THE
WRITINGS
OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON:

BEING HIS

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, CORRESPONDENCE, REPORTS, MESSAGES, ADDRESSES, AND OTHER WRITINGS, OFFICIAL
AND PRIVATE.

PUBLISHED BY THE ORDER OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS ON THE LIBRARY,
FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS,
DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES, TABLES OF CONTENTS, AND A COPIOUS INDEX
TO EACH VOLUME, AS WELL AS A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE,
BY THE EDITOR
H. A. WASHINGTON.

VOL. VI.

NEW YORK:
H. W. DERBY, 625 BROADWAY.
1861.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
TAYLOR & MAURY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Columbia.

STEREOTYPED BY
THOMAS B. SMITH,
32 & 84 Beekman Street.

CONTENTS TO VOL. VI.

BOOK II.

Part III.—Continued.—Letters written after his return to the United States down to the time of his death.—(1790-1826,)—3.

PART III.—Continued.

LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER HIS RETURN TO THE U. S. DOWN TO THE TIME OF HIS DEATH.

1790-1826.

TO DR. RUSH.

Poplar Forest, August 17, 1811.

Dear Sir,—I write to you from a place ninety miles from Monticello, near the New London of this State, which I visit three or four times a year, and stay from a fortnight to a month at a time. I have fixed myself comfortably, keep some books here, bring others occasionally, am in the solitude of a hermit, and quite at leisure to attend to my absent friends. I note this to show that I am not in a situation to examine the dates of our letters, whether I have overgone the annual period of asking how you do? I know that within that time I have received one or more letters from you, accompanied by a volume of your introductory lectures, for which accept my thanks. I have read them with pleasure and edification, for I acknowledge facts in medicine as far as they go, distrusting only their extension by theory. Having to conduct my grandson through his course of mathematics, I have resumed that study with great avidity. It was ever my favorite one. We have no theories there, no uncertainties remain on the mind; all is demonstration and satisfaction. I have forgotten much, and recover it with more difficulty than when in the vigor of my mind I originally acquired it. It is wonderful to me that old men should not be sensible that their [4] minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress of decay. Our old revolutionary friend Clinton, for example, who was a hero, but never a man of mind, is wonderfully jealous on this head. He tells eternally the stories of his younger days to prove his memory, as if memory and reason were the same faculty. Nothing betrays imbecility so much as the being insensible of it. Had not a conviction of the danger to which an unlimited occupation of the executive chair would expose the republican constitution of our government, made it conscientiously a duty to retire when I did, the fear of becoming a dotard and of being insensible of it, would of itself have resisted all solicitations to remain. I have had a long attack of rheumatism, without fever and without pain while I keep myself still. A total prostration of the muscles of the back, hips and thighs, deprived me of the power of walking, and leaves it still in a very impaired state. A pain when I walk, seems to have fixed itself in the hip, and to threaten permanence. I take moderate rides, without much fatigue; but my journey to this place, in a hard-going gig, gave me great sufferings which I expect will be renewed on my return as soon as I am able. The loss of the power of taking exercise would be a sore affliction to me. It has been the delight of my retirement to be in constant bodily activity, looking after my affairs. It was never damped as the pleasures of reading are, by the question of cui bono? for what object? I hope your health of body continues firm. Your works show that of your mind. The habits of exercise which your calling has given to both, will tend long to preserve them. The sedentary character of my public occupations sapped a constitution naturally sound and vigorous, and draws it to an earlier close. But it will still last quite as long as I wish it. There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance. We must continue while here to exchange occasionally our mutual good wishes. I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial. God bless you and preserve you through a long and healthy old age. [5]

TO WM. A. BURWELL, ESQ.

Poplar Forest, August 19, 1811.

Dear Sir,—I am here after a long absence, having been confined at home a month by rheumatism. I thought myself equal to the journey when I set out, but I have suffered much coming, staying, and shall, returning. If I am not better after a little rest at home, I shall set out for the warm springs. The object of this letter is to inform Mrs. Burwell that a ring, which she left where she washed the morning of leaving Fludd's, is safe and will be delivered to her order or to herself when she passes. I have not seen the President since he came home, nor do I know what has passed with Foster from the fountain head; but through a channel in which I have confidence, I learn he has delivered a formal note in the name of his government, declaring that the circumstances of the war oblige them to take possession of the ocean, and permit no commerce on it but through their ports. Thus their purpose is at length avowed. They cannot from their own resources maintain the navy necessary to retain the dominion of the ocean, and mean that other nations shall be assessed to maintain their own chains. Should the king die, as is probable, although the ministry which would come in stand so committed to repeal the orders of Council, I doubt if the nation will permit it. For the usurpation of the sea has become a national disease. This state of things annihilates the culture of tobacco, except of about 15,000 hhds. on the prime lands. Wheat and Flour keep up. Wheat was at 9s. 6d. at Richmond ten days ago. I have sold mine here at the Richmond price, abating 2s., but 8s. a bushel has been offered for machined wheat. Present me respectfully to Mrs. Burwell, and accept assurances of affectionate respect and esteem. [6]

TO MR. PEALE.

Poplar Forest, August 20, 1811.

It is long, my dear Sir, since we have exchanged a letter. Our former correspondence had always some little matter of business interspersed; but this being at an end, I shall still be anxious to hear from you sometimes, and to know that you are well and happy. I know indeed that your system is that of contentment under any situation. I have heard that you have retired from the city to a farm, and that you give your whole time to that. Does not the museum suffer? And is the farm as interesting? Here, as you know, we are all farmers, but not in a pleasing style. We have so little labor in proportion to our land that, although perhaps we make more profit from the same labor, we cannot give to our grounds that style of beauty which satisfies the eye of the amateur. Our rotations are corn, wheat, and clover, or corn, wheat, clover and clover, or wheat, corn, wheat, clover and clover; preceding the clover by a plastering. But some, instead of clover substitute mere rest, and all are slovenly enough. We are adding the care of Merino sheep. I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year. Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden. But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.

Your application to whatever you are engaged in I know to be incessant. But Sundays and rainy days are always days of writing for the farmer. Think of me sometimes when you have your pen in hand, and give me information of your health and occupations; and be always assured of my great esteem and respect. [7]

TO MR. CLAY.

Poplar Forest, August 23, 1811.

Dear Sir,—While here, and much confined to the house by my rheumatism, I have amused myself with calculating the hour lines of an horizontal dial for the latitude of this place, which I find to be 37° 22´ 26´´. The calculations are for every five minutes of time, and are always exact to within less than half a second of a degree. As I do not know that any body here has taken this trouble before, I have supposed a copy would be acceptable to you. It may be a good exercise for Master Cyrus to make you a dial by them. He will need nothing but a protractor, or a line of chords and dividers. A dial of size, say of from twelve inches to two feet square, is the cheapest and most accurate measure of time for general use, and would I suppose be more common if every one possessed the proper horary lines for his own latitude. Williamsburg being very nearly in the parallel of Poplar Forest, the calculations now sent would serve for all the counties in the line between that place and this, for your own place, New London, and Lynchburg in this neighborhood. Slate, as being less affected by the sun, is preferable to wood or metal, and needs but a saw and plane to prepare it, and a knife point to mark the lines and figures. If worth the trouble, you will of course use the paper enclosed; if not, some of your neighbors may wish to do it, and the effect to be of some use to you will strengthen the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO LEVI LINCOLN, ESQ.

Monticello, August 25, 1811.

It is long, my good friend, since we have exchanged a letter; and yet I demur to all prescription against it. I cannot relinquish the right of correspondence with those I have learnt to esteem. If the extension of common acquaintance in public life be an inconvenience, that with select worth is more than a [8]counterpoise. Be assured your place is high among those whose remembrance I have brought with me into retirement, and cherish with warmth. I was overjoyed when I heard you were appointed to the supreme bench of national justice, and as much mortified when I heard you had declined it. You are too young to be entitled to withdraw your services from your country. You cannot yet number the quadraginta stipendia of the veteran. Our friends, whom we left behind, have ceased to be friends among themselves. I am sorry for it, on their account and on my own, for I have sincere affection for them all. I hope it will produce no schisms among us, no desertions from our ranks; that no Essex man will find matter of triumph in it. The secret treasons of his heart, and open rebellions on his tongue, will still be punished, while in fieri, by the detestation of his country, and by its vengeance in the overt act. What a pity that history furnishes so many abuses of the punishment by exile, the most rational of all punishments for meditated treason. Their great king beyond the water would doubtless receive them as kindly as his Asiatic prototype did the fugitive aristocracy of Greece. But let us turn to good-humored things. How do you do? What are you doing? Does the farm or the study occupy your time, or each by turns? Do you read law or divinity? And which affords the most curious and cunning learning? Which is most disinterested? And which was it that crucified its Saviour? Or were the two professions united among the Jews? In that case, what must their Caiaphases have been? Answer me these questions, or any others you like better, but let me hear from you and know that you are well and happy. That you may long continue so is the prayer of yours affectionately.

TO MR. JAMES L. EDWARDS.

Monticello, September 5, 1811.

Sir,—Your letter of August 20th has truly surprised me. In this it is said that, for certain services performed by Mr. James [9]Lyon and Mr. Samuel Morse, formerly editors of the Savannah Republican, I promised them the sum of one thousand dollars. This, Sir, is totally unfounded. I never promised to any printer on earth the sum of one thousand dollars, nor any other sum, for certain services performed, or for any services which that expression would imply. I have had no accounts with printers but for their newspapers, for which I have paid always the ordinary price and no more. I have occasionally joined in moderate contributions to printers, as I have done to other descriptions of persons, distressed or persecuted, not by promise, but the actual payment of what I contributed. When Mr. Morse went to Savannah, he called on me and told me he meant to publish a paper there, for which I subscribed, and paid him the year in advance. I continued to take it from his successors, Everett & McLean, and Everett & Evans, and paid for it at different epochs up to December 31, 1808, when I withdrew my subscription. You say McLean informed you "he had some expectation of getting the money, as he had received a letter from me on the subject." If such a letter exists under my name, it is a forgery. I never wrote but a single letter to him, that was of the 28th of January, 1810, and was on the subject of the last payment made for his newspaper, and on no other subject; and I have two receipts of his, (the last dated March 9, 1809,) of payments for his paper, both stating to be in full of all demands, and a letter of the 17th of April, 1810, in reply to mine, manifestly showing he had no demand against me of any other nature. The promise is said to have been made to Morse & Lyon. Were Mr. Morse living, I should appeal to him with confidence, as I believe him to have been a very honest man. Mr. Lyon I suppose to be living, and will, I am sure, acquit me of any such transaction as that alleged. The truth, then, being that I never made the promise suggested, nor any one of a like nature to any printer or other person whatever, every principle of justice and of self-respect requires that I should not listen to any such demand. [10]

TO MR. JAMES LYON.

Monticello, September 5, 1811.

Sir,—I enclose you the copy of a letter I have received from a James L. Edwards, of Boston. You will perceive at once its swindling object. It appeals to two dead men, and one, (yourself,) whom he supposes I cannot get at. I have written him an answer which may perhaps prevent his persevering in the attempt, for the whole face of his letter betrays a consciousness of its guilt. But perhaps he may expect that I would sacrifice a sum of money rather than be disturbed with encountering a bold falsehood. In this he is mistaken; and to prepare to meet him, should he repeat his demand, and considering that he has presumed to implicate your name in this attempt, I take the liberty of requesting a letter from you bearing testimony to the truth of my never having made to you, or within your knowledge or information, any such promise to yourself, your partner Morse, or any other. My confidence in your character leaves me without a doubt of your honest aid in repelling this base and bold attempt to fix on me practices to which no honors or powers in this world would ever have induced me to stoop. I have solicited none, intrigued for none. Those which my country has thought proper to confide to me have been of their own mere motion, unasked by me. Such practices as this letter-writer imputes to me, would have proved me unworthy of their confidence.

It is long since I have known anything of your situation or pursuits. I hope they have been successful, and tender you my best wishes that they may continue so, and for your own health and happiness.

TO DOCTOR PATTERSON.

Monticello, September 11, 1811.

Dear Sir,—The enclosed work came to me without a scrip of a pen other than what you see in the title-page—"A Monsieur le President de la Société." From this I conclude it intended [11]for the Philosophical Society, and for them I now enclose it to you. You will find the notes really of value. They embody and ascertain to us all the scraps of new discoveries which we have learned in detached articles from less authentic publications. M. Goudin has generally expressed his measures according to the old as well as the new standard, which is a convenience to me, as I do not make a point of retaining the last in my memory. I confess, indeed, I do not like the new system of French measures, because not the best, and adapted to a standard accessible to themselves exclusively, and to be obtained by other nations only from them. For, on examining the map of the earth, you will find no meridian on it but the one passing through their country, offering the extent of land on both sides of the 45th degree, and terminating at both ends in a portion of the ocean which the conditions of the problem for an universal standard of measures require. Were all nations to agree therefore to adopt this standard, they must go to Paris to ask it; and they might as well long ago have all agreed to adopt the French foot, the standard of which they could equally have obtained from Paris. Whereas the pendulum is equally fixed by the laws of nature, is in possession of every nation, may be verified everywhere and by every person, and at an expense within every one's means. I am not therefore without a hope that the other nations of the world will still concur, some day, in making the pendulum the basis of a common system of measures, weights and coins, which applied to the present metrical systems of France and of other countries, will render them all intelligible to one another. England and this country may give it a beginning, notwithstanding the war they are entering into. The republic of letters is unaffected by the wars of geographical divisions of the earth. France, by her power and science, now bears down everything. But that power has its measure in time by the life of one man. The day cannot be distant in the history of human revolutions, when the indignation of mankind will burst forth, and an insurrection of the universe against the political tyranny of France will overwhelm all her arrogations. Whatever is most opposite [12]to them will be most popular, and what is reasonable therefore in itself, cannot fail to be adopted the sooner from that motive. But why leave this adoption to the tardy will of governments who are always, in their stock of information, a century or two behind the intelligent part of mankind, and who have interests against touching ancient institutions? Why should not the college of the literary societies of the world adopt the second pendulum as the unit of measure on the authorities of reason, convenience and common consent? And why should not our society open the proposition by a circular letter to the other learned institutions of the earth? If men of science, in their publications, would express measures always in multiples and decimals of the pendulum, annexing their value in municipal measures as botanists add the popular to the botanical names of plants, they would soon become familiar to all men of instruction, and prepare the way for legal adoptions. At any rate, it would render the writers of every nation intelligible to the readers of every other, when expressing the measures of things. The French, I believe, have given up their Decada Calendar, but it does not appear that they retire from the centesimal division of the quadrant. On the contrary, M. Borda has calculated according to that division, new trigonometrical tables not yet, I believe, printed. In the excellent tables of Callet, lately published by Didot, in stereotype, he has given a table of Logarithmic lines and tangents for the hundred degrees of the quadrant, abridged from Borda's manuscript. But he has given others for the sexagesimal division, which being for every 10´´ through the whole table, are more convenient than Hutton's, Scherwin's, or any of their predecessors. It cannot be denied that the centesimal division would facilitate our arithmetic, and that it might have been preferable had it been originally adopted, as a numeration by eighths would have been more convenient than by tens. But the advantages would not now compensate the embarrassments of a change.

I extremely regret the not being provided with a time-piece equal to the observations of the approaching eclipse of the sun. Can you tell me what would be the cost in Philadelphia of a [13]clock, the time-keeping part of which should be perfect? And what the difference of cost between a wooden and gridiron pendulum? To be of course without a striking apparatus, as it would be wanted for astronomical purposes only. Accept assurances of affectionate esteem and respect.

TO CLEMENT CAINE, ESQ.

Monticello, September 16, 1811.

Sir,—Your favor of April 2d was not received till the 23d of June last, with the volume accompanying it, for which be pleased to accept my thanks. I have read it with great satisfaction, and received from it information, the more acceptable as coming from a source which could be relied on. The retort on European censors, of their own practices on the liberties of man, the inculcation on the master of the moral duties which he owes to the slave, in return for the benefits of his service, that is to say, of food, clothing, care in sickness, and maintenance under age and disability, so as to make him in fact as comfortable and more secure than the laboring man in most parts of the world; and the idea suggested of substituting free whites in all household occupations and manual arts, thus lessening the call for the other kind of labor, while it would increase the public security, give great merit to the work, and will, I have no doubt, produce wholesome impressions. The habitual violation of the equal rights of the colonist by the dominant (for I will not call them the mother) countries of Europe, the invariable sacrifice of their highest interests to the minor advantages of any individual trade or calling at home, are as immoral in principle as the continuance of them is unwise in practice, after the lessons they have received. What, in short, is the whole system of Europe towards America but an atrocious and insulting tyranny? One hemisphere of the earth, separated from the other by wide seas on both sides, having a different system of interests flowing from different climates, different soils, different productions, different [14]modes of existence, and its own local relations and duties is made subservient to all the petty interests of the other, to their laws, their regulations, their passions and wars, and interdicted from social intercourse, from the interchange of mutual duties and comforts with their neighbors, enjoined on all men by the laws of nature. Happily these abuses of human rights are drawing to a close on both our continents, and are not likely to survive the present mad contest of the lions and tigers of the other. Nor does it seem certain that the insular colonies will not soon have to take care of themselves, and to enter into the general system of independence and free intercourse with their neighboring and natural friends. The acknowledged depreciation of the paper circulation of England, with the known laws of its rapid progression to bankruptcy, will leave that nation shortly without revenue, and without the means of supporting the naval power necessary to maintain dominion over the rights and interests of different nations. The intention too, which they now formally avow, of taking possession of the ocean as their exclusive domain, and of suffering no commerce on it but through their ports, makes it the interest of all mankind to contribute their efforts to bring such usurpations to an end. We have hitherto been able to avoid professed war, and to continue to our industry a more salutary direction. But the determination to take all our vessels bound to any other than her ports, amounting to all the war she can make (for we fear no invasion), it would be folly in us to let that war be all on one side only, and to make no effort towards indemnification and retaliation by reprisal. That a contest thus forced on us by a nation a thousand leagues from us both, should place your country and mine in relations of hostility, who have not a single motive or interest but of mutual friendship and interchange of comforts, shows the monstrous character of the system under which we live. But however, in the event of war, greedy individuals on both sides, availing themselves of its laws, may commit depredations on each other, I trust that our quiet inhabitants, conscious that no cause exists but for neighborly good will, and the furtherance [15]of common interests, will feel only those brotherly affections which nature has ordained to be those of our situation.

