiries for the height of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, which have the reputation of being the highest in our maritime States, and purpose shortly to measure geometrically the height of the Peaks of Otter, which I suppose the highest _from their base_, of any on the east side of the Mississippi, except the White Mountains, and not far short of their height, if they are but of 4,885 feet. The method of estimating heights by the barometer, is convenient and useful, as being ready, and furnishing an approximation to truth. Of what degree of accuracy it is susceptible we know not as yet; no certain theory being established for ascertaining the density and weight of that portion of the column of atmosphere contiguous to the mountain; from the weight of which, nevertheless, we are to infer the height of the mountain. The most plausible seems to be that which supposes the mercury of barometer divided into horizontal lamina of equal _thickness_; and a similar column of the atmosphere into lamina of equal _weights_. The former divisions give a set of arithmetical, the latter of geometrical progressionals, which being the character of Logarithms and their numbers, the tables of these furnish ready computations, needing, however, the corrections which the state of the thermometer calls for. It is probable that in taking heights in the vicinity of each other in this way, there may be no considerable error, because the passage between them may be quick and repeated. The height of a mountain from its base, thus taken, merits, therefore, a very different degree of credit from that of its height above the level of the sea, where that is distant. According, for example, to the theory above mentioned, the height of Monticello from its base is 580 feet, and its base 610 feet 8 inches, above the level of the ocean; the former, from other facts, I judge to be near the truth; but a knowledge of the different falls of water from hence to the tide-water at Richmond, a distance of seventy-five miles, enables us to say that the whole descent to that place is but 170 or 180 feet. From thence to the ocean may be a distance of one hundred miles; it is all tide-water, and through a level country. I know not what to conjecture as the amount of descent, but certainly not 435 feet, as that theory would suppose, nor the quarter part of it. I do not know by what rule General Williams made his computations; he reckons the foot of the Blue Ridge, twenty miles from here, but 100 feet above the tide-water at Richmond. We know the descent, as before observed, to be at least 170 feet from hence, to which is to be added that from the Blue Ridge to this place, a very hilly country, with constant and great waterfalls. His estimate, therefore, must be much below truth. Results so different prove that for distant comparisons of height, the barometer is not to be relied on according to any theory yet known. While, therefore, we give a good degree of credit to the results of operations between the summit of a mountain and its base, we must give less to those between its summit and the level of the ocean.

I will do myself the pleasure of sending you my estimate of the Peaks of Otter, which I count on undertaking in the course of the next month. In the meantime accept the assurance of my great respect.

TO DOCTOR LOGAN.

MONTICELLO, October 15,1815.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for the extract in yours of August 16th respecting the Emperor Alexander. It arrived here a day or two after I had left this place, from which I have been absent seven or eight weeks. I had from other information formed the most favorable opinion of the virtues of Alexander, and considered his partiality to this country as a prominent proof of them. The magnanimity of his conduct on the first capture of Paris still magnified everything we had believed of him; but how he will come out of his present trial remains to be seen. That the sufferings which France had inflicted on other countries justified severe reprisals, cannot be questioned; but I have not yet learned what crimes of Poland, Saxony, Belgium, Venice, Lombardy and Genoa, had merited for them, not merely a temporary punishment, but that of permanent subjugation and a destitution of independence and self-government. The fable of Æsop of the lion dividing the spoils, is, I fear, becoming true history, and the moral code of Napoleon and the English government a substitute for that of Grotius, of Puffendorf, and even of the pure doctrine of the great author of our own religion. We were safe ourselves from Bonaparte, because he had not the British fleets at his command. We were safe from the British fleets, because they had Bonaparte at their back; but the British fleets and the conquerors of Bonaparte being now combined, and the Hartford nation drawn off to them, we have uncommon reason to look to our own affairs. This, however, I leave to others, offering prayers to heaven, the only contribution of old age, for the safety of our country. Be so good as to present me affectionately to Mrs. Logan, and to accept yourself the assurance of my esteem and respect.

TO MR. GALLATIN.

MONTICELLO, October 16, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--A long absence from home must apologize for my so late acknowledgment of your welcome favor of September 6th. Our storm of the 4th of that month gave me great uneasiness for you; for I was certain you must be on the coast, and your actual arrival was unknown to me. It was such a wind as I have not witnessed since the year 1769. It did, however, little damage with us, only prostrating our corn, and tearing tobacco, without essential injury to either. It could have been nothing compared with that of the 23d, off the coast of New England, of which we had not a breath, but on the contrary, fine, fair weather. Is this the judgment of God between us? I congratulate you sincerely on your safe return to your own country, and without knowing your own wishes, mine are that you would never leave it again. I know you would be useful to us at Paris, and so you would anywhere; but nowhere so useful as here. We are undone, my dear Sir, if this banking mania be not suppressed. _Aut Carthago, aut Roma delenda est._ The war, had it proceeded, would have upset our government; and a new one, whenever tried, will do it. And so it must be while our money, the nerve of war, is much or little, real or imaginary, as our bitterest enemies choose to make it. Put down the banks, and if this country could not be carried through the longest war against her most powerful enemy, without ever knowing the want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitorous classes of her citizens, without bearing hard on the resources of the people, or loading the public with an indefinite burthen of debt, I know nothing of my countrymen. Not by any novel project, not by any charlatanerie, but by ordinary and well-experienced means; by the total prohibition of all private paper at all times, by reasonable taxes in war aided by the necessary emissions of public paper of circulating size, this bottomed on special taxes, redeemable annually as this special tax comes in, and finally within a moderate period,--even with the flood of private paper by which we were deluged, would the treasury have ventured its credit in bills of circulating size, as of five or ten dollars, &c., they would have been greedily received by the people in preference to bank paper. But unhappily the towns of America were considered as the nation of America, the dispositions of the inhabitants of the former as those of the latter, and the treasury, for want of confidence in the country, delivered itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and pretenders to be money-holders, whom it could have crushed at any moment. Even the last half-bold half-timid threat of the treasury, showed at once that these jugglers were at the feet of government. For it never was, and is not, any confidence in their frothy bubbles, but the want of all other medium, which induced, or now induces, the _country_ people to take their paper; and at this moment, when nothing else is to be had, no man will receive it but to pass it away instantly, none for distant purposes. We are now without any common measure of the value of property, and private fortunes are up or down at the will of the worst of our citizens. Yet there is no hope of relief from the legislatures who have immediate control over this subject. As little seems to be known of the principles of political economy as if nothing had ever been written or practised on the subject, or as was known in old times, when the Jews had their rulers under the hammer. It is an evil, therefore, which we must make up our minds to meet and to endure as those of hurricanes, earthquakes and other casualties: let us turn over therefore another leaf.

I grieve for France; although it cannot be denied that by the afflictions with which she wantonly and wickedly overwhelmed other nations, she has merited severe reprisals. For it is no excuse to lay the enormities to the wretch who led to them, and who has been the author of more misery and suffering to the world, than any being who ever lived before him. After destroying the liberties of his country, he has exhausted all its resources, physical and moral, to indulge his own maniac ambition, his own tyrannical and overbearing spirit. His sufferings cannot be too great. But theirs I sincerely deplore, and what is to be their term? The will of the allies? There is no more moderation, forbearance, or even honesty in theirs, than in that of Bonaparte. They have proved that their object, like his, is plunder. They, like him, are shuffling nations together, or into their own hands, as if all were right which they feel a power to do. In the exhausted state in which Bonaparte has left France, I see no period to her sufferings, until this combination of robbers fall together by the ears. The French may then rise up and choose their side. And I trust they will finally establish for themselves a government of rational and well-tempered liberty. So much science cannot be lost; so much light shed over them can never fail to produce to them some good, in the end. Till then we may ourselves fervently pray, with the liturgy a little parodied, "Give peace till that time, oh Lord, because there is none other that will fight for us but only thee, oh God." It is rare that I indulge in these poetical effusions; but your former and latter relations with both subjects have associated you with them in my mind, and led me beyond the limits of attention I ordinarily give to them. Whether you go or stay with us, you have always the prayers of yours affectionately.

P. S. The two letters you enclosed me were from Warden and De Lormerie, and neither from La Fayette, as you supposed.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, November 13, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--The fundamental article of my political creed is, that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor; equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical.

Accordingly, arbitrary power, wherever it has resided, ha never failed to destroy all the records, memorials, and histories of former times which it did not like, and to corrupt and interpolate such as it was cunning enough to preserve or tolerate. We cannot therefore say with much confidence, what knowledge or what virtues may have prevailed in some former ages in some quarters of the world.

Nevertheless, according to the few lights that remain to us, we may say that the eighteenth century, notwithstanding all its errors and vices, has been, of all that are past, the most honorable to human nature. Knowledge and virtues were increased and diffused. Arts, sciences useful to men, ameliorating their condition, were improved more than in any former equal period.

But what are we to say now? Is the nineteenth century to be a contrast to the eighteenth? Is it to extinguish all the lights of its predecessors? Are the Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index Expurgatorius, and the knights-errant of St. Ignatius Loyola to be revived and restored to all their salutary powers of supporting and propagating the mild spirit of Christianity? The proceedings of the allies and their Congress at Vienna, the accounts from Spain, France, &c., the Chateaubriands and the Genti's, indicate which way the wind blows. The priests are at their old work again. The Protestants are denounced, and another St. Bartholomew's day threatened.

This, however, will probably, twenty-five years hence, be honored with the character of "_The effusions of a splenetic mind, rather than as the sober reflections of an unbiased understanding_." I have received Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Price, by William Morgan, F.R.S. In pages 151 and 155 Mr. Morgan says: "So well assured was Dr. Price of the establishment of a free constitution in France, and of the subsequent overthrow of despotism throughout Europe, as the consequence of it, that he never failed to express his gratitude to heaven for having extended his life to the present happy period, in which after sharing the benefits of one revolution, he has been spared to be a witness to two other revolutions, both glorious." But some of his correspondents were not quite so sanguine in their expectations from the last of the revolutions; and among these, the late American Ambassador, Mr. John Adams. In a long letter which he wrote to Dr. Price at this time, so far from congratulating him on the occasion, he expresses himself in terms of contempt, in regard to the French revolution; and after asking rather too severely what good was to be expected from a nation of Atheists, he concluded with foretelling the destruction of a million of human beings as the probable consequence of it. These harsh censures and gloomy predictions were particularly ungrateful to Dr. Price, nor can it be denied that they must have then appeared as the _effusions of a splenetic mind, rather than as the sober reflections_ of an unbiased understanding.

I know not what a candid public will think of this practice of Mr. Morgan, after the example of Mr. Belsham, who, finding private letters in the Cabinet of a great and good man, after his decease, written in the utmost freedom and confidence of intimate friendship, by persons still living, though after the lapse of a quarter of a century, produces them before the world.

Dr. Disney had different feelings and a different judgment. Finding some cursory letters among the papers of Mr. Hollis, he would not publish them without my consent. In answer to his request, I submitted them to his discretion, and might have done the same to Mr. Morgan; indeed, had Mr. Morgan published my letter entire, I should not have given him nor myself any concern about it. But as in his summary he has not done the latter justice, I shall give it with all its faults.

Mr. Morgan has been more discreet and complaisant to you than to me. He has mentioned respectfully your letters from Paris to Dr. Price, but has given us none of them. As I would give more for these letters than for all the rest of the book, I am more angry with him for disappointing me, than for all he says of me and my letter, which, scambling as it is, contains nothing but the sure words of prophecy. I am, as usual, yours

TO MR. WM. BENTLEY.

MONTICELLO, December 28, 1815.

DEAR SIR,--At the date of your letter of October 30th, I had just left home on a journey from which I am recently returned. I had many years ago understood that Professor Ebeling was engaged in a geographical work which would comprehend the United States, and indeed I expected it was finished and published. I am glad to learn that his candor and discrimination have been sufficient to guard him against trusting the libel of Dr. Morse on this State. I wish it were in my power to give him the aid you ask, but it is not. The whole forenoon with me is engrossed by correspondence too extensive and laborious for my age. Health, habit, and necessary attention to my farms, require me then to be on horseback until a late dinner, and the society of my family and friends, with some reading, furnish the necessary relaxations of the rest of the day. Add to this that the cession of my library to Congress has left me without materials for such an undertaking. I wish the part of his work which gives the geography of this country may be translated and published, that ourselves and the world may at length have something like a dispassionate account of these States. Poor human nature! when we are obliged to appeal for the truth of mere facts from an eye-witness to one whose faculties for discovering it are only an honest candor and caution in sifting the grain from its chaff!

The Professor's history of Hamburg is doubtless interesting and instructive, and valuable as a corrective of the false information we derive from newspapers. I should read it with pleasure, but I fear its transportation and return would expose it to too much risk. Notwithstanding all the French and British atrocities, which will forever disgrace the present era of history, their shameless prostration of all the laws of morality which constitute the security, the peace and comfort of man--notwithstanding the waste of human life, and measure of human suffering which they have inflicted on the world--nations hitherto in slavery have descried through all this bloody mist a glimmering of their own rights, have dared to open their eyes, and to see that their own power and their own will suffice for their emancipation. Their tyrants must now give them more moderate forms of government, and they seem now to be sensible of this themselves. Instead of the parricide treason of Bonaparte in employing the means confided to him as a republican magistrate to the overthrow of that republic, and establishment of a military despotism in himself and his descendants, to the subversion of the neighboring governments, and erection of thrones for his brothers, his sisters and sycophants, had he honestly employed that power in the establishment and support of the freedom of his own country, there is not a nation in Europe which would not at this day have had a more rational government, one in which the will of the people should have had a moderating and salutary influence. The work will now be longer, will swell more rivers with blood, produce more sufferings and more crimes. But it will be consummated; and that it may be will be the theme of my constant prayers while I shall remain on the earth beneath, or in the heavens above. To these I add sincere wishes for your health and happiness.

TO MR. GEORGE FLEMING.

MONTICELLO, December 29, 1815.

SIR,--At the date of your favor of October 30th, I had just left home on a journey to a distant possession of mine, from which I am but recently returned, and I wish that the matter of my answer could compensate for its delay. But, Sir, it happens that of all the machines which have been employed to aid human labor, I have made myself the least acquainted with (that which is certainly the most powerful of all) the steam engine. In its original and simple form indeed, as first constructed by Newcomen and Savary, it had been a subject of my early studies; but once possessed of the principle, I ceased to follow up the numerous modifications of the machinery for employing it, of which I do not know whether England or our own country has produced the greatest number. Hence, I am entirely incompetent to form a judgment of the comparative merit of yours with those preceding it; and the cession of my library to Congress has left me without any examples to turn to. I see, indeed, in yours, the valuable properties of simplicity, cheapness and accommodation to the small and more numerous calls of life, and the calculations of its power appear sound and correct. Yet experience and frequent disappointment have taught me not to be over-confident in theories or calculations, until actual trial of the whole combination has stamped it with approbation. Should this sanction be added, the importance of your construction will be enhanced by the consideration that a smaller agent, applicable to our daily concerns, is infinitely more valuable than the greatest which can be used only for great objects. For these interest the few alone, the former the many. I once had an idea that it might perhaps be possible to economize the steam of a common pot, kept boiling on the kitchen fire until its accumulation should be sufficient to give a stroke, and although the strokes might not be rapid, there would be enough of them in the day to raise from an adjacent well the water necessary for daily use; to wash the linen, knead the bread, beat the homony, churn the butter, turn the spit, and do all other household offices which require only a regular mechanical motion. The unproductive hands now necessarily employed in these, might then increase the produce of our fields. I proposed it to Mr. Rumsey, one of our greatest mechanics, who believed in its possibility, and promised to turn his mind to it. But his death soon after disappointed this hope. Of how much more value would this be to ordinary life than Watts & Bolton's thirty pair of mill-stones to be turned by one engine, of which I saw seven pair in actual operation. It is an interesting part of your question, how much fuel would be requisite for your machine?

Your letter being evidence of your attention to mechanical things, and to their application to matters of daily interest, I will mention a trifle in this way, which yet is not without value. I presume, like the rest of us in the country, you are in the habit of household manufacture, and that you will not, like too many, abandon it on the return of peace, to enrich our late enemy, and to nourish foreign agents in our bosom, whose baneful influence and intrigues cost us so much embarrassment and dissension. The shirting for our laborers has been an object of some difficulty. Flax is injurious to our lands, and of so scanty produce that I have never attempted it. Hemp, on the other hand, is abundantly productive, and will grow forever on the same spot. But the breaking and beating it, which has been always done by hand, is so slow, so laborious, and so much complained of by our laborers, that I had given it up and purchased and manufactured cotton for their shirting. The advanced price of this, however, now makes it a serious item of expense; and in the meantime, a method of removing the difficulty of preparing hemp occurred to me, so simple and so cheap, that I return to its culture and manufacture. To a person having a threshing machine, the addition of a hemp-break will not cost more than twelve or fifteen dollars. You know that the first mover in that machine is a horizontal horse-wheel with cogs on its upper face. On these is placed a wallower and shaft, which give motion to the threshing apparatus. On the opposite side of this same wheel I place another wallower and shaft, through which, and near its outer end, I pass a cross-arm of sufficient strength, projecting on each side fifteen inches in this form: [Illustration] nearly under the cross-arm is placed a very strong hemp-break, much stronger and heavier than those for the hand. Its head block particularly is massive, and four feet high, and near its upper end in front, is fixed a strong pin (which we may call its horn), by this the cross-arm lifts and lets fall the break twice in every revolution of the wallower. A man feeds the break with hemp stalks, and a little person holds under the head block a large twist of the hemp which has been broken, resembling a twist of tobacco but larger, where it is more perfectly beaten than I have ever seen done by hand. If the horse-wheel has one hundred and forty-four cogs, the wallower eleven rounds, and the horse goes three times round in a minute, it will give about eighty strokes in a minute. I had fixed a break to be moved by the gate of my saw-mill, which broke and beat at the rate of two hundred pounds a day. But the inconveniences of interrupting that, induced me to try the power of a horse, and I have found it to answer perfectly. The power being less, so also probably will be the effect, of which I cannot make a fair trial until I commence on my new crop. I expect that a single horse will do the breaking and beating of ten men. Something of this kind has been so long wanted by the cultivators of hemp, that as soon as I can speak of its effect with certainty, I shall probably describe it anonymously in the public papers, in order to forestall the prevention of its use by some interloping patentee. I shall be happy to learn that an actual experiment of your steam engine fulfils the expectations we form of it, and I pray you to accept the assurances of my esteem and respect.

TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

MONTICELLO, December 31, 1815.

Nothing, my very dear and ancient friend, could have equalled the mortification I felt on my arrival at home, and receipt of the information that I had lost the happiness of your visit. The season had so far advanced, and the weather become so severe, that together with the information given me by Mr. Correa, so early as September, that your friends even then were dissuading the journey, I had set it down as certain it would be postponed to a milder season of the ensuing year. I had yielded, therefore, with the less reluctance to a detention in Bedford by a slower progress of my workmen than had been counted on. I have never more desired anything than a full and free conversation with you. I have not understood the transactions in France during the years '14 and '15. From the newspapers we cannot even conjecture the secret and real history; and I had looked for it to your visit. A pamphlet (_Le Conciliateur_) received from M. Jullien, had given me some idea of the obliquities and imbecilities of the Bourbons, during their first restoration. Some manœuvres of both parties I had learnt from Lafayette, and more recently from Gallatin. But the note you referred me to at page 360 of your letter to Say, has possessed me more intimately of the views, the conduct and consequences of the last apparition of Napoleon. Still much is wanting. I wish to know what were the intrigues which brought him back, and what those which finally crushed him? What parts were acted by A, B, C, D., &c, some of whom I know, and some I do not? How did the body of the nation stand affectioned, comparatively, between the fool and the tyrant? &c., &c., &c. From the account my family gives me of your sound health, and of the vivacity and vigor of your mind, I will still hope we shall meet again, and that the fine temperature of our early summer, to wit, of May and June, may suggest to you the salutary effects of exercise, and change of air and scene. _En attendant_, we will turn to other subjects.

That your opinion of the hostile intentions of Great Britain towards us is sound, I am satisfied, from her movements north and south of us, as well as from her temper. She feels the gloriole of her late _golden_ achievements tarnished by our successes against her by sea and land; and will not be contented until she has wiped it off by triumphs over us also. I rely, however, on the volcanic state of Europe to present other objects for her arms and her apprehensions; and am not without hope we shall be permitted to proceed peaceably in making children, and maturing and moulding our strength and resources. It is impossible that France should rest under her present oppressions and humiliations. She will rise in that gigantic strength which cannot be annihilated, and will fatten her fields with the blood of her enemies. I only wish she may exercise patience and forbearance until divisions among them may give her a choice of sides. To the overwhelming power of England I see but two chances of limit. The first is her bankruptcy, which will deprive her of the _golden_ instrument of all her successes. The other in that ascendency which nature destines for us by immutable laws. But to hasten this last consummation, we too must exercise patience and forbearance. For twenty years to come we should consider peace as the _summum bonum_ of our country. At the end of that period we shall be twenty millions in number, and forty in energy, when encountering the starved and rickety paupers and dwarfs of English workshops. By that time I hope your grandson will have become one of our High-admirals, and bear distinguished part in retorting the wrongs of both his countries on the most implacable and cruel of their enemies. In this hope, and because I love you, and all who are dear to you, I wrote to the President in the instant of reading your letter of the 7th, on the subject of his adoption into our navy. I did it because I was gratified in doing it, while I knew it was unnecessary. The sincere respect and high estimation in which the President holds you, is such that there is no gratification, within the regular exercise of his functions, which he would withhold from you. Be assured then that, if within that compass, this business is safe.

Were you any other than whom you are, I should shrink from the task you have proposed to me, of undertaking to judge of the merit of your own translation of the excellent letter on education. After having done all which good sense and eloquence could do on the original, you must not ambition the double need of English eloquence also. Did you ever know an instance of one who could write in a foreign language with the elegance of a native? Cicero wrote Commentaries of his own Consulship in Greek; they perished unknown, while his native compositions have immortalized him with themselves. No, my dear friend; you must not risk the success of your letter on foreignisms of style which may weaken its effect. Some native pen must give it to our countrymen in a native dress, faithful to its original. You will find such with the aid of our friend Correa, who knows everybody, and will readily think of some one who has time and talent for this work. I have neither. Till noon I am daily engaged in a correspondence much too extensive and laborious for my age. From noon to dinner health, habit, and business, require me to be on horseback; and render the society of my family and friends a necessary relaxation for the rest of the day. These occupations scarcely leave time for the papers of the day; and to renounce entirely the sciences and belles-lettres is impossible. Had not Mr. Gilmer just taken his place in the ranks of the bar, I think we could have engaged him in this work. But I am persuaded that Mr. Correa's intimacy with the persons of promise in our country, will leave you without difficulty in laying this work of instruction open to our citizens at large.

I have not yet had time to read your Equinoctial republics, nor the letter of Say; because I am still engrossed by the letters which had accumulated during my absence. The latter I accept with thankfulness, and will speedily read and return the former. God bless you, and maintain you in strength of body, and mind, until your own wishes shall be to resign both.

TO CAPT. A. PARTRIDGE.

MONTICELLO, January 2d, 1816.

SIR,--I am but recently returned from my journey to the neighborhood of the Peaks of Otter, and find here your favors of November 23d and December 9th. I have therefore to thank you for your meteorological table and the corrections of Colonel Williams' altitudes of the mountains of Virginia, which I had not before seen; but especially for the very able extract on Barometrical measures. The precision of the calculations, and soundness of the principles on which they are founded, furnish, I am satisfied, a great approximation towards truth, and raise that method of estimating heights to a considerable degree of rivalship with the trigonometrical. The last is not without some sources of inaccuracy, as you have truly stated. The admeasurement of the base is liable to errors which can be rendered insensible only by such degrees of care as have been exhibited by the mathematicians who have been employed in measuring degrees on the surface of the earth. The measure of the angles by the wonderful perfection to which the graduation of instruments has been brought by a Bird, a Ramsden, a Troughton, removes nearly all distrust from that operation; and we may add that the effect of refraction, rarely worth notice in short distances, admits of correction by well-established laws; these sources of error once reduced to be insensible, their geometrical employment is certainty itself. No two men can differ on a principle of trigonometry. Not so as to the theories of Barometrical mensuration. On these have been great differences of opinion, and among characters of just celebrity.

Dr. Halley reckoned one-tenth inch of Mercury equal to 90 feet altitude of the atmosphere. Derham thought it equal to something less than 90 feet. Cassini's tables to 24° of the Barometer allowed 676 toises of altitudes.

Mariole's, to the same 544 toises. Schruchzer's " 559 "

Nettleton's tables applied to a difference of .5975 of mercury, in a particular instance gave 512.17 feet of altitude, and Bonguor's and De Luc's rules, to the same difference gave 579.5 feet. Sir Isaac Newton had established that at heights in arithmetrical progression the ratio of rarity in the air would be geometrical, and this being the character of the natural numbers and their Logarithms, Bonguor adopted the ratio in his mensuration of the mountains of South America, and stating in French lignes the height of the mercury of different stations, took their Logarithms to five places only, including the index, and considered the resulting difference as expressing that of the altitudes in French toises. He then applied corrections required by the effect of the temperature of the moment on the air and mercury. His process, on the whole, agrees very exactly with that established in your excellent extract. In 1776 I observed the height of the mercury at the base and summit of the mountain I live on, and by Nettleton's tables, estimated the height at 512.17 feet, and called it about 500 feet in the Notes on Virginia. But calculating it since on the same observations, according to Bonguor's method with De Luc's improvements, the result was 579.5 feet; and lately I measured the same height trigonometrically, with the aid of a base of 1,175 feet in a vertical plane with the summit, and at the distance of about 1,500 yards from the axis of the mountain, and made it 599.35 feet. I consider this as testing the advance of the barometrical process towards truth by the adoption of the Logarithmic ratio of heights and densities; and continued observations and experiments will continue to advance it still more. But the first character of a common measure of things being that of invariability, I can never suppose that a substance so heterogeneous and variable as the atmospheric fluid, changing daily and hourly its weight and dimensions to the amount, sometimes, of one-tenth of the whole, can be applied as a standard of measure to anything, with as much mathematical exactness, as a trigonometrical process. It is still, however, a resource of great value for these purposes, because its use is so easy, in comparison with the other, and especially where the grounds are unfavorable for a base; and its results are so near the truth as to answer all the common purposes of information. Indeed, I should in all cases prefer the use of both, to warn us against gross error, and to put us, when that is suspected, on a repetition of our process. When lately measuring trigonometrically the height of the Peaks of Otter (as my letter of October 12th informed you I was about to do), I very much wished for a barometer, to try the height of that also. But it was too far and hazardous to carry my own, and there was not one in that neighborhood. On the subject of that admeasurement, I must premise that my object was only to gratify a common curiosity as to the height of those mountains, which we deem our highest, and to furnish an _à peu près_, sufficient to satisfy us in a comparison of them with the other mountains of our own, or of other countries. I therefore neither provided such instruments, nor aimed at such extraordinary accuracy in the measures of my base, as abler operators would have employed in the more important object of measuring a degree, or of ascertaining the relative position of different places for astronomical or geographical purposes. My instrument was a theodolite by Ramsden, whose horizontal and vertical circles were of 3½ inches radius, its graduation subdivided by noniuses to one-third, admitting however by its intervals, a further subdivision by the eye to a single minute, with two telescopes, the one fixed, the other movable, and a Gunter's chain of four poles, accurately adjusted in its length, and carefully attended on its application to the base line. The Sharp, or southern peak, was first measured by a base of 2806.32 feet in the vertical plane of the axis of the mountain. A base then nearly parallel with the two mountains of 6,589 feet was measured, and observations taken at each end, of the altitudes and horizontal angles of each apex, and such other auxiliary observations made as to the stations, inclination of the base, &c., as a good degree of correctness in the result would require. The ground of our bases was favorable, being an open plain of close grazed meadow on both sides of the Otter river, declining so uniformly with the descent of the river as to give no other trouble than an observation of its angle of inclination, in order to reduce the base to the plane of the horizon. From the summit of the Sharp peak I took also the angle of altitude of the flat or northern one above it, my other observations sufficing to give their distance from one another. The result was, the mean height of the Sharp peak above the surface of Otter river

2946.5 inches. Mean height of the flat peak above the surface of Otter river 3103.5 inches.

The distance between the two summits 9507.73 inches.

Their rhumb N. 33° 50´ E. the distance of the stations of observation from the points in the bases of the mountains vertically under their summits was, the shortest 19002.2 feet, the longest 24523.3 feet. These mountains are computed to be visible to fifteen counties of the State, without the advantage of counter-elevations, and to several more with that advantage. I must add that I have gone over my calculations but once, and nothing is more possible than the mistake of a figure, now and then, in calculating so many triangles, which may occasion some variation in the result. I mean, therefore, when I have leisure, to go again over the whole. The ridge of mountains of which Monticello is one, is generally low; there is one in it, however, called Peter's mountain, considerably higher than the general ridge. This being within a dozen miles of me, north-eastwardly, I think in the spring of the year to measure it by both processes, which may serve as another trial of the Logarithmic theory. Should I do this you shall know the result. In the meantime accept assurances of my great respect and esteem.

TO COLONEL YANCEY.

MONTICELLO, January 6, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I am favored with yours of December 24th, and perceive you have many matters before you of great moment. I have no fear but that the legislature will do on all of them what is wise and just. On the particular subject of our river, in the navigation of which our county has so great an interest, I think the power of permitting dams to be erected across it, ought to be taken from the courts, so far as the stream has water enough for navigation. The value of our property is sensibly lessened by the dam which the court of Fluvana authorized not long since to be erected, but a little above its mouth. This power over the value and convenience of our lands is of much too high a character to be placed at the will of a county court, and that of a county, too, which has not a common interest in the preservation of the navigation for those above them. As to the existing dams, if any conditions are proposed more than those to which they were subjected on their original erection, I think they would be allowed the alternative of opening a sluice for the passage of navigation, so as to put the river into as good a condition for navigation as it was before the erection of their dam, or as it would be if their dam were away. Those interested in the navigation might then use the sluices or make locks as should be thought best. Nature and reason, as well as all our constitutions, condemn retrospective conditions as mere acts of power against right.

I recommend to your patronage our Central College. I look to it as a germ from which a great tree may spread itself.

There is before the assembly a petition of a Captain Miller which I have at heart, because I have great esteem for the petitioner as an honest and useful man. He is about to settle in our county, and to establish a brewery, in which art I think him as skilful a man as has ever come to America. I wish to see this beverage become common instead of the whiskey which kills one-third of our citizens and ruins their families. He is staying with me until he can fix himself, and I should be thankful for information from time to time of the progress of his petition.

Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks. The American mind is now in that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history of other nations. We are under the bank bubble, as England was under the South Sea bubble, France under the Mississippi bubble, and as every nation is liable to be, under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard. We are now taught to believe that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. It is vain for common sense to urge that _nothing_ can produce but _nothing_; that it is an idle dream to believe in a philosopher's stone which is to turn everything into gold, and to redeem man from the original sentence of his Maker, "in the sweat of his brow shall he eat his bread." Not Quixot enough, however, to attempt to reason Bedlam to rights, my anxieties are turned to the most practicable means of withdrawing us from the ruin into which we have run. Two hundred millions of paper in the hands of the people, (and less cannot be from the employment of a banking capital known to exceed one hundred millions,) is a fearful tax to fall at hap-hazard on their heads. The debt which purchased our independence was but of eighty millions, of which twenty years of taxation had in 1809 paid but the one half. And what have we purchased with this tax of two hundred millions which we are to pay by wholesale but usury, swindling, and new forms of demoralization. Revolutionary history has warned us of the probable moment when this baseless trash is to receive its fiat. Whenever so much of the precious metals shall have returned into the circulation as that every one can get some in exchange for his produce, paper, as in the revolutionary war, will experience at once an universal rejection. When public opinion changes, it is with the rapidity of thought. Confidence is already on the totter, and every one now handles this paper as if playing at Robin's alive. That in the present state of the circulation the banks should resume payments in specie, would require their vaults to be like the widow's cruise. The thing to be aimed at is, that the excesses of their emissions should be withdrawn as gradually, but as speedily, too, as is practicable, without so much alarm as to bring on the crisis dreaded. Some banks are said to be calling in their paper. But ought we to let this depend on their discretion? Is it not the duty of the legislature to endeavor to avert from their constituents such a catastrophe as the extinguishment of two hundred millions of paper in their hands? The difficulty is indeed great; and the greater, because the patient revolts against all medicine. I am far from presuming to say that any plan can be relied on with certainty, because the bubble may burst from one moment to another; but if it fails, we shall be but where we should have been without any effort to save ourselves. Different persons, doubtless, will devise different schemes of relief. One would be to suppress instantly the currency of all paper not issued under the authority of our own State or of the General Government; to interdict after a few months the circulation of all bills of five dollars and under; after a few months more, all of ten dollars and under; after other terms, those of twenty, fifty, and so on to one hundred dollars, which last, if any must be left in circulation, should be the lowest denomination. These might be a convenience in mercantile transactions and transmissions, and would be excluded by their size from ordinary circulation. But the disease may be too pressing to await such a remedy. With the legislature I cheerfully leave it to apply this medicine, or no medicine at all. I am sure their intentions are faithful; and embarked in the same bottom, I am willing to swim or sink with my fellow citizens. If the latter is their choice, I will go down with them without a murmur. But my exhortation would rather be "not to give up the ship."

I am a great friend to the improvements of roads, canals, and schools. But I wish I could see some provision for the former as solid as that of the latter,--something better than fog. The literary fund is a solid provision, unless lost in the impending bankruptcy. If the legislature would add to that a perpetual tax of a cent a head on the population of the State, it would set agoing at once, and forever maintain, a system of primary or ward schools, and an university where might be taught, in its highest degree, every branch of science useful in our time and country; and it would rescue us from the tax of toryism, fanaticism, and indifferentism to their own State, which we now send our youth to bring from those of New England. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. The frankness of this communication will, I am sure, suggest to you a discreet use of it. I wish to avoid all collisions of opinion with all mankind. Show it to Mr. Maury, with expressions of my great esteem. It pretends to convey no more than the opinions of one of your thousand constituents, and to claim no more attention than every other of that thousand.

I will ask you once more to take care of Miller and our College, and to accept assurances of my esteem and respect.

TO CHARLES THOMPSON.

MONTICELLO, January 9, 1816.

MY DEAR AND ANCIENT FRIEND,--An acquaintance of fifty-two years, for I think ours dates from 1764, calls for an interchange of notice now and then, that we remain in existence, the monuments of another age, and examples of a friendship unaffected by the jarring elements by which we have been surrounded, of revolutions of government, of party and of opinion. I am reminded of this duty by the receipt, through our friend Dr. Patterson, of your synopsis of the four Evangelists. I had procured it as soon as I saw it advertised, and had become familiar with its use; but this copy is the more valued as it comes from your hand. This work bears the stamp of that accuracy which marks everything from you, and will be useful to those who, not taking things on trust, recur for themselves to the fountain of pure morals. I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that _I_ am a _real Christian_, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call _me_ infidel and _themselves_ Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. If I had time I would add to my little book the Greek, Latin and French texts, in columns side by side. And I wish I could subjoin a translation of Gosindi's Syntagma of the doctrines of Epicurus, which, notwithstanding the calumnies of the Stoics and caricatures of Cicero, is the most rational system remaining of the philosophy of the ancients, as frugal of vicious indulgence, and fruitful of virtue as the hyperbolical extravagances of his rival sects.

I retain good health, am rather feeble to walk much, but ride with ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback, and every three or four months taking in a carriage a journey of ninety miles to a distant possession, where I pass a good deal of my time. My eyes need the aid of glasses by night, and with small print in the day also; my hearing is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no tooth shaking yet, but shivering and shrinking in body from the cold we now experience, my thermometer having been as low as 12° this morning. My greatest oppression is a correspondence afflictingly laborious, the extent of which I have been long endeavoring to curtail. This keeps me at the drudgery of the writing-table all the prime hours of the day, leaving for the gratification of my appetite for reading, only what I can steal from the hours of sleep. Could I reduce this epistolary corvée within the limits of my friends and affairs, and give the time redeemed from it to reading and reflection, to history, ethics, mathematics, my life would be as happy as the infirmities of age would admit, and I should look on its consummation with the composure of one "_qui summum nec me tuit diem nec optat_."

So much as to myself, and I have given you this string of egotisms in the hope of drawing a similar one from yourself. I have heard from others that you retain your health, a good degree of activity, and all the vivacity and cheerfulness of your mind, but I wish to learn it more minutely from yourself. How has time affected your health and spirits? What are your amusements, literary and social? Tell me everything about yourself, because all will be interesting to me who retains for you ever the same constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

TO BENJAMIN AUSTIN, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, January 9, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of December 21st has been received, and I am first to thank you for the pamphlet it covered. The same description of persons which is the subject of that is so much multiplied here too, as to be almost a grievance, and by their numbers in the public councils, have wrested from the public hand the direction of the pruning knife. But with us as a body, they are republican, and mostly moderate in their views; so far, therefore, less objects of jealousy than with you. Your opinions on the events which have taken place in France, are entirely just, so far as these events are yet developed. But they have not reached their ultimate termination. There is still an awful void between the present and what is to be the last chapter of that history; and I fear it is to be filled with abominations as frightful as those which have already disgraced it. That nation is too high-minded, has too much innate force, intelligence and elasticity, to remain under its present compression. Samson will arise in his strength, as of old, and as of old will burst asunder the withes and the cords, and the webs of the Philistines. But what are to be the scenes of havoc and horror, and how widely they may spread between brethren of the same house, our ignorance of the interior feuds and antipathies of the country places beyond our ken. It will end, nevertheless, in a representative government, in a government in which the will of the people will be an effective ingredient. This important element has taken root in the European mind, and will have its growth; their despots, sensible of this, are already offering this modification of their governments, as if of their own accord. Instead of the parricide treason of Bonaparte, in perverting the means confided to him as a republican magistrate, to the subversion of that republic and erection of a military despotism for himself and his family, had he used it honestly for the establishment and support of a free government in his own country, France would now have been in freedom and rest; and her example operating in a contrary direction, every nation in Europe would have had a government over which the will of the people would have had some control. His atrocious egotism has checked the salutary progress of principle, and deluged it with rivers of blood which are not yet run out. To the vast sum of devastation and of human misery, of which he has been the guilty cause, much is still to be added. But the object is fixed in the eye of nations, and they will press on to its accomplishment and to the general amelioration of the condition of man. What a germ have we planted, and how faithfully should we cherish the parent tree at home!

You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependence on England for manufactures. There was a time when I might have been so quoted with more candor, but within the thirty years which have since elapsed, how are circumstances changed! We were then in peace. Our independent place among nations was acknowledged. A commerce which offered the raw material in exchange for the same material after receiving the last touch of industry, was worthy of welcome to all nations. It was expected that those especially to whom manufacturing industry was important, would cherish the friendship of such customers by every favor, by every inducement, and particularly cultivate their peace by every act of justice and friendship. Under this prospect the question seemed legitimate, whether, with such an immensity of unimproved land, courting the hand of husbandry, the industry of agriculture, or that of manufactures, would add most to the national wealth? And the doubt was entertained on this consideration chiefly, that to the labor of the husbandman a vast addition is made by the spontaneous energies of the earth on which it is employed: for one grain of wheat committed to the earth, she renders twenty, thirty, and even fifty fold, whereas to the labor of the manufacturer nothing is added. Pounds of flax, in his hands, yield, on the contrary, but pennyweights of lace. This exchange, too, laborious as it might seem, what a field did it promise for the occupations of the ocean; what a nursery for that class of citizens who were to exercise and maintain our equal rights on that element? This was the state of things in 1785, when the "Notes on Virginia" were first printed; when, the ocean being open to all nations, and their common right in it acknowledged and exercised under regulations sanctioned by the assent and usage of all, it was thought that the doubt might claim some consideration. But who in 1785 could foresee the rapid depravity which was to render the close of that century the disgrace of the history of man? Who could have imagined that the two most distinguished in the rank of nations, for science and civilization, would have suddenly descended from that honorable eminence, and setting at defiance all those moral laws established by the Author of nature between nation and nation, as between man and man, would cover earth and sea with robberies and piracies, merely because strong enough to do it with temporal impunity; and that under this disbandment of nations from social order, we should have been despoiled of a thousand ships, and have thousands of our citizens reduced to Algerine slavery. Yet all this has taken place. One of these nations interdicted to our vessels all harbors of the globe without having first proceeded to some one of hers, there paid a tribute proportioned to the cargo, and obtained her license to proceed to the port of destination. The other declared them to be lawful prize if they had touched at the port, or been visited by a ship of the enemy nation. Thus were we completely excluded from the ocean. Compare this state of things with that of '85, and say whether an opinion founded in the circumstances of that day can be fairly applied to those of the present. We have experienced what we did not then believe, that there exists both profligacy and power enough to exclude us from the field of interchange with other nations: that to be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist. The former question is suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. Shall we make our own comforts, or go without them, at the will of a foreign nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture, must be for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am not one of these; experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort; and if those who quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price, it will not be our fault if we do not soon have a supply at home equal to our demand, and wrest that weapon of distress from the hand which has wielded it. If it shall be proposed to go beyond our own supply, the question of '85 will then recur, will our _surplus_ labor be then most beneficially employed in the culture of the earth, or in the fabrications of art? We have time yet for consideration, before that question will press upon us; and the maxim to be applied will depend on the circumstances which shall then exist; for in so complicated a science as political economy, no one axiom can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances, and for their contraries. Inattention to this is what has called for this explanation, which reflection would have rendered unnecessary with the candid, while nothing will do it with those who use the former opinion only as a stalking horse, to cover their disloyal propensities to keep us in eternal vassalage to a foreign and unfriendly people.

I salute you with assurances of great respect and esteem.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, January 11, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Of the last five months I have passed four at my other domicil, for such it is in a considerable degree. No letters are forwarded to me there, because the cross post to that place is circuitous and uncertain; during my absence, therefore, they are accumulating here, and awaiting acknowledgments. This has been the fate of your favor of November 13th.

I agree with you in all its eulogies on the eighteenth century. It certainly witnessed the sciences and arts, manners and morals, advanced to a higher degree than the world had ever before seen. And might we not go back to the æra of the Borgias, by which time the barbarous ages had reduced national morality to its lowest point of depravity, and observe that the arts and sciences, rising from that point, advanced gradually through all the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, softening and correcting the manners and morals of man? I think, too, we may add to the great honor of science and the arts, that their natural effect is, by illuminating public opinion, to erect it into a censor, before which the most exalted tremble for their future, as well as present fame. With some exceptions only, through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, morality occupied an honorable chapter in the political code of nations. You must have observed while in Europe, as I thought I did, that those who administered the governments of the greater powers at least, had a respect to faith, and considered the dignity of their government as involved in its integrity. A wound indeed was inflicted on this character of honor in the eighteenth century by the partition of Poland. But this was the atrocity of a barbarous government chiefly, in conjunction with a smaller one still scrambling to become great, while one only of those already great, and having character to lose, descended to the baseness of an accomplice in the crime. France, England, Spain, shared in it only inasmuch as they stood aloof and permitted its perpetration.