A letter of thanks for a good book has thus run away from its subject into fields of speculation into which discretion perhaps should have forbidden me to enter, and for which an apology is due. I trust that the reflections I hazard will be considered as no more than what they really are, those of a private individual, withdrawn from the councils of his country, uncommunicating with them, and responsible alone for any errors of fact or opinion expressed; as the reveries, in short, of an old man, who, looking beyond the present day, looks into times not his own, and as evidences of confidence in the liberal mind of the person to whom they are so freely addressed. Permit me, however, to add to them my best wishes for his personal happiness, and assurances of the highest consideration and respect.

TO MR. EPPES.

Monticello, September 29, 1811.

Dear Sir,—The enclosed letter came under cover to me without any indication from what quarter it came.

Our latest arrival brings information of the death of the king of England. Its coming from Ireland and not direct from England would make it little worthy of notice, were not the event so probable. On the 26th of July the English papers say he was expected hourly to expire. This vessel sailed from Ireland the 4th of August, and says an express brought notice the day before to the government that he died on the 1st; but whether on that day or not, we may be certain he is dead, and entertain, therefore, a hope that a change of ministers will produce that revocation of the orders of council for which they stand so committed. In this event we may still remain at peace, and that probably concluded between the other powers. I am so far, in that case, from believing that our reputation will be tarnished by our not having mixed in the mad contests of the rest of the [16]world that, setting aside the ravings of pepper-pot politicians, of whom there are enough in every age and country, I believe it will place us high in the scale of wisdom, to have preserved our country tranquil and prosperous during a contest which prostrated the honor, power, independence, laws and property of every country on the other side of the Atlantic. Which of them have better preserved their honor? Has Spain, has Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Prussia, Austria, the other German powers, Sweden, Denmark, or even Russia? And would we accept of the infamy of France or England in exchange for our honest reputation, or of the result of their enormities, despotism to the one, and bankruptcy and prostration to the other, in exchange for the prosperity, the freedom and independence which we have preserved safely through the wreck? The bottom of my page warns me it is time to present my homage to Mrs. Eppes, and to yourself and Francis my affectionate adieux.

TO MR. PAINE TODD.

Monticello, October 10, 1811.

Dear Sir,—According to promise I send you our observations of the solar eclipse of September 17th. We had, you know, a perfect observation of the passage of the sun over the meridian, and the eclipse began so soon after as to leave little room for error from the time-piece. Her rate of going, however, was ascertained by ten days' subsequent observation and comparison with the sun, and the times, as I now give them to you, are corrected by these. I have no confidence in the times of the first and ultimate contacts, because you know we were not early enough on the watch, deceived by our time-piece which was too slow. The impression on the sun was too sensible when we first observed it, to be considered as the moment of commencement, and the largeness of our conjectural correction (18´´) shows that that part of the observation should be considered as nothing. The last contact was well enough observed, but it is on the forming [17]and breaking of the annulus that I rely with entire confidence. I am certain there was not an error of an instant of time in either. I would be governed, therefore, solely by them, and not suffer their result to be affected by the others. I have not yet entered on the calculation of our longitude from them. They will enable you to do it as a college exercise. Affectionately yours.

TO DOCTOR ROBERT PATTERSON.

Monticello, November 10, 1811.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of September 23d came to hand in due time, and I thank you for the nautical almanac it covered for the year 1813. I learn with pleasure that the Philosophical Society has concluded to take into consideration the subject of a fixed standard of measures, weights and coins, and you ask my ideas on it; insulated as my situation is, I am sure I can offer nothing but what will occur to the committee engaged on it, with the advantage on their part of correction by an interchange of sentiments and observations among themselves. I will, however, hazard some general ideas because you desire it, and if a single one be useful, the labor will not be lost.

The subject to be referred to as a standard, whether it be matter or motion, should be fixed by nature, invariable and accessible to all nations, independently of others, and with a convenience not disproportioned to its utility. What subject in nature fulfils best these conditions? What system shall we propose on this, embracing measures, weights and coins? and in what form shall we present it to the world? These are the questions before the committee.

Some other subjects have, at different times, been proposed as [18]standards, but two only have divided the opinions of men: first, a direct admeasurement of a line on the earth's surface, or second, a measure derived from its motion on its axis. To measure directly such a portion of the earth as would furnish an element of measure, which might be found again with certainty in all future times, would be too far beyond the competence of our means to be taken into consideration. I am free, at the same time, to say that if these were within our power in the most ample degree, this element would not meet my preference. The admeasurement would of course be of a portion of some great circle of the earth. If of the equator, the countries over which that passes, their character and remoteness, render the undertaking arduous, and we may say impracticable for most nations. If of some meridian, the varying measures of its degrees from the equator to the pole, require a mean to be sought, of which some aliquot part may furnish what is desired. For this purpose the 45th degree has been recurred to, and such a length of line on both sides of it terminating at each end in the ocean, as may furnish a satisfactory law for a deduction of the unmeasured part of the quadrant. The portion resorted to by the French philosophers, (and there is no other on the globe under circumstances equally satisfactory,) is the meridian passing through their country and a portion of Spain, from Dunkirk to Barcelona. The objections to such an admeasurement as an element of measure, are the labor, the time, the number of highly-qualified agents, and the great expense required. All this, too, is to be repeated whenever any accident shall have destroyed the standard derived from it, or impaired its dimensions. This portion of that particular meridian is accessible of right to no one nation on earth. France, indeed, availing herself of a moment of peculiar relation between Spain and herself, has executed such an admeasurement. But how would it be at this moment, as to either France or Spain? and how is it at all times as to other nations, in point either of right or of practice? Must these go through the same operation, or take their measures from the standard prepared by France? Neither case bears that character of independence which the problem [19]requires, and which neither the equality nor convenience of nations can dispense with. How would it now be, were England the deposit of a standard for the world? At war with all the world, the standard would be inaccessible to all other nations. Against this, too, are the inaccuracies of admeasurements over hills and valleys, mountains and waters, inaccuracies often unobserved by the agent himself, and always unknown to the world. The various results of the different measures heretofore attempted, sufficiently prove the inadequacy of human means to make such an admeasurement with the exactness requisite.

Let us now see under what circumstances the pendulum offers itself as an element of measure. The motion of the earth on its axis from noon to noon of a mean solar day, has been divided from time immemorial, and by very general consent, into 86,400 portions of time called seconds. The length of a pendulum vibrating in one of these portions, is determined by the laws of nature, is invariable under the same parallel, and accessible independently to all men. Like a degree of the meridian, indeed, it varies in its length from the equator to the pole, and like it, too, requires to be reduced to a mean. In seeking a mean in the first case, the 45th degree occurs with unrivalled preferences. It is the mid-way of the celestial ark from the equator to the pole. It is a mean between the two extreme degrees of the terrestrial ark, or between any two equi-distant from it, and it is also a mean value of all its degrees. In like manner, when seeking a mean for the pendulum, the same 45th degree offers itself on the same grounds, its increments being governed by the same laws which determine those of the different degrees of the meridian.

In a pendulum loaded with a Bob, some difficulty occurs in finding the centre of oscillation; and consequently the distance between that and the point of suspension. To lessen this, it has been proposed to substitute for the pendulum, a cylindrical rod of small diameter, in which the displacement of the centre of oscillation would be lessened. It has also been proposed to prolong the suspending wire of the pendulum below the Bob, until their centres of oscillation shall coincide. But these propositions [20]not appearing to have received general approbation, we recur to the pendulum, suspended and charged as has been usual. And the rather as the laws which determine the centre of oscillation leave no room for error in finding it, other than that minimum in practice to which all operations are subject in their execution. The other sources of inaccuracy in the length of the pendulum need not be mentioned, because easily guarded against. But the great and decisive superiority of the pendulum, as a standard of measure, is in its accessibility to all men, at all times and in all places. To obtain the second pendulum for 45° it is not necessary to go actually to that latitude. Having ascertained its length in our own parallel, both theory and observation give us a law for ascertaining the difference between that and the pendulum of any other. To make a new measure therefore, or verify an old one, nothing is necessary in any place but a well-regulated time-piece, or a good meridian, and such a knowledge of the subject as is common in all civilized nations.

Those indeed who have preferred the other element, do justice to the certainty, as well as superior facilities of the pendulum, by proposing to recur to one of the length of their standard, and to ascertain its number of vibrations in a day. These being once known, if any accident impair their standard it is to be recovered by means of a pendulum which shall make the requisite number of vibrations in a day. And among the several commissions established by the Academy of Sciences for the execution of the several branches of their work on measures and weights, that respecting the pendulum was assigned to Messrs. Borda, Coulomb & Cassini, the result of whose labors, however, I have not learned.

Let our unit of measures then be a pendulum of such length as in the latitude of 45°, in the level of the ocean, and in a given temperature, shall perform its vibrations, in small and equal arcs, in one second of mean time.

What ratio shall we adopt for the parts and multiples of this unit? The decimal without a doubt. Our arithmetic being founded in a decimal numeration, the same numeration in a system [21]of measures, weights and coins, tallies at once with that. On this question, I believe, there has been no difference of opinion.

In measures of length, then, the pendulum is our unit. It is a little more than our yard, and less than the ell. Its tenth or dime, will not be quite 4 inches. Its hundredth, or cent, not quite .4 of an inch; its thousandth, or mill, not quite .04 of an inch, and so on. The traveller will count his road by a longer measure. 1,000 units, or a kiliad, will not be quite two-thirds of our present mile, and more nearly a thousand paces than that.

For measures of surface, the square unit, equal to about ten square feet, or one-ninth more than a square yard, will be generally convenient. But for those of lands a larger measure will be wanted. A kiliad would be not quite a rood, or quarter of an acre; a myriad not quite 2½ acres.

For measures of capacity, wet and dry,

To incorporate into the same system our weights and coins, we must recur to some natural substance, to be found everywhere, and of a composition sufficiently uniform. Water has been considered as the most eligible substance, and rain-water more nearly uniform than any other kind found in nature. That circumstance renders it preferable to distilled water, and its variations in weight may be called insensible.

The cubic unit of this = .1 would weigh about 2,165 lbs. or a ton between the long and short. [22]

With respect to our coins, the pure silver in a dollar being fixed by law at 347¼ grains, and all debts and contracts being bottomed on that value, we can only state the pure silver in the dollar, which would be very nearly 23 millionths.

I have used loose and round numbers (the exact unit being yet undetermined) merely to give a general idea of the measures and weights proposed, when compared with those we now use. And in the names of the subdivisions I have followed the metrology of the ordinance of Congress of 1786, which for their series below unit adopted the Roman numerals. For that above unit the Grecian is convenient, and has been adopted in the new French system.

We come now to our last question, in what form shall we offer this metrical system to the world? In some one which shall be altogether unassuming; which shall not have the appearance of taking the lead among our sister institutions in making a general proposition. So jealous is the spirit of equality in the republic of letters, that the smallest excitement of that would mar our views, however salutary for all. We are in habits of correspondence with some of these institutions, and identity of character and of object, authorize our entering into correspondence with all. Let us then mature our system as far as can be done at present, by ascertaining the length of the second pendulum of 45° by forming two tables, one of which shall give the equivalent of every different denomination of measures, weights and coins in these States, in the unit of that pendulum, its decimals and multiples; and the other stating the equivalent of all the decimal parts and multiples of that pendulum, in the several denominations of measures, weights and coins of our existing system. This done, we might communicate to one or more of these institutions in every civilized country a copy of those tables, stating as our motive, the difficulty we had experienced, [23]and often the impossibility of ascertaining the value of the measures, weights and coins of other countries, expressed in any standard which we possess; that desirous of being relieved from this, and of obtaining information which could be relied on for the purposes of science, as well as of business, we had concluded to ask it from the learned societies of other nations, who are especially qualified to give it with the requisite accuracy; that in making this request we had thought it our duty first to do ourselves, and to offer to others, what we meant to ask from them, by stating the value of our own measures, weights and coins, in some unit of measure already possessed, or easily obtainable, by all nations; that the pendulum vibrating seconds of mean time, presents itself as such an unit; its length being determined by the laws of nature, and easily ascertainable at all times and places; that we have thought that of 45° would be the most unexceptionable, as being a mean of all other parallels, and open to actual trial in both hemispheres. In this, therefore, as an unit, and in its parts and multiples in the decimal ratio, we have expressed, in the tables communicated, the value of all the measures, weights and coins used in the United States, and we ask in return from their body a table of the weights, measures and coins in use within their country, expressed in the parts and multiples of the same unit. Having requested the same favor from the learned societies of other nations, our object is, with their assistance, to place within the reach of our fellow citizens at large a perfect knowledge of the measures, weights and coins of the countries with which they have commercial or friendly intercourse; and should the societies of other countries interchange their respective tables, the learned will be in possession of an uniform language in measures, weights and coins, which may with time become useful to other descriptions of their citizens, and even to their governments. This, however, will rest with their pleasure, not presuming, in the present proposition, to extend our views beyond the limits of our own nation. I offer this sketch merely as the outline of the kind of communication which I should hope would excite no jealousy or repugnance.

[24]Peculiar circumstances, however, would require letters of a more special character to the Institute of France, and the Royal Society of England. The magnificent work which France has executed in the admeasurement of so large a portion of the meridian, has a claim to great respect in our reference to it. We should only ask a communication of their metrical system, expressed in equivalent values of the second pendulum of 45° as ascertained by Messrs. Borda, Coulomb and Cassini, adding, perhaps, the request of an actual rod of the length of that pendulum.

With England, our explanations will be much more delicate. They are the older country, the mother country, more advanced in the arts and sciences, possessing more wealth and leisure for their improvement, and animated by a pride more than laudable.[1] It is their measures, too, which we undertake to ascertain and communicate to themselves. The subject should therefore be opened to them with infinite tenderness and respect, and in some way which might give them due place in its agency. The parallel of 45° being within our latitude and not within theirs, the actual experiments under that would be of course assignable to us. But as a corrective, I would propose that they should ascertain the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in the city of London, or at the observatory of Greenwich, while we should do the same in an equidistant parallel to the south of 45°, suppose in 38° 29´. We might ask of them, too, as they are in possession of the standards of Guildhall, of which we can have but an unauthentic account, to make the actual application of those standards to the pendulum when ascertained. The operation we should undertake under the 45th parallel, (about Passamaquoddy,) would give us a happy occasion, too, of engaging our sister society of Boston in our views, by referring to them the execution [25]of that part of the work. For that of 38° 29´ we should be at a loss. It crosses the tide waters of the Potomac, about Dumfries, and I do not know what our resources there would be unless we borrow them from Washington, where there are competent persons.

Although I have not mentioned Philadelphia in these operations, I by no means propose to relinquish the benefit of observations to be made there. Her science and perfection in the arts would be a valuable corrective to the less perfect state of them in the other places of observation. Indeed, it is to be wished that Philadelphia could be made the point of observation south of 45°, and that the Royal Society would undertake the counterpoint on the north, which would be somewhere between the Lizard and Falmouth. The actual pendulums from both of our points of observation, and not merely the measures of them, should be delivered to the Philosophical Society, to be measured under their eye and direction.

As this is really a work of common and equal interest to England and the United States, perhaps it would be still more respectful to make our proposition to her Royal Society in the outset, and to agree with them on a partition of the work. In this case, any commencement of actual experiments on our part should be provisional only, and preparatory to the ultimate results. We might, in the meantime, provisionally also, form a table adapted to the length of the pendulum of 45°, according to the most approved estimates, including those of the French commissioners. This would serve to introduce the subject to the foreign societies, in the way before proposed, reserving to ourselves the charge of communicating to them a more perfect one, when that shall have been completed.

We may even go a step further, and make a general table of the measures, weights and coins of all nations, taking their value hypothetically for the present, from the tables in the commercial dictionary of the encyclopedia methodique, which are very extensive, and have the appearance of being made with great labor and exactness. To these I expect we must in the end recur, as [26]a supplement for the measures which we may fail to obtain from other countries directly. Their reference is to the foot or inch of Paris, as a standard, which we may convert into parts of the second pendulum of 45°.

I have thus, my dear sir, committed to writing my general ideas on this subject, the more freely as they are intended merely as suggestions for consideration. It is not probable they offer anything which would not have occurred to the committee itself. My apology on offering them must be found in your request. My confidence in the committee, of which I take for granted you are one, is too entire to have intruded a single idea but on that ground.

Be assured of my affectionate and high esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR ROBERT PATTERSON.

Monticello, November 10, 1811.

Dear Sir,—I write this letter separate, because you may perhaps think something in the other of the same date, worth communicating to the committee.

I accept, willingly, Mr. Voigt's offer to make me a time-piece, and with the kind of pendulum he proposes. I wish it to be as good as hands can make it, in everything useful, but no unnecessary labor to be spent on mere ornament. A plain but neat mahogany case will be preferred.