How then has it happened that these nations, France especially and England, so great, so dignified, so distinguished by science and the arts, plunged all at once into all the depths of human enormity, threw off suddenly and openly all the restraints of morality, all sensation to character, and unblushingly avowed and acted on the principle that power was right? Can this sudden apostasy from national rectitude be accounted for? The treaty of Pilnitz seems to have begun it, suggested perhaps by the baneful precedent of Poland. Was it from the terror of monarchs, alarmed at the light returning on them from the west, and kindling a volcano under their thrones? Was it a combination to extinguish that light, and to bring back, as their best auxiliaries, those enumerated by you, the Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index Expurgatorius, and the knights of Loyola? Whatever it was, the close of the century saw the moral world thrown back again to the age of the Borgias, to the point from which it had departed three hundred years before. France, after crushing and punishing the conspiracy of Pilnitz, went herself deeper and deeper into the crimes she had been chastising. I say France and not Bonaparte; for, although he was the head and mouth, the nation furnished the hands which executed his enormities. England, although in opposition, kept full pace with France, not indeed by the manly force of her own arms, but by oppressing the weak and bribing the strong. At length the whole choir joined and divided the weaker nations among them. Your prophecies to Dr. Price proved truer than mine; and yet fell short of the fact, for instead of a million, the destruction of eight or ten millions of human beings has probably been the effect of these convulsions. I did not, in '89, believe they would have lasted so long, nor have cost so much blood. But although your prophecy has proved true so far, I hope it does not preclude a better final result. That same light from our west seems to have spread and illuminated the very engines employed to extinguish it. It has given them a glimmering of their rights and their power. The idea of representative government has taken root and growth among them. Their masters feel it, and are saving themselves by timely offers of this modification of their powers. Belgium, Prussia, Poland, Lombardy, &c., are now offered a representative organization; illusive probably at first, but it will grow into power in the end. Opinion is power, and that opinion will come. Even France will yet attain representative government. You observe it makes the basis of every constitution which has been demanded or offered,--of that demanded by their Senate; of that offered by Bonaparte; and of that granted by Louis XVIII. The idea then is rooted, and will be established, although rivers of blood may yet flow between them and their object. The allied armies now couching upon them are first to be destroyed, and destroyed they will surely be. A nation united can never be conquered. We have seen what the ignorant, bigoted and unarmed Spaniards could do against the disciplined veterans of their invaders. What then may we not expect from the power and character of the French nation? The oppressors may cut off heads after heads, but like those of the Hydra they multiply at every stroke. The recruits within a nation's own limits are prompt and without number; while those of their invaders from a distance are slow, limited, and must come to an end. I think, too, we perceive that all these allies do not see the same interest in the annihilation of the power of France. There are certainly some symptoms of foresight in Alexander that France might produce a salutary diversion of force were Austria and Prussia to become her enemies. France, too, is the neutral ally of the Turk, as having no interfering interests, and might be useful in neutralizing and perhaps turning that power on Austria. That a re-acting jealousy, too, exists with Austria and Prussia, I think their late strict alliance indicates; and I should not wonder if Spain should discover a sympathy with them. Italy is so divided as to be nothing. Here then we see new coalitions in embryo, which, after France shall in turn have suffered a just punishment for her crimes, will not only raise her from the earth on which she is prostrate, but give her an opportunity to establish a government of as much liberty as she can bear--enough to ensure her happiness and prosperity. When insurrection begins, be it where it will, all the partitioned countries will rush to arms, and Europe again become an arena of gladiators. And what is the definite object they will propose? A restoration certainly of the _status quo prius_, of the state of possession of '89. I see no other principle on which Europe can ever again settle down in lasting peace. I hope your prophecies will go thus far, as my wishes do, and that they, like the former, will prove to have been the sober dictates of a superior understanding, and a sound calculation of effects from causes well understood. Some future Morgan will then have an opportunity of doing you justice, and of counterbalancing the breach of confidence of which you so justly complain, and in which no one has had more frequent occasion of fellow-feeling than myself. Permit me to place here my affectionate respects to Mrs. Adams, and to add for yourself the assurances of cordial friendship and esteem.

TO DABNEY CARR.

MONTICELLO, January 19, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--At the date of your letter of December the 1st, I was in Bedford, and since my return, so many letters, accumulated during my absence, have been pressing for answers, that this is the first moment I have been able to attend to the subject of yours. While Mr. Girardin was in this neighborhood writing his continuation of Burke's history, I had suggested to him a proper notice of the establishment of the committee of correspondence here in 1773, and of Mr. Carr, your father, who introduced it. He has doubtless done this, and his work is now in the press. My books, journals of the times, &c., being all gone, I have nothing now but an impaired memory to resort to for the more particular statement you wish. But I give it with the more confidence, as I find that I remember old things better than new. The transaction took place in the session of Assembly of March 1773. Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Frank Lee, your father and myself, met by agreement, one evening, about the close of the session, at the Raleigh Tavern, to consult on the measures which the circumstances of the times seemed to call for. We agreed, in result, that concert in the operations of the several colonies was indispensable; and that to produce this, some channel of correspondence between them must be opened; that therefore, we would propose to our House the appointment of a committee of correspondence, which should be authorized and instructed to write to the Speakers of the House of Representatives of the several Colonies, recommending the appointment of similar committees on their part, who, by a communication of sentiment on the transactions threatening us all, might promote a harmony of action salutary to all. This was the substance, not pretending to remember the words. We proposed the resolution, and your father was agreed on to make the motion. He did it the next day, March the 12th, with great ability, reconciling all to it, not only by the reasonings, but by the temper and moderation with which it was developed. It was adopted by a very general vote. Peyton Randolph, some of us who proposed it, and who else I do not remember, were appointed of the committee. We immediately despatched letters by expresses to the Speakers of all the other Assemblies. I remember that Mr. Carr and myself, returning home together, and conversing on the subject by the way, concurred in the conclusion that that measure must inevitably beget the meeting of a Congress of Deputies from all the colonies, for the purpose of uniting all in the same principles and measures for the maintenance of our rights. My memory cannot deceive me, when I affirm that we did it in consequence of no such proposition from any other colony. No doubt the resolution itself and the journals of the day will show that ours was original, and not merely responsive to one from any other quarter. Yet, I am certain I remember also, that a similar proposition, and nearly cotemporary, was made by Massachusetts, and that our northern messenger passed theirs on the road. This, too, may be settled by recurrence to the records of Massachusetts. The proposition was generally acceded to by the other colonies, and the first effect, as expected, was the meeting of a Congress at New York the ensuing year. The committee of correspondence appointed by Massachusetts, as quoted by you from Marshall, under the date of 1770, must have been for a special purpose, and _functus officio_ before the date of 1773, or Massachusetts herself would not then have proposed another. Records should be examined to settle this accurately. I well remember the pleasure expressed in the countenance and conversation of the members generally, on this _debut_ of Mr. Carr, and the hopes they conceived as well from the talents as the patriotism it manifested. But he died within two months after, and in him we lost a powerful fellow-laborer. His character was of a high order. A spotless integrity, sound judgment, handsome imagination, enriched by education and reading, quick and clear in his conceptions, of correct and ready elocution, impressing every hearer with the sincerity of the heart from which it flowed. His firmness was inflexible in whatever he thought was right; but when no moral principle stood in the way, never had man more of the milk of human kindness, of indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry of conversation and conduct. The number of his friends, and the warmth of their affection, were proofs of his worth, and of their estimate of it. To give to those now living, an idea of the affliction produced by his death in the minds of all who knew him, I liken it to that lately felt by themselves on the death of his eldest son, Peter Carr, so like him in all his endowments and moral qualities, and whose recollection can never recur without a deep-drawn sigh from the bosom of any one who knew him. You mention that I showed you an inscription I had proposed for the tomb stone of your father. Did I leave it in your hands to be copied? I ask the question, not that I have any such recollection, but that I find it no longer in the place of its deposit, and think I never took it out but on that occasion. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO DR. PETER WILSON, PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGES, COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK.

MONTICELLO, January 20, 1816.

SIR,--Of the last five months, I have been absent four from home, which must apologize for so very late an acknowledgment of your favor of November 22d, and I wish the delay could be compensated by the matter of the answer. But an unfortunate accident puts that out of my power. During the course of my public life, and from a very early period of it, I omitted no opportunity of procuring vocabularies of the Indian languages, and for that purpose formed a model expressing such objects in nature as must be familiar to every people, savage or civilized. This being made the standard to which all were brought, would exhibit readily whatever affinities of language there be between the several tribes. It was my intention, on retiring from public business, to have digested these into some order, so as to show not only what relations of language existed among our own aborigines, but by a collation with the great Russian vocabulary of the languages of Europe and Asia, whether there were any between them and the other nations of the continent. On my removal from Washington, the package in which this collection was coming by water, was stolen and destroyed. It consisted of between thirty and forty vocabularies, of which I can, from memory, say nothing particular; but that I am certain more than half of them differed as radically, each from every other, as the Greek, the Latin, and Islandic. And even of those which seemed to be derived from the same radix, the departure was such that the tribes speaking them could not probably understand one another. Single words, or two or three together, might perhaps be understood, but not a whole sentence of any extent or construction. I think, therefore, the pious missionaries who shall go to the several tribes to instruct them in the Christian religion, will have to learn a language for every tribe they go to; nay, more, that they will have to create a new language for every one, that is to say, to add to theirs new words for the new ideas they will have to communicate. Law, medicine, chemistry, mathematics, every science has a language of its own, and divinity not less than others. Their barren vocabularies cannot be vehicles for ideas of the fall of man, his redemption, the triune composition of the Godhead, and other mystical doctrines considered by most Christians of the present date as essential elements of faith. The enterprise is therefore arduous, but the more inviting perhaps to missionary zeal, in proportion as the merit of surmounting it will be greater. Again repeating my regrets that I am able to give so little satisfaction on the subject of your inquiry, I pray you to accept the assurance of my great consideration and esteem.

TO MR. AMOS J. COOK, PRECEPTOR OF FRYEBURG ACADEMY IN THE DISTRICT OF MAINE.

MONTICELLO, January 21, 1816.

SIR,--Your favor of December 18th was exactly a month on its way to this place; and I have to thank you for the elegant and philosophical lines communicated by the Nestor of our Revolution. Whether the style or sentiment be considered, they were well worthy the trouble of being copied and communicated by his pen. Nor am I less thankful for the happy translation of them. It adds another to the rare instances of a rival to its original: superior indeed in one respect, as the same outline of sentiment is brought within a compass of better proportion. For if the original be liable to any criticism, it is that of giving too great extension to the same general idea. Yet it has a great authority to support it, that of a wiser man than all of us. "I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine; I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens, and orchards, and pools to water them; I got me servants and maidens, and great possessions of cattle; I gathered me also silver and gold, and men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all sorts; and whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and behold! all was vanity and vexation of spirit! I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness." The Preacher, whom I abridge, has indulged in a much larger amplification of his subject. I am not so happy as my friend and ancient colleague, Mr. Adams, in possessing anything original, _inedited_, and worthy of comparison with the epigraph of the Spanish monk. I can offer but humble prose, from the hand indeed of the father of eloquence and philosophy; a moral morsel, which our young friends under your tuition should keep ever in their eye, as the ultimate term of your instructions, and of their labors. "Hic, quisquis est, qui moderatione et constantia quietus animo est, sibique ipse placatus; ut nec tabescat molestiis, nec frangatur timore, nec sitienter quid expectens ardeat desiderio, nec alacritate futili gestiens deliquescat; is est sapiens, quem quaerimus; is est beatus; cui nihil humanarum rerum aut intolerabile ad dimittendum animum, aut nimis lactabile ad efferendum, videri potest." Or if a poetical dress will be more acceptable to the fancy of the juvenile student:

"Quisnam igitur liber? Sapiens, sibique imperiosus: Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent: Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores Fortis, et in scipso totus teres, atque rotundus; Externi ne quid valeat per laeve morari: In quem manea ruit semper Fortuna."

And if the Wise be the happy man, as these sages say, he must be virtuous too; for, without virtue, happiness cannot be. This then is the true scope of all academical emulation.

You request something in the handwriting of General Washington. I enclose you a letter which I received from him while in Paris, covering a copy of the new Constitution; it is offered merely as what you ask, a specimen of his handwriting.

On the subject of your Museum, I fear I cannot flatter myself with being useful to it. Were the obstacle of distance out of the way, age and retirement have withdrawn me from the opportunities of procuring objects in that line. With every wish for the prosperity of your institution, accept the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO MR. THOMAS RITCHIE.

MONTICELLO, January 21, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--In answering the letter of a northern correspondent lately, I indulged in a tirade against a pamphlet recently published in this quarter. On revising my letter, however, I thought it unsafe to commit myself so far to a stranger. I struck out the passage therefore, yet I think the pamphlet of such a character as not to be unknown, or unnoticed by the people of the United States. It is the most bold and impudent stride New England has ever made in arrogating an ascendency over the rest of the Union. The first form of the pamphlet was an address from the Reverend Lyman Beecher, chairman of the Connecticut Society for the education of _pious_ young men for the ministry. Its matter was then adopted and published in a sermon by Reverend Mr. Pearson of Andover in Massachusetts, where they have a _theological_ college; and where the address "with circumstantial variations to adopt it to more general use" is reprinted on a sheet and a half of paper, in so cheap a form as to be distributed, I imagine, gratis, for it has a final note indicating six thousand copies of the first edition printed. So far as it respects Virginia, the extract of my letter gives the outline. I therefore send it to you to publish or burn, abridge or alter, as you think best. You understand the public palate better than I do. Only give it such a title as may lead to no suspicion from whom you receive it. I am the more induced to offer it to you because it is possible mine may be the only copy in the State, and because, too, it may be _à propos_ for the petition for the establishment of _a theological society_ now before the legislature, and to which they have shown the unusual respect of hearing an advocate for it at their bar. From what quarter this theological society comes forward I know not; perhaps from our own tramontaine clergy, of New England religion and politics; perhaps it is the entering wedge from its _theological_ sister in Andover, for the body of "qualified religious instructors" proposed by their pious brethren of the East "to evangelize and catechize," to edify our daughters by weekly lectures, and our wives by "family visits" from these pious young monks from Harvard and Yale. However, do with this what you please, and be assured of my friendship and respect.

TO NATHANIEL MACON.

MONTICELLO, January 22, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 7th, after being a fortnight on the road, reached this the last night. On the subject of the statue of General Washington, which the legislature of North Carolina has ordered to be procured, and set up in their capitol, I shall willingly give you my best information and opinions.

1. Your first inquiry is whether one worthy the character it is to represent, and the State which erects it, can be made in the United States? Certainly it cannot. I do not know that there is a single marble statuary in the United States, but I am sure there cannot be one who would offer himself as qualified to undertake this monument of gratitude and taste. Besides, no quarry of statuary marble has yet, I believe, been opened in the United States, that is to say, of a marble pure white, and in blocks of sufficient size, without vein or flaw. The quarry of Carara, in Italy, is the only one in the accessible parts of Europe which furnishes such blocks. It was from thence we brought to Paris that for the statue of General Washington, made there on account of this State; and it is from there that all the southern and maritime parts of Europe are supplied with that character of marble.

2. Who should make it? There can be but one answer to this. Old Canova, of Rome. No artist in Europe would place himself in a line with him; and for thirty years, within my own knowledge, he has been considered by all Europe as without a rival. He draws his blocks from Carara, and delivers the statue complete, and packed for transportation, at Rome; from thence it descends the Tiber, but whether it must go to Leghorn, or some other shipping port, I do not know.

3. Price, time, size, and style? It will probably take a couple of years to be ready. I am not able to be exact as to the price. We gave Houdon, at Paris, one thousand guineas for the one he made for this State; but he solemnly and feelingly protested against the inadequacy of the price, and evidently undertook it on motives of reputation alone. He was the first artist in France, and being willing to come over to take the model of the General, which we could not have got Canova to have done, that circumstance decided on his employment. We paid him additionally for coming over about five hundred guineas; and when the statue was done, we paid the expenses of one of his under workmen to come over and set it up, which might, perhaps, be one hundred guineas more. I suppose, therefore, it cost us, in the whole, eight thousand dollars. But this was only of the size of life. Yours should be something larger. The difference it makes in the impression can scarcely be conceived. As to the style or costume, I am sure the artist, and every person of taste in Europe, would be for the Roman, the effect of which is undoubtedly of a different order. Our boots and regimentals have a very puny effect. Works of this kind are about one-third cheaper at Rome than Paris; but Canova's eminence will be a sensible ingredient in price. I think that for such a statue, with a plain pedestal, you would have a good bargain from Canova at seven or eight thousand dollars, and should not be surprised were he to require ten thousand dollars, to which you would have to add the charges of bringing over and setting up. The one-half of the price would probably have to be advanced, and the other half paid on delivery.

4. From what model? Ciracchi made the bust of General Washington in plaster. It was the finest which came from his hand, and my own opinion of Ciracchi was, that he was second to no sculptor living except Canova; and, if he had lived, would have rivalled him. His style had been formed on the fine models of antiquity in Italy, and he had caught their ineffable majesty of expression. On his return to Rome, he made the bust of the General in marble, from that in plaster; it was sent over here, was universally considered as the best effigy of him ever executed, was bought by the Spanish Minister for the king of Spain, and sent to Madrid. After the death of Ciracchi, Mr. Appleton, our Consul at Leghorn, a man of worth and taste, purchased of his widow the original plaster, with a view to profit by copies of marble and plaster from it. He still has it at Leghorn; and it is the only original from which the statue can be formed. But the exterior of the figure will also be wanting, that is to say, the outward lineaments of the body and members, to enable the artist to give to them also their true forms and proportions. There are, I believe, in Philadelphia, whole length paintings of General Washington, from which, I presume, old Mr. Peale or his son would sketch on canvas the mere outlines at no great charge. This sketch, with Ciracchi's bust, will suffice.

5. Through whose agency? None so ready or so competent as Mr. Appleton himself; he has had relations with Canova, is a judge of price, convenient to engage the work, to attend to its progress, to receive and forward it to North Carolina. Besides the accommodation of the original bust to be asked from him, he will probably have to go to Rome himself, to make the contract, and will incur a great deal of trouble besides, from that time to the delivery in North Carolina; and it should therefore be made a matter of interest with him to act in it, as his time and trouble is his support. I imagine his agency from beginning to end would not be worth less than from one to two hundred guineas. I particularize all these things, that you may not be surprised with after-claps of expense, not counted on beforehand. Mr. Appleton has two nephews at Baltimore, both in the mercantile line, and in correspondence with him. Should the Governor adopt this channel of execution, he will have no other trouble than that of sending to them his communications for Mr. Appleton, and making the remittances agreed on as shall be convenient to himself. A letter from the Secretary of State to Mr. Appleton, informing him that any service he can render the State of North Carolina in this business, would be gratifying to his government, would not be without effect.

Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL.

MONTICELLO, January 24, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 16th experienced great delay on the road, and to avoid that of another mail, I must answer very briefly.

My letter to Peter Carr contains all I ever wrote on the subject of the College, a plan for the institution being the only thing the trustees asked or expected from me. Were it to go into execution, I should certainly interest myself further and strongly in procuring proper professors.

The establishment of a Proctor is taken from the practice of Europe, where an equivalent officer is made a part, and is a very essential one, of every such institution; and as the nature of his functions requires that he should always be a man of discretion, understanding, and integrity above the common level, it was thought that he would never be less worthy of being trusted with the powers of a justice, within the limits of institution here, than the neighboring justices generally are; and the vesting him with the conservation of the peace within that limit, was intended, while it should equally secure its object, to shield the young and unguarded student from the disgrace of the common prison, except where the case was an aggravated one. A confinement to his own room was meant as an act of tenderness to him, his parents and friends; in fine, it was to give them a complete police of their own, tempered by the paternal attentions of their tutors. And, certainly, in no country is such a provision more called for than in this, as has been proved from times of old, from the regular annual riots and battles between the students of William and Mary with the town boys, before the revolution, _quorum pars fui_, and the many and more serious affrays of later times. Observe, too, that our bill proposes no exclusion of the ordinary magistrate, if the one attached to the institution is thought to execute his power either partially or remissly.

The transfer of the power to give commencement to the Ward or Elementary Schools from the court and aldermen to the visitors, was proposed because the experience of twenty years has proved that no court will ever begin it. The reason is obvious. The members of the courts are the wealthy members of the counties; and as the expenses of the schools are to be defrayed by a contribution proportioned to the aggregate of other taxes which every one pays, they consider it as a plan to educate the poor at the expense of the rich. It proceeded, too, from a hope that the example and good effects being exhibited in one county, they would spread from county to county and become general. The modification of the law, by authorizing the alderman to require the expense of tutorage from such parents as are able, would render trifling, if not wholly prevent, any call on the county for pecuniary aid. You know that nothing better than a log-house is required for these schools, and there is not a neighborhood which would not meet and build this themselves for the sake of having a school near them.

I know of no peculiar advantage which Charlottesville offers for Mr. Braidwood's school of deaf and dumb. On the contrary, I should think the vicinity of the seat of government most favorable to it. I should not like to have it made a member of our College. The objects of the two institutions are fundamentally distinct. The one is science, the other mere charity. It would be gratuitously taking a boat in tow which may impede, but cannot aid the motion of the principal institution.

Ever and affectionately yours.

TO REV. MR. WORCESTER.

MONTICELLO, January 29, 1816.

SIR,--Your letter bearing date October 18th, 1815, came only to hand the day before yesterday, which is mentioned to explain the date of mine. I have to thank you for the pamphlets accompanying it, to wit, the Solemn Review, the Friend of Peace or Special Interview, and the Friend of Peace, No. 2; the first of these I had received through another channel some months ago. I have not read the two last steadily through, because where one assents to propositions as soon as announced it is loss of time to read the arguments in support of them. These numbers discuss the first branch of the causes of war, that is to say, wars undertaken for the _point of honor_, which you aptly analogize with the act of duelling between individuals, and reason with justice from the one to the other. Undoubtedly this class of wars is, in the general, what you state them to be, "needless, unjust and inhuman, as well as anti-Christian." The second branch of this subject, to wit, wars undertaken on account of _wrong done_, and which may be likened to the act of robbery in private life, I presume will be treated of in your future numbers. I observe this class mentioned in the Solemn Review, p. 10, and the question asked, "Is it common for a nation to obtain a _redress_ of wrongs by war?" The answer to this question you will of course draw from history. In the meantime, reason will answer it on grounds of probability, that where the wrong has been done by a weaker nation, the stronger one has generally been able to enforce redress; but where by a stronger nation, redress by war has been neither obtained nor expected by the weaker. On the contrary, the loss has been increased by the expenses of the war in blood and treasure. Yet it may have obtained another object equally securing itself from future wrong. It may have retaliated on the aggressor losses of blood and treasure far beyond the value to him of the wrong he had committed, and thus have made the advantage of that too dear a purchase to leave him in a disposition to renew the wrong in future. In this way the loss by the war may have secured the weaker nation from loss by future wrong. The case you state of two boxers both of whom get a "terrible bruising," is opposite to this. He of the two who committed the aggression on the other, although victor in the scuffle, yet probably finds his aggression not worth the bruising it has cost him. To explain this by numbers, it is alleged that Great Britain took from us before the late war near one thousand vessels, and that during the war we took from her fourteen hundred. That before the war she seized and made slaves of six thousand of our citizens, and that in the war we killed more than six thousand of her subjects, and caused her to expend such a sum as amounted to four or five thousand guineas a head for every slave she made. She might have purchased the vessels she took for less than the value of those she lost, and have used the six thousand of her men killed for the purposes to which she applied ours, have saved the four or five thousand guineas a head, and obtained a character of justice which is valuable to a nation as to an individual. These considerations, therefore, leave her without inducement to plunder property and take men in future on such dear terms. I neither affirm nor deny the truth of these allegations, nor is their truth material to the question. They are possible, and therefore present a case which will claim your consideration in a discussion of the general question whether any degree of injury can render a recourse to war expedient? Still less do I propose to draw to myself any part in this discussion. Age and its effects both on body and mind, has weaned my attentions from public subjects, and left me unequal to the labors of correspondence beyond the limits of my personal concerns. I retire, therefore, from the question, with a sincere wish that your writings may have effect in lessening this greatest of human evils, and that you may retain life and health to enjoy the contemplation of this happy spectacle; and pray you to be assured of my great respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 2d, 1816

DEAR SIR,--Your favors of the 23d and 24th ult., were a week coming to us. I instantly enclosed to you the deeds of Capt. Miller, but I understand that the Post Master, having locked his mail before they got to the office, would not unlock it to give them a passage.

Having been prevented from retaining my collection of the acts and journals of our legislature by the lumping manner in which the Committee of Congress chose to take my library, it may be useful to our public bodies to know what acts and journals I had, and where they can now have access to them. I therefore enclose you a copy of my catalogue, which I pray you to deposit in the council office for public use. It is in the eighteenth and twenty-fourth chapters they will find what is interesting to them. The form of the catalogue has been much injured in the publication; for although they have preserved my division into chapters, they have reduced the books in each chapter to alphabetical order, instead of the chronological or analytical arrangements I had given them. You will see sketches of what were my arrangements at the heads of some of the chapters.

The bill on the obstructions in our navigable waters appears to me proper; as do also the amendments proposed. I think the State should reserve a right to the use of the waters for navigation, and that where an individual landholder impedes that use, he shall remove that impediment, and leave the subject in as good a state as nature formed it. This I hold to be the true principle; and to this Colonel Green's amendments go. All I ask in my own case is, that the legislature will not take from me _my own works_. I am ready to cut my dam in any place, and at any moment requisite, so as to remove that impediment, if it be thought one, and to leave those interested to make the most of the natural circumstances of the place. But I hope they will never take from me my canal, made through the body of my own lands, at an expense of twenty thousand dollars, and which is no impediment to the navigation of the river. I have permitted the riparian proprietors above (and they not more than a dozen or twenty) to use it gratis, and shall not withdraw the permission unless they so use it as to obstruct too much the operations of my mills, of which there is some likelihood.

Doctor Smith, you say, asks what is the best elementary book on the principles of government? None in the world equal to the Review of Montesquieu, printed at Philadelphia a few years ago. It has the advantage, too, of being equally sound and corrective of the principles of political economy; and all within the compass of a thin 8vo. Chipman's and Priestley's Principles of Government, and the Federalists, are excellent in many respects, but for fundamental principles not comparable to the Review. I have no objections to the printing my letter to Mr. Carr, if it will promote the interests of science; although it was not written with a view to its publication.

My letter of the 24th ult. conveyed to you the grounds of the two articles objected to in the College bill. Your last presents one of them in a new point of view, that of the commencement of the ward schools as likely to render the law unpopular to the country. It must be a very inconsiderate and rough process of execution that would do this. My idea of the mode of carrying it into execution would be this: Declare the county _ipso facto_ divided into wards for the present, by the boundaries of the militia captaincies; somebody attend the ordinary muster of each company, having first desired the captain to call together a full one. There explain the object of the law to the people of the company, put to their vote whether they will have a school established, and the most central and convenient place for it; get them to meet and build a log school-house; have a roll taken of the children who would attend it, and of those of them able to pay. These would probably be sufficient to support a common teacher, instructing gratis the few unable to pay. If there should be a deficiency, it would require too trifling a contribution from the county to be complained of; and especially as the whole county would participate, where necessary, in the same resource. Should the company, by its vote, decide that it would have no school, let them remain without one. The advantages of this proceeding would be that it would become the duty of the alderman elected by the county, to take an active part in pressing the introduction of schools, and to look out for tutors. If, however, it is intended that the State government shall take this business into its own hands, and provide schools for every county, then by all means strike out this provision of our bill. I would never wish that it should be placed on a worse footing than the rest of the State. But if it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council, the commissioners of the literary fund, or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience. Try the principle one step further, and amend the bill so as to commit to the governor and council the management of all our farms, our mills, and merchants' stores. No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to. Let the national government be entrusted with the defence of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, laws, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate. And I do believe that if the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free, (and it is a blasphemy to believe it,) that the secret will be found to be in the making himself the depository of the powers respecting himself, so far as he is competent to them, and delegating only what is beyond his competence by a synthetical process, to higher and higher orders of functionaries, so as to trust fewer and fewer powers in proportion as the trustees become more and more oligarchical. The elementary republics of the wards, the county republics, the State republics, and the republic of the Union, would form a gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding every one its delegated share of powers, and constituting truly a system of fundamental balances and checks for the government. Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Cæsar or a Bonaparte. How powerfully did we feel the energy of this organization in the case of embargo? I felt the foundations of the government shaken under my feet by the New England townships. There was not an individual in their States whose body was not thrown with all its momentum into action; and although the whole of the other States were known to be in favor of the measure, yet the organization of this little selfish minority enabled it to overrule the Union. What would the unwieldy counties of the middle, the south, and the west do? Call a county meeting, and the drunken loungers at and about the court houses would have collected, the distances being too great for the good people and the industrious generally to attend. The character of those who really met would have been the measure of the weight they would have had in the scale of public opinion. As Cato, then, concluded every speech with the words, "_Carthago delenda est_," so do I every opinion, with the injunction, "divide the counties into wards." Begin them only for a single purpose; they will soon show for what others they are the best instruments. God bless you, and all our rulers, and give them the wisdom, as I am sure they have the will, to fortify us against the degeneracy of one government, and the concentration of all its powers in the hands of the one, the few, the well-born or the many.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, February 2, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I know not what to think of your letter of the 11th of January, but that it is one of the most consolatory I ever received.

To trace the commencement of the Reformation, I suspect we must go farther back than Borgia, or even Huss or Wickliff, and I want the _Acta Sanctorum_ to assist me in this research. That stupendous monument of human hypocrisy and fanaticism, the church of St. Peter at Rome, which was a century and a half in building, excited the ambition of Leo the Xth, who believed no more of the Christian religion than Diderot, to finish it; and finding St. Peter's pence insufficient, he deluged all Europe with indulgences for sale, and excited Luther to controvert his authority to grant them. Luther, and his associates and followers, went less than half way in detecting the corruptions of Christianity, but they acquired reverence and authority among their followers almost as absolute as that of the Popes had been.

To enter into details would be endless; but I agree with you, that the natural effect of science and arts is to erect public opinion into a censor, which must in some degree be respected by all.

There is no difference of opinion or feeling between us, concerning the partition of Poland, the intended partitions of Pilnitz, or the more daring partitions of Vienna.

Your question "How the apostasy from national rectitude can be accounted for?"--is too deep and wide for my capacity to answer. I leave Fisher Ames to dogmatize up the affairs of Europe and mankind. I have done too much in this way. A burned child dreads the fire. I can only say at present, that it should seem that human reason, and human conscience, though I believe there are such things, are not a match for human passions, human imaginations, and human enthusiasm. You, however, I believe, have hit one. Mark, "the fires the governments of Europe felt kindling under their seats;" and I will hazard a shot at another, the priests of all nations imagined they felt approaching such flames, as they had so often kindled about the bodies of honest men. Priests and politicians, never before, so suddenly and so unanimously concurred in re-establishing darkness and ignorance, superstition and despotism. The morality of Tacitus is the morality of patriotism, and Britain and France have adopted his creed; _i. e._, that all things were made for Rome. "_Jura negat sibi lata, nihil non arrogat armis_," said Achilles. "Laws were not made for me," said the Regent of France, and his cardinal minister Du Bois. The universe was made for me, says man. Jesus despised and condemned such patriotism; but what nation, or what christian, has adopted his system? He was, as you say, "the most benevolent Being that ever appeared on earth." France and England, Bourbons and Bonaparte, and all the sovereigns at Vienna, have acted on the same principle. "All things were made for my use. So man for mine, replies a pampered goose." The philosophers of the eighteenth century have acted on the same principle. When it is to combat evil, 'tis lawful to employ the devil. _Bonus populus vult decipi, decipiatur._ They have employed the same falsehood, the same deceit, which philosophers and priests of all ages have employed for their own selfish purposes. We now know how their efforts have succeeded. The old deceivers have triumphed over the new. Truth must be more respected than it has ever been, before any great improvement can be expected in the condition of mankind. As Rochfaucauld his maxims drew "from history and from practice," I believe them true. From the whole nature of man, moral, intellectual, and physical, he did not draw them.

We must come to the principles of Jesus. But when will all men and all nations do as they would be done by? Forgive all injuries, and love their enemies as themselves? I leave those profound philosophers, whose sagacity perceives the perfectibility of human nature; and those illuminated theologians, who expect the Apocalyptic reign;--to enjoy their transporting hopes, provided always that they will not engage us in crusades and French Revolutions, nor burn us for doubting. My spirit of prophecy reaches no farther than, _New England_ GUESSES.

You ask, how it has happened that all Europe has acted on the principle, "that Power was Right." I know not what answer to give you, but this, that Power always sincerely, conscientiously, _de tres bon foi_, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God service, when it is violating all his laws. Our passions, ambition, avarice, love, resentment, &c., possess so much metaphysical subtlety, and so much overpowering eloquence, that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience, and convert both to their party; and I may be deceived as much as any of them, when I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check.

Morgan has misrepresented my guess. There is not a word in my letter about "a million of human beings." Civil wars, of an hundred years, throughout Europe, were guessed at; and this is broad enough for your ideas; for eighteen or twenty millions would be a moderate computation for a century of civil wars throughout Europe. I still pray that a century of civil wars, may not desolate Europe and America too, south and north.

Your speculations into futurity in Europe are so probable, that I can suggest no doubt to their disadvantage. All will depend on the progress of knowledge. But how shall knowledge advance? Independent of temporal and spiritual power, the course of science and literature is obstructed and discouraged by so many causes that it is to be feared their motions will be slow. I have just finished reading four volumes of D'Israeli's--two on the "Calamities," and two on the "Quarrels of Authors." These would be sufficient to show that, slow rises genius by poverty and envy oppressed. Even Newton, and Locke, and Grotius could not escape. France could furnish four other volumes of the woes and wars of authors.

My compliments to Mrs. Randolph, her daughter Ellen, and all her other children; and believe me, as ever.

To which Mrs. Adams adds her affectionate regard, and a wish that distance did not separate souls congenial.

TO THOMAS W. MAURY.

MONTICELLO, February 3, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 24th ultimo was a week on its way to me, and this is our first subsequent mail day. Mr. Cabell had written to me also on the want of the deeds in Captain Miller's case; and as the bill was in that house, I enclosed them immediately to him. I forgot, however, to desire that they might be returned when done with, and must, therefore, ask this friendly attention of you.

You ask me for observations on the memorandum you transcribe, relating to a map of the States, a mineralogical survey and statistical tables. The field is very broad, and new to me. I have never turned my mind to this combination of objects, nor am I at all prepared to give an opinion on it. On what principles the association of objects may go that far and not farther, whether we could find a character who would undertake the mineralogical survey, and who is qualified for it, whether there would be room for its designations on a well-filled geographical map, and also for the statistical details, I cannot say. The best mineralogical charts I have seen, have had nothing geographical but the water courses, ranges of hills, and most remarkable places, and have been colored, so as to present to the eye the mineralogical ranges. For the articles of a statistical table, I think the last census of Congress presented what was proper, as far as it went, but did not go far enough. It required detailed accounts of our manufactures, and an enumeration of our people, according to ages, sexes, and colors. But to this should be added an enumeration according to their occupations. We should know what proportion of our people are employed in agriculture, what proportion are carpenters, smiths, shoemakers, tailors, bricklayers, merchants, seamen, &c. No question is more curious than that of the distribution of society into occupations, and none more wanting. I have never heard of such tables being effected but in the instance of Spain, where it was first done under the administration, I believe, of Count D'Aranda, and a second time under the Count de Florida Blanca, and these have been considered as the most curious and valuable tables in the world. The combination of callings with us would occasion some difficulty, many of our tradesmen being, for instance, agriculturalists also; but they might be classed under their principal occupation. On the geographical branch I have reflected occasionally. I suppose a person would be employed in every county to put together the private surveys, either taken from the surveyors' books or borrowed from the proprietors, to connect them by supplementary surveys, and to survey the public roads, noting towns, habitations, and remarkable places, by which means a special delineation of watercourses, roads, &c., will be obtained. But it will be further indispensable to obtain the latitudes and longitudes of principal points in every county, in order to correct the errors of the topographical surveys, to bring them together, and to assign to each county its exact space on the map. These observations of latitude and longitude might be taken for the whole State, by a single person well qualified, in the course of a couple of years. I could offer some ideas on that subject to abridge and facilitate the operations, and as to the instruments to be used; but such details are probably not within the scope of your inquiries,--they would be in time if communicated to those who will have the direction of the work. I am sorry I am so little prepared to offer anything more satisfactory to your inquiries than these extempore hints. But I have no doubt that what is best will occur to those gentlemen of the legislature who have had the subject under their contemplation, and who, impressed with its importance, are exerting themselves to procure its execution. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO JAMES MONROE.

MONTICELLO, February 4, 1816

DEAR SIR,--Your letter concerning that of General Scott is received, and his is now returned. I am very thankful for these communications. From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice. A ray, therefore, now and then, from the fountain of light, is like sight restored to the blind. It tells me where I am; and that to a mariner who has long been without sight of land or sun, is a rallying of reckoning which places him at ease. The ground you have taken with Spain is sound in every part. It is the true ground, especially, as to the South Americans. When subjects are able to maintain themselves in the field, they are then an independent power as to all neutral nations, are entitled to their commerce, and to protection within their limits. Every kindness which can be shown the South Americans, every friendly office and aid within the limits of the law of nations, I would extend to them, without fearing Spain or her Swiss auxiliaries. For this is but an assertion of our own independence. But to join in their war, as General Scott proposes, and to which even some members of Congress seem to squint, is what we ought not to do as yet. On the question of our interest in their independence, were that alone a sufficient motive of action, much may be said on both sides. When they are free, they will drive every article of our produce from every market, by underselling it, and change the condition of our existence, forcing us into other habits and pursuits. We shall, indeed, have in exchange some commerce with them, but in what I know not, for we shall have nothing to offer which they cannot raise cheaper; and their separation from Spain seals our everlasting peace with her. On the other hand, so long as they are dependent, Spain, from her jealousy, is our natural enemy, and always in either open or secret hostility with us. These countries, too, in war, will be a powerful weight in her scale, and, in peace, totally shut to us. Interest then, on the whole, would wish their independence, and justice makes the wish a duty. They have a right to be free, and we a right to aid them, as a strong man has a right to assist a weak one assailed by a robber or murderer. That a war is brewing between us and Spain cannot be doubted. When that disposition is matured on both sides, and open rupture can no longer be deferred, then will be the time for our joining the South Americans, and entering into treaties of alliance with them. There will then be but one opinion, at home or abroad, that we shall be justifiable in choosing to have them with us, rather than against us. In the meantime, they will have organized regular governments, and perhaps have formed themselves into one or more confederacies; more than one I hope, as in single mass they would be a very formidable neighbor. The geography of their country seems to indicate three: 1. What is north of the Isthmus. 2. What is south of it on the Atlantic; and 3. The southern part on the Pacific. In this form, we might be the balancing power. _À propos_ of the dispute with Spain, as to the boundary of Louisiana. On our acquisition of that country, there was found in possession of the family of the late Governor Messier, a most valuable and original MS. history of the settlement of Louisiana by the French, written by Bernard de la Harpe, a principal agent through the whole of it. It commences with the first permanent settlement of 1699, (that by de la Salle in 1684, having been broken up,) and continues to 1723, and shows clearly the continual claim of France to the Province of Texas, as far as the Rio Bravo, and to all the waters running into the Mississippi, and how, by the roguery of St. Denis, an agent of Crozat the merchant, to whom the colony was granted for ten years, the settlements of the Spaniards at Nacadoches, Adais, Assinays, and Natchitoches, were fraudulently invited and connived at. Crozat's object was commerce, and especially contraband, with the Spaniards, and these posts were settled as convenient smuggling stages on the way to Mexico. The history bears such marks of authenticity as place it beyond question. Governor Claiborne obtained the MS. for us, and thinking it too hazardous to risk its loss by the way, unless a copy were retained, he had a copy taken. The original having arrived safe at Washington, he sent me the copy, which I now have. Is the original still in your office? or was it among the papers burnt by the British? If lost, I will send you my copy; if preserved, it is my wish to deposit the copy for safe keeping with the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, where it will be safer than on my shelves. I do not mean that any part of this letter shall give to yourself the trouble of an answer; only desire Mr. Graham to see if the original still exists in your office, and to drop me a line saying yea or nay; and I shall know what to do. Indeed the MS. ought to be printed, and I see a note to my copy which shows it has been in contemplation, and that it was computed to be of twenty sheets at sixteen dollars a sheet, for three hundred and twenty copies, which would sell at one dollar apiece, and reimburse the expense.

On the question of giving to La Motte the consulship of Havre, I know the obstacle of the Senate. Their determination to appoint natives only is generally proper, but not always. These places are for the most part of little consequence to the public; and if they can be made resources of profit to our ex-military worthies, they are so far advantageous. You and I, however, know that one of these new novices, knowing nothing of the laws or authorities of his port, nor speaking a word of its language, is of no more account than the fifth wheel of a coach. Had the Senate a power of removing as well as of rejecting, I should have fears, from their foreign antipathies, for my old friend Cathalan, Consul at Marseilles. His father was appointed by Dr. Franklin, early in the revolutionary war, but being old, the business was done by the son. On the establishment of our present government, the commission was given by General Washington to the son, at the request of the father. He has been the consul now twenty-six years, and has done its duties nearly forty years. He is a man of understanding, integrity and zeal, of high mercantile standing, an early citizen of the United States, and speaks and writes our language as fluently as French. His conduct in office has been without a fault. I have known him personally and intimately for thirty years, have a great and affectionate esteem for him, and should feel as much hurt were he to be removed as if removed myself from an office. But I trust he is out of the reach of the Senate, and secure under the wings of the executive government. Let me recommend him to your particular care and patronage, as well deserving it, and end the trouble of reading a long letter with assurances of my constant and affectionate friendship.

TO BENJAMIN AUSTIN, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 9, 1816.

SIR,--Your favor of January 25th is just now received. I am in general extremely unwilling to be carried into the newspapers, no matter what the subject; the whole pack of the Essex kennel would open upon me. With respect, however, to so much of my letter of January 9th as relates to manufactures, I have less repugnance, because there is perhaps a degree of duty to avow a change of opinion called for by a change of circumstances, and especially on a point now become peculiarly interesting.

What relates to Bonaparte stands on different ground. You think it will silence the misrepresentations of my enemies as to my opinions of him. No, Sir; it will not silence them. They had no ground either in my words or actions for these misrepresentations before, and cannot have less afterwards; nor will they calumniate less. There is, however, a consideration respecting our own friends, which may merit attention. I have grieved to see even good republicans so infatuated as to this man, as to consider his downfall as calamitous to the cause of liberty. In their indignation against England which is just, they seem to consider all _her_ enemies as _our_ friends, when it is well known there was not a being on earth who bore us so deadly a hatred. In fact, he saw nothing in this world but himself, and looked on the people under him as his cattle, beasts for burthen and slaughter. Promises cost him nothing when they could serve his purpose. On his return from Elba, what did he not promise? But those who had credited them a little, soon saw their total insignificance, and, satisfied they could not fall under worse hands, refused every effort after the defeat of Waterloo. Their present sufferings will have a term; his iron despotism would have had none. France has now a family of fools at its head, from whom, whenever it can shake off its foreign riders, it will extort a free constitution, or dismount them and establish some other on the solid basis of national right. To whine after this exorcised demon is a disgrace to republicans, and must have arisen either from want of reflection, or the indulgence of passion against principle. If anything I have said could lead them to take correcter views, to rally to the polar principles of genuine republicanism, I could consent that that part of my letter also should go into a newspaper. This I leave to yourself and such candid friends as you may consult. There is one word in the letter, however, which decency towards the allied sovereigns requires should be softened. Instead of _despots_, call them _rulers_. The first paragraph, too, of seven or eight lines, must be wholly omitted. Trusting all the rest to your discretion, I salute you with great esteem and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, March 2, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I cannot be serious! I am about to write you the most frivolous letter you ever read.

Would you go back to your cradle and live over again your seventy years? I believe you would return me a New England answer, by asking me another question. Would you live your eighty years over again?

I am prepared to give you an explicit answer, the question involves so many considerations of metaphysics and physics, of theology and ethics, of philosophy and history, of experience and romance, of tragedy, comedy and farce, that I would not give my opinion without writing a volume to justify it.

I have lately lived over again, in part, from 1753, when I was junior sophister at college, till 1769, when I was digging in the mines as a barrister at law, for silver and gold, in the town of Boston; and got as much of the shining dross for my labor as my utmost avarice at that time craved.

At the hazard of all the little vision that is left me, I have read the history of that period of sixteen years, in the volumes of the Baron de Grimm. In a late letter to you, I expressed a wish to see a history of quarrels and calamities of authors in France, like that of D'Israeli in England. I did not expect it so soon; but now I have it in a manner more masterly than I ever hoped to see it. It is not only a narration of the incessant great wars between the ecclesiastics and the philosophers, but of the little skirmishes and squabbles of Poets, Musicians, Sculptors, Painters, Architects, Tragedians, Comedians, Opera-Singers and Dancers, Chansons, Vaudevilles, Epigrams, Madrigals, Epitaphs, Anagrams, Sonnets, &c. No man is more sensible than I am of the service to science and letters, Humanity, Fraternity and Liberty, that would have been rendered by the Encyclopedists and Economists, by Voltaire, D'Alembert, Buffon, Diderot, Rousseau La Lande, Frederick and Catherine, if they had possessed common sense. But they were all totally destitute of it. They all seemed to think that all christendom was convinced as they were, that all religion was "visions Judaicques," and that their effulgent lights had illuminated all the world. They seemed to believe, that whole nations and continents had been changed in their principles, opinions, habits and feelings, by the sovereign grace of their Almighty philosophy, almost as suddenly as Catholics and Calvinists believe in instantaneous conversion. They had not considered the force of early education on the millions of minds who had never heard of their philosophy. And what was their philosophy? Atheism; pure, unadulterated Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, Frederick, De La Lande and Grimm, were indubitable Atheists. The universe was matter only, and eternal; spirit was a word without a meaning; liberty was a word without a meaning. There was no liberty in the Universe; liberty was a word void of sense. Every thought, word, passion, sentiment, feeling, all motion and action was necessary. All beings and attributes were of eternal necessity; conscience, morality, were all nothing but fate.