I have a curiosity to try the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds here, and would wish Mr. Voigt to prepare one which could be substituted for that of the clock occasionally, without requiring anything more than unhanging the one and hanging the other in its place. The bob should be spherical, of lead, and its radius, I presume, about one inch. As I should not have the convenience of a room of uniform temperature, the suspending rod should be such as not to be affected by heat or cold, nor yet so heavy as to effect too sensibly the centre of oscillation. Would not a rod of wood not larger than a large wire, answer this double [27]view? I remember Mr. Rittenhouse told me he had made experiments on some occasion, on the expansibility of wood lengthwise by heat, which satisfied him it was as good as the gridiron for a suspender of the bob. By the experiments on the strength of wood and iron in supporting weights appended to them, iron has been found but about six times as strong as wood, while its specific gravity is eight times as great. Consequently, a rod of it of equal strength, will weigh but three-fourths of one of iron, and disturb the centre of oscillation less in proportion. A rod of wood of white oak, e. g. not larger than a seine twine, would probably support a spherical bob of lead of one inch radius. It might be worked down to that size I suppose, by the cabinet-makers, who are in the practice of preparing smaller threads of wood for inlaying. The difficulty would be in making it fast to the bob at one end, and scapement at the other, so as to regulate the length with ease and accuracy. This Mr. Voigt's ingenuity can supply, and in all things I would submit the whole matter to your direction to him, and be thankful to you to give it. Yours affectionately.

TO MR. H. A. S. DEARBORNE.

Monticello, November 15, 1811.

Sir,—Your favor of October 14 was duly received, and with it Mr. Bowditch's observations on the comet, for which I pray you to accept my thanks, and be so good as to present them to Mr. Bowditch also. I am much pleased to find that we have so able a person engaged in observing the path of this great phenomenon; and hope that from his observations and those of others of our philosophical citizens, on its orbit, we shall have ascertained, on this side of the Atlantic, whether it be one of those which have heretofore visited us. On the other side of the water they have great advantages in their well-established observatories, the magnificent instruments provided for them, and the leisure and information of their scientific men. The acquirements [28]of Mr. Bowditch in solitude and unaided by these advantages, do him great honor.

With respect to the eclipse of September 17. I know of no observations made in this State but my own, although I had no doubt that others had observed it. I used myself an equatorial telescope, and was aided by a friend who happened to be with me, and observed through an achromatic telescope of Dollard's. Two others attended the time-pieces. I had a perfect observation of the passage of the sun over the meridian, and the eclipse commencing but a few minutes after, left little room for error in our time. This little was corrected by the known rate of going of the clock. But we as good as lost the first appulse by a want of sufficiently early attention to be at our places, and composed. I have no confidence, therefore, by several seconds, in the time noted. The last oscillation of the two luminaries was better observed. Yet even there was a certain term of uncertainty as to the precise moment at which the indenture on the limb of the sun entirely vanished. It is therefore the forming of the annulus, and its breaking, which alone possess my entire and complete confidence. I am certain there was not an error of an instant of time in the observation of either of them. Their result therefore should not be suffered to be affected by either of the others. The four observations were as follows:

I have thus given you, Sir, my observations, with a candid statement of their imperfections. If they can be of any use to Mr. Bowditch, it will be more than was in view when they were made; and should I hear of any other observations made in this State, I shall not fail to procure and send him a copy of them. Be so good as to present me affectionately to your much-esteemed father, and to accept the tender of my respect. [29]

TO MELATIAH NASH.

Monticello, November 15, 1811.

Sir,—I duly received your letter of October 24 on the publication of an Ephemeris. I have long thought it desirable that something of that kind should be published in the United States, holding a middle station between the nautical and the common popular almanacs. It would certainly be acceptable to a numerous and respectable description of our fellow citizens, who, without undertaking the higher astronomical operations, for which the former is calculated, yet occasionally wish for information beyond the scope of the common almanacs. What you propose to insert in your Ephemeris is very well so far. But I think you might give it more of the character desired by the addition of some other articles, which would not enlarge it more than a leaf or two. For instance, the equation of time is essential to the regulation of our clocks and watches, and would only add a narrow column to your 2d page. The sun's declination is often desirable, and would add but another narrow column to the same page. This last would be the more useful as an element for obtaining the rising and setting of the sun, in every part of the United States; for your Ephemeris will, I suppose, give it only for a particular parallel, as of New York, which would in a great measure restrain its circulation to that parallel. But the sun's declination would enable every one to calculate sunrise for himself, with scarcely more trouble than taking it from an Almanac. If you would add at the end of the work a formula for that calculation, as, for example, that for Delalande, § 1026, a little altered. Thus, to the Logarithmic tangent of the latitude (a constant number) add the Log. tangent of the sun's declination; taking 10 from the Index, the remainder is the line of an arch which, turned into time and added to 6 hours, gives sunrise for the winter half and sunset for the summer half of the year, to which may be added 3 lines only from the table of refractions, § 1028, or, to save even this trouble, and give the calculation ready made for every parallel, print a table of semi-diurnal [30]arches, ranging the latitudes from 35° to 45° in a line at top and the degrees of declination in a vertical line on the left, and stating, in the line of the declination, the semi-diurnal arch for each degree of latitude, so that every one knowing the latitude of his place and the declination of the day, would find his sunrise or his sunset where their horizontal and vertical lines meet. This table is to be found in many astronomical books, as, for instance, in Wakeley's Mariner's Compass Rectified, and more accurately in the Connoissance des tems, for 1788. It would not occupy more than two pages at the end of the work, and would render it an almanac for every part of the United States.

To give novelty, and increase the appetite for continuing to buy your Ephemeris annually, you might every year select some one or two useful tables which many would wish to possess and preserve. These are to be found in the requisite tables, the Connoissance des tems for different years, and many in Pike's arithmetic.

I have given these hints because you requested my opinion. They may extend the plan of your Ephemeris beyond your view, which will be sufficient reason for not regarding them. In any event I shall willingly become a subscriber to it, if you should have any place of deposit for them in Virginia where the price can be paid. Accept the tender of my respects.

TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN RUSH.

Poplar Forest, December 5, 1811.

Dear Sir,—While at Monticello I am so much engrossed by business or society, that I can only write on matters of strong urgency. Here I have leisure, as I have everywhere the disposition to think of my friends. I recur, therefore, to the subject of your kind letters relating to Mr. Adams and myself, which a late occurrence has again presented to me. I communicated to you the correspondence which had parted Mrs. Adams and myself, in proof that I could not give friendship in exchange for such sentiments [31]as she had recently taken up towards myself, and avowed and maintained in her letters to me. Nothing but a total renunciation of these could admit a reconciliation, and that could be cordial only in proportion as the return to ancient opinions was believed sincere. In these jaundiced sentiments of hers I had associated Mr. Adams, knowing the weight which her opinions had with him, and notwithstanding she declared in her letters that they were not communicated to him. A late incident has satisfied me that I wronged him as well as her, in not yielding entire confidence to this assurance on her part. Two of the Mr. * * * * *, my neighbors and friends, took a tour to the northward during the last summer. In Boston they fell into company with Mr. Adams, and by his invitation passed a day with him at Braintree. He spoke out to them everything which came uppermost, and as it occurred to his mind, without any reserve; and seemed most disposed to dwell on those things which happened during his own administration. He spoke of his masters, as he called his Heads of departments, as acting above his control, and often against his opinions. Among many other topics, he adverted to the unprincipled licentiousness of the press against myself, adding, "I always loved Jefferson, and still love him."

This is enough for me. I only needed this knowledge to revive towards him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives. Changing a single word only in Dr. Franklin's character of him, I knew him to be always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes incorrect and precipitate in his judgments; and it is known to those who have ever heard me speak of Mr. Adams, that I have ever done him justice myself, and defended him when assailed by others, with the single exception as to political opinions. But with a man possessing so many other estimable qualities, why should we be dissocialized by mere differences of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, or anything else. His opinions are as honestly formed as my own. Our different views of the same subject are the result of a difference in our organization and experience. I never withdrew from the society of any man on this account, although many have done it [32]from me; much less should I do it from one with whom I had gone through, with hand and heart, so many trying scenes. I wish, therefore, but for an apposite occasion to express to Mr. Adams my unchanged affections for him. There is an awkwardness which hangs over the resuming a correspondence so long discontinued, unless something could arise which should call for a letter. Time and chance may perhaps generate such an occasion, of which I shall not be wanting in promptitude to avail myself. From this fusion of mutual affections, Mrs. Adams is of course separated. It will only be necessary that I never name her. In your letters to Mr. Adams, you can, perhaps, suggest my continued cordiality towards him, and knowing this, should an occasion of writing first present itself to him, he will perhaps avail himself of it, as I certainly will, should it first occur to me. No ground for jealousy now existing, he will certainly give fair play to the natural warmth of his heart. Perhaps I may open the way in some letter to my old friend Gerry, who I know is in habits of the greatest intimacy with him.

I have thus, my friend, laid open my heart to you, because you were so kind as to take an interest in healing again revolutionary affections, which have ceased in expression only, but not in their existence. God ever bless you, and preserve you in life and health.

TO DOCTOR CRAWFORD.

Monticello, January 2, 1812.

Sir,—Your favor of December 17th, has been duly received, and with it the pamphlet on the cause, seat and cure of diseases, for which be pleased to accept my thanks. The commencement which you propose by the natural history of the diseases of the human body, is a very interesting one, and will certainly be the best foundation for whatever relates to their cure. While surgery is seated in the temple of the exact sciences, medicine has scarcely entered its threshold. Her theories have passed in such [33]rapid succession as to prove the insufficiency of all, and their fatal errors are recorded in the necrology of man. For some forms of disease, well known and well defined, she has found substances which will restore order to the human system, and it is to be hoped that observation and experience will add to their number. But a great mass of diseases remain undistinguished and unknown, exposed to the random shot of the theory of the day. If on this chaos you can throw such a beam of light as your celebrated brother has done on the sources of animal heat, you will, like him, render great service to mankind.

The fate of England, I think with you, is nearly decided, and the present form of her existence is drawing to a close. The ground, the houses, the men will remain; but in what new form they will revive and stand among nations, is beyond the reach of human foresight. We hope it may be one of which the predatory principle may not be the essential characteristic. If her transformation shall replace her under the laws of moral order, it is for the general interest that she should still be a sensible and independent weight in the scale of nations, and be able to contribute, when a favorable moment presents itself, to reduce under the same order, her great rival in flagitiousness. We especially ought to pray that the powers of Europe may be so poised and counterpoised among themselves, that their own safety may require the presence of all their force at home, leaving the other quarters of the globe in undisturbed tranquillity. When our strength will permit us to give the law of our hemisphere, it should be that the meridian of the mid-Atlantic should be the line of demarkation between war and peace, on this side of which no act of hostility should be committed, and the lion and the lamb lie down in peace together.

I am particularly thankful for the kind expressions of your letter towards myself, and tender you in return my best wishes and the assurances of my great respect and esteem. [34]

TO MR. THOMAS PULLY.

Monticello, January 8, 1812.

Sir,—I have duly received your favor of December 22d, informing me that the society of artists of the United States had made me an honorary member of their society. I am very justly sensible of the honor they have done me, and I pray you to return them my thanks for this mark of their distinction. I fear that I can be but a very useless associate. Time, which withers the fancy, as the other faculties of the mind and body, presses on me with a heavy hand, and distance intercepts all personal intercourse. I can offer, therefore, but my zealous good wishes for the success of the institution, and that, embellishing with taste a country already overflowing with the useful productions, it may be able to give an innocent and pleasing direction to accumulations of wealth, which would otherwise be employed in the nourishment of coarse and vicious habits. With these I tender to the society and to yourself the assurances of my high respect and consideration.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Monticello, January 11, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I thank you for your letter of the 6th. It is a proof of your friendship, and of the sincere interest you take in whatever concerns me. Of this I have never had a moment's doubt, and have ever valued it as a precious treasure. The question indeed whether I knew or approved of General Wilkinson's endeavors to prevent the restoration of the right of deposit at New Orleans, could never require a second of time to answer. But it requires some time for the mind to recover from the astonishment excited by the boldness of the suggestion. Indeed, it is with difficulty I can believe he has really made such an appeal; and the rather as the expression in your letter is that you have "casually heard it," without stating the degree of reliance which you have in the [35]source of information. I think his understanding is above an expedient so momentary and so finally overwhelming. Were Dearborne and myself dead, it might find credit with some. But the world at large, even then, would weigh for themselves the dilemma, whether it was more probable that, in the situation I then was, clothed with the confidence and power of my country, I should descend to so unmeaning an act of treason, or that he, in the wreck now threatening him, should wildly lay hold of any plank. They would weigh his motives and views against those of Dearborne and myself, the tenor of his life against that of ours, his Spanish mysteries against my open cherishment of the Western interests; and, living as we are, and ready to purge ourselves by any ordeal, they must now weigh, in addition, our testimony against his. All this makes me believe he will never seek this refuge. I have ever and carefully restrained myself from the expression of any opinion respecting General Wilkinson, except in the case of Burr's conspiracy, wherein, after he had got over his first agitations, we believed his decision firm, and his conduct zealous for the defeat of the conspiracy, and although injudicious, yet meriting, from sound intentions, the support of the nation. As to the rest of his life, I have left it to his friends and his enemies, to whom it furnishes matter enough for disputation. I classed myself with neither, and least of all in this time of his distresses, should I be disposed to add to their pressure. I hope, therefore, he has not been so imprudent as to write our names in the pannel of his witnesses.

Accept the assurances of my constant affections.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, January 21, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I thank you before hand (for they are not yet arrived) for the specimens of homespun you have been so kind as to forward me by post. I doubt not their excellence, knowing [36]how far you are advanced in these things in your quarter. Here we do little in the fine way, but in coarse and middling goods a great deal. Every family in the country is a manufactory within itself, and is very generally able to make within itself all the stouter and middling stuffs for its own clothing and household use. We consider a sheep for every person in the family as sufficient to clothe it, in addition to the cotton, hemp and flax which we raise ourselves. For fine stuff we shall depend on your northern manufactories. Of these, that is to say, of company establishments, we have none. We use little machinery. The spinning jenny, and loom with the flying shuttle, can be managed in a family; but nothing more complicated. The economy and thriftiness resulting from our household manufactures are such that they will never again be laid aside; and nothing more salutary for us has ever happened than the British obstructions to our demands for their manufactures. Restore free intercourse when they will, their commerce with us will have totally changed its form, and the articles we shall in future want from them will not exceed their own consumption of our produce.

A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow-laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead, threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port. Still we did not expect to be without rubs and difficulties; and we have had them. First, the detention of the western posts, then the coalition of Pilnitz, outlawing our commerce with France, and the British enforcement of the outlawry. In your day, French depredations; in mine, English, and the Berlin and Milan decrees; now, the English orders of council, and the piracies they authorize. When these shall be over, it will be the impressment of our seamen or something else; and so we have gone on, and so we shall go on, puzzled [37]and prospering beyond example in the history of man. And I do believe we shall continue to growl, to multiply and prosper until we exhibit an association, powerful, wise and happy, beyond what has yet been seen by men. As for France and England, with all their preëminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates. And if science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable, as our neighboring savages are. But whither is senile garrulity leading me? Into politics, of which I have taken final leave. I think little of them and say less. I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid, and I find myself much the happier. Sometimes, indeed, I look back to former occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends and fellow-laborers, who have fallen before us. Of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I see now living not more than half a dozen on your side of the Potomac, and on this side, myself alone. You and I have been wonderfully spared, and myself with remarkable health, and a considerable activity of body and mind. I am on horseback three or four hours of every day; visit three or four times a year a possession I have ninety miles distant, performing the winter journey on horseback. I walk little, however, a single mile being too much for me, and I live in the midst of my grand children, one of whom has lately promoted me to be a great grandfather. I have heard with pleasure that you also retain good health, and a greater power of exercise in walking than I do. But I would rather have heard this from yourself, and that, writing a letter like mine, full of egotisms, and of details of your health, your habits, occupations and enjoyments, I should have the pleasure of knowing that in the race of life, you do not keep, in its physical decline, the same distance ahead of me which you have done in political honors and achievements. No circumstances have lessened the interest I feel in these particulars respecting yourself; none have suspended for one moment my sincere esteem for you, and I now salute you with unchanged affection and respect. [38]

TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR BARBOUR.

Monticello, January 22, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 14th has been duly received, and I sincerely congratulate you, or rather my country, on the just testimony of confidence which it has lately manifested to you. In your hands I know that its affairs will be ably and honestly administered.

In answer to your inquiry whether, in the early times of our government, where the council was divided, the practice was for the Governor to give the deciding vote? I must observe that, correctly speaking, the Governor not being a counsellor, his vote could make no part of an advice of council. That would be to place an advice on their journals which they did not give, and could not give because of their equal division. But he did what was equivalent in effect. While I was in the administration, no doubt was ever suggested that where the council, divided in opinion, could give no advice, the Governor was free and bound to act on his own opinion and his own responsibility. Had this been a change of the practice of my predecessor, Mr. Henry, the first governor, it would have produced some discussion, which it never did. Hence, I conclude it was the opinion and practice from the first institution of the government. During Arnold's and Cornwallis' invasion, the council dispersed to their several homes, to take care of their families. Before their separation, I obtained from them a capitulary of standing advices for my government in such cases as ordinarily occur: such as the appointment of militia officers, justices, inspectors, &c., on the recommendations of the courts; but in the numerous and extraordinary occurrences of an invasion, which could not be foreseen, I had to act on my own judgment and my own responsibility. The vote of general approbation, at the session of the succeeding winter, manifested the opinion of the Legislature, that my proceedings had been correct. General Nelson, my successor, staid mostly, I think, with the army; and I do not believe his council followed the camp, although my memory does not enable me to affirm the [39]fact. Some petitions against him for impressment of property without authority of law, brought his proceedings before the next Legislature; the questions necessarily involved were whether necessity, without express law, could justify the impressment, and if it could, whether he could order it without the advice of council. The approbation of the Legislature amounted to a decision of both questions. I remember this case the more especially, because I was then a member of the Legislature, and was one of those who supported the Governor's proceedings, and I think there was no division of the House on the question. I believe the doubt was first suggested in Governor Harrison's time, by some member of the council, on an equal division. Harrison, in his dry way, observed that instead of one governor and eight counsellors, there would then be eight governors and one counsellor, and continued, as I understood, the practice of his predecessors. Indeed, it is difficult to suppose it could be the intention of those who framed the constitution, that when the council should be divided the government should stand still; and the more difficult as to a constitution formed during a war, and for the purpose of carrying on that war, that so high an officer as their Governor should be created and salaried, merely to act as the clerk and authenticator of the votes of the council. No doubt it was intended that the advice of the council should control the governor. But the action of the controlling power being withdrawn, his would be left free to proceed on its own responsibility. Where from division, absence, sickness or other obstacle, no advice could be given, they could not mean that their Governor, the person of their peculiar choice and confidence, should stand by, an inactive spectator, and let their government tumble to pieces for want of a will to direct it. In executive cases, where promptitude and decision are all important, an adherence to the letter of a law against its probable intentions, (for every law must intend that itself shall be executed,) would be fraught with incalculable danger. Judges may await further legislative explanations, but a delay of executive action might produce irretrievable ruin. The State is invaded, militia to be called out, an army [40]marched, arms and provisions to be issued from the public magazines, the Legislature to be convened, and the council is divided. Can it be believed to have been the intention of the framers of the constitution, that the constitution itself and their constituents with it should be destroyed for want of a will to direct the resources they had provided for its preservation? Before such possible consequences all verbal scruples must vanish; construction must be made secundum arbitrium boni viri, and the constitution be rendered a practicable thing. That exposition of it must be vicious, which would leave the nation under the most dangerous emergencies without a directing will. The cautious maxims of the bench, to seek the will of the legislator and his words only, are proper and safer for judicial government. They act ever on an individual case only, the evil of which is partial, and gives time for correction. But an instant of delay in executive proceedings may be fatal to the whole nation. They must not, therefore, be laced up in the rules of the judiciary department. They must seek the intention of the legislator in all the circumstances which may indicate it in the history of the day, in the public discussions, in the general opinion and understanding, in reason and in practice. The three great departments having distinct functions to perform, must have distinct rules adapted to them. Each must act under its own rules, those of no one having any obligation on either of the others. When the opinion first begun that a governor could not act when his council could not or would not advise, I am uninformed. Probably not till after the war; for, had it prevailed then, no militia could have been opposed to Cornwallis, nor necessaries furnished to the opposing army of Lafayette. These, Sir, are my recollections and thoughts on the subject of your inquiry, to which I will only add the assurances of my great esteem and respect. [41]

TO BENJAMIN GALLOWAY, ESQ.

Monticello, February 2, 1812.

Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 1st inst., together with the volume accompanying it, for which I pray you to accept my thanks, and to be so kind as to convey them to Mrs. Debutts also, to whose obliging care I am indebted for its transmission. But especially my thanks are due to the author himself for the honorable mention he has made of me. With the exception of two or three characters of greater eminence in the revolution, we formed a group of fellow laborers in the common cause, animated by a common zeal, and claiming no distinction of one over another.

The spirit of freedom, breathed through the whole of Mr. Northmore's composition, is really worthy of the purest times of Greece and Rome. It would have been received in England, in the days of Hampden and Sidney, with more favor than at this time. It marks a high and independent mind in the author, one capable of rising above the partialities of country, to have seen in the adversary cause that of justice and freedom, and to have estimated fairly the motives and actions of those engaged in its support. I hope and firmly believe that the whole world will, sooner later, feel benefit from the issue of our assertion of the rights of man. Although the horrors of the French revolution have damped for awhile the ardor of the patriots in every country, yet it is not extinguished—it will never die. The sense of right has been excited in every breast, and the spark will be rekindled by the very oppressions of that detestable tyranny employed to quench it. The errors of the honest patriots of France, and the crimes of her Dantons and Robespierres, will be forgotten in the more encouraging contemplation of our sober example, and steady march to our object. Hope will strengthen the presumption that what has been done once may be done again. As you have been the channel of my receiving this mark of attention from Mr. Northmore, I must pray you to be that of conveying to him my thanks, and an assurance of the [42]high sense I have of the merit of his work, and of its tendency to cherish the noblest virtues of the human character.

On the political events of the day I have nothing to communicate. I have retired from them, and given up newspapers for more classical reading. I add, therefore, only the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO MR. EZRA SARGEANT.

Monticello, February 3, 1812.

Sir,—Observing that you edit the Edinburgh Review, reprinted in New York, and presuming that your occupations in that line are not confined to that single work, I take the liberty of addressing the present letter to you. If I am mistaken, the obviousness of the inference will be my apology. Mr. Edward Livingston brought an action against me for having removed his intrusion on the beach of the river Mississippi opposite to New Orleans. At the request of my counsel I made a statement of the facts of the case, and of the law applicable to them, so as to form a full argument of justification. The case has been dismissed from court for want of jurisdiction, and the public remain uninformed whether I had really abused the powers entrusted to me, as he alleged. I wish to convey to them this information by publishing the justification. The questions arising in the case are mostly under the civil law, the laws of Spain and of France, which are of course couched in French, in Spanish, in Latin, and some in Greek; and the books being in few hands in this country, I was obliged to make very long extracts from them. The correctness with which your edition of the Edinburgh Review is printed, and of the passages quoted in those languages, induces me to propose to you the publication of the case I speak of. It will fill about 65 or 70 pages of the type and size of paper of the Edinburgh Review. The MS. is in the handwriting of this letter, entirely fair and correct. It will take between four and five sheets of paper, of sixteen pages each. I should [43]want 250 copies struck off for myself, intended principally for the members of Congress, and the printer would be at liberty to print as many more as he pleased for sale, but without any copyright, which I should not propose to have taken out. It is right that I should add, that the work is not at all for popular reading. It is merely a law argument, and a very dry one; having been intended merely for the eye of my counsel. It may be in some demand perhaps with lawyers, and persons engaged in the public affairs, but very little beyond that. Will you be so good as to inform me if you will undertake to edit this, and what would be the terms on which you can furnish me with 250 copies? I should want it to be done with as little delay as possible, so that Congress might receive it before they separate; and I should add as a condition, that not a copy should be sold until I could receive my number, and have time to lay them on the desks of the members. This would require a month from the time they should leave New York by the stage. In hopes of an early answer I tender you the assurances of my respect.

Monticello, February 14, 1812.

Thomas Jefferson presents his compliments to Dr. Wheaton, and his thanks for the address he was so kind as to enclose him on the advancement in Medicine. Having little confidence in the theories of that art, which change in their fashion with the ladies' caps and gowns, he has much in the facts it has established by observation. The experience of physicians has proved that in certain forms of disease, certain substances will restore order to the human system; and he doubts not that continued observation will enlarge the catalogue, and give relief to our posterity in cases wherein we are without it. The extirpation of the small pox by vaccination, is an encouraging proof that the condition of man is susceptible of amelioration, although we are not able to fix its extent. He salutes Dr. Wheaton with esteem and respect. [44]

TO MR. CHARLES CHRISTIAN.

Monticello, March 21, 1812.

Sir,—I have duly received your favor of the 10th inst. proposing to me to join in a contribution for the support of the family of the late Mr. Cheetham of New York. Private charities, as well as contributions to public purposes in proportion to every one's circumstances, are certainly among the duties we owe to society, and I have never felt a wish to withdraw from my portion of them. The general relation in which I, some time since, stood to the citizens of all our States, drew on me such multitudes of these applications as exceeded all resource. Nor have they much abated since my retirement to the limited duties of a private citizen, and the more limited resources of a private fortune. They have obliged me to lay down as a law of conduct for myself, to restrain my contributions for public institutions to the circle of my own State, and for private charities to that which is under my own observation; and these calls I find more than sufficient for everything I can spare. Nor was there anything in the case of the late Mr. Cheetham, which could claim with me to be taken out of a general rule. On these considerations I must decline the contribution you propose, not doubting that the efforts of the family, aided by those who stand in the relation to them of neighbors and friends, in so great a mart for industry as they are placed in, will save them from all danger of want or suffering. With this apology for returning the paper sent me, unsubscribed, be pleased to accept the tender of my respect.

TO MR. VANDER KEMP.

Monticello, March 22, 1812.

Sir,—I am indebted to you for the communication of the prospectus of a work embracing the history of civilized man, political and moral, from the great change produced in his condition [45]by the extension of the feudal system over Europe through all the successive effects of the revival of letters, the invention of printing, that of the compass, the enlargement of science, and the revolutionary spirit, religious and civil, generated by that. It presents a vast anatomy of fact and reflection, which if duly filled up would offer to the human mind a wonderful mass for contemplation.

Your letter does not ascertain whether this work is already executed, or only meditated; but it excites a great desire to see it completed, and a confidence that the author of the analysis is best able to develop the profound views there only sketched. It would be a library in itself, and to our country particularly desirable and valuable, if executed in the genuine republican principles of our constitution. The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it. The events which this work proposes to embrace will establish the fact that unless the mass retains sufficient control over those intrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our constitution has hit on the exact degree of control necessary, is yet under experiment; and it is a most encouraging reflection that distance and other difficulties securing us against the brigand governments of Europe, in the safe enjoyment of our farms and firesides, the experiment stands a better chance of being satisfactorily made here than on any occasion yet presented by history. To promote, therefore, unanimity and perseverance in this great enterprise, to disdain despair, encourage trial, and nourish hope, are the worthiest objects of every political and philanthropic work; and that this would be the necessary result of that which you have delineated, the facts it will review, and the just reflections arising out of them, will sufficiently answer. I hope, therefore, that it is not in petto merely, but already completed; and that my fellow citizens, warned in it of the rocks and shoals on which other political associations [46]have been wrecked, will be able to direct theirs with a better knowledge of the dangers in its way.

The enlargement of your observations on the subjects of natural history, alluded to in your letter, cannot fail to add to our lights respecting them, and will therefore ever be a welcome present to every friend of science. Accept, I pray you, the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO THE HONORABLE MR. NELSON.

Monticello, April 2d, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Your letter of March 22d has been duly received. By this time a printed copy of my MS. respecting the Batture has I hope been laid on your desk, by which you will perceive that the MS. itself has been received long enough to have been sent to New York, printed and returned to Washington.

On the subject of the omission of the officers of the Virginia State line, in the provisions and reservations of the cession of Congress, my memory enables me to say nothing more than that it was not through inattention, as I believe, but the result of compromise. But of this the President, who was in Congress when the arrangement was settled, can give the best account. I had nothing to do but execute a deed according to that arrangement, made previous to my being a member. Colonel Monroe being a member with me, is more likely to remember what passed at that time; but the best resource for explanation of everything we did, is in our weekly correspondence with the Governor of Virginia, which I suppose is still among the Executive records. We made it a point to write a letter to him every week, either jointly, or individually by turns.

You request me to state the public sentiment of our part of the country as to war and the taxes. You know I do not go out much. My own house and our court yard are the only places where I see my fellow citizens. As far as I can judge in this limited sphere, I think all regret that there is cause for war, [47]but all consider it as now necessary, and would, I think, disapprove of a much longer delay of the declaration of it. As to the taxes, they expect to meet them, would be unwilling to have them postponed, and are only dissatisfied with some of the subjects of taxation; that is to say the stamp tax and excise. To the former I have not seen a man who is not totally irreconcilable. If the latter could be collected from those who buy to sell again, so as to prevent domiciliary visits by the officers, I think it would be acceptable, and I am sure a wholesome tax. I am persuaded the Secretary of the Treasury is mistaken in supposing so immense a deduction from the duties on imports. We shall make little less to sell than we do now, for no one will let his hands be idle; and consequently we shall export not much less, and expect returns. Some part will be taken on the export and some on the import. But taking into account the advance of prices, that revenue will not fall so far short as he thinks; and I have no doubt might be counted on to make good the entire suppression of the stamp tax. Yet, although a very disgusting pill, I think there can be no question the people will swallow it, if their representatives determine on it. I get their sentiments mostly from those who are most in the habit of intercourse with the people than I am myself. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Monticello, April 17, 1812.

Dear Sir,—The enclosed papers will explain themselves. Their coming to me is the only thing not sufficiently explained.

Your favor of the 3d came duly to hand. Although something of the kind had been apprehended, the embargo found the farmers and planters only getting their produce to market, and selling as fast as they could get it there. I think it caught them in this part of the State with one-third of their flour or wheat and three-quarters of their tobacco undisposed of. If we may [48]suppose the rest of the middle country in the same situation, and that the upper and lower country may be judged by that as a mean, these will perhaps be the proportions of produce remaining in the hands of the producers. Supposing the objects of the government were merely to keep our vessels and men out of harm's way, and that there is no idea that the want of our flour will starve Great Britain, the sale of the remaining produce will be rather desirable, and what would be desired even in war, and even to our enemies. For I am favorable to the opinion which has been urged by others, sometimes acted on, and now partly so by France and Great Britain, that commerce, under certain restrictions and licenses, may be indulged between enemies mutually advantageous to the individuals, and not to their injury as belligerents. The capitulation of Amelia Island, if confirmed, might favor this object, and at any rate get off our produce now on hand. I think a people would go through a war with much less impatience if they could dispose of their produce, and that unless a vent can be provided for them, they will soon become querulous and clamor for peace. They appear at present to receive the embargo with perfect acquiescence and without a murmur, seeing the necessity of taking care of our vessels and seamen. Yet they would be glad to dispose of their produce in any way not endangering them, as by letting it go from a neutral place in British vessels. In this way we lose the carriage only; but better that than both carriage and cargo. The rising of the price of flour, since the first panic is passed away, indicates some prospects in the merchants of disposing of it. Our wheat had greatly suffered by the winter, but is as remarkably recovered by the favorable weather of the spring. Ever affectionately yours.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, April 20, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I have it now in my power to send you a piece of homespun in return for that I received from you. Not of the [49]fine texture, or delicate character of yours, or, to drop our metaphor, not filled as that was with that display of imagination which constitutes excellence in Belles Lettres, but a mere sober, dry and formal piece of logic. Ornari res ipsa negat. Yet you may have enough left of your old taste for law reading, to cast an eye over some of the questions it discusses. At any rate, accept it as the offering of esteem and friendship.

You wish to know something of the Richmond and Wabash prophets. Of Nimrod Hews I never heard before. Christopher Macpherson I have known for twenty years. He is a man of color, brought up as a book-keeper by a merchant, his master, and afterwards enfranchized. He had understanding enough to post up his ledger from his journal, but not enough to bear up against hypochondriac affections, and the gloomy forebodings they inspire. He became crazy, foggy, his head always in the clouds, and rhapsodizing what neither himself nor any one else could understand. I think he told me he had visited you personally while you were in the administration, and wrote you letters, which you have probably forgotten in the mass of the correspondences of that crazy class, of whose complaints, and terrors, and mysticisms, the several Presidents have been the regular depositories. Macpherson was too honest to be molested by anybody, and too inoffensive to be a subject for the mad-house; although, I believe, we are told in the old book, that "every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, thou shouldst put him in prison and in the stocks."

The Wabash prophet is a very different character, more rogue than fool, if to be a rogue is not the greatest of all follies. He arose to notice while I was in the administration, and became, of course, a proper subject of inquiry for me. The inquiry was made with diligence. His declared object was the reformation of his red brethren, and their return to their pristine manner of living. He pretended to be in constant communication with the Great Spirit; that he was instructed by him to make known to the Indians that they were created by him distinct from the whites, of different natures, for different purposes, and placed under [50]different circumstances, adapted to their nature and destinies; that they must return from all the ways of the whites to the habits and opinions of their forefathers; they must not eat the flesh of hogs, of bullocks, of sheep, &c., the deer and buffalo having been created for their food; they must not make bread of wheat but of Indian corn; they must not wear linen nor woollen, but dress like their fathers in the skins and furs of animals; they must not drink ardent spirits, and I do not remember whether he extended his inhibitions to the gun and gunpowder, in favor of the bow and arrow. I concluded from all this, that he was a visionary, enveloped in the clouds of their antiquities, and vainly endeavoring to lead back his brethren to the fancied beatitudes of their golden age. I thought there was little danger of his making many proselytes from the habits and comfort they had learned from the whites, to the hardships and privations of savagism, and no great harm if he did. We let him go on, therefore, unmolested. But his followers increased till the English thought him worth corruption and found him corruptible. I suppose his views were then changed; but his proceedings in consequence of them were after I left the administration, and are, therefore, unknown to me; nor have I ever been informed what were the particular acts on his part, which produced an actual commencement of hostilities on ours. I have no doubt, however, that his subsequent proceedings are but a chapter apart, like that of Henry and Lord Liverpool, in the book of the kings of England.

Of this mission of Henry, your son had got wind in the time of the embargo, and communicated it to me. But he had learned nothing of the particular agent, although, of his workings, the information he had obtained appears now to have been correct. He stated a particular which Henry has not distinctly brought forward, which was that the Eastern States were not to be required to make a formal act of separation from the Union, and to take a part in the war against it; a measure deemed much too strong for their people; but to declare themselves in a state of neutrality, in consideration of which they were to have peace and free commerce, the lure most likely to insure popular acquiescence. [51]Having no indications of Henry as the intermediate in this negotiation of the Essex junto, suspicions fell on Pickering, and his nephew Williams, in London. If he was wronged in this, the ground of the suspicion is to be found in his known practices and avowed opinions, as that of his accomplices in the sameness of sentiment and of language with Henry, and subsequently by the fluttering of the wounded pigeons.