This was their creed, and this was to perfect human nature, and convert the earth into a paradise of pleasure.

Who, and what is this fate? He must be a sensible fellow. He must be a master of science. He must be a master of spherical Trigonometry and great circle sailing. He must calculate eclipses in his head by intuition. He must be master of the science of infinitesimal--"_Le science des infinimens petits_." He must involve and extract all the roots by intuition, and be familiar with all possible or imaginable sections of the cone. He must be a master of arts, mechanical and imitative. He must have more eloquence than Demosthenes, more wit than Swift or Voltaire, more humor than Butler or Trumbull, and what is more comfortable than all the rest, he must be good natured; for this is upon the whole a good world. There is ten times as much pleasure as pain in it.

Why then should we abhor the word God, and fall in love with the word Fate? We know there exists energy and intellect enough to produce such a world as this, which is a sublime and beautiful one, and a very benevolent one, notwithstanding all our snarling; and a happy one, if it is not made otherwise by our own fault. Ask a mite, in the centre of your mammoth cheese, what he thinks of the "το παν."

I should prefer the philosophy of Timæus, of Locris, before that of Grimm and Diderot, Frederick and D'Alembert. I should even prefer the Shasta of Hindostan, or the Chaldean, Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Christian, Mahometan, Tubonic, or Celtic Theology. Timæus and Picellus taught that three principles were eternal, God, Matter and Form. God was good, and had ideas. Matter was necessity. Fate dead--without ideas--without form, without feeling--perverse, untractable; capable, however, of being cut into forms, spheres, circles, triangles, squares, cubes, cones, &c. The ideas of the good God labored upon matter to bring it into form; but matter was fate, necessity, dulness, obstinacy--and would not always conform to the ideas of the good God who desired to make the best of all possible worlds; but Matter, Fate, Necessity, resisted, and would not let him complete his idea. Hence all the evil and disorder, pain, misery and imperfection of the Universe.

We all curse Robespierre and Bonaparte, but were they not both such restless, vain, extravagant animals as Diderot and Voltaire? Voltaire was the greatest literary character, and Bonaparte the greatest military character of the eighteenth century. There is all the difference between them. Both equally heroes and equally cowards.

When you ask my opinion of a University--it would have been easy to advise Mathematics, experimental Philosophy, Natural History, Chemistry and Astronomy, Geography and the Fine Arts; to the exclusion of Metaphysics and Theology. But knowing the eager impatience of the human mind to search into eternity and infinity, the first cause and last end of all things--I thought best to leave it its liberty to inquire till it is convinced, as I have been these fifty years, that there is but one Being in the Universe who comprehends it; and our last resource is resignation.

This Grimm must have been in Paris when you were there. Did you know him, or hear of him?

I have this moment received two volumes more, but these are from 1777 to 1782,--leaving the chain broken from 1769 to 1777. I hope hereafter to get the two intervening volumes. I am your old friend.

March 13, 1816.

A writer in the National Intelligencer of February 24th, who signs himself B., is endeavoring to shelter under the cloak of General Washington, the present enterprise of the Senate to wrest from the House of Representatives the power, given them by the constitution, of participating with the Senate in the establishment and continuance of laws on specified subjects. Their aim is, by associating an Indian chief, or foreign government, in form of a treaty, to possess themselves of the power of repealing laws become obnoxious to them, without the assent of the third branch, although that assent was necessary to make it a law. We are then to depend for the secure possession of our laws, not on our immediate representatives chosen by ourselves, and amenable to ourselves every other year, but on Senators chosen by the legislatures, amenable to them only, and that but at intervals of six years, which is nearly the common estimate for a term for life. But no act of that sainted worthy, no thought of General Washington, ever countenanced a change of our constitution so vital as would be the rendering insignificant the popular, and giving to the aristocratical branch of our government, the power of depriving us of our laws.

The case for which General Washington is quoted is that of his treaty with the Creeks, wherein was a stipulation that their supplies of goods should continue to be imported duty free. The writer of this article was then a member of the legislature, as he was of that which afterwards discussed the British treaty, and recollects the facts of the day, and the ideas which were afloat. The goods for the supplies of the Creeks were always imported into the Spanish ports of St. Augustine, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, &c., (the United States not owning then one foot of coast on the gulf of Mexico, or south of St. Mary's,) and from these ports they were carried directly into the Creek country, without ever entering the jurisdiction of the United States. In that country their laws pretended to no more force than in Florida or Canada. No officer of their customs could go to levy duties in the Spanish or Creek countries, out of which these goods never came. General Washington's stipulation in that treaty therefore, was nothing more than that our laws should not levy duties where we have no right to levy them, that is, in foreign ports, or foreign countries. These transactions took place while the Creek deputation was in New York, in the month of July 1790, and in March preceding we had passed a law delineating specially the line between their country and ours. The only subject of curiosity is how so nugatory a stipulation should have been placed in a treaty? It was from the fears of Mr. Gillevray, who was the head of the deputation, who possessed from the Creeks themselves the exclusive right to supply them with goods, and to whom this monopoly was the principle source of income.

The same writer quotes from a note in Marshal's history, an opinion of Mr. Jefferson, given to General Washington on the same occasion of the Creek treaty. Two or three little lines only of that opinion are given us, which do indeed express the doctrine in broad and general terms. Yet we know how often a few words withdrawn from their place may seem to bear a general meaning, when their context would show that their meaning must have been limited to the subject with respect to which they were used. If we could see the whole opinion, it might probably appear that its foundation was the peculiar circumstances of the Creek nation. We may say too, on this opinion, as on that of a judge whose positions beyond the limits of the case before him are considered as obiter sayings, never to be relied on as authority.

In July '90, moreover, the government was but just getting under way. The duty law was not passed until the succeeding month of August. This question of the effect of a treaty was then of the first impression; and none of us, I suppose, will pretend that on our first reading of the constitution we saw at once all its intentions, all the bearings of every word of it, as fully and as correctly as we have since understood them, after they have become subjects of public investigation and discussion; and I well remember the fact that, although Mr. Jefferson had retired from office before Mr. Jay's mission, and the question on the British treaty, yet during its discussion we were well assured of his entire concurrence in opinion with Mr. Madison and others who maintained the rights of the House of Representatives, so that, if on a _primâ facie_ view of the question, his opinion had been too general, on stricter investigation, and more mature consideration, his ultimate opinion was with those who thought that the subjects which were confided to the House of Representatives in conjunction with the President and Senate, were exceptions to the general treaty power given to the President and Senate alone; (according to the general rule that an instrument is to be so construed as to reconcile and give meaning and effect to all its parts;) that whenever a treaty stipulation interferes with a law of the three branches, the consent of the third branch is necessary to give it effect; and that there is to this but the single exception of the question of war and peace. There the constitution expressly requires the concurrence of the three branches to commit us to the state of war, but permits two of them, the President and Senate, to change it to that of peace, for reasons as obvious as they are wise. I think then I may affirm, in contradiction to B., that the present attempt of the Senate is not sanctioned by the opinion either of General Washington or of Mr. Jefferson.

I meant to confine myself to the case of the Creek treaty, and not to go into the general reasoning, for after the logical and demonstrative arguments of Mr. Wilde of Georgia, and others on the floor of Congress, if any man remains unconvinced I pretend not the powers of convincing him.

TO GOVERNOR NICHOLAS.

MONTICELLO, April 2, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of March 22d has been received. It finds me more laboriously and imperiously engaged than almost on any occasion of my life. It is not, therefore, in my power to take into immediate consideration all the subjects it proposes; they cover a broad surface, and will require some development. They respect,

I. Defence.

II. Education.

III. The map of the State.

This last will comprise,

1. An astronomical survey, to wit, Longitudes and Latitudes.

2. A geometrical survey of the external boundaries, the mountains and rivers.

3. A typographical survey of the counties.

4. A mineralogical survey.

Each of these heads require distinct consideration. I will take them up one at a time, and communicate my ideas as leisure will permit.

I. On the subject of Defence, I will state to you what has been heretofore contemplated and proposed. Some time before I retired from office, when the clouds between England and the United States thickened so as to threaten war at hand, and while we were fortifying various assailable points on our sea-board, the defence of the Chesapeake became, as it ought to have been, a subject of serious consideration, and the problem occurred, whether it could be defended at its mouth? its effectual defence in detail being obviously impossible. My idea was that we should find or prepare a station near its mouth for a very great force of vessels of annoyance of such a character as to assail, when the weather and position of an enemy suited, and keep or withdraw themselves into their station when adverse. These means of annoyance were to consist of gun-boats, row-boats, floating batteries, bomb-ketches, fire-ships, rafts, turtles, torpedoes, rockets, and whatever else could be desired to destroy a ship becalmed, to which could now be added Fulton scows. I thought it possible that a station might be made on the middle grounds, (which are always shallow, and have been known to be uncovered by water,) by a circumvallation of stones dropped loosely on one another, so as to take their own level, and raised sufficiently high to protect the vessels within them from the waves and boat attacks. It is by such a wall that the harbor of Cherbury has been made. The middle grounds have a firmer bottom, and lie two or three miles from the ship channel on either side, and so near the Cape as to be at hand for any enemy moored or becalmed within them. A survey of them was desired, and some officer of the navy received orders on the subject, who being opposed to our possessing anything below a frigate or line of battle ship, either visited or did not visit them, and verbally expressed his opinion of impracticability. I state these things from memory, and may err in small circumstances, but not in the general impression.

A second station offering itself was the mouth of Lynhaven river, which having but four or five feet water, the vessels would be to be adapted to that, or its entrance deepened; but there it would be requisite to have, first, a fort protecting the vessels within it, and strong enough to hold out until a competent force of militia could be collected for its relief. And, second, a canal uniting the tide waters of Lynhaven river and the eastern branch, three or four miles apart only of low level country. This would afford to the vessels a retreat for their own safety, and a communication with Norfolk and Albemarle Sound, so as to give succor to these places if attacked, or receive it from them for a special enterprise. It was believed that such a canal would then have cost about thirty thousand dollars.

This being a case of personal as well as public interest, I thought a private application not improper, and indeed preferable to a more general one, with an executive needing no stimulus to do what is right; and therefore, in May and June, 1813, I took the liberty of writing to them on this subject, the defence of Chesapeake; and to what is before stated I added some observations on the importance and pressure of the case. A view of the map of the United States shows that the Chesapeake receives either the whole or important waters of five of the most producing of the Atlantic States, to wit: North Carolina, (for the Dismal canal makes Albemarle Sound a water of the Chesapeake, and Norfolk its port of exportation,) Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. We know that the waters of the Chesapeake, from the Genesee to the Sawra towns and Albemarle Sound, comprehend two-fifths of the population of the Atlantic States, and furnish probably more than half their exported produce; that the loss of James river alone, in that year, was estimated at two hundred thousand barrels of flour, fed away to horses or sold at half-price, which was a levy of a million of dollars on a single one of these numerous waters, and that levy to be repeated every year during the war; that this important country can all be shut up by two or three ships of the enemy, lying at the mouth of the bay; that an injury so vast to us and so cheap to the enemy, must forever be resorted to by them, and maintained constantly through every war; that this was a hard trial of the spirit of the Middle States, a trial which, backed by impossible taxes, might produce a demand for peace on any terms; that when it was considered that the Union had already expended four millions of dollars for the defence of the single city of Norfolk, and the waters of a single river, the Hudson, (which we entirely approved, and now we might probably add four more since expended on the same spot,) we thought it very moderate for so great a portion of the country, the population, the wealth, and contributing industry and strength of the Atlantic States, to ask a few hundred thousand dollars, to save the harassment of their militia, conflagrations of their towns and houses, devastations of their farms, and annihilation of all the annual fruits of their labor. The idea of defending the bay at its mouth was approved, but the necessary works were deemed inexecutable during a war, and an answer more cogent was furnished by the fact that our treasury and credit were both exhausted. Since the war, I have learned (I cannot say how) that the Executive has taken up the subject and sent on an engineer to examine and report the localities, and that this engineer thought favorably of the middle grounds. But my recollection is too indistinct but to suggest inquiry to you. After having once taken the liberty of soliciting the Executive on this subject, I do not think it would be respectful for me to do it a second time, nor can it be necessary with persons who need only suggestions of what is right, and not importunities to do it. If the subject is brought before them, they can readily recall or recur to my letters, if worth it. But would it not be advisable in the first place, to have surveys made of the middle grounds and the grounds between the tidewaters of Lynhaven and the Eastern branch, that your representations may be made on known facts? These would be parts only of the surveys you are authorized to make, and might, for so good a reason, be anticipated and executed before the general work can be done.

Perhaps, however, the view is directed to a defence by frigates or ships of the line, stationed at York or elsewhere. Against this, in my opinion, both reason and experience declaim. Had we half a dozen seventy-fours stationed at York, the enemy would place a dozen at the capes. This great force called there would enable them to make large detachments against Norfolk when it suited them, to harass and devastate the bay coasts incessantly, and would oblige us to keep large armies of militia at York to defend the ships, and at Norfolk to defend that. The experience of New London proves how certain and destructive this blockade would be; for New London owed its blockade and the depredations on its coasts to the presence of a frigate sent there for its defence; and did the frigate at Norfolk bring us defence or assault?

II. _Education._--The President and Directors of the literary fund are desired to digest and report a system of public education, comprehending the establishment of an university, additional colleges or academies, and schools. The resolution does not define the portions of science to be taught in each of these institutions, but the first and last admit no doubt. The university must be intended for all useful sciences, and the schools mean elementary ones, for the instruction of the people, answering to our present English schools; the middle-term colleges or academies may be more conjectural. But we must understand from it some middle-grade of education. Now, when we advert that the ancient classical languages are considered as the foundation preparatory for all the sciences; that we have always had schools scattered over the country for teaching these languages, which often were the ultimate term of education; that these languages are entered on at the age of nine or ten years, at which age parents would be unwilling to send their children from every part of the State to a central and distant university, and when we observe that the resolution supposes there are to be a plurality of them, we may well conclude that the Greek and Latin are the objects of these colleges. It is probable, also, that the legislature might have under their eye the bill for the more general diffusion of knowledge, printed in the revised code of 1779, which proposed these three grades of institution, to-wit: an university, district colleges, or grammar schools, and county or ward schools. I think, therefore, we may say that the object of these colleges is the classical languages, and that they are intended as the portico of entry to the university. As to their numbers, I know no better rule to be assumed than to place one within a day's ride of every man's door, in consideration of the infancy of the pledges he has at it. This would require one for every eight miles square.

Supposing this the object of the Colleges, the Report will have to present the plan of an University, analyzing the sciences, selecting those which are useful, grouping them into professorships, commensurate each with the time and faculties of one man, and prescribing the regimen and all other necessary details. On this subject I can offer nothing new. A letter of mine to Peter Carr, which was published during the last Session of Assembly, is a digest of all the information I possess on the subject, from which the Board will judge whether they can extract anything useful; the professorship of the classical languages being of course to be expunged, as more effectually supplied by the establishment of the colleges.

As the buildings to be erected will also enter into their Report, 1 would strongly recommend to their consideration, instead of one immense building, to have a small one for every professorship, arranged at proper distances around a square, to admit extension, connected by a piazza, so that they may go dry from one school to another. This village form is preferable to a single great building for many reasons, particularly on account of fire, health, economy, peace and quiet. Such a plan had been approved in the case of the Albemarle college, which was the subject of the letter above mentioned; and should the idea be approved by the Board, more may be said hereafter on the opportunity these small buildings will afford, of exhibiting models in architecture of the purest forms of antiquity, furnishing to the student examples of the precepts he will be taught in that art.

The Elementary or Ward schools is the last branch of this subject; on this, too, my ideas have been long deposited in the Bill for the diffusion of knowledge, before mentioned, and time and reflection have continued to strengthen them as to the general principle, that of a division of every county into wards, with a school in each ward. The details of the bill will of course be varied as the difference of present circumstances from those of that day will require.

My partiality for that division is not founded in views of education solely, but infinitely more as the means of a better administration of our government, and the eternal preservation of its republican principles. The example of this most admirable of all human contrivances in government, is to be seen in our Eastern States; and its powerful effect in the order and economy of their internal affairs, and the momentum it gives them as a nation, is the single circumstance which distinguishes them so remarkably from every other national association. In a letter to Mr. Adams a few years ago, I had occasion to explain to him the structure of our scheme of education as proposed in the bill for the diffusion of knowledge, and the views of this particular section of it; and in another lately to Mr. Cabell, on the occasion of the bill for the Albemarle College, I also took a view of the political effects of the proposed division into wards, which being more easily copied than thrown into new form here, I take the liberty of enclosing extracts from them. Should the Board of Directors approve of the plan, and make ward divisions the substratum of their elementary schools, their report may furnish a happy occasion of introducing them, leaving all their other uses to be adopted from time to time hereafter as occasions shall occur.

With these subjects I shall close the present letter, but that it may be necessary to anticipate on the next one so far as respects proper persons for carrying into execution the astronomical and geometrical surveys. I know no one in the State equal to the first who could be engaged in it; but my acquaintance in the State is very limited. There is a person near Washington possessing every quality which could be desired, among our first mathematicians and astronomers, of good bodily activity, used to rough living, of great experience in field operations, and of the most perfect integrity. I speak of Isaac Briggs, who was Surveyor-General south of Ohio, and who was employed to trace the route from Washington to New Orleans, below the mountains, which he did with great accuracy by observations of longitude and latitude only, on a journey thither. I do not know that he would undertake the present work, but I have learnt that he is at this time disengaged; I know he is poor, and was always moderate in his views. This is the most important of all the surveys, and if done by him, I will answer for this part of your work standing the test of time and criticism. If you should desire it, I could write and press him to undertake it; but it would be necessary to say something about compensation.

John Wood, of the Petersburg Academy, has written to me that he would be willing to undertake the geometrical survey of the external boundaries, and internal divisions. We have certainly no abler mathematician; and he informs me he has had good experience in the works of the field. He is a great walker, and is, therefore, probably equal to the bodily fatigue, which is a material qualification. But he is so much better known where you are, that I need only mention his readiness to undertake, and your own personal knowledge or inquiries will best determine what should be done. It is the part of the work above the tide waters which he would undertake; that below, where soundings are to be taken, requiring nautical apparatus and practice.

Whether he is a mineralogist or not, I do not know. It would be a convenient and economical association with that of the geometrical survey.

I am obliged to postpone for some days the consideration of the remaining subjects of your letter. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and high consideration.

TO MR. JOSEPH MILLIGAN.

MONTICELLO, April 6, 1816.

SIR,--Your favor of March 6th did not come to hand until the 15th. I then expected I should finish revising the translation of Tracy's book within a week, and could send the whole together. I got through it, but, on further consideration, thought I ought to read it over again, lest any errors should have been left in it. It was fortunate I did so, for I found several little errors. The whole is now done and forwarded by this mail, with a title, and something I have written which may serve for a Prospectus, and indeed for a Preface also, with a little alteration. You will see from the face of the work what a horrible job I have had in the revisal. It is so defaced that it is absolutely necessary you should have a fair copy taken, and by a person of good understanding, for that will be necessary to decipher the erasures, interlineations, &c., of the translation. The translator's orthography, too, will need great correction, as you will find a multitude of words shamefully misspelt; and he seems to have had no idea of the use of stops: he uses the comma very commonly for a full stop; and as often the full stop, followed by a capital letter, for a comma. Your copyist will, therefore, have to stop it properly quite through the work. Still, there will be places where it cannot be stopped correctly without reference to the original; for I observed many instances where a member of a sentence might be given either to the preceding or following one, grammatically, which would yet make the sense very different, and could, therefore, be rectified only by the original. I have, therefore, thought it would be better for you to send me the proof sheets as they come out of the press. We have two mails a week, which leave this Wednesdays and Saturdays, and you should always receive it by return of the first mail. Only observe that I set out for Bedford in five or six days, and shall not be back till the first week in May.

The original construction of the style of the translation was so bungling, that although I have made it render the author's sense faithfully, yet it was impossible to change the structure of the sentences to anything good. I have endeavored to apologize for it in the Prospectus; as also to prepare the reader for the dry, and to most of them, uninteresting character of the preliminary tracts, advising him to pass at once to the beginning of the main work, where, also, you will see I have recommended the beginning the principal series of pages. In this I have departed from the order of pages adopted by the author.

My name must in nowise appear connected with the work. I have no objection to your naming me _in conversation_, but not in print, as the person to whom the original was communicated. Although the author puts his name to the work, yet, if called to account for it by his government, he means to disavow it, which its publication at such a distance will enable him to do. But he would not think himself at liberty to do this if avowedly sanctioned by me here. The best open mark of approbation I can give is to subscribe for a dozen copies; or if you would prefer it, you may place on your subscription paper a letter in these words: "Sir, I subscribe with pleasure for a dozen copies of the invaluable book you are about to publish on Political Economy. I should be happy to see it in the hands of every American citizen."

The Ainsworth, Ovid, Cornelius Nepos and Virgil, as also of the two books below mentioned,[15] and formerly written for. I fear I shall not get the Ovid and Nepos I sent to be bound, in time for the pocket in my Bedford trip. Accept my best wishes and respects.

TITLE.--"A Treatise on Political Economy by the Count Dustutt Tracy, member of the Senate and Institute of France, and of the American Philosophical Society, to which is prefixed a supplement to a preceding work on the Understanding or Elements of Ideology, by the same author, with an analytical table and an introduction on the faculty of the will, translated from the unpublished French original."