This letter, with what it encloses, has given you enough, I presume, of law and the prophets. I will only add to it, therefore, the homage of my respects to Mrs. Adams, and to yourself the assurances of affectionate esteem and respect.

TO JAMES MAURY.

Monticello, April 25, 1812.

My Dear and ancient Friend and Classmate,—Often has my heart smote me for delaying acknowledgments to you, receiving, as I do, such frequent proofs of your kind recollection in the transmission of papers to me. But instead of acting on the good old maxim of not putting off to to-morrow what we can do to-day, we are too apt to reverse it, and not to do to-day what we can put off to-morrow. But this duty can be no longer put off. To-day we are at peace; to-morrow, war. The curtain of separation is drawing between us, and probably will not be withdrawn till one, if not both of us, will be at rest with our fathers. Let me now, then, while I may, renew to you the declarations of my warm attachment, which in no period of life has ever been weakened, and seems to become stronger as the remaining objects of our youthful affections are fewer.

Our two countries are to be at war, but not you and I. And why should our two countries be at war, when by peace we can be so much more useful to one another? Surely the world will acquit our government from having sought it. Never before has there been an instance of a nation's bearing so much as we have borne. Two items alone in our catalogue of wrongs will forever [52]acquit us of being the aggressors: the impressment of our seamen, and the excluding us from the ocean. The first foundations of the social compact would be broken up, were we definitively to refuse to its members the protection of their persons and property, while in their lawful pursuits. I think the war will not be short, because the object of England, long obvious, is to claim the ocean as her domain, and to exact transit duties from every vessel traversing it. This is the sum of her orders of council, which were only a step in this bold experiment, never meant to be retracted if it could be permanently maintained. And this object must continue her in war with all the world. To this I see no termination, until her exaggerated efforts, so much beyond her natural strength and resources, shall have exhausted her to bankruptcy. The approach of this crisis is, I think, visible in the departure of her precious metals, and depreciation of her paper medium. We, who have gone through that operation, know its symptoms, its course, and consequences. In England they will be more serious than elsewhere, because half the wealth of her people is now in that medium, the private revenue of her money-holders, or rather of her paper-holders, being, I believe, greater than that of her land-holders. Such a proportion of property, imaginary and baseless as it is, cannot be reduced to vapor but with great explosion. She will rise out of its ruins, however, because her lands, her houses, her arts will remain, and the greater part of her men. And these will give her again that place among nations which is proportioned to her natural means, and which we all wish her to hold. We believe that the just standing of all nations is the health and security of all. We consider the overwhelming power of England on the ocean, and of France on the land, as destructive of the prosperity and happiness of the world, and wish both to be reduced only to the necessity of observing moral duties. We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberty of the seas, than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object of both is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations. We resist the enterprises of England [53]first, because they first come vitally home to us. And our feelings repel the logic of bearing the lash of George the III. for fear of that of Bonaparte at some future day. When the wrongs of France shall reach us with equal effect, we shall resist them also. But one at a time is enough; and having offered a choice to the champions, England first takes up the gauntlet.

The English newspapers suppose me the personal enemy of their nation. I am not so. I am an enemy to its injuries, as I am to those of France. If I could permit myself to have national partialities, and if the conduct of England would have permitted them to be directed towards her, they would have been so. I thought that in the administration of Mr. Addington, I discovered some dispositions toward justice, and even friendship and respect for us, and began to pave the way for cherishing these dispositions, and improving them into ties of mutual good will. But we had then a federal minister there, whose dispositions to believe himself, and to inspire others with a belief in our sincerity, his subsequent conduct has brought into doubt; and poor Merry, the English minister here, had learned nothing of diplomacy but its suspicions, without head enough to distinguish when they were misplaced. Mr. Addington and Mr. Fox passed away too soon to avail the two countries of their dispositions. Had I been personally hostile to England, and biased in favor of either the character or views of her great antagonist, the affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand. I had only to open it and let havoc loose. But if ever I was gratified with the possession of power, and of the confidence of those who had entrusted me with it, it was on that occasion when I was enabled to use both for the prevention of war, towards which the torrent of passion here was directed almost irresistibly, and when not another person in the United States, less supported by authority and favor, could have resisted it. And now that a definitive adherence to her impressments and orders of council renders war no longer avoidable, my earnest prayer is that our government may enter into no compact of common cause with the other belligerent, but keep us free to make a separate peace, whenever England [54]will separately give us peace and future security. But Lord Liverpool is our witness that this can never be but by her removal from our neighborhood.

I have thus, for a moment, taken a range into the field of politics, to possess you with the view we take of things here. But in the scenes which are to ensue, I am to be but a spectator. I have withdrawn myself from all political intermeddlings, to indulge the evening of my life with what have been the passions of every portion of it, books, science, my farms, my family and friends. To these every hour of the day is now devoted. I retain a good activity of mind, not quite as much of body, but uninterrupted health. Still the hand of age is upon me. All my old friends are nearly gone. Of those in my neighborhood, Mr. Divers and Mr. Lindsay alone remain. If you could make it a partie quarrée, it would be a comfort indeed. We would beguile our lingering hours with talking over our youthful exploits, our hunts on Peter's mountain, with a long train of et cetera, in addition, and feel, by recollection at least, a momentary flash of youth. Reviewing the course of a long and sufficiently successful life, I find in no portion of it happier moments than those were. I think the old hulk in which you are, is near her wreck, and that like a prudent rat, you should escape in time. However, here, there, and everywhere, in peace or in war, you will have my sincere affections and prayers for your life, health and happiness.

TO MR. RODMAN.

Monticello, April 25, 1812.

Thomas Jefferson presents his complements to Mr. Rodman, and his thanks for the translation of Montgalliard's work which he has been so kind as to send him. It certainly presents some new and true views of the situation of England. It is a subject of deep regret to see a great nation reduced from an unexampled height of prosperity to an abyss of ruin, by the long-continued rule of a single chief. All we ought to wish as to [55]both belligerent parties is to see them forced to disgorge what their ravenous appetites have taken from others, and reduced to the necessity of observing moral duties in future. If we read with regret what concerns England, the fulsome adulation of the author towards his own chief excites nausea and disgust at the state of degradation to which the mind of man is reduced by subjection to the inordinate power of another. He salutes Mr. Rodman with great respect.

TO MR. JOHN JACOB ASTOR.

Monticello, May 24, 1812.

Sir,—Your letter of March 14th lingered much on the road, and a long journey before I could answer it, has delayed its acknowledgment till now. I am sorry your enterprise for establishing a factory on the Columbia river, and a commerce through the line of that river and the Missouri, should meet with the difficulties stated in your letter. I remember well having invited your proposition on that subject, and encouraged it with the assurance of every facility and protection which the government could properly afford. I considered as a great public acquisition the commencement of a settlement on that point of the Western coast of America, and looked forward with gratification to the time when its descendants should have spread themselves through the whole length of that coast, covering it with free and independent Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest, and employing like us the rights of self-government. I hope the obstacles you state are not insurmountable; that they will not endanger, or even delay the accomplishment of so great a public purpose. In the present state of affairs between Great Britain and us, the government is justly jealous of contraventions of those commercial restrictions which have been deemed necessary to exclude the use of British manufactures in these States, and to promote the establishment of similar ones among ourselves. The interests too of the revenue require particular [56]watchfulness. But in the non-importation of British manufactures, and the revenue raised on foreign goods, the legislature could only have in view the consumption of our own citizens, and the revenue to be levied on that. We certainly did not mean to interfere with the consumption of nations foreign to us, as the Indians of the Columbia and Missouri are, or to assume a right of levying an impost on that consumption; and if the words of the laws take in their supplies in either view, it was probably unintentional, and because their case not being under the contemplation of the legislature, has been inadvertently embraced by it. The question with them would be not what manufactures these nations should use, or what taxes they should pay us on them, but whether we should give a transit for them through our country. We have a right to say we will not let the British exercise that transit. But it is our interest as well as a neighborly duty to allow it when exercised by our own citizens only. To guard against any surreptitious introduction of British influence among those nations, we may justifiably require that no Englishman be permitted to go with the trading parties, and necessary precautions should also be taken to prevent this covering the contravention of our own laws and views. But these once securely guarded, our interest would permit the transit free of duty. And I do presume that if the subject were fully presented to the legislature, they would provide that the laws intended to guard our own concerns only, should not assume the regulation of those of foreign and independent nations; still less that they should stand in the way of so interesting an object as that of planting the germ of an American population on the shores of the Pacific. From meddling however with these subjects it is my duty as well as my inclination to abstain. They are in hands perfectly qualified to direct them, and who knowing better the present state of things, are better able to decide what is right; and whatever they decide on a full view of the case, I shall implicitly confide has been rightly decided. Accept my best wishes for your success, and the assurances of my great esteem and respect. [57]

TO THE PRESIDENT.

Monticello, May 30, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Another communication is enclosed, and the letter of the applicant is the only information I have of his qualifications. I barely remember such a person as the secretary of Mr. Adams, and messenger to the Senate while I was of that body. It enlarges the sphere of choice by adding to it a strong federalist. The triangular war must be the idea of the Anglomen and malcontents, in other words, the federalists and quids. Yet it would reconcile neither. It would only change the topic of abuse with the former, and not cure the mental disease of the latter. It would prevent our eastern capitalists and seamen from employment in privateering, take away the only chance of conciliating them, and keep them at home, idle, to swell the discontents; it would completely disarm us of the most powerful weapon we can employ against Great Britain, by shutting every port to our prizes, and yet would not add a single vessel to their number; it would shut every market to our agricultural productions, and engender impatience and discontent with that class which, in fact, composes the nation; it would insulate us in general negotiations for peace, making all the parties our opposers, and very indifferent about peace with us, if they have it with the rest of the world, and would exhibit a solecism worthy of Don Quixotte only, that of a choice to fight two enemies at a time, rather than to take them by succession. And the only motive for all this is a sublimated impartiality, at which the world will laugh, and our own people will turn upon us in mass as soon as it is explained to them, as it will be by the very persons who are now laying that snare. These are the hasty views of one who rarely thinks on these subjects. Your own will be better, and I pray to them every success, and to yourself every felicity. [58]

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Monticello, June 6, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I have taken the liberty of drawing the attention of the Secretary at War to a small depôt of military stores at New London, and leave the letter open for your perusal. Be so good as to seal it before delivery. I really thought that General Dearborne had removed them to Lynchburg, undoubtedly a safer and more convenient deposit.

Our county is the only one I have heard of which has required a draught; this proceeded from a mistake of the colonel, who thought he could not receive individual offers, but that the whole quota, 241, must present themselves at once. Every one, however, manifests the utmost alacrity; of the 241 there having been but ten absentees at the first muster called. A further proof is that Captain Carr's company of volunteer cavalry being specifically called for by the Governor, though consisting of but 28 when called on, has got up to 50 by new engagements since their call was known. The only inquiry they make is whether they are to go to Canada or Florida? Not a man, as far as I have learned, entertains any of those doubts which puzzle the lawyers of Congress and astonish common sense, whether it is lawful for them to pursue a retreating enemy across the boundary line of the Union?

I hope Barlow's correspondence has satisfied all our Quixottes who thought we should undertake nothing less than to fight all Europe at once. I enclose you a letter from Dr. Bruff, a mighty good and very ingenious man. His method of manufacturing bullets and shot, has the merit of increasing their specific gravity greatly, (being made by composition,) and rendering them as much heavier and better than the common leaden bullet, as that is than an iron one. It is a pity he should not have the benefit of furnishing the public when it would be equally to their benefit also. God bless you. [59]

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, June 11, 1812.

Dear Sir,—By our post preceding that which brought your letter of May 21st, I had received one from Mr. Malcolm on the same subject with yours, and by the return of the post had stated to the President my recollections of him. But both your letters were probably too late; as the appointment had been already made, if we may credit the newspapers.

You ask if there is any book that pretends to give any account of the traditions of the Indians, or how one can acquire an idea of them? Some scanty accounts of their traditions, but fuller of their customs and characters, are given us by most of the early travellers among them; these you know were mostly French. Lafitan, among them, and Adair an Englishman, have written on this subject; the former two volumes, the latter one, all in 4to. But unluckily Lafitan had in his head a preconceived theory on the mythology, manners, institutions and government of the ancient nations of Europe, Asia and Africa, and seems to have entered on those of America only to fit them into the same frame, and to draw from them a confirmation of his general theory. He keeps up a perpetual parallel, in all those articles, between the Indians of America and the ancients of the other quarters of the globe. He selects, therefore, all the facts and adopts all the falsehoods which favor his theory, and very gravely retails such absurdities as zeal for a theory could alone swallow. He was a man of much classical and scriptural reading, and has rendered his book not unentertaining. He resided five years among the Northern Indians, as a Missionary, but collects his matter much more from the writings of others, than from his own observation.

Adair too had his kink. He believed all the Indians of America to be descended from the Jews; the same laws, usages, rites and ceremonies, the same sacrifices, priests, prophets, fasts and festivals, almost the same religion, and that they all spoke Hebrew. For, although he writes particularly of the Southern Indians [60]only, the Catawbas, Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Chocktaws, with whom alone he was personally acquainted, yet he generalizes whatever he found among them, and brings himself to believe that the hundred languages of America, differing fundamentally every one from every other, as much as Greek from Gothic, yet have all one common prototype. He was a trader, a man of learning, a self-taught Hebraist, a strong religionist, and of as sound a mind as Don Quixotte in whatever did not touch his religious chivalry. His book contains a great deal of real instruction on its subject, only requiring the reader to be constantly on his guard against the wonderful obliquities of his theory.

The scope of your inquiry would scarcely, I suppose, take in the three folio volumes of Latin of De Bry. In these, facts and fable are mingled together, without regard to any favorite system. They are less suspicious, therefore, in their complexion, more original and authentic, than those of Lafitan and Adair. This is a work of great curiosity, extremely rare, so as never to be bought in Europe, but on the breaking up and selling some ancient library. On one of these occasions a bookseller procured me a copy, which, unless you have one, is probably the only one in America.

You ask further, if the Indians have any order of priesthood among them, like the Druids, Bards or Minstrels of the Celtic nations? Adair alone, determined to see what he wished to see in every object, metamorphoses their Conjurers into an order of priests, and describes their sorceries as if they were the great religious ceremonies of the nation. Lafitan called them by their proper names, Jongleurs, Devins, Sortileges; De Bry praestigiatores; Adair himself sometimes Magi, Archimagi, cunning men, Seers, rain makers; and the modern Indian interpreters call them conjurers and witches. They are persons pretending to have communications with the devil and other evil spirits, to foretell future events, bring down rain, find stolen goods, raise the dead, destroy some and heal others by enchantment, lay spells, &c. And Adair, without departing from his parallel of the Jews and [61]Indians, might have found their counterpart much more aptly, among the soothsayers, sorcerers and wizards of the Jews, their Gannes and Gambres, their Simon Magus, Witch of Endor, and the young damsel whose sorceries disturbed Paul so much; instead of placing them in a line with their high-priest, their chief priests, and their magnificent hierarchy generally. In the solemn ceremonies of the Indians, the persons who direct or officiate, are their chiefs, elders and warriors, in civil ceremonies or in those of war; it is the head of the cabin in their private or particular feasts or ceremonies; and sometimes the matrons, as in their corn feasts. And even here, Adair might have kept up his parallel, with ennobling his conjurers. For the ancient patriarchs, the Noahs, the Abrahams, Isaacs and Jacobs, and even after the consecration of Aaron, the Samuels and Elijahs, and we may say further, every one for himself offered sacrifices on the altars. The true line of distinction seems to be, that solemn ceremonies, whether public or private, addressed to the Great Spirit, are conducted by the worthies of the nation, men or matrons, while conjurers are resorted to only for the invocation of evil spirits. The present state of the several Indian tribes, without any public order of priests, is proof sufficient that they never had such an order. Their steady habits permit no innovations, not even those which the progress of science offers to increase the comforts, enlarge the understanding, and improve the morality of mankind. Indeed, so little idea have they of a regular order of priests, that they mistake ours for their conjurers, and call them by that name.

So much in answer to your inquiries concerning Indians, a people with whom, in the early part of my life, I was very familiar, and acquired impressions of attachment and commiseration for them which have never been obliterated. Before the revolution, they were in the habit of coming often and in great numbers to the seat of government, where I was very much with them. I knew much the great Ontassetè, the warrior and orator of the Cherokees; he was always the guest of my father, on his journeys to and from Williamsburg. I was in his camp when he [62]made his great farewell oration to his people the evening before his departure for England. The moon was in full splendor, and to her he seemed to address himself in his prayers for his own safety on the voyage, and that of his people during his absence; his sounding voice, distinct articulation, animated action, and the solemn silence of his people at their several fires, filled me with awe and veneration, although I did not understand a word he uttered. That nation, consisting now of about 2,000 warriors, and the Creeks of about 3,000 are far advanced in civilization. They have good cabins, enclosed fields, large herds of cattle and hogs, spin and weave their own clothes of cotton, have smiths and other of the most necessary tradesmen, write and read, are on the increase in numbers, and a branch of Cherokees is now instituting a regular representative government. Some other tribes are advancing in the same line. On those who have made any progress, English seductions will have no effect. But the backward will yield, and be thrown further back. Those will relapse into barbarism and misery, lose numbers by war and want, and we shall be obliged to drive them with the beasts of the forest into the stony mountains. They will be conquered, however, in Canada. The possession of that country secures our women and children forever from the tomahawk and scalping knife, by removing those who excite them; and for this possession orders, I presume, are issued by this time; taking for granted that the doors of Congress will re-open with a declaration of war. That this may end in indemnity for the past, security for the future, and complete emancipation from Anglomany, Gallomany, and all the manias of demoralized Europe, and that you may live in health and happiness to see all this, is the sincere prayer of yours affectionately.

TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.

Monticello, June 11, 1812.

Dear Sir,—It has given me great pleasure to receive a letter from you. It seems as if, our ancient friends dying off, the whole [63]mass of the affections of the heart survives undiminished to the few who remain. I think our acquaintance commenced in 1764, both then just of age. We happened to take lodgings in the same house in New York. Our next meeting was in the Congress of 1775, and at various times afterwards in the exercise of that and other public functions, until your mission to Europe. Since we have ceased to meet, we have still thought and acted together, "et idem velle, atque idem nolle, ea demum amicitia est." Of this harmony of principle, the papers you enclosed me are proof sufficient. I do not condole with you on your release from your government. The vote of your opponents is the most honorable mark by which the soundness of your conduct could be stamped. I claim the same honorable testimonial. There was but a single act of my whole administration of which that party approved. That was the proclamation on the attack of the Chesapeake. And when I found they approved of it, I confess I began strongly to apprehend I had done wrong, and to exclaim with the Psalmist, "Lord, what have I done that the wicked should praise me!"

What, then, does this English faction with you mean? Their newspapers say rebellion, and that they will not remain united with us unless we will permit them to govern the majority. If this be their purpose, their anti-republican spirit, it ought to be met at once. But a government like ours should be slow in believing this, should put forth its whole might when necessary to suppress it, and promptly return to the paths of reconciliation. The extent of our country secures it, I hope, from the vindictive passions of the petty incorporations of Greece. I rather suspect that the principal office of the other seventeen States will be to moderate and restrain the local excitement of our friends with you, when they (with the aid of their brethren of the other States, if they need it) shall have brought the rebellious to their feet. They count on British aid. But what can that avail them by land? They would separate from their friends, who alone furnish employment for their navigation, to unite with their only rival for that employment. When interdicted the harbors of [64]their quondam brethren, they will go, I suppose to ask a share in the carrying trade of their rivals, and a dispensation with their navigation act. They think they will be happier in an association under the rulers of Ireland, the East and West Indies, than in an independent government, where they are obliged to put up with their proportional share only in the direction of its affairs. But I trust that such perverseness will not be that of the honest and well-meaning mass of the federalists of Massachusetts; and that when the questions of separation and rebellion shall be nakedly proposed to them, the Gores and the Pickerings will find their levees crowded with silk stocking gentry, but no yeomanry; an army of officers without soldiers. I hope, then, all will still end well; the Anglomen will consent to make peace with their bread and butter, and you and I shall sink to rest, without having been actors or spectators in another civil war.

How many children have you? You beat me, I expect, in that count, but I you in that of our grand-children. We have not timed these things well together, or we might have begun a re-alliance between Massachusetts and the Old Dominion, faithful companions in the war of Independence, peculiarly tallied in interests, by each wanting exactly what the other has to spare; and estranged to each other in latter times, only by the practices of a third nation, the common enemy of both. Let us live only to see this re-union, and I will say with old Simeon, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." In that peace may you long remain, my friend, and depart only in the fulness of years, all passed in health and prosperity. God bless you.

P. S. June 13. I did not condole with you on the reprobation of your opponents, because it proved your orthodoxy. Yesterday's post brought me the resolution of the republicans of Congress, to propose you as Vice President. On this I sincerely congratulate you. It is a stamp of double proof. It is a notification to the factionaries that their nay is the yea of truth, and its best test. We shall be almost within striking distance of each [65]other. Who knows but you may fill up some short recess of Congress with a visit to Monticello, where a numerous family will hail you with a hearty country welcome.

TO JUDGE TYLER.

Monticello, June 17, 1812.

Dear Sir,—* * * * *

On the other subject of your letter, the application of the common law to our present situation, I deride with you the ordinary doctrine, that we brought with us from England the common law rights. This narrow notion was a favorite in the first moment of rallying to our rights against Great Britain. But it was that of men who felt their rights before they had thought of their explanation. The truth is, that we brought with us the rights of men; of expatriated men. On our arrival here, the question would at once arise, by what law will we govern ourselves? The resolution seems to have been, by that system with which we are familiar, to be altered by ourselves occasionally, and adapted to our new situation. The proofs of this resolution are to be found in the form of the oaths of the judges, 1. Hening's Stat. 169. 187; of the Governor, ib. 504; in the act for a provisional government, ib. 372; in the preamble to the laws of 1661-2; the uniform current of opinions and decisions, and in the general recognition of all our statutes, framed on that basis. But the state of the English law at the date of our emigration, constituted the system adopted here. We may doubt, therefore, the propriety of quoting in our courts English authorities subsequent to that adoption; still more, the admission of authorities posterior to the Declaration of Independence, or rather to the accession of that King, whose reign, ab initio, was the very tissue of wrongs which rendered the Declaration at length necessary. The reason for it had inception at least as far back as the commencement of his reign. This relation to the beginning of his reign, would add the advantage of getting us rid of all Mansfield's innovations, or [66]civilizations of the common law. For however I admit the superiority of the civil over the common law code, as a system of perfect justice, yet an incorporation of the two would be like Nebuchadnezzar's image of metals and clay, a thing without cohesion of parts. The only natural improvement of the common law, is through its homogeneous ally, the chancery, in which new principles are to be examined, concocted and digested. But when, by repeated decisions and modifications, they are rendered pure and certain, they should be transferred by statute to the courts of common law, and placed within the pale of juries. The exclusion from the courts of the malign influence of all authorities after the Georgium sidus became ascendant, would uncanonize Blackstone, whose book, although the most elegant and best digested of our law catalogue, has been perverted more than all others, to the degeneracy of legal science. A student finds there a smattering of everything, and his indolence easily persuades him that if he understands that book, he is master of the whole body of the law. The distinction between these, and those who have drawn their stores from the deep and rich mines of Coke Littleton, seems well understood even by the unlettered common people, who apply the appellation of Blackstone lawyers to these ephemeral insects of the law.

Whether we should undertake to reduce the common law, our own, and so much of the English statutes as we have adopted, to a text, is a question of transcendent difficulty. It was discussed at the first meeting of the committee of the revised code, in 1776, and decided in the negative, by the opinions of Wythe, Mason and myself, against Pendleton and Thomas Lee. Pendleton proposed to take Blackstone for that text, only purging him of what was inapplicable or unsuitable to us. In that case, the meaning of every word of Blackstone would have become a source of litigation, until it had been settled by repeated legal decisions. And to come at that meaning, we should have had produced, on all occasions, that very pile of authorities from which it would be said he drew his conclusion, and which, of course, would explain it, and the terms in which it is couched. [67]Thus we should have retained the same chaos of law-lore from which we wished to be emancipated, added to the evils of the uncertainty which a new text and new phrases would have generated. An example of this may be found in the old statutes, and commentaries on them, in Coke's second institute, but more remarkably in the institute of Justinian, and the vast masses explanatory or supplementary of that which fill the libraries of the civilians. We were deterred from the attempt by these considerations, added to which, the bustle of the times did not admit leisure for such an undertaking.

Your request of my opinion on this subject has given you the trouble of these observations. If your firmer mind in encountering difficulties would have added your vote to the minority of the committee, you would have had on your side one of the greatest men of our age, and like him, have detracted nothing from the sentiments of esteem and respect which I bore to him, and tender with sincerity the assurance of to yourself.

TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO.

Monticello, June 28, 1812.

Nous voila donc, mon cher ami, en guerre avec l'Angleterre. This was declared on the 18th instant, thirty years after the signature of our peace in 1782. Within these thirty years what a vast course of growth and prosperity we have had! It is not ten years since Great Britain began a series of insults and injuries which would have been met with war in the threshold by any European power. This course has been unremittingly followed up by increasing wrongs, with glimmerings indeed of peaceable redress, just sufficient to keep us quiet, till she has had the impudence at length to extinguish even these glimmerings by open avowal. This would not have been borne so long, but that France has kept pace with England in iniquity of principle, although not in the power of inflicting wrongs on us. The difficulty of selecting a foe between them has spared us many years [68]of war, and enabled us to enter into it with less debt, more strength and preparation. Our present enemy will have the sea to herself, while we shall be equally predominant at land, and shall strip her of all her possessions on this continent. She may burn New York, indeed, by her ships and congreve rockets, in which case we must burn the city of London by hired incendiaries, of which her starving manufacturers will furnish abundance. A people in such desperation as to demand of their government aut parcem, aut furcam, either bread or the gallows, will not reject the same alternative when offered by a foreign hand. Hunger will make them brave every risk for bread. The partisans of England here have endeavored much to goad us into the folly of choosing the ocean instead of the land, for the theatre of war. That would be to meet their strength with our own weakness, instead of their weakness with our strength. I hope we shall confine ourselves to the conquest of their possessions, and defence of our harbors, leaving the war on the ocean to our privateers. These will immediately swarm in every sea, and do more injury to British commerce than the regular fleets of all Europe would do. The government of France may discontinue their license trade. Our privateers will furnish them much more abundantly with colonial produce, and whatever the license trade has given them. Some have apprehended we should be overwhelmed by the new improvements of war, which have not yet reached us. But the British possess them very imperfectly, and what are these improvements? Chiefly in the management of artillery, of which our country admits little use. We have nothing to fear from their armies, and shall put nothing in prize to their fleets. Upon the whole, I have known no war entered into under more favorable auspices.

Our manufacturers are now very nearly on a footing with those of England. She has not a single improvement which we do not possess, and many of them better adapted by ourselves to our ordinary use. We have reduced the large and expensive machinery for most things to the compass of a private family, and every family of any size is now getting machines on a small [69]scale for their household purposes. Quoting myself as an example, and I am much behind many others in this business, my household manufactures are just getting into operation on the scale of a carding machine costing $60 only, which may be worked by a girl of twelve years old, a spinning machine, which may be made for $10, carrying 6 spindles for wool,to be worked by a girl also, another which can be made for $25, carrying 12 spindles for cotton, and a loom, with a flying shuttle, weaving its twenty yards a day. I need 2,000 yards of linen, cotton and woollen yearly, to clothe my family, which this machinery, costing $150 only, and worked by two women and two girls, will more than furnish. For fine goods there are numerous establishments at work in the large cities, and many more daily growing up; and of merinos we have some thousands, and these multiplying fast. We consider a sheep for every person as sufficient for their woollen clothing, and this State and all to the north have fully that, and those to the south and west will soon be up to it. In other articles we are equally advanced, so that nothing is more certain than that, come peace when it will, we shall never again go to England for a shilling where we have gone for a dollar's worth. Instead of applying to her manufacturers there, they must starve or come here to be employed. I give you these details of peaceable operations, because they are within my present sphere. Those of war are in better hands, who know how to keep their own secrets. Because, too, although a soldier yourself, I am sure you contemplate the peaceable employment of man in the improvement of his condition, with more pleasure than his murders, rapine and devastations.

Mr. Barnes, some time ago, forwarded you a bill of exchange for 5,500 francs, of which the enclosed is a duplicate. Apprehending that a war with England would subject the remittances to you to more casualties, I proposed to Mr. Morson, of Bordeaux, to become the intermediate for making remittances to you, which he readily acceded to on liberal ideas arising from his personal esteem for you, and his desire to be useful to you. If you approve of this medium I am in hopes it will shield you from the [70]effect of the accidents to which the increased dangers of the seas may give birth. It would give me great pleasure to hear from you oftener. I feel great interest in your health and happiness. I know your feelings on the present state of the world, and hope they will be cheered by the successful course of our war, and the addition of Canada to our confederacy. The infamous intrigues of Great Britain to destroy our government (of which Henry's is but one sample), and with the Indians to tomahawk our women and children, prove that the cession of Canada, their fulcrum for these Machiavelian levers, must be a sine qua non at a treaty of peace. God bless you, and give you to see all these things, and many and long years of health and happiness.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Monticello, June 29, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 22d covering the declaration of war. It is entirely popular here, the only opinion being that it should have been issued the moment the season admitted the militia to enter Canada. * * * * * To continue the war popular, two things are necessary mainly. 1. To stop Indian barbarities. The conquest of Canada will do this. 2. To furnish markets for our produce, say indeed for our flour, for tobacco is already given up, and seemingly without reluctance. The great profits of the wheat crop have allured every one to it; and never was such a crop on the ground as that which we generally begin to cut this day. It would be mortifying to the farmer to see such an one rot in his barn. It would soon sicken him to war. Nor can this be a matter of wonder or of blame on him. Ours is the only country on earth where war is an instantaneous and total suspension of all the objects of his industry and support. For carrying our produce to foreign markets our own ships, neutral ships, and even enemy ships under neutral flag, which I would wink at, will probably suffice. But the coasting trade is of double importance, because [71]both seller and buyer are disappointed, and both are our own citizens. You will remember that in this trade our greatest distress in the last war was produced by our own pilot boats taken by the British and kept as tenders to their larger vessels. These being the swiftest vessels on the ocean, they took them and selected the swiftest from the whole mass. Filled with men they scoured everything along shore, and completely cut up that coasting business which might otherwise have been carried on within the range of vessels of force and draught. Why should not we then line our coast with vessels of pilot-boat construction, filled with men, armed with cannonades, and only so much larger as to assure the mastery of the pilot boat? The British cannot counter-work us by building similar ones, because, the fact is, however unaccountable, that our builders alone understand that construction. It is on our own pilot boats the British will depend, which our larger vessels may thus retake. These, however, are the ideas of a landsman only, Mr. Hamilton's judgment will test their soundness.

Our militia are much afraid of being called to Norfolk at this season. They all declare a preference of a march to Canada. I trust however that Governor Barbour will attend to circumstances, and so apportion the service among the counties, that those acclimated by birth or residence may perform the summer tour, and the winter service be allotted to the upper counties.

I trouble you with a letter for General Kosciusko. It covers a bill of exchange from Mr. Barnes for him, and is therefore of great importance to him. Hoping you will have the goodness so far to befriend the General as to give it your safest conveyance, I commit it to you, with the assurance of my sincere affections.

TO NATHANIEL GREENE, MONTAGUE CENTER.

Monticello, July 5, 1812.

Sir,—Your favor of May 19th from New Orleans is just now received. I have no doubt that the information you will present [72]to your countrymen on the subject of the Asiatic countries into which you have travelled, will be acceptable as sources both of amusement and instruction; and the more so, as the observations of an American will be more likely to present what are peculiarities to us, than those of any foreigner on the same countries. In reading the travels of a Frenchman through the United States what he remarks as peculiarities in us, prove to us the contrary peculiarities of the French. We have the accounts of Barbary from European and American travellers. It would be more amusing if Melli Melli would give us his observations on the United States. If, with the fables and follies of the Hindoos, so justly pointed out to us by yourselves and other travellers, we could compare the contrast of those which an Hindoo traveller would imagine he found among us, it might enlarge our instruction. It would be curious to see what parallel among us he would select for his Veeshni. What you will have seen in your western tour will also instruct many who often know least of things nearest home.

The charitable institution you have proposed to the city of New Orleans would undoubtedly be valuable, and all such are better managed by those locally connected with them. The great wealth of that city will insure its support, and the names subscribed to it will give it success. For a private individual, a thousand miles distant, to imagine that his name could add anything to what exhibits already the patronage of the highest authorities of the State, would be great presumption. It will certainly engage my best wishes, to which permit me to add for yourself the assurances of my respect.

TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ.

Monticello, July 10, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I received by your last post through Mr. Hall, of Baltimore, a copy of your introductory lecture to a course of chemistry, for which accept my thanks. I have just entered on [73]the reading of it, and perceive that I have a feast before me. I discover from an error of the binder, that my copy has duplicates of pages 122, 123, 126, 127, and wants altogether, pages 121, 124, 125, 128, and forseeing that every page will be a real loss, and that the book has been printed at Carlisle, I will request your directions to the printer to enclose those four pages under cover to me at this place, near Milton. You know the just esteem which attached itself to Dr. Franklin's science, because he always endeavored to direct it to something useful in private life. The chemists have not been attentive enough to this. I have wished to see their science applied to domestic objects, to malting, for instance, brewing, making cider, to fermentation and distillation generally, to the making of bread, butter, cheese, soap, to the incubation of eggs, &c. And I am happy to observe some of these titles in the syllabus of your lecture. I hope you will make the chemistry of these subjects intelligible to our good house-wives. Glancing over the pages of your book, the last one caught my attention, where you recommend to students the books on metaphysics. Not seeing De Tutt Tracy's name there, I suspected you might not have seen his work. His first volume on Ideology appeared in 1800. I happen to have a duplicate of this, and will send it to you. Since that, has appeared his second volume on grammar and his third on logic. They are considered as holding the most eminent station in that line; and considering with you that a course of anatomy lays the best foundation for understanding these subjects, Tracy should be preceded by a mature study of the most profound of all human compositions, "Cabanis's Rapports du Physique et du moral de l'homme."

In return for the many richer favors received from you, I send you my little tract on the batture of New Orleans, and Livingston's claim to it. I was at a loss where to get it printed, and confided it to the editor of the Edinburgh Review, re-printed at New York. But he has not done it immaculately. Although there are typographical errors in your lecture, I wonder to see so difficult a work so well done at Carlisle. I am making a fair copy of the catalogue of my library, which I mean to have printed merely for the [74]use of the library. It will require correct orthography in so many languages, that I hardly know where I can get it done. Have you read the Review of Montesquieu, printed by Duane? I hope it will become the elementary book of the youth at all our colleges. Such a reduction of Montesquieu to his true value had been long wanting in political study. Accept the assurance of my great and constant esteem and respect.