_Prospectus._--Political economy in modern times assumed the form of a regular science first in the hands of the political sect in France, called the Economists. They made it a branch only of a comprehensive system on the natural order of societies. Quesnai first, Gournay, Le Frosne, Turgot and Dupont de Nemours, the enlightened, philanthropic, and venerable citizen, now of the United States, led the way in these developments, and gave to our inquiries the direction they have since observed. Many sound and valuable principles established by them, have received the sanction of general approbation. Some, as in the infancy of a science might be expected, have been brought into question, and have furnished occasion for much discussion. Their opinions on production, and on the proper subjects of taxation, have been particularly controverted; and whatever may be the merit of their principles of taxation, it is not wonderful they have not prevailed; not on the questioned score of correctness, but because not acceptable to the people, whose will must be the supreme law. Taxation is in fact the most difficult function of government--and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory. The general aim is therefore to adopt the mode most consonant with the circumstances and sentiments of the country.

Adam Smith, first in England, published a rational and systematic work on Political Economy, adopting generally the ground of the Economists, but differing on the subjects before specified. The system being novel, much argument and detail seemed then necessary to establish principles which now are assented to as soon as proposed. Hence his book, admitted to be able, and of the first degree of merit, has yet been considered as prolix and tedious.

In France, John Baptist Say has the merit of producing a very superior work on the subject of political economy. His arrangement is luminous, ideas clear, style perspicuous, and the whole subject brought within half the volume of Smith's work. Add to this considerable advances in correctness and extension of principles.

The work of Senator Tracy, now announced, comes forward with all the lights of his predecessors in the science, and with the advantages of further experience, more discussion, and greater maturity of subjects. It is certainly distinguished by important traits; a cogency of logic which has never been exceeded in any work, a rigorous enchainment of ideas, and constant recurrence to it to keep it in the reader's view, a fearless pursuit of truth whithersoever it leads, and a diction so correct that not a word can be changed but for the worse; and, as happens in other cases, that the more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained, he has reduced, not indeed all the details, but all the elements and the system of principles within the compass of an 8vo, of about 400 pages. Indeed we might say within two-thirds of that space, the one-third being taken up with some preliminary pieces now to be noticed.

Mr. Tracy is the author of a treatise on the Elements of Ideology, justly considered as a production of the first order in the science of our thinking faculty, or of the understanding. Considering the present work but as a second section to those Elements under the titles of Analytical Table, Supplement, and Introduction, he gives in these preliminary pieces a supplement to the Elements, shows how the present work stands on that as its basis, presents a summary view of it, and, before entering on the formation, distribution, and employment of property and personality, a question not new indeed, yet one which has not hitherto been satisfactorily settled. These investigations are very metaphysical, profound, and demonstrative, and will give satisfaction to minds in the habit of abstract speculation. Readers, however, not disposed to enter into them, after reading the summary view, entitled, "on our actions," will probably pass on at once to the commencement of the main subject of the work, which is treated of under the following heads:

Of Society. Of Production, or the formation of our riches. Of Value, or the measure of utility. Of change of form, or fabrication. Of change of place, or commerce. Of money. Of the distribution of our riches. Of population. Of the employment of our riches, or consumption. Of public revenue, expenses and debts.

Although the work now offered is but a translation, it may be considered in some degree as the original, that having never been published in the country in which it was written. The author would there have been submitted to the unpleasant alternative either of mutilating his sentiments, where they were either free or doubtful, or of risking himself under the unsettled regimen of the press. A manuscript copy communicated to a friend here has enabled him to give it to a country which is afraid to read nothing, and which may be trusted with anything, so long as its reason remains unfettered by law.

In the translation, fidelity has been chiefly consulted. A more correct style would sometimes have given a shade of sentiment which was not the author's, and which, in a work standing in the place of the original, would have been unjust towards him. Some gallicisms have, therefore, been admitted, where a single word gives an idea which would require a whole phrase of dictionary-English. Indeed, the horrors of Neologism, which startle the purist, have given no alarm to the translator. Where brevity, perspicuity, and even euphony can be promoted by the introduction of a new word, it is an improvement to the language. It is thus the English language has been brought to what it is; one half of it having been innovations, made at different times, from the Greek, Latin, French, and other languages. And is it the worse for these? Had the preposterous idea of fixing the language been adopted by our Saxon ancestors, of Pierce Plowman, of Chaucer, of Spenser, the progress of ideas must have stopped with that of the language. On the contrary, nothing is more evident than that as we advance in the knowledge of new things, and of new combinations of old ones, we must have new words to express them. Were Van Helmont, Stane, Scheele, to rise from the dead at this time, they would scarcely understand one word of their own science. Would it have been better, then, to have abandoned the science of Chemistry, rather than admit innovations in its terms? What a wonderful accession of copiousness and force has the French language attained, by the innovations of the last thirty years! And what do we not owe to Shakspeare for the enrichment of the language, by his free and magical creation of words? In giving a loose to neologism, indeed, uncouth words will sometimes be offered; but the public will judge them, and receive or reject, as sense or sound shall suggest, and authors will be approved or condemned according to the use they make of this license, as they now are from their use of the present vocabulary. The claim of the present translation, however, is limited to its duties of fidelity and justice to the sense of its original; adopting the author's own word only where no term of our own language would convey his meaning.

(_A Note communicated to the Editor._)

Our author's classification of taxes being taken from those practised in France, will scarcely be intelligible to an American reader, to whom the nature as well as names of some of them must be unknown. The taxes with which we are familiar, class themselves readily according to the basis on which they rest. 1. Capital. 2. Income. 3. Consumption. These may be considered as commensurate; Consumption being generally equal to Income, and Income the annual profit of Capital. A government may select either of these bases for the establishment of its system of taxation, and so frame it as to reach the faculties of every member of the society, and to draw from him his equal proportion of the public contributions; and, if this be correctly obtained, it is the perfection of the function of taxation. But when once a government has assumed its basis, to select and tax special articles from either of the other classes, is double taxation. For example, if the system be established on the basis of Income, and his just proportion on that scale has been already drawn from every one, to step into the field of Consumption, and tax special articles in that, as broadcloth or homespun, wine or whiskey, a coach or a wagon, is doubly taxing the same article. For that portion of Income with which these articles are purchased, having already paid its tax as Income, to pay another tax on the thing it purchased, is paying twice for the same thing, it is an aggrievance on the citizens who use these articles in exoneration of those who do not, contrary to the most sacred of the duties of a government, to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.

How far it may be the interest and the duty of all to submit to this sacrifice on other grounds, for instance, to pay for a time an impost on the importation of certain articles, in order to encourage their manufacture at home, or an excise on others injurious to the morals or health of the citizens, will depend on a series of considerations of another order, and beyond the proper limits of this note. The reader, in deciding which basis of taxation is most eligible for the local circumstances of his country, will, of course, avail himself of the weighty observations of our author.

To this a single observation shall yet be added. Whether property alone, and the whole of what each citizen possesses, shall be subject to contribution, or only its surplus after satisfying his first wants, or whether the faculties of body and mind shall contribute also from their annual earnings, is a question to be decided. But, when decided, and the principle settled, it is to be equally and fairly applied to all. To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "the _guarantee_ to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it." If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates it.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] Moore's Greek Grammar, translated by Ewen. Mair's Tyro's Dictionary.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, April 8, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I have to acknowledge your two favors of February the 16th and March the 2d, and to join sincerely in the sentiment of Mrs. Adams, and regret that distance separates us so widely. An hour of conversation would be worth a volume of letters. But we must take things as they come.

You ask, if I would agree to live my seventy or rather seventy-three years over again? To which I say, yea. I think with you, that it is a good world on the whole; that it has been framed on a principle of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain dealt out to us. There are, indeed, (who might say nay) gloomy and hypochondriac minds, inhabitants of diseased bodies, disgusted with the present, and despairing of the future; always counting that the worst will happen, because it may happen. To these I say, how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened! My temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. There are, I acknowledge, even in the happiest life, some terrible convulsions, heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account. I have often wondered for what good end the sensations of grief could be intended. All our other passions, within proper bounds, have an useful object. And the perfection of the moral character is, not in a stoical apathy, so hypocritically vaunted, and so untruly too, because impossible, but in a just equilibrium of all the passions. I wish the pathologists then would tell us what is the use of grief in the economy, and of what good it is the cause, proximate or remote.

Did I know Baron Grimm while at Paris? Yes, most intimately. He was the pleasantest and most conversable member of the diplomatic corps while I was there; a man of good fancy, acuteness, irony, cunning and egoism. No heart, not much of any science, yet enough of every one to speak its language; his forte was Belles-lettres, painting and sculpture. In these he was the oracle of society, and as such, was the Empress Catharine's private correspondent and factor, in all things not diplomatic. It was through him I got her permission for poor Ledyard to go to Kamschatka, and cross over thence to the western coast of America, in order to penetrate across our continent in the opposite direction to that afterwards adopted for Lewis and Clarke; which permission she withdrew after he had got within two hundred miles of Kamschatka, had him seized, brought back, and set down in Poland. Although I never heard Grimm express the opinion directly, yet I always supposed him to be of the school of Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach; the first of whom committed his system of atheism to writing in "_Le bon sens_," and the last in his "_Systeme de la Nature_." It was a numerous school in the Catholic countries, while the infidelity of the Protestant took generally the form of theism. The former always insisted that it was a mere question of definition between them, the hypostasis of which, on both sides, was "_Nature_," or "_the Universe_;" that both agreed in the order of the existing system, but the one supposed it from eternity, the other as having begun in time. And when the atheist descanted on the unceasing motion and circulation of matter through the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, never resting, never annihilated, always changing form, and under all forms gifted with the power of reproduction; the theist pointing "to the heavens above, and to the earth beneath, and to the waters under the earth," asked, if these did not proclaim a first cause, possessing intelligence and power; power in the production, and intelligence in the design and constant preservation of the system; urged the palpable existence of final causes; that the eye was made to see, and the ear to hear, and not that we see because we have eyes, and hear because we have ears; an answer obvious to the senses, as that of walking across the room, was to the philosopher demonstrating the non-existence of motion. It was in D'Holbach's conventicles that Rousseau imagined all the machinations against him were contrived; and he left, in his Confessions, the most biting anecdotes of Grimm. These appeared after I left France; but I have heard that poor Grimm was so much afflicted by them, that he kept his bed several weeks. I have never seen the Memoirs of Grimm. Their volume has kept them out of our market.

I have lately been amusing myself with Levi's book, in answer to Dr. Priestley. It is a curious and tough work. His style is inelegant and incorrect, harsh and petulant to his adversary, and his reasoning flimsy enough. Some of his doctrines were new to me, particularly that of his two resurrections; the first, a particular one of all the dead, in body as well as soul, who are to live over again, the Jews in a state of perfect obedience to God, the other nations in a state of corporeal punishment for the sufferings they have inflicted on the Jews. And he explains this resurrection of the bodies to be only of the original stamen of Leibnitz, or the human _calus_ in _semine masculino_, considering that as a mathematical point, insusceptible of separation or division. The second resurrection, a general one of souls and bodies, eternally to enjoy divine glory in the presence of the Supreme Being. He alleges that the Jews alone preserve the doctrine of the unity of God. Yet their God would be deemed a very indifferent man with us; and it was to correct their anamorphosis of the Deity, that Jesus preached, as well as to establish the doctrine of a future state. However, Levi insists, that that was taught in the Old Testament, and even by Moses himself and the prophets. He agrees that an annointed prince was prophesied and promised; but denies that the character and history of Jesus had any analogy with that of the person promised. He must be fearfully embarrassing to the Hierophants of fabricated Christianity; because it is their own armor in which he clothes himself for the attack. For example, he takes passages of scripture from their context, (which would give them a very different meaning,) strings them together, and makes them point towards what object he pleases; he interprets them figuratively, typically, analogically, hyperbolically; he calls in the aid of emendation, transposition, ellipse, metonymy, and every other figure of rhetoric; the name of one man is taken for another, one place for another, days and weeks for months and years; and finally, he avails himself all his advantage over his adversaries by his superior knowledge of the Hebrew, speaking in the very language of the divine communication, while they can only fumble on with conflicting and disputed translations. Such is this war of giants. And how can such pigmies as you and I decide between them? For myself, I confess that my head is not formed _tantas componere lites_. And as you began yours of March the 2d, with a declaration that you were about to write me the most frivolous letter I had ever read, so I will close mine by saying, I have written you a full match for it, and by adding my affectionate respects to Mrs. Adams, and the assurance of my constant attachment and consideration for yourself.

TO GOVERNOR NICHOLAS.

POPLAR FOREST, April 19, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--In my letter of the 2d instant, I stated, according to your request, what occurred to me on the subjects of Defence and Education; and I will now proceed to do the same on the remaining subject of yours of March 22d, the construction of a general map of the State. For this the legislature directs there shall be,

I. A topographical survey of each county.

II. A general survey of the outlines of the State, and its leading features of rivers and mountains.

III. An astronomical survey for the correction and collection of the others, and

IV. A mineralogical survey.

I. Although the topographical survey of each county is referred to its court in the first instance, yet such a control is given to the Executive as places it effectively under his direction; that this control must be freely and generally exercised, I have no doubt. Nobody expects that the justices of the peace in every county are so familiar with the astronomical and geometrical principles to be employed in the execution of this work, as to be competent to decide what candidate possesses them in the highest degree, or in any degree; and indeed I think it would be reasonable, considering how much the other affairs of the State must engross of the time of the Governor and Council, for them to make it a pre-requisite for every candidate to undergo an examination by the mathematical professor of William and Mary College, or some other professional character, and to ask for a special and confidential report of the grade of qualification of each candidate examined. If one, completely qualified, can be found for every half dozen counties, it will be as much, perhaps, as can be expected.

Their office will be to survey the Rivers, Roads, and Mountains.

1. A proper division of the surveys of the Rivers between them and the general surveyor, might be to ascribe to the latter so much as is navigable, and to the former the parts not navigable, but yet sufficient for working machinery, which the law requires. On these they should note confluences, other natural and remarkable objects, towns, mills or other machines, ferries, bridges, crossings of roads, passages through mountains, mines, quarries, &c.

2. In surveying the Roads, the same objects should be noted, and every permanent stream crossing them, and these streams should be laid down according to the best information they can obtain, to their confluence with the main stream.

3. The Mountains, others than those ascribed to the general surveyor, should be laid down by their names and bases, which last will be generally designated by the circumscription of water courses and roads on both sides, without a special survey around them. Their gaps are also required to be noted.

4. On the Boundaries, the same objects should be noted. Where a boundary falls within the operations of the general surveyor, its survey by them should be dispensed with, and where it is common to two counties, it might be ascribed wholly to one, or divided between the surveyors respectively. All these surveys should be delineated on the same scale, which the law directs, I believe, (for I have omitted to bring the copy of it with me to this place,) if it has not fixed the scale. I think about half an inch to the mile would be a convenient one, because it would generally bring the map of a county within the compass of a sheet of paper. And here I would suggest what would be a great desideratum for the public, to wit, that a single sheet map of each county separately, on a scale of half an inch to the mile, be engraved and struck off. There are few housekeepers who would not wish to possess a map of their own county, many would purchase those of their circumjacent counties, and many would take one of every county, and form them into an atlas, so that I question if as many copies of each particular map would not be sold as of the general one. But these should not be made until they receive the astronomical corrections, without which they can never be brought together and joined into larger maps, at the will of the purchaser.

Their instrument should be a Circumferentor, with cross spirit levels on its face, a graduated rim, and a double index, the one fixed, the other movable, with a nonius on it. The needle should never be depended on for an angle.

II. The General Survey divides itself into two distinct operations; the one on the tide waters, the other above them.

On the tide waters the State will have little to do. Some time before the war, Congress authorized the Executive to have an accurate survey made of the whole sea-coast of the United States, comprehending, as well as I remember, the principal bays and harbors. A Mr. Hassler, a mathematician of the first order from Geneva, was engaged in the execution, and was sent to England to procure proper instruments. He has lately returned with such a set as never before crossed the Atlantic, and is scarcely possessed by any nation on the continent of Europe. We shall be furnished, then, by the General Government, with a better survey than we can make, of our sea-coast, Chesapeake Bay, probably the Potomac, to the Navy Yard at Washington, and possibly of James' River to Norfolk, and York River to Yorktown. I am not, however, able to say that these, or what other, are the precise limits of their intentions. The Secretary of the Treasury would probably inform us. Above these limits, whatever they are, the surveys and soundings will belong to the present undertaking of the State; and if Mr. Hassler has time, before he commences his general work, to execute this for us, with the use of the instruments of the United States, it is impossible we can put it into any train of execution equally good; and any compensation he may require, will be less than it would cost to purchase instruments of our own, and have the work imperfectly done by a less able hand. If we are to do it ourselves, I acknowledge myself too little familiar with the methods of surveying a coast and taking soundings, to offer anything on the subject approved by practice. I will pass on, therefore, to the general survey of the Rivers above the tide waters, the Mountains, and the external Boundaries.

I. _Rivers._--I have already proposed that the general survey shall comprehend these from the tide waters as far as they are navigable only, and here we shall find one-half of the work already done, and as ably as we may expect to do it. In the great controversy between the Lords Baltimore and Fairfax, between whose territories the Potomac, from its mouth to its source, was the chartered boundary, the question was which branch, from Harper's ferry upwards, was to be considered as the Potomac? Two able mathematicians, therefore, were brought over from England at the expense of the parties, and under the sanction of the sentence pronounced between them, to survey the two branches, and ascertain which was to be considered as the main stream. Lord Fairfax took advantage of their being here to get a correct survey by them of his whole territory, which was bounded by the Potomac, the Rappahanoc, as was believed, in the most accurate manner. Their survey was doubtless filed and recorded in Lord Fairfax's office, and I presume it still exists among his land papers. He furnished a copy of that survey to Colonel Fry and my father, who entered it, on a reduced scale, into their map, as far as latitudes and admeasurements accurately horizontal could produce exactness. I expect this survey is to be relied on. But it is lawful to doubt whether its longitudes may not need verification; because at that day the corrections had not been made in the lunar tables, which have since introduced the method of ascertaining the longitude by the lunar distances; and that by Jupiter's satellites was impracticable in ambulatory survey. The most we can count on is, that they may have employed some sufficient means to ascertain the longitude of the first source of the Potomac, the meridian of which was to be Lord Baltimore's boundary. The longitudes, therefore, should be verified and corrected, if necessary, and this will belong to the Astronomical survey.

The other rivers only, then, from their tide waters up as far as navigable, remain for this operator, and on them the same objects should be noted as proposed in the county surveys; and, in addition, their breadth at remarkable parts, such as the confluence of other streams, falls, and ferries, the soundings of their main channels, bars, rapids, and principal sluices through their falls, their current at various places, and, if it can be done without more cost than advantage, their fall between certain stations.

II. _Mountains._--I suppose the law contemplates, in the general survey, only the principal continued ridges, and such insulated mountains as being correctly ascertained in their position, and visible from many and distant places, may, by their bearings, be useful correctives for all the surveys, and especially for those of the counties. Of the continued ridges, the Alleghany, North Mountain, and Blue Ridge, are principal; ridges of partial lengths may be left to designation in the county surveys. Of insulated mountains, there are the Peaks of Otter, in Bedford, which I believe may be seen from about twenty counties; Willis' Mountains, in Buckingham, which from their detached situation, and so far below all other mountains, may be seen over a great space of country; Peters' Mountain, in Albemarle, which, from its eminence above all others of the south-west ridge, may be seen to a great distance, probably to Willis' Mountain, and with that and the Peaks of Otter, furnishes a very extensive triangle; and doubtless there are many unknown to me, which, being truly located, offer valuable indications and correctives for the county surveys. For example, the sharp peak of Otter being precisely fixed in position by its longitude and latitude, a simple observation of latitude taken at any place from which that peak is visible, and an observation of the angle it makes with the meridian of the place, furnish a right-angled spherical triangle, of which the portion of meridian intercepted between the latitudes of the place and peak, will be on one side. With this and the given angles, the other side, constituting the difference of longitude, may be calculated, and thus by a correct position of these commanding points, that of every place from which any one of them is visible, may, by observations of latitude and bearing, be ascertained in longitude also. If two such objects be visible from the same place, it will afford, by another triangle, a double correction.

The gaps in the continued ridges, ascribed to the general surveyor, are required by the law to be noted; and so also are their heights. This must certainly be understood with some limitation, as the height of every knob in these ridges could never be desired. Probably the law contemplated only the eminent mountains in each ridge, such as would be conspicuous objects of observation to the country at great distances, and would offer the same advantages as the insulated mountains. Such eminences in the Blue Ridge will be more extensively useful than those of the more western ridges. The height of gaps also, over which roads pass, were probably in view.

But how are these heights to be taken, and from what base? I suppose from the plain on which they stand. But it is difficult to ascertain the precise horizontal line of that plain, or to say where the ascent above the general face of the country begins. Where there is a river or other considerable stream, or extensive meadow plains near the foot of a mountain, which is much the case in the valleys dividing the western ridges, I suppose that may be fairly considered in the level of its base, in the intendment of the law. Where there is no such term of commencement, the surveyor must judge, as well as he can from his view, what point is in the general level of the adjacent country. How are these heights to be taken, and with what instrument? Where a good base can be found, the geometrical admeasurement is the most satisfactory. For this, a theodolite must be provided of the most perfect construction, by Ramsden, Troughton if possible; and for horizontal angles it will be the better of two telescopes. But such bases are rarely to be found. When none such, the height may still be measured geometrically, by ascending or descending the mountain with the theodolite, measuring its face from station to station, noting its inclination between these stations, and the hypothenusal difference of that inclination, as indicated on the vertical arc of the theodolite. The sum of the perpendiculars corresponding with the hypothenusal measures, is the height of the mountain. But a barometrical admeasurement is preferable to this; since the late improvements in the theory, they are to be depended on nearly as much as the geometrical, and are much more convenient and expeditious. The barometer should have a sliding nonius, and a thermometer annexed, with a screw at the bottom to force up the column of mercury solidly. Without this precaution they cannot be transported at all; and even with it they are in danger from every severe jolt. They go more safely on a baggage-horse than in a carriage. The heights should be measured on both sides, to show the rise of the country at every ridge.

Observations of longitude and latitude should be taken by the surveyor at all confluences of considerable streams, and on all mountains of which he measures the heights, whether insulated or in ridges; for this purpose, he should be furnished with a good Hadley's circle of Borda's construction, with three limbs of nonius indexes; if not to be had, a sextant of brass, and of the best construction, may do, and a chronometer; to these is to be added a Gunter's chain, with some appendix for plumbing the chain.

III. The External Boundaries of the State, to-wit: Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western. The Northern boundary consists of, 1st, the Potomac; 2d, a meridian from its source to Mason & Dixon's line; 3d, a continuation of that line to the meridian of the north-western corner of Pennsylvania, and 4th, of that meridian to its intersection with the Ohio. 1st. The Potomac is supposed, as before mentioned, to be surveyed to our hand. 2d, The meridian, from its source to Mason & Dixon's line, was, I believe, surveyed by them when they run the dividing line between Lord Baltimore and Penn. I presume it can be had from either Annapolis or Philadelphia, and I think there is a copy of it, which I got from Dr. Smith, in an atlas of the library of Congress. Nothing better can be done by us. 3d. The continuation of Mason & Dixon's line and the meridian from its termination to the Ohio, was done by Mr. Rittenhouse and others, and copies of their work are doubtless in our offices as well as in those of Pennsylvania. What has been done by Rittenhouse can be better done by no one.

The Eastern boundary being the sea-coast, we have before presumed will be surveyed by the general government.

The Southern boundary. This has been extended and marked in different parts in the chartered latitude of 36° 31´ by three different sets of Commissioners. The eastern part by Dr. Byrd and other commissioners from Virginia and North Carolina: the middle by Fry and Jefferson from Virginia, and Churton and others from North Carolina; and the western by Dr. Walker and Daniel Smith, now of Tennessee. Whether Byrd's survey now exists, I do not know. His journal is still in possession of some one of the Westover family, and it would be well to seek for it, in order to judge of that portion of the line. Fry and Jefferson's journal was burnt in the Shadwell house about fifty years ago, with all the materials of their map. Walker and Smith's survey is probably in our offices; there is a copy of it in the atlas before mentioned; but that survey was made on the spur of a particular occasion, and with a view to a particular object only. During the revolutionary war, we were informed that a treaty of peace was on the carpet in Europe, on the principle of _uti possidetis_; and we despatched those gentlemen immediately to ascertain the intersection of our Southern boundary with the Mississippi, and ordered Colonel Clarke to erect a hasty fort on the first bluff above the line, which was done as an act of possession. The intermediate line, between that and the termination of Fry and Jefferson's line, was provisionary only, and not made with any particular care. That, then, requires to be re-surveyed as far as the Cumberland mountain. But the eastern and middle surveys will only need, I suppose, to have their longitudes rectified by the astronomical surveyor.

The Western boundary, consisting of the Ohio, Big Sandy and Cumberland mountain, having been established while I was out of the country, I have never had occasion to inquire whether they were actually surveyed, and with what degree of accuracy. But this fact being well known to yourself particularly, and to others who have been constantly present in the State, you will be more competent to decide what is to be done in that quarter. I presume, indeed, that this boundary will constitute the principal and most difficult part of the operations of the General Surveyor.

The injunctions of the act to note the magnetic variations merit diligent attention. The law of those variations is not yet sufficiently known to satisfy us that sensible changes do not sometimes take place at small intervals of time and place. To render these observations of the variations easy, and to encourage their frequency, a copy of a table of amplitudes should be furnished to every surveyor, by which, wherever he has a good Eastern horizon, he may, in a few seconds, at sunrise, ascertain the variation. This table is to be found in the book called the "Mariner's Compass Rectified;" but more exactly in the "Connaissance des Tems" for 1778 and 1788, all of which are in the library of Congress. It may perhaps be found in other books more easily procured, and will need to be extracted only from 36½° to 40° degrees of latitude.

III. _The Astronomical Survey._ This is the most important of all the operations; it is from this alone we are to expect real truth. Measures and rhumbs taken on the special surface of the earth, cannot be represented on a plain surface of paper without astronomical corrections; and, paradoxical as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that we cannot know the relative position of two places on the earth, but by interrogating the sun, moon, and stars. The observer must, therefore, correctly fix, in longitude and latitude, all remarkable points from distance to distance. Those to be selected of preference are the confluences, rapids, falls and ferries of water courses, summits of mountains, towns, court-houses, and angles of counties, and where these points are more than a third or half a degree distant, they should be supplied by observations of other points, such as mills, bridges, passes through mountains, &c., for in our latitudes, half a degree makes a difference of three-eighths of a mile in the length of the degree of longitude. These points first laid down, the intermediate delineations to be transferred from the particular surveys to the general map, are adapted to them by contractions or dilatations. The observer will need a best Hadley's circle of Broda's construction, by Troughton, if possible, (for they are since Ramsden's time,) and a best chronometer.

Very possibly an equatorial may be needed. This instrument set to the observed latitude, gives the meridian of the place. In the lunar observations _at sea_ this element cannot be had, and in Europe _by land_, these observations are not resorted to for longitudes, because at their numerous fixed observations they are prepared for the better method of Jupiter's satellites. But here, where our geography is still to be fixed by a portable apparatus only, we are obliged to resort, as at sea, to the lunar observations, with the advantage, however, of a fixed meridian. And although the use of a meridian in these observations is a novelty, yet, placed under new circumstances, we must countervail their advantages by whatever new resources they offer. It is obvious that the observed distance of the moon from the meridian of the place, and her calculated distance from that of Greenwich at the same instant, give the difference of meridians, without dependence on any measure of time; by addition of the observations, if the moon be between the two meridians, by subtraction if east or west of both; the association, therefore, of this instrument with the circular one, by introducing another element, another process and another instrument, furnishes a test of the observations with the Hadley, adds to their certainty, and, by its corroborations, dispenses with that multiplication of observations which is necessary with the Hadley when used alone. This idea, however, is suggested by theory only; and it must be left to the judgment of the observer who will be employed, whether it would be practicable and useful. To him, when known, I shall be glad to give further explanations. The cost of the equatorial is about the same with that of the circle, when of equal workmanship.

Both the surveyor and astronomer should journalize their proceedings daily, and send copies of their journals monthly to the Executive, as well to prevent loss by accident, as to make known their progress.

IV. _Mineralogical Survey._--I have never known in the United States but one eminent mineralogist, who could have been engaged on hire. This was a Mr. Goudon from France, who came over to Philadelphia six or seven years ago. Being zealously devoted to the science, he proposed to explore the new field which this country offered; but being scanty in means, as I understood, he meant to give lectures in the winter which might enable him to pass the summer in mineralogical rambles. It is long since I have heard his name mentioned, and therefore do not know whether he is still at Philadelphia, or even among the living. The literary gentlemen of that place can give the information, or perhaps point out some other equal to the undertaking.

I believe I have now, Sir, gone over all the subjects of your letter,--which I have done with less reserve to multiply the chances of offering here and there something which might be useful. Its greatest merit, however, will be that of evidencing my respect for your commands, and of adding to the proofs of my great consideration and esteem.

TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

POPLAR FOREST, April 24, 1816.

I received, my dear friend, your letter covering the constitution for your Equinoctial republics, just as I was setting out for this place. I brought it with me, and have read it with great satisfaction. I suppose it well formed for those for whom it was intended, and the excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it. For us it would not do. Distinguishing between the structure of the government and the moral principles on which you prescribe its administration, with the latter we concur cordially, with the former we should not. We of the United States, you know, are constitutionally and conscientiously democrats. We consider society as one of the natural wants with which man has been created; that he has been endowed with faculties and qualities to effect its satisfaction by concurrence of others having the same want; that when, by the exercise of these faculties, he has procured a state of society, it is one of his acquisitions which he has a right to regulate and control, jointly indeed with all those who have concurred in the procurement, whom he cannot exclude from its use or direction more than they him. We think experience has proved it safer, for the mass of individuals composing the society, to reserve to themselves personally the exercise of all rightful powers to which they are competent, and to delegate those to which they are not competent to deputies named, and removable for unfaithful conduct, by themselves immediately. Hence, with us, the people (by which is meant the mass of individuals composing the society) being competent to judge of the facts occurring in ordinary life, they have retained the functions of judges of facts, under the name of jurors; but being unqualified for the management of affairs requiring intelligence above the common level, yet competent judges of human character, they chose, for their management, representatives, some by themselves immediately, others by electors chosen by themselves. Thus our President is chosen by ourselves, directly in _practice_, for we vote for A as elector only on the condition he will vote for B, our representatives by ourselves immediately, our Senate and judges of law through electors chosen by ourselves. And we believe that this proximate choice and power of removal is the best security which experience has sanctioned for ensuring an honest conduct in the functionaries of society. Your three or four alembications have indeed a seducing appearance. We should conceive, _primá facie_, that the last extract would be the pure alcohol of the substance, three or four times rectified. But in proportion as they are more and more sublimated, they are also farther and farther removed from the control of the society; and the human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control, to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love. Your process produces therefore a structure of government from which the fundamental principle of ours is excluded. You first set down as zeros all individuals not having lands, which are the greater number in every society of long standing. Those holding lands are permitted to manage in person the small affairs of their commune or corporation, and to elect a deputy for the canton; in which election, too, every one's vote is to be an unit, a plurality, or a fraction, in proportion to his landed possessions. The assemblies of cantons, then, elect for the districts; those of districts for circles; and those of circles for the national assemblies. Some of these highest councils, too, are in a considerable degree self-elected, the regency partially, the judiciary entirely, and some are for life. Whenever, therefore, an _esprit de corps_, or of party, gets possession of them, which experience shows to be inevitable, there are no means of breaking it up, for they will never elect but those of their own spirit. Juries are allowed in criminal cases only. I acknowledge myself strong in affection to our own form, yet both of us act and think from the same motive, we both consider the people as our children, and love them with parental affection. But you love them as infants whom you are afraid to trust without nurses; and I as adults whom I freely leave to self-government. And you are right in the case referred to you; my criticism being built on a state of society not under your contemplation. It is, in fact, like a critic on Homer by the laws of the Drama.

But when we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. I meet you there in all the benevolence and rectitude of your native character; and I love myself always most where I concur most with you. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of your society. I believe with you that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force; that a right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings; that no one has a right to obstruct another, exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature; that justice is the fundamental law of society; that the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society; that action by the citizens in person, in affairs within their reach and competence, and in all others by representatives, chosen immediately, and removable by themselves, constitutes the essence of a republic; that all governments are more or less republican in proportion as this principle enters more or less into their composition; and that a government by representation is capable of extension over a greater surface of country than one of any other form. These, my friend, are the essentials in which you and I agree; however, in our zeal for their maintenance, we may be perplexed and divaricate, as to the structure of society most likely to secure them.

In the constitution of Spain, as proposed by the late Cortes, there was a principle entirely new to me, and not noticed in yours, that no person, born after that day, should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant ralliance to the principles of the constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind, or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. Although I do not, with some enthusiasts, believe that the human condition will ever advance to such a state of perfection as that there shall no longer be pain or vice in the world, yet I believe it susceptible of much improvement, and most of all, in matters of government and religion; and that the diffusion of knowledge among the people is to be the instrument by which it is to be effected. The constitution of the Cortes had defects enough; but when I saw in it this amendatory provision, I was satisfied all would come right in time, under its salutary operation. No people have more need of a similar provision than those for whom you have felt so much interest. No mortal wishes them more success than I do. But if what I have heard of the ignorance and bigotry of the mass be true, I doubt their capacity to understand and to support a free government; and fear that their emancipation from the foreign tyranny of Spain, will result in a military despotism at home. Palacios may be great; others may be great; but it is the multitude which possesses force; and wisdom must yield to that. For such a condition of society, the constitution you have devised is probably the best imaginable. It is certainly calculated to elicit the best talents; although perhaps not well guarded against the egoism of its functionaries. But that egoism will be light in comparison with the pressure of a military despot, and his army of Janissaries. Like Solon to the Athenians, you have given to your Columbians, not the best possible government, but the best they can bear. By-the-bye, I wish you had called them the Columbian republics, to distinguish them from our American republics. Theirs would be the most honorable name, and they best entitled to it; for Columbus discovered their continent, but never saw ours.

To them liberty and happiness; to you the meed of wisdom and goodness in teaching them how to attain them, with the affectionate respect and friendship of,

TO MR. FR. ADR. VANDERKEMP.

POPLAR FOREST, April 25, 1816.

SIR,--Your favor of March 24th was handed to me just as I was setting out on a journey of time and distance, which will explain the date of this both as to time and place. The Syllabus, which is the subject of your letter, was addressed to a friend to whom I had promised a more detailed view. But finding I should never have time for that, I sent him what I thought should be the outlines of such a work; the same subject entering sometimes into the correspondence between Mr. Adams and myself, I sent him a copy of it. The friend to whom it had been first addressed, dying soon after, I asked from his family the return of the original, as a confidential communication, which they kindly sent me. So that no copy of it, but that in the possession of Mr. Adams, now exists out of my own hands. I have used this caution lest it should get out in connection with my name; and I was unwilling to draw on myself a swarm of insects, whose buzz is more disquieting than their bite. As an abstract thing, and without any intimation from what quarter derived, I can have no objection to its being committed to the consideration of the world. I believe it may even do good by producing discussion, and finally a true view of the merits of this great reformer. Pursuing the same ideas after writing the Syllabus, I made, for my own satisfaction, an extract from the Evangelists of his morals, selecting those only whose style and spirit proved them genuine, and his own; and they are as distinguishable from the matter in which they are imbedded as diamonds in dunghills. A more precious morsel in ethics was never seen. It was too hastily done, however, being the work of one or two evenings only, while I lived at Washington, overwhelmed with other business, and it is my intention to go over it again at more leisure. This shall be the work of the ensuing winter. I gave it the title of "the Philosophy of Jesus extracted from the text of the Evangelists." To this Syllabus and extract, if a history of his life can be added, written with the same view of the subject, the world will see, after the fogs shall be dispelled, in which for fourteen centuries he has been enveloped by jugglers to make money of him, when the genuine character shall be exhibited, which they have dressed up in the rags of an imposter, the world, I say, will at length see the immortal merit of this first of human sages. I rejoice that you think of undertaking this work. It is one I have long wished to see written of the scale of a Laertius or a Nepos. Nor can it be a work of labor, or of volume, for his journeyings from Judea to Samaria, and Samaria to Galilee, do not cover much country; and the incidents of his life require little research. They are all at hand, and need only to be put into human dress; noticing such only as are within the physical laws of nature, and offending none by a denial or even a mention of what is not. If the Syllabus and Extract (which is short) either in substance, or at large, are worth a place under the same cover with your biography, they are at your service. I ask one only condition, that no possibility shall be admitted of my name being even intimated with the publication. If done in England, as you seem to contemplate, there will be the less likelihood of my being thought of. I shall be much gratified to learn that you pursue your intention of writing the life of Jesus, and pray you to accept the assurances of my great respect and esteem.

TO M. CORREA DE SERRA.

POPLAR FOREST, April 26, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of March 29th was received, just as I was setting out for this place. I brought it with me to be answered hence. Since you are so kind as to interest yourself for Captain Lewis' papers, I will give you a full statement of them.

1. Ten or twelve such pocket volumes, morocco bound, as that you describe, in which, in his own hand-writing, he had journalized all occurrences, day by day, as he travelled. They were small 8vos, and opened at the end for more convenient writing. Every one had been put into a separate tin case, cemented to prevent injury from wet, but on his return the cases, I presume, had been taken from them, as he delivered me the books uncased. There were in them the figures of some animals, drawn with the pen while on his journey. The gentleman who published his travels must have had these MS. volumes, and perhaps now has them, or can give some account of them.

2. Descriptions of animals and plants. I do not recollect whether there was such a book or collection of papers, distinct from his journal, although I am inclined to think there was one: because his travels as published, do not contain all the new animals of which he had either descriptions or specimens. Mr. Peale, I think, must know something of this, as he drew figures of some of the animals for engraving, and some were actually engraved. Perhaps Conrad, his bookseller, who was to have published the work, can give an account of these.

3. Vocabularies. I had myself made a collection of about forty vocabularies of the Indians on this side of the Mississippi, and Captain Lewis was instructed to take those of every tribe beyond, which he possibly could. The intention was to publish the whole, and leave the world to search for affinities between these and the languages of Europe and Asia. He was furnished with a number of printed vocabularies of the same words and form I had used, with blank spaces for the Indian words. He was very attentive to this instruction, never missing an opportunity of taking a vocabulary. After his return, he asked me if I should have any objection to the printing his separately, as mine were not yet arranged as I intended. I assured him I had not the least; and I am certain he contemplated their publication. But whether he had put the papers out of his own hand or not, I do not know. I imagine he had not; and it is probable that Doctor Barton, who was particularly curious on this subject, and published on it occasionally, would willingly receive and take care of these papers after Captain Lewis' death, and that they are now among his papers.

4. His observations of longitude and latitude. He was instructed to send these to the War-Office, that measures might be taken to have the calculations made. Whether he delivered them to the War-Office, or to Dr. Patterson, I do not know, but I think he communicated with Dr. Patterson concerning them. These are all important, because although, having with him the nautical almanacs, he could and did calculate some of his latitudes, yet the longitudes were taken merely from estimates by the log-line, time, and course. So that it is only as latitudes that his map may be considered as tolerably correct; not as to its longitudes.

5. His Map. This was drawn on sheets of paper, not put together, but so marked that they could be joined together with the utmost accuracy; not as one great square map, but ramifying with the courses of the rivers. The scale was very large, and the sheets numerous, but in perfect preservation. This was to await publication, until corrected by the calculations of longitude and latitude. I examined these sheets myself minutely, as spread on a floor, and the originals must be in existence, as the map published with his travels must have been taken from them.

These constitute the whole. They are the property of the government, the fruits of the expedition undertaken at such expense of money, and risk of valuable lives. They contain exactly the whole of the information which it was our object to obtain, for the benefit of our own country and of the world. But we were willing to give to Lewis and Clarke whatever pecuniary benefits might be derived from the publication, and therefore left the papers in their hands, taking for granted that their interests would produce a speedy publication, which would be better if done under their direction. But the death of Captain Lewis, the distance and occupations of General Clarke, and the bankruptcy of their bookseller, have retarded the publication, and rendered it necessary that the government should attend to the reclamation and security of the papers; their recovery is now become an imperious duty. Their safest deposit, as fast as they can be collected, will be the Philosophical Society, who no doubt will be so kind as to receive and preserve them, subject to the orders of government; and their publication once effected in any way, the originals will probably be left in the same deposit. As soon as I can learn their present situation, I will lay the matter before the government to take such order as they think proper. As to any claims of individuals to these papers, it is to be observed that, as being the property of the public, we are certain neither Lewis nor Clarke would undertake to convey away the right to them, had they been capable of intending it. Yet no interest of that kind is meant to be disturbed, if the individual can give satisfactory assurance that he will promptly and properly publish them; otherwise they must be restored to the government, and the claimant left to settle with those on whom he has any claim. My interference, will, I trust, be excused, not only from the portion which every citizen has in whatever is public, but from the peculiar part I have had in the design and execution of this expedition.

To you, my friend, apology is due for involving you in the trouble of this inquiry. It must be found in the interest you take in whatever belongs to science, and in your own kind offers to me of aid in this research. Be assured always of my affectionate friendship and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, May 3, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Yours of April 8th has long since been received.

_J._ "Would you agree to live your eighty years over again?"

_A._ ----.

_J._ "Would you agree to live your eighty years over again forever?"

_A._ I once heard our acquaintance, Chew, of Philadelphia, say, "he should like to go back to twenty-five, to all eternity;" but I own my soul would start and shrink back on itself at the prospect of an endless succession of _Boules de Savon_, almost as much as at the certainty of annihilation. For what is human life? I can speak only for one. I have had more comfort than distress, more pleasure than pain ten to one, nay, if you please, an hundred to one. A pretty large dose, however, of distress and pain. But after all, what is human life? A vapor, a fog, a dew, a cloud, a blossom, a flower, a rose, a blade of grass, a glass bubble, a tale told by an idiot, a _Boule de Savon_, vanity of vanities, an eternal succession of which would terrify me almost as much as annihilation.

_J._ "Would you prefer to live over again, rather than accept the offer of a better life in a future state?"

_A._ Certainly not.

_J._ "Would you live again rather than change for the worse in a future state, for the sake of trying something new?"

_A._ Certainly yes.

_J._ "Would you live over again once or forever, rather than run the risk of annihilation, or of a better or a worse state at or after death?"

_A._ Most certainly I would not.

_J._ "How valiant you are!"

_A._ Aye, at this moment, and at all other moments of my life that I can recollect; but who can tell what will become of his bravery when his flesh and his heart shall fail him? Bolingbroke said "his philosophy was not sufficient to support him in his last hours." D'Alembert said: "Happy are they who have courage, but I have none." Voltaire, the greatest genius of them all, behaved like the greatest coward of them all at his death, as he had like the wisest fool of them all in his lifetime. Hume awkwardly affected to sport away all sober thoughts. Who can answer for his last feelings and reflections, especially as the priests are in possession of the custom of making them the greatest engines of their craft. _Procul est prophani!_

_J._ "How shall we, how can we estimate the real value of human life?"

_A._ I know not; I cannot weigh sensations and reflections, pleasures and pains, hopes and fears, in money-scales. But I can tell you how I have heard it estimated by philosophers. One of my old friends and clients, a mandamus counsellor against his will, a man of letters and virtues, without one vice that I ever knew or suspected, except garrulity, William Vassall, asserted to me, and strenuously maintained, that "_pleasure is no compensation for pain_." "An hundred years of the keenest delights of human life could not atone for one hour of bilious cholic that he had felt." The sublimity of this philosophy my dull genius could not reach. I was willing to state a fair account between pleasure and pain, and give credit for the balance, which I found very great in my favor.

Another philosopher, who, as we say, believed nothing, ridiculed the notion of a future state. One of the company asked, "Why are you an enemy to a future state? Are you weary of life? Do you detest existence?" "Weary of life? Detest existence?" said the philosopher. "No! I love life so well, and am so attached to existence, that to be sure of immortality, I would consent to be pitched about with forks by the devils, among flames of fire and brimstone, to all eternity."

I find no resources in my courage for this exalted philosophy. I had rather be blotted out.

_Il faut trancher cet mot!_ What is there in life to attach us to it but the hope of a future and a better? It is a cracker, a rocket, a fire-work at best.