TO MR. LATROBE.

Monticello, July 12, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Of all the faculties of the human mind, that of memory is the first which suffers decay from age. Of the commencement of this decay, I was fully sensible while I lived in Washington, and it was my earliest monitor to retire from public business. It has often since been the source of great regret when applied to by others to attest transactions in which I had been an agent, to find that they had entirely vanished from my memory. In no case has it given me more concern than in that which is the subject of your letter of the 2d instant: the supper given in 1807 to the workmen on the capitol. Of this supper I have not the smallest recollection. If it ever was mentioned to me, not a vestige of it now remains in my mind. This failure of my memory is no proof the thing did not happen, but only takes from it the support of my testimony, which cannot be given for what is obliterated from it. I have looked among my papers to see if they furnish any trace of the matter, but I find none, and must therefore acquiesce in my incompetence to administer to truth on this occasion. I am sorry to learn that Congress has relinquished the benefit of the engagements of Andrei & Franzoni, on the sculpture of the capitol. They are artists of a grade far above what we can expect to get again. I still hope they will continue to work on the basis of the appropriation made, and as far as that will go; so that what is done will be well done; and perhaps a more favorable moment may still preserve them to us. [75]With respect to yourself, the little disquietudes from individuals not chosen for their taste in works of art, will be sunk into oblivion, while the Representatives' chamber will remain a durable monument of your talents as an architect. I say nothing of the Senate room, because I have never seen it. I shall live in the hope that the day will come when an opportunity will be given you of finishing the middle building in a style worthy of the two wings, and worthy of the first temple dedicated to the sovereignty of the people, embellishing with Athenian taste the course of a nation looking far beyond the range of Athenian destinies. In every situation, public or private, be assured of my sincere wishes for your prosperity and happiness, and of the continuance of my esteem and respect.

TO COLONEL DUANE.

Monticello, August 4, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 17th ult. came duly to hand, and I have to thank you for the military manuals you were so kind as to send me. This is the sort of book most needed in our country, where even the elements of tactics are unknown. The young have never seen service, and the old are past it, and of those among them who are not superannuated themselves, their science is become so. I see, as you do, the difficulties and defects we have to encounter in war, and should expect disasters if we had an enemy on land capable of inflicting them. But the weakness of our enemy there will make our first errors innocent, and the seeds of genius which nature sows with even hand through every age and country, and which need only soil and season to germinate, will develop themselves among our military men. Some of them will become prominent, and seconded by the native energy of our citizens, will soon, I hope, to our force add the benefits of skill. The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax [76]the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent. Halifax once taken, every cock-boat of hers must return to England for repairs. Their fleet will annihilate our public force on the water, but our privateers will eat out the vitals of their commerce. Perhaps they will burn New York or Boston. If they do, we must burn the city of London, not by expensive fleets or congreve rockets, but by employing an hundred or two Jack-the-painters, whom nakedness, famine, desperation and hardened vice, will abundantly furnish from among themselves. We have a rumor now afloat that the orders of council are repeated. The thing is impossible after Castlereagh's late declaration in Parliament, and the re-construction of a Percival ministry.

I consider this last circumstance fortunate for us. The repeal of the orders of council would only add recruits to our minority, and enable them the more to embarrass our march to thorough redress of our past wrongs, and permanent security for the future. This we shall attain if no internal obstacles are raised up. The exclusion of their commerce from the United States, and the closing of the Baltic against it, which the present campaign in Europe will effect, will accomplish the catastrophe already so far advanced on them. I think your anticipations of the effects of this are entirely probable, their arts, their science, and what they have left of virtue, will come over to us, and although their vices will come also, these, I think, will soon be diluted and evaporated in a country of plain honesty. Experience will soon teach the new-comers how much more plentiful and pleasant is the subsistence gained by wholesome labor and fair dealing, than a precarious and hazardous dependence on the enterprises of vice and violence. Still I agree with you that these immigrations will give strength to English partialities, to eradicate which is one of the most consoling expectations from the war. But probably the old hive will be broken up by a revolution, and a regeneration of its principles render intercourse with it no longer contaminating. A republic there like ours, and a reduction of their naval power within the limits of their annual facilities of payment, might render their existence even interesting to us. [77]It is the construction of their government, and its principles and means of corruption, which make its continuance inconsistent with the safety of other nations. A change in its form might make it an honest one, and justify a confidence in its faith and friendship. That regeneration however will take a longer time than I have to live. I shall leave it to be enjoyed among you, and make my exit with a bow to it, as the most flagitious of governments I leave among men. I sincerely wish you may live to see the prodigy of its renovation, enjoying in the meantime health and prosperity.

TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO.

Monticello, August 5, 1812.

Dear General,—* * * * *

I have little to add to my letter of June. We have entered Upper Canada, and I think there can be no doubt of our soon having in our possession the whole of the St. Lawrence except Quebec. We have at this moment about two hundred privateers on the ocean, and numbers more going out daily. It is believed we shall fit out about a thousand in the whole. Their success has been already great, and I have no doubt they will cut up more of the commerce of England than all the navies of Europe could do, could those navies venture to sea at all. You will find that every sea on the globe where England has any commerce, and where any port can be found to sell prizes, will be filled with our privateers. God bless you and give you a long and happy life.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Monticello, August 5, 1812.

Dear Sir,—* * * * *

I am glad of the re-establishment of a Percival ministry. The opposition would have recruited our minority by half way offers. [78]With Canada in hand we can go to treaty with an off-set for spoliation before the war. Our farmers are cheerful in the expectation of a good price for wheat in Autumn. Their pulse will be regulated by this, and not by the successes or disasters of the war. To keep open sufficient markets is the very first object towards maintaining the popularity of the war, which is as great at present as could be desired. We have just had a fine rain of 1¼ inches in the most critical time for our corn. The weather during the harvest was as advantageous as could be. I am sorry to find you remaining so long at Washington. The effect on your health may lose us a great deal of your time; a couple of months at Montpelier at this season would not lose us an hour. Affectionate salutations to Mrs. Madison and yourself.

TO THE HONORABLE MR. WRIGHT.

Monticello, August 8, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I receive and return the congratulations of your letter of July 6 with pleasure, and join the great mass of my fellow citizens in saying, "Well done, good and faithful servants, receive the benedictions which your constituents are ready to give you." The British government seem to be doing late, what done earlier might have prevented war; to wit: repealing the orders in Council. But it should take more to make peace than to prevent war. The sword once drawn, full justice must be done. "Indemnification for the past and security for the future," should be painted on our banners. For 1,000 ships taken, and 6,000 seamen impressed, give us Canada for indemnification, and the only security they can give us against their Henrys, and the savages, and agree that the American flag shall protect the persons of those sailing under it, both parties exchanging engagements that neither will receive the seamen of the other on board their vessels. This done, I should be for peace with England and then war with France. One at a time is enough, and in fighting the one we need the harbors of the other for our [79]prizes. Go on as you have begun, only quickening your pace, and receive the benedictions and prayers of those who are too old to offer anything else.

TO THOMAS LETRE, ESQ.

Monticello, August 8, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 14th ult., covering a paper containing proceedings of the patriots of South Carolina. It adds another to the many proofs of their steady devotion to their own country. I can assure you the hearts of their fellow citizens in this State beat in perfect unison with them, and with their government. Of this their concurrence in the election of Mr. Madison and Mr. Gerry, at the ensuing election, will give sufficient proof. The schism in Massachusetts, when brought to the crisis of principle, will be found to be exactly the same as in the Revolutionary war. The monarchists will be left alone, and will appear to be exactly the tories of the last war. Had the repeal of the orders of council, which now seems probable, taken place earlier, it might have prevented war; but much more is requisite to make peace—"indemnification for the past, and security for the future," should be the motto of the war. 1,000 ships taken, 6,000 seamen impressed, savage butcheries of our citizens, and incendiary machinations against our union, declare that they and their allies, the Spaniards, must retire from the Atlantic side of our continent as the only security or indemnification which will be effectual. Accept the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO COLONEL WILLIAM DUANE.

Monticello, October 1, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of September the 20th, has been duly received, and I cannot but be gratified by the assurance it expresses, that my aid in the councils of our government would [80]increase the public confidence in them; because it admits an inference that they have approved of the course pursued, when I heretofore bore a part in those councils. I profess, too, so much of the Roman principle, as to deem it honorable for the general of yesterday to act as a corporal to-day, if his services can be useful to his country; holding that to be false pride, which postpones the public good to any private or personal considerations. But I am past service. The hand of age is upon me. The decay of bodily faculties apprizes me that those of the mind cannot be unimpaired, had I not still better proofs. Every year counts by increased debility, and departing faculties keep the score. The last year it was the sight, this it is the hearing, the next something else will be going, until all is gone. Of all this I was sensible before I left Washington, and probably my fellow laborers saw it before I did. The decay of memory was obvious; it is now become distressing. But the mind too, is weakened. When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal powers. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor, and time, and slow investigation. When I offered this, therefore, as one of the reasons deciding my retirement from office, it was offered in sincerity and a consciousness of its truth. And I think it a great blessing that I retain understanding enough to be sensible how much of it I have lost, and to avoid exposing myself as a spectacle for the pity of my friends; that I have surmounted the difficult point of knowing when to retire. As a compensation for faculties departed, nature gives me good health, and a perfect resignation to the laws of decay which she has prescribed to all the forms and combinations of matter.

The detestable treason of Hull has, indeed, excited a deep anxiety in all breasts. The depression was in the first moment gloomy and portentous. But it has been succeeded by a revived animation, and a determination to meet the occurrence with increased efforts; and I have so much confidence in the vigorous minds and bodies of our countrymen, as to be fearless as to the [81]final issue. The treachery of Hull, like that of Arnold, cannot be matter of blame on our government. His character, as an officer of skill and bravery, was established on the trials of the last war, and no previous act of his life had led to doubt his fidelity. Whether the Head of the war department is equal to his charge, I am not qualified to decide. I knew him only as a pleasant, gentlemanly man in society; and the indecision of his character rather added to the amenity of his conversation. But when translated from the colloquial circle to the great stage of national concerns, and the direction of the extensive operations of war, whether he has been able to seize at one glance the long line of defenceless border presented by our enemy, the masses of strength which we hold on different points of it, the facility this gave us of attacking him, on the same day, on all his points, from the extremity of the lakes to the neighborhood of Quebec, and the perfect indifference with which this last place, impregnable as it is, might be left in the hands of the enemy to fall of itself; whether, I say, he could see and prepare vigorously for all this, or merely wrapped himself in the cloak of cold defence, I am uninformed. I clearly think with you on the competence of Monroe to embrace great views of action. The decision of his character, his enterprise, firmness, industry, and unceasing vigilance, would, I believe, secure, as I am sure they would merit, the public confidence, and give us all the success which our means can accomplish. If our operations have suffered or languished from any want of energy in the present head which directs them, I have so much confidence in the wisdom and conscientious integrity of Mr. Madison, as to be satisfied, that however torturing to his feelings, he will fulfil his duty to the public and to his own reputation, by making the necessary change. Perhaps he may be preparing it while we are talking about it; for of all these things I am uninformed. I fear that Hull's surrender has been more than the mere loss of a year to us. Besides bringing on us the whole mass of savage nations, whom fear and not affection has kept in quiet, there is danger that in giving time to an enemy who can send reinforcements of regulars [82]faster than we can raise them, they may strengthen Canada and Halifax beyond the assailment of our lax and divided powers. Perhaps, however, the patriotic efforts from Kentucky and Ohio, by recalling the British force to its upper posts, may yet give time to Dearborne to strike a blow below. Effectual possession of the river from Montreal to the Chaudiere, which is practicable, would give us the upper country at our leisure, and close forever the scenes of the tomahawk and scalping knife.

But these things are for others to plan and achieve. The only succor from the old must lie in their prayers. These I offer up with sincere devotion; and in my concern for the great public, I do not overlook my friends, but supplicate for them, as I do for yourself, a long course of freedom, happiness and prosperity.

TO THOMAS C. FLOURNEY, ESQ.

Monticello, October 1, 1812.

Sir,—Your letter of August 29th is just now received, having lingered long on the road. I owe you much thankfulness for the favorable opinion you entertain of my services, and the assurance expressed that they would again be acceptable in the executive chair. But, sir, I was sincere in stating age as one of the reasons of my retirement from office, beginning then to be conscious of its effects, and now much more sensible of them. Servile inertness is not what is to save our country; the conduct of a war requires the vigor and enterprise of younger heads. All such undertakings, therefore, are out of the question with me, and I say so with the greater satisfaction, when I contemplate the person to whom the executive powers were handed over. You probably do not know Mr. Madison personally, or at least intimately, as I do. I have known him from 1779, when he first came into the public councils, and from three and thirty years' trial, I can say conscientiously that I do not know in the world a man of purer integrity, more dispassionate, disinterested and devoted to genuine republicanism; nor could I, in the whole scope of America and Europe, point out an abler head. He may [83]be illy seconded by others, betrayed by the Hulls and Arnolds of our country, for such there are in every country, and with sorrow and suffering we know it. But what man can do will be done by Mr. Madison. I hope, therefore, there will be no difference among republicans as to his re-election, and we shall know his value when we have to give him up, and to look at large for his successor. With respect to the unfortunate loss of Detroit and our army, I with pleasure see the animation it has inspired through our whole country, but especially through the Western States, and the determination to retrieve our loss and our honor by increased exertions. I am not without hope that the Western efforts under General Harrison, may oblige the enemy to remain at their upper posts, and give Dearborne a fair opportunity to strike a blow below. A possession of the river from Montreal to the Chaudiere, gives us the upper country of course, and closes forever the scenes of the tomahawk and scalping-knife. Quebec is impregnable, but it is also worthless, and may be safely left in their hands to fall of itself. The vigorous minds and bodies of our countrymen leave me no fear as to ultimate results. In this confidence I resign myself to the care of those whom in their younger days I assisted in taking care of, and salute you with assurances of esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR ROBERT PATTERSON.

Monticello, December 27, 1812.

Dear Sir,—After an absence of five weeks at a distant possession of mine, to which I pay such visits three or four times a year, I find here your favor of November 30th. I am very thankful to you for the description of Redhefer's machine. I had never before been able to form an idea of what his principle of deception was. He is the first of the inventors of perpetual motion within my knowledge, who has had the cunning to put his visitors on a false pursuit, by amusing them with a sham machinery whose loose and vibratory motion might impose on them the belief that it is the real source of the motion they see. To [84]this device he is indebted for a more extensive delusion than I have before witnessed on this point. We are full of it as far as this State, and I know not how much farther. In Richmond they have done me the honor to quote me as having said that it was a possible thing. A poor Frenchman who called on me the other day, with another invention of perpetual motion, assured me that Dr. Franklin, many years ago, expressed his opinion to him that it was not impossible. Without entering into contest on this abuse of the Doctor's name, I gave him the answer I had given to others before, that the Almighty himself could not construct a machine of perpetual motion while the laws exist which he has prescribed for the government of matter in our system; that the equilibrium established by him between cause and effect must be suspended to effect that purpose. But Redhefer seems to be reaping a rich harvest from the public deception. The office of science is to instruct the ignorant. Would it be unworthy of some one of its votaries who witness this deception, to give a popular demonstration of the insufficiency of the ostensible machinery, and of course of the necessary existence of some hidden mover? And who could do it with more effect on the public mind than yourself?

I received, at the same time, the Abbé Rochon's pamphlets and book on his application of the double refraction of the Iceland Spath to the measure of small angles. I was intimate with him in France, and had received there, in many conversations, explanations of what is contained in these sheets. I possess, too, one of his lunettes which he had given to Dr. Franklin, and which came to me through Mr. Hopkinson. You are therefore probably acquainted with it. The graduated bar on each side is 12 inches long. The one extending to 37´ of angle, the other to 3,438 diameter in distance of the object viewed. On so large a scale of graduation, a nonias might distinctly enough sub-divide the divisions of 10´´ to 10´´ each; which is certainly a great degree of precision. But not possessing the common micrometer of two semi-lenses, I am not able to judge of their comparative merit. * * * * * [85]

TO MR. ADAMS.

Monticello, December 28, 1812.

Dear Sir,—An absence of five or six weeks, on a journey I take three or four times a year, must apologize for my late acknowledgment of your favor of October 12th. After getting through the mass of business which generally accumulates during my absence, my first attention has been bestowed on the subject of your letter. I turned to the passages you refer to in Hutchinson and Winthrop, and with the aid of their dates, I examined our historians to see if Wollaston's migration to this State was noticed by them. It happens, unluckily, that Smith and Stith, who alone of them go into minute facts, bring their histories, the former only to 1623, and the latter to 1624. Wollaston's arrival in Massachusetts was in 1625, and his removal to this State was "some time" after. Beverly & Keith, who came lower down, are nearly superficial, giving nothing but those general facts which every one knew as well as themselves. If our public records of that date were not among those destroyed by the British on their invasion of this State, they may possibly have noticed Wollaston. What I possessed in this way have been given out to two gentlemen, the one engaged in writing our history, the other in collecting our ancient laws; so that none of these resources are at present accessible to me. Recollecting that Nathaniel Morton, in his New England memorial, gives with minuteness the early annals of the colony of New Plymouth, and occasionally interweaves the occurrences of that on Massachusetts Bay, I recurred to him, and under the year 1628, I find he notices both Wollaston and Thomas Morton, and gives with respect to both, some details which are not in Hutchinson or Winthrop. As you do not refer to him, and so possibly may not have his book, I will transcribe from it the entire passage, which will prove at least my desire to gratify your curiosity as far as the materials within my power will enable me.