I admire your navigation, and should like to sail with you, either in your bark, or in my own along side of yours. Hope with her gay ensigns displayed at the prow, fear with her hobgoblins behind the stern. Hope springs eternal, and hope is all that endures. Take away hope and what remains? What pleasure, I mean? Take away fear and what pain remains? Ninety-nine one hundredths of the pleasures and pains of life are nothing but hopes and fears.

All nations known in history or in travels, have hoped, believed and expected a future and a better state. The Maker of the Universe, the cause of all things, whether we call it _fate_, or _chance_, or God, has inspired this hope. If it is a _fraud_, we shall never know it. We shall never resent the imposition, be grateful for the illusion, nor grieve for the disappointment. We shall be no more. Credit Grimm, Diderot, Buffon, La Lande, Condorcet, D'Holbach, Frederick, Catharine; _non ego_. Arrogant as it may be, I shall take the liberty to pronounce them all _Idiologians_. Yet I would not persecute a hair of their heads. The world is wide enough for them and me.

Suppose the cause of the universe should reveal to all mankind at once a _certainty_ that they must all die within a century, and that death is an eternal extinction of all living powers, of all sensation and reflection. What would be the effect? Would there be one man, woman or child existing on this globe, twenty years hence? Would not every human being be a Madame Deffand, Voltaire's "Aveugle clairvoyante," all her lifetime regretting her existence, bewailing that she had ever been born, grieving that she had ever been dragged, without her consent, into being. Who would bear the gout, the stone, the cholic, for the sake of a _Boule de Savon_, when a pistol, a cord, a pond, or a phial of laudanum was at hand? What would men say to their Maker? Would they thank him? No; they would reproach him; they would curse him to his face. Voila!

A sillier letter than my last. For a wonder, I have filled a sheet, and a greater wonder, I have read fifteen volumes of Grimm. _Digito comesse labellum_. I hope to write you more upon this and other topics of your letter. I have read also a History of the Jesuits, in four volumes. Can you tell me the author, or anything of this work?

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, May 6, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Neither eyes, fingers or paper held out to despatch all the trifles I wished to write in my last letter.

In your favor of April 8th you "wonder for what good end the sensations of grief could be intended?" "You wish the Pathologists would tell us, what the use of grief in our economy, and of what good it is the cause proximate or remote." When I approach such questions as this, I consider myself, like one of those little eels in Vinaigre, or one of those animalcules in black or red paper, or in the horse-radish root, that bite our tongues so cruelly, reasoning upon the το παν. Of what use is this sting upon the tongue? Why might we not have the benefit of these stimulants, without the sting? Why might we not have the fragrance and beauty of the rose without the thorn?

In the first place, however, we know not the connection between pleasure and pain. They seem to be mechanical and inseparable. How can we conceive a strong passion, a sanguine hope suddenly disappointed, without producing pain, or grief? Swift at seventy, recollected the fish he had angled out of water when a boy, which broke loose from his hook; and said I feel the disappointment at this moment. A merchant places all his fortune and all his credit in a single India or China ship. She arrives at the vineyard with a cargo worth a million, in order. Sailing round a Cape for Boston, a sudden storm wrecks her--ship, cargo and crew, all lost. Is it possible that the merchant ruined, bankrupt, sent to prison by his creditors--his wife and children starving--should not grieve? Suppose a young couple, with every advantage of persons, fortunes and connections, on the point of indissoluble union. A flash of lightning, or any one of those millions of accidents which are allotted to humanity, proves fatal to one of the lovers. Is it possible that the other, and all the friends of both, should not grieve? It seems that grief, as a mere passion, must be in proportion to sensibility.

Did you ever see a portrait, or a statue of a great man, without perceiving strong traits of pain and anxiety? These furrows were all ploughed in the countenance, by grief. Our juridical oracle, Sir Edward Coke, thought that none were fit for legislators and magistrates, but "_sad men_" And who were these sad men? They were aged men, who had been tossed and buffeted in the vicissitudes of life--forced upon profound reflection by grief and disappointments--and taught to command their passions and prejudices.

But all this you will say is nothing to the purpose. It is only repeating and exemplifying a _fact_, which my question supposed to be well known, viz., the existence of grief; and is no answer to my question, "what are the uses of grief." This is very true, and you are very right; but may not the uses of grief be inferred, or at least suggested by such exemplifications of known facts? Grief compels the India merchant to think; to reflect upon the plans of his voyage. Have I not been rash, to trust my fortune, my family, my liberty, to the caprices of winds and waves in a single ship? I will never again give a loose to my imagination and avarice. It had been wiser and more honest to have traded on a smaller scale upon my own capital.

The desolated lover, and disappointed connections, are compelled by their grief to reflect on the vanity of human wishes and expectations; to learn the essential lesson of resignation; to review their own conduct towards the deceased; to correct any errors or faults in their future conduct towards their remaining friends, and towards all men; to recollect the virtues of the lost friend, and resolve to imitate them; his follies and vices if he had any, and resolve to avoid them.

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart; it compels them to arouse their reason, to assert its empire over their passions, propensities and prejudices; to elevate them to a superiority over all human events; to give them the _felicis annimi immota tranquilitatum_; in short, to make them stoics and Christians. After all, as grief is a pain, it stands in the predicament of all other evil, and the great question occurs, what is the origin, and what the final cause of evil. This perhaps is known only to omniscience. We poor mortals have nothing to do with it--but to fabricate all the good we can out of all inevitable evils--and to avoid all that are avoidable, and many such there are, among which are our own unnecessary apprehensions and imaginary fears. Though stoical apathy is impossible, yet patience, and resignation, and tranquillity may be acquired by consideration, in a great degree, very much for the happiness of life.

I have read Grimm, in fifteen volumes, of more than five hundred pages each. I will not say like uncle Toby, "You shall not die till you have read him." But you ought to read him, if possible. It is the most entertaining work I ever read. He appears exactly as you represent him. What is most remarkable of all is his impartiality. He spares no characters but Necker and Diderot. Voltaire, Buffon, D'Alembert, Helvetius, Rousseau, Marmontel, Condorcet, La Harpe, Beaumarchais, and all others, are lashed without ceremony. Their portraits as faithfully drawn as possible. It is a complete review of French literature and fine arts from 1753 to 1790. No politics. Criticisms very just. Anecdotes without number, and very merry. One ineffably ridiculous, I wish I could send you, but it is immeasurably long. D'Argens, a little out of health and shivering with the cold in Berlin, asked leave of the King to take a ride to Gascony, his native province. He was absent so long that Frederick concluded the air of the south of France was like to detain his friend; and as he wanted his society and services, he contrived a trick to bring him back. He fabricated a mandement in the name of the Archbishop of Aix, commanding all the faithful to seize the Marquis D'Argens, author of Ocellus, Timæus and Julian, works atheistical, deistical, heretical and impious in the highest degree. This mandement, composed in a style of ecclesiastical eloquence that never was exceeded by Pope, Jesuit, Inquisitor, or Sorbonite, he sent in print by a courier to D'Argens, who, frightened out of his wit, fled by cross roads out of France and back to Berlin, to the greater joy of the philosophical court; for the laugh of Europe, which they had raised at the expense of the learned Marquis.

I do not like the late resurrection of the Jesuits. They have a general now in Russia, in correspondence with the Jesuits in the United States, who are more numerous than everybody knows. Shall we not have swarms of them here? In as many shapes and disguises as ever a king of the Gypsies--Bamfield Morecarew himself, assumed? In the shape of printers, editors, writers, schoolmasters, &c. I have lately read Pascal's letters over again, and four volumes of the history of the Jesuits. If ever any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth and in hell, according to these historians, though like Pascal true Catholics, it is this company Loyola. Our system, however, of religious liberty must afford them an asylum. But if they do not put the purity of our elections to a severe trial, it will be a wonder.

TO JOHN TAYLOR.

MONTICELLO, May 28, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--On my return from a long journey and considerable absence from home, I found here the copy of your "Enquiry into the principles of our government," which you had been so kind as to send me; and for which I pray you to accept my thanks. The difficulties of getting new works in our situation, inland and without a single bookstore, are such as had prevented my obtaining a copy before; and letters which had accumulated during my absence, and were calling for answers, have not yet permitted me to give to the whole a thorough reading; yet certain that you and I could not think differently on the fundamentals of rightful government, I was impatient, and availed myself of the intervals of repose from the writing table, to obtain a cursory idea of the body of the work.

I see in it much matter for profound reflection; much which should confirm our adhesion, in practice, to the good principles of our constitution, and fix our attention on what is yet to be made good. The sixth section on the good moral principles of our government, I found so interesting and replete with sound principles, as to postpone my letter-writing to its thorough perusal and consideration. Besides much other good matter, it settles unanswerably the right of instructing representatives, and their duty to obey. The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens. Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth he made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life. You have successfully and completely pulverized Mr. Adams' system of orders, and his opening the mantle of republicanism to every government of laws, whether consistent or not with natural right. Indeed, it must be acknowledged, that the term _republic_ is of very vague application in every language. Witness the self-styled republics of Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Venice, Poland. Were I to assign to this term a precise and definite idea, I would say, purely and simply, it means a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority; and that every other government is more or less republican, in proportion as it has in its composition more or less of this ingredient of the direct action of the citizens. Such a government is evidently restrained to very narrow limits of space and population. I doubt if it would be practicable beyond the extent of a New England township. The first shade from this pure element, which, like that of pure vital air, cannot sustain life of itself, would be where the powers of the government, being divided, should be exercised each by representatives chosen either _pro hac vice_, or for such short terms as should render secure the duty of expressing the will of their constituents. This I should consider as the nearest approach to a pure republic, which is practicable on a large scale of country or population. And we have examples of it in some of our State constitutions, which, if not poisoned by priest-craft, would prove its excellence over all mixtures with other elements; and, with only equal doses of poison, would still be the best. Other shades of republicanism may be found in other forms of government, where the executive, judiciary and legislative functions, and the different branches of the latter, are chosen by the people more or less directly, for longer terms of years, or for life, or made hereditary; or where there are mixtures of authorities, some dependent on, and others independent of the people. The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism; evidently none where the authorities are hereditary, as in France, Venice, &c., or self-chosen, as in Holland; and little, where for life, in proportion as the life continues in being after the act of election.

The purest republican feature in the government of our own State, is the House of Representatives. The Senate is equally so the first year, less the second, and so on. The Executive still less, because not chosen by the people directly. The Judiciary seriously anti-republican, because for life; and the national arm wielded, as you observe, by military leaders, irresponsible but to themselves. Add to this the vicious constitution of our county courts (to whom the justice, the executive administration, the taxation, police, the military appointments of the county, and nearly all our daily concerns are confided), self-appointed, self-continued, holding their authorities for life, and with an impossibility of breaking in on the perpetual succession of any faction once possessed of the bench. They are in truth, the executive, the judiciary, and the military of their respective counties, and the sum of the counties makes the State. And add, also, that one half of our brethren who fight and pay taxes, are excluded, like Helots, from the rights of representation, as if society were instituted for the soil, and not for the men inhabiting it; or one half of these could dispose of the rights and the will of the other half, without their consent.

"What constitutes a State? Not high-raised battlements, or labor'd mound, Thick wall, or moated gate; Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown'd; No: men, high minded men; Men, who their duties know; But know their rights; and knowing, dare maintain. These constitute a State."

In the General Government, the House of Representatives is mainly republican; the Senate scarcely so at all, as not elected by the people directly, and so long secured even against those who do elect them; the Executive more republican than the Senate, from its shorter term, its election by the people, in practice, (for they vote for A only on an assurance that he will vote for B,) and because, _in practice also_, a principle of rotation seems to be in a course of establishment; the judiciary independent of the nation, their coercion by impeachment being found nugatory.

If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require. And this I ascribe, not to any want of republican dispositions in those who formed these constitutions, but to a submission of true principle to European authorities, to speculators on government, whose fears of the people have been inspired by the populace of their own great cities, and were unjustly entertained against the independent, the happy, and therefore orderly citizens of the United States. Much I apprehend that the golden moment is past for reforming these heresies. The functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it. We are always told that things are going on well: why change them? "_Chi sta bene, non si muove_," said the Italian, "let him who stands well, stand still." This is true; and I verily believe they would go on well with us under an absolute monarch, while our present character remains, of order, industry and love of peace, and restrained, as he would be, by the proper spirit of the people. But it is while it remains such, we should provide against the consequences of its deterioration. And let us rest in the hope that it will yet be done, and spare ourselves the pain of evils which may never happen.

On this view of the import of the term _republic_, instead of saying, as has been said, "that it may mean anything or nothing," we may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially, that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people, are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient. And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

I salute you with constant friendship and respect.

INDEX TO VOL. VI.

ADAMS, JOHN--His friendly relations with Jefferson restored, 30, 31, 36, 125. His political principles, 152, 162, 166, 208, 357, 473, 500. Terrorism excited against him, 155. His religious opinions, 150, 159, 168, 171, 172, 174, 204, 208, 251, 264, 325, 357, 473, 545, 599, 601. Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries compared, 501, 545. The French Encyclopedists, 555. Different systems of philosophy, 556. His views on aristocracy, 160, 222, 254, 360.

ALBEMARLE, COUNTY OF--Its climate, soil, and natural advantages, 431.

ALMANACS--Improvements in, suggested, 29.

ARISTOCRACY--Views on, 160, 222, 254, 360.

ASTRONOMY--Astronomical observations, 27, 28.

BANK, NATIONAL--Views of the one proposed in 1813, 228.

BANKS--Evil of the system of, 295, 300, 381, 434, 498, 515. Jefferson's hostility to, 305, 381, 605. Suspension of, in 1814, 381. Number of, at different periods, 434.

BOLLANDISTS, THE--Their collection, 475, 489.

BONAPARTE--Views of his character and career, 283, 352, 358. His fall, 352, 421. His restoration, 458, 463, 480, 490. His final abdication, 467, 490, 492, 553. His feelings towards U. States, 464.

CANADA--Attack on, 130.

CAPITOL--Burnt by English, 383.

CARR, MR.--His character, 529.

CHARITIES--Principle on which should be dispensed, 44.

CHEMISTRY--The science of, 73.

CHESAPEAKE BAY--Defence of mouth of, 111, 123, 134, 561.

COLUMBUS--Portrait of, 343, 373.

COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE--Origin of, 527.

CONGRESS--Power of States to prescribe new qualifications for members of, 309.

CONTRACTS--Law impairing obligation of, 461.

CURRENCY--Relative merits of paper and metallic currency, 231.

DEBT, PUBLIC--Evils of, 239.

ECLIPSE, Solar--16, 28.

ECONOMY, POLITICAL--New work on, 261.

EDINBURGH REVIEW--Merits of, 345.

EDUCATION--Views on, 355, 362, 510, 517. System of common schools, 512. General system of, 564.

ELOQUENCE--Specimens of, 346.

EMBARGO, THE--48, 50.

ENGLAND--Her maritime encroachments, 5. Death of King of, 15. Condition of, 33, 52. Jefferson's sentiments towards, 53, 463. Character of government of, 346, 468. Social condition of, compared with that of U. States, 376. Tendency to revolution in, 423. Relations of with U. States, 467, 470.

EUROPE--Condition of, 114, 497, 503. Relations with U. States, 114. Moral condition of 18th and 19th centuries contrasted, 524.

EXPORTS--Why exempted from taxation, 483.

FEDERALISTS--Their opposition to the war, 63.

FINANCE--Views on, by Mr. Jefferson, 136, 194.

FRANCE--French revolution, 41, 162, 227, 421. Restoration of Bourbons, 428, 499. Her revolutions, 499, 507, 520. Prospects of, 526.

GENERATIONS--Right of one to bind another, 138, 196.

GLEBES--Monies arising from sale of, 389.

GOVERNMENT--Principles of, 45. Views on, 222, 413, 543, 589, 604. Should be local, 543. Definition of republican government, 605.

GRAMMAR--Views on, 184.

GRANGER, GIDEON--Relative to certain charges against, 329.

GRIEF--Its uses, 601.

GRIMM, BARON--His character, 576.

GUN-BOATS--133.

HARTFORD CONVENTION--425.

HEMP-BREAKER--New invention, 506.

HENRY--His mission to eastern States, 50.

HENRY, PATRICK--Early reminiscences of, 364, 368, 369. Resolutions of, 1765, by, 366. Case of Josiah Philips, 369. His manners and habits, 487.

HISTORY, NATURAL--Systems of classification, 319.

HULL'S DEFEAT--101, 103.

IMPRESSMENT--420, 426, 428, 467.

INDIANS--The Wabash prophet, 49. Traditions of, 59. Their religion, 60, 147. Civilization of, 62. Origin of, 120, 146. Our policy towards, 269. Languages of, 529.

JEFFERSON, THOMAS--His bodily decay, 4, 519. His devotion to agriculture, 6. Efforts to extort money from, 9, 10. His declining faculties, 107, 403. His relations with Mr. Adams, 125. Complains of publication of his letters, 282. His views of merchants, priests, and lawyers, 334. Made member of Agronomic Society of Bavaria, 363. Tenders his library to Congress, 384, 387. Resigns Presidency of Philosophical Society, 396, 397. His feelings towards England, 449. Estimate of his public services, 455. Calumnies against, 465. His estimate of life, 575.

JUDICIARY--Limits between powers of State and federal, 494. Cannot bind legislature or executive by its decisions, 462.

KINGS--Character of European Kings, 271.

LA FAYETTE--His journal of his campaign in Virginia, 426.

LANGUAGE--Introduction of new words in, 185, 572. Is progressive, 185, 572.

LAW, COMMON--Christianity no part of common law, 303, 311. Interpolation on, 311. How far binding, 65. Works on, 291.

LEWIS AND CLARKE--Publication of their journal delayed, 270. Journal of their western expedition, 595.

LINCOLN, LEVI--Declines seat on bench of Supreme Court, 8.

MANUFACTURES--Domestic, in U. States, 36, 69, 94, 472. Growth of, during war, 430. Mr. Jefferson's views on manufacturing system, 521, 553.

MEDICINE--Science of, 33, 105.

MINISTERS--Should not preach on politics, 445.

MONROE, JAMES--Made Secretary of War, 410.

MORALITY--Its basis, 348.

MORAL SENSE--The existence of, 349.

MOUNTAINS--Method of measuring the height of, 492, 510.

MULATTO--Who mulattos under our laws, 437.

NAPIER, LORD--His theorem, 335.

NAVY--Success of, 122, 211.

ORDERS IN COUNCIL--Repeal of, 78, 117.

ORLEANS, NEW--Case of the Batture, 42. Battle of, 420.

ORTHOGRAPHY--Improvements in, 190.

PACIFIC OCEAN--American settlements on shore of, 55, 248.

PARTIES IN UNITED STATES--95, 96. Original division of, 143.

PATENTS--When should be granted, 175, 181, 295, 297, 372. How long should last, 180, 295.

PERPETUAL MOTION--83.

PHILIPS, JOSIAH--His case, 439.

PHILOSOPHY--The true, 531. Of the ancients, 147, 277.

PLATO--His writings, 354, 360.

POISONS--164.

PORTRAITS--Of Columbus and Americus Vespucius, 343, 373. Of Jefferson, 344.

PRESS--Corruption of, 285. Censorship of, intolerable, 340.

PRESIDENT--Should be elected for four years, 213.

PRIVATEERING--Success of, 409.

RELIGION--Views of J. Adams on, 150, 159, 168, 171, 172, 174, 204, 208, 251, 264, 325, 357, 473, 545, 599, 601. Views of Jefferson on, 191, 210, 217, 302, 305, 387, 519. The Christian system, 217, 412. Platonic Christianity, 354. The Jewish creed, 577. The character of Jesus, 593.

REVOLUTION--History of American, 489, 492. Revolutionary men and documents, 249, 484. Of South American States, 268, 274. Reminiscences of, 364, 412, 484, 527. Committees of correspondence, 527.

RITTENHOUSE, DR.--His character, 324.

RIVANNA RIVER--Navigation of, 514, 541.

RIVERS--Right to navigate, 541.

SAINTS--Lives of, 479.

SAY, M.--Contemplates emigrating to U. States, 405.

SCIENCE, POLITICAL--160.

SLAVERY--How to be abolished, 456.

SOUTH AMERICAN PROVINCES--Independence of, recognized, 550.

SPAIN--Her new constitution, 341. Our relations with, 550. Revolt of her South American colonies, 550.

STEAM-ENGINES--504.

SURVEYING--New method of platting, 338.

TAXATION--Principles of, 573.

TERRORISM--The era of, 155.

TEXAS--Included in the Louisiana purchase, 551.

THEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES--Should not be incorporated, 533.

TRACY, DESTUTT--His works, 109. Prospectus of his works, 568.

TREATIES--With European nations, 453. Power of Senate over, 557.

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA--Establishment of, 193, 371. What chairs should be established, 389. Organization of, 537.

UNITED STATES--Social condition of, compared with that of England, 376. Relations of, with Europe, 13, 430. Survey and census of, 548.

VIRGINIA--Relative powers of Governor and Council, 38. Aristocracy of, 225, 485. New edition of notes on Virginia contemplated, but not executed, 403. Invasion of, by Arnold and Cornwallis, 410. Patrick Henry's resolutions, 485. Height of her mountains, 496. Survey of, 578.

WAR--With England inevitable, 51, 57, 91, 215. Efforts to avoid, 215. Declared against England, 67, 215. Causes for which declared, 398, 481, 452, 470. Benefits resulting from, 444, 452. Popularity of, and means of maintaining, 70, 391, 394. Progress and History of, 76, 81, 100, 128, 211, 275, 307, 385, 408, 418, 423, 438. Opposition to, in N. England, 79, 213. Defection of Massachusetts, 402, 414, 451. Hull's surrender, 80, 83. Financial arrangements to meet expenses of, 137, 391, 395, 406, 408, 419. Prospects of termination of, 353. Purposes for which waged, 391, 394, 403, 452. Internal effects produced by, 399. Peace declared, 420, 426, 428, 438, 450. Successful termination of, 453, 466. Upon what principles war is justifiable, 539.

WASHINGTON, GEN.--His political principles, 97. Adams' view of his administration, 157. A sketch of his character by Jefferson, 186. Statue of, for North Carolina, 534.

WASHINGTON CITY--Attack on, by English, 424.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES--Standard of, 11, 17, 26.

WILKINSON, GEN.--His relations with Mr. Jefferson, 34.