Extract from Nathaniel Morton's New England's Memorial, pp. 93 to 99, Anno 1628. "Whereas, about three years before this [86]time, there came over one Captain Wollaston,[2] a man of considerable parts, and with him three or four more of some eminency, who brought with them a great many servants, with provisions and other requisites for to begin a plantation, and pitched themselves in a place within the Massachusetts Bay, which they called afterwards by their captain's name, Mount Wollaston; which place is since called by the name of Braintry. And amongst others that came with him, there was one Mr. Thomas Morton, who, it should seem, had some small adventure of his own of other men's amongst them, but had little respect, and was slighted by the meanest servants they kept. They having continued some time in New England, and not finding things to answer their expectation, nor profit to arise as they looked for, the said Captain Wollaston takes a great part of the servants and transports them to Virginia, and disposed of them there, and writes back to one Mr. Rasdale, one of his chief partners, (and accounted then merchant,) to bring another part of them to Virginia, likewise intending to put them off there as he had done the rest; and he, with the consent of the said Rasdale, appointed one whose name was Filcher, to be his Lieutenant, and to govern the remainder of the plantation until he or Rasdale should take further order thereabout. But the aforesaid Morton, (having more craft than honesty,) having been a petty-fogger at Furnival's-inn, he, in the other's absence, watches an opportunity, (commons being put hard among them,) and got some strong drink and other junkets, and made them a feast, and after they were merry, he began to tell them he would give them good counsel. You see, (saith he,) that many of your fellows are carried to Virginia, and if you stay still until Rasdale's return, you will also be carried away and sold for slaves with the rest; therefore I would advise you to thrust out Lieutenant Filcher, and I having a part in the plantation, will receive you as my partners and consociates, so you may be free from service, and we will converse, plant, trade and live together [87]as equals (or to the like effect). This counsel was easily followed; so they took opportunity, and thrust Lieutenant Filcher out of doors, and would not suffer him to come any more amongst them, but forced him to seek bread to eat and other necessaries amongst his neighbors, till he would get passage for England. (See the sad effect of want of good government.)

"After this they fell to great licentiousness of life, in all prophaneness, and the said Morton became lord of misrule, and maintained (as it were) a school of Atheism, and after they had got some goods into their hands, and got much by trading with the Indians, they spent it as vainly, in quaffing and drinking both wine and strong liquors in great excess, (as some have reported,) ten pounds worth in a morning, setting up a May pole, drinking and dancing about like so many fairies, or furies rather, yea and worse practices, as if they had anew revived and celebrated the feast of the Roman goddess Flora, or the beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians. The said Morton likewise to show his poetry, composed sundry rythmes and verses, some tending to licentiousness, and others to the detraction and scandal of some persons names, which he affixed to his idle or idol May-pole; they changed also the name of their place, and instead of calling it Mount Wollaston, they called it the Merry Mount, as if this jollity would have lasted always. But this continued not long, for shortly after that worthy gentleman Mr. John Endicot, who brought over a patent under the broad seal of England for the government of the Massachusetts, visiting those parts, caused that May-pole to be cut down, and rebuked them for their prophaneness, and admonished them to look to it that they walked better; so the name was again changed and called Mount Dagon.

"Now to maintain this riotous prodigality and profuse expense, the said Morton thinking himself lawless, and hearing what gain the fishermen made of trading of pieces, powder, and shot, he as head of this consortship, began the practice of the same in these parts; and first he taught the Indians how to use them, to charge and discharge 'em, and what proportion of powder to give the piece; according to the size of bigness of the [88]same, and what shot to use for fowl, and what for deer; and having instructed them, he employed some of them to hunt and fowl for him; so as they became somewhat more active in that imployment than any of the English, by reason of their swiftness of foot, and nimbleness of body, being also quick-sighted, and by continual exercise, well knowing the haunt of all sorts of game; so as when they saw the execution that a piece would do, and the benefit that might come by the same, they became very eager after them, and would not stick to give any price they could attain to for them; accounting their bows and arrows but baubles in comparison of them.

"And here we may take occasion to bewail the mischief which came by this wicked man, and others like unto him; in that notwithstanding laws for the restraint of selling ammunition to the natives, that so far base covetousness prevailed, and doth still prevail, as that the Salvages became amply furnished with guns, powder, shot, rapiers, pistols, and also well skilled in repairing of defective arms: yea some have not spared to tell them how gunpowder is made, and all the materials in it, and they are to be had in their own land; and would (no doubt, in case they could attain to the making of Saltpeter) teach them to make powder, and what mischief may fall out unto the English in these parts thereby, let this pestilent fellow Morton (aforenamed) bear a great part of the blame and guilt of it to future generations. But lest I should hold the reader too long in relation to the particulars of his vile actings; when as the English that then lived up and down about the Massachusetts, and in other places, perceiving the sad consequences of his trading, so as the Indians became furnished with the English arms and ammunition, and expert in the improving of them, and fearing that they should at one time or another get a blow thereby; and also taking notice, that if he were let alone in his way, they should keep no servants for him, because he would entertain any, how vile soever, sundry of the chief of the straggling plantations met together, and agreed by mutual consent to send to Plimouth, who were then of more strength to join with them, to suppress this mischief [89]who considering the particulars proposed to them to join together to take some speedy course to prevent (if it might be) the evil that was accruing towards them; and resolved first to admonish him of his wickedness respecting the premises, laying before him the injury he did to their common safety, and that his acting considering the same was against the King's proclamation; but he insolently persisted on in his way, and said the King was dead, and his displeasure with him, and threatened them that if they come to molest him, they should look to themselves; so that they saw that there was no way but to take him by force; so they resolved to proceed in such a way, and obtained of the Governor of Plimouth to send Capt. Standish and some other aid with him, to take the said Morton by force, the which accordingly was done; but they found him to stand stiffly on his defence, having made fast his doors, armed his consorts, set powder and shot ready upon the table; scoffed and scorned at them, he and his complices being fitted with strong drink, were desperate in their way; but he himself coming out of doors to make a shot at Capt. Standish, he stepping to him put by his piece and took him, and so little hurt was done; and so he was brought prisoner to Plimouth, and continued in durance till an opportunity of sending him for England, which was done at their common charge, and letters also with him, to the honorable council for New England, and returned again into the country in some short time, with less punishment than his demerits deserved (as was apprehended). The year following he was again apprehended, and sent for England, where he lay a considerable time in Exeter gaol; for besides his miscarriage here in New England, he was suspected to have murthered a man that had ventured monies with him when he came first into New England; and a warrant was sent over from the Lord Chief Justice to apprehend him, by virtue whereof, he was by the Governor of Massachusetts sent into England, and for other of his misdemeanors amongst them in that government, they demolished his house, that it might no longer be a roost for such unclean birds. Notwithstanding he got free in England again, and [90]wrote an infamous and scurrilous book against many godly and chief men of the country, full of lies and slanders, and full fraught with prophane calumnies against their names and persons, and the way of God. But to the intent I may not trouble the reader any more with mentioning of him in this history; in fine, sundry years after he came again into the country, and was imprisoned at Boston for the aforesaid book and other things, but denied sundry things therein, affirming his book was adulterated. And soon after being grown old in wickedness, at last ended his life at Piscataqua. But I fear I have held the reader too long about so unworthy a person, but hope it may be useful to take notice how wickedness was beginning, and would have further proceeded, had it not been prevented timely."

So far Nathaniel Morton. The copy you have of Thomas Morton's New English Canaan, printed in 1637 by Stam of Amsterdam, was a second edition of that "infamous and scurrilous book against the godly." The first had been printed in 1632, by Charles Green, in a 4to of 188 pages, and is the one alluded to by N. Morton. Both of them made a part of the American library given by White Kennett in 1713 to the Society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts. This society being a chartered one, still, as I believe, existing, and probably their library also, I suppose that these and the other books of that immense collection, the catalogue of which occupies 275 pages 4to, are still to be found with them. If any research I can hereafter make should ever bring to my knowledge anything more of Wollaston, I shall not fail to communicate it to you. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO HENRY MIDDLETON, ESQ.

Monticello, January 8, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of November 25th was a month on its passage to me. I received with great pleasure this mark of your recollection, heightened by the assurance that the part I have acted in public life has met your approbation. Having [91]seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as to private prosperity and happiness. And, certainly, there never before has been a state of the world in which such forbearances as we have exercised would not have preserved our peace. Nothing but the total prostration of all moral principle could have produced the enormities which have forced us at length into the war. On one hand, a ruthless tyrant, drenching Europe in blood to obtain through future time the character of the destroyer of mankind; on the other, a nation of buccanniers, urged by sordid avarice, and embarked in the flagitious enterprise of seizing to itself the maritime resources and rights of all other nations, have left no means of peace to reason and moderation. And yet there are beings among us who think we ought still to have acquiesced. As if while full war was waging on one side, we could lose by making some reprisal on the other. The paper you were so kind as to enclose me is a proof you are not of this sentiment; it expresses our grievances with energy and brevity, as well as the feelings they ought to excite. And I see with pleasure another proof that South Carolina is ever true to the principles of free government. Indeed it seems to me that in proportion as commercial avarice and corruption advance on us from the north and east, the principles of free government are to retire to the agricultural states of the south and west, as their last asylum and bulwark. With honesty and self-government for her portion, agriculture may abandon contentedly to others the fruits of commerce and corruption. Accept, I pray you, the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO MR. RONALDSON.

Monticello, Jan. 12, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of November 2d arrived a little before I sat out on a journey on which I was absent between five [92]and six weeks. I have still therefore to return you my thanks for the seeds accompanying it, which shall be duly taken care of, and a communication made to others of such as shall prove valuable. I have been long endeavoring to procure the Cork tree from Europe, but without success. A plant which I brought with me from Paris died after languishing some time, and of several parcels of acorns received from a correspondent at Marseilles, not one has ever vegetated. I shall continue my endeavors, although disheartened by the nonchalance of our southern fellow citizens, with whom alone they can thrive. It is now twenty-five years since I sent them two shipments (about 500 plants) of the Olive tree of Aix, the finest Olives in the world. If any of them still exist, it is merely as a curiosity in their gardens, not a single orchard of them has been planted. I sent them also the celebrated species of Sainfoin,[3] from Malta, which yields good crops without a drop of rain through the season. It was lost. The upland rice which I procured fresh from Africa and sent them, has been preserved and spread in the upper parts of Georgia, and I believe in Kentucky. But we must acknowledge their services in furnishing us an abundance of cotton, a substitute for silk, flax and hemp. The ease with which it is spun will occasion it to supplant the two last, and its cleanliness the first. Household manufacture is taking deep root with us. I have a carding machine, two spinning machines, and looms with the flying shuttle in full operation for clothing my own family; and I verily believe that by the next winter this State will not need a yard of imported coarse or middling clothing. I think we have already a sheep for every inhabitant, which will suffice for clothing, and one-third more, which a single year will add, will furnish blanketing. With respect to marine hospitals, which are one of the subjects of your letter, I presume you know that such establishments have been made by the general government in the several States, that a portion of seaman's wages is drawn for their support, and the government furnishes what is deficient. Mr. Gallatin is attentive to them, and they [93]will grow with our growth. You doubt whether we ought to permit the exportation of grain to our enemies; but Great Britain, with her own agricultural support, and those she can command by her access into every sea, cannot be starved by withholding our supplies. And if she is to be fed at all events, why may we not have the benefit of it as well as others? I would not, indeed, feed her armies landed on our territory, because the difficulty of inland subsistence is what will prevent their ever penetrating far into the country, and will confine them to the sea coast. But this would be my only exception. And as to feeding her armies in the peninsula, she is fighting our battles there, as Bonaparte is on the Baltic. He is shutting out her manufactures from that sea, and so far assisting us in her reduction to extremity. But if she does not keep him out of the peninsular, if he gets full command of that, instead of the greatest and surest of all our markets, as that has uniformly been, we shall be excluded from it, or so much shackled by his tyranny and ignorant caprices, that it will become for us what France now is. Besides, if we could, by starving the English armies, oblige them to withdraw from the peninsular, it would be to send them here; and I think we had better feed them there for pay, than feed and fight them here for nothing. A truth, too, not to be lost sight of is, that no country can pay war taxes if you suppress all their resources. To keep the war popular, we must keep open the markets. As long as good prices can be had, the people will support the war cheerfully. If you should have an opportunity of conveying to Mr. Heriot my thanks for his book, you will oblige me by doing it. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO MR. MELISH.

Monticello, January 13, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I received duly your favor of December the 15th, and with it the copies of your map and travels, for which be pleased to accept my thanks. The book I have read with extreme [94]satisfaction and information. As to the western States, particularly, it has greatly edified me; for of the actual condition of that interesting portion of our country, I had not an adequate idea. I feel myself now as familiar with it as with the condition of the maritime States. I had no conception that manufactures had made such progress there, and particularly of the number of carding and spinning machines dispersed through the whole country. We are but beginning here to have them in our private families. Small spinning jennies of from half a dozen to twenty spindles, will soon, however, make their way into the humblest cottages, as well as the richest houses; and nothing is more certain, than that the coarse and middling clothing for our families, will forever hereafter continue to be made within ourselves. I have hitherto myself depended entirely on foreign manufactures; but I have now thirty-five spindles agoing, a hand carding machine, and looms with the flying shuttle, for the supply of my own farms, which will never be relinquished in my time. The continuance of the war will fix the habit generally, and out of the evils of impressment and of the orders of council, a great blessing for us will grow. I have not formerly been an advocate for great manufactories. I doubted whether our labor, employed in agriculture, and aided by the spontaneous energies of the earth, would not procure us more than we could make ourselves of other necessaries. But other considerations entering into the question, have settled my doubts.

The candor with which you have viewed the manners and condition of our citizens, is so unlike the narrow prejudices of the French and English travellers preceding you, who, considering each the manners and habits of their own people as the only orthodox, have viewed everything differing from that test as boorish and barbarous, that your work will be read here extensively, and operate great good.

Amidst this mass of approbation which is given to every other part of the work, there is a single sentiment which I cannot help wishing to bring to what I think the correct one; and, on a point so interesting, I value your opinion too highly not to ambition [95]its concurrence with my own. Stating in volume one, page sixty-three, the principle of difference between the two great political parties here, you conclude it to be, 'whether the controlling power shall be vested in this or that set of men.' That each party endeavors to get into the administration of the government, and exclude the other from power, is true, and may be stated as a motive of action: but this is only secondary; the primary motive being a real and radical difference of political principle. I sincerely wish our differences were but personally who should govern, and that the principles of our constitution were those of both parties. Unfortunately, it is otherwise; and the question of preference between monarchy and republicanism, which has so long divided mankind elsewhere, threatens a permanent division here.

Among that section of our citizens called federalists, there are three shades of opinion. Distinguishing between the leaders and people who compose it, the leaders consider the English constitution as a model of perfection, some, with a correction of its vices, others, with all its corruptions and abuses. This last was Alexander Hamilton's opinion, which others, as well as myself, have often heard him declare, and that a correction of what are called its vices, would render the English an impracticable government. This government they wished to have established here, and only accepted and held fast, at first, to the present constitution, as a stepping-stone to the final establishment of their favorite model. This party has therefore always clung to England as their prototype, and great auxiliary in promoting and effecting this change. A weighty minority, however, of these leaders, considering the voluntary conversion of our government into a monarchy as too distant, if not desperate, wish to break off from our Union its eastern fragment, as being, in truth, the hot-bed of American monarchism, with a view to a commencement of their favorite government, from whence the other States may gangrene by degrees, and the whole be thus brought finally to the desired point. For Massachusetts, the prime mover in this enterprise, is the last State in the Union to mean a final separation, [96]as being of all the most dependent on the others. Not raising bread for the sustenance of her own inhabitants, not having a stick of timber for the construction of vessels, her principal occupation, nor an article to export in them, where would she be, excluded from the ports of the other States, and thrown into dependence on England, her direct, and natural, but now insidious rival? At the head of this MINORITY is what is called the Essex Junto of Massachusetts. But the MAJORITY of these leaders do not aim at separation. In this, they adhere to the known principle of General Hamilton, never, under any views, to break the Union. Anglomany, monarchy, and separation, then, are the principles of the Essex federalists. Anglomany and monarchy, those of the Hamiltonians, and Anglomany alone, that of the portion among the people who call themselves federalists. These last are as good republicans as the brethren whom they oppose, and differ from them only in their devotion to England and hatred of France which they have imbibed from their leaders. The moment that these leaders should avowedly propose a separation of the Union, or the establishment of regal government, their popular adherents would quit them to a man, and join the republican standard; and the partisans of this change, even in Massachusetts, would thus find themselves an army of officers without a soldier.

The party called republican is steadily for the support of the present constitution. They obtained at its commencement, all the amendments to it they desired. These reconciled them to it perfectly, and if they have any ulterior view, it is only, perhaps, to popularize it further, by shortening the Senatorial term, and devising a process for the responsibility of judges, more practicable than that of impeachment. They esteem the people of England and France equally, and equally detest the governing powers of both.

This I verily believe, after an intimacy of forty years with the public councils and characters, is a true statement of the grounds on which they are at present divided, and that it is not merely an ambition for power. An honest man can feel no pleasure in [97]the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. And considering as the only offices of power those conferred by the people directly, that is to say, the executive and legislative functions of the General and State governments, the common refusal of these, and multiplied resignations, are proofs sufficient that power is not alluring to pure minds, and is not, with them, the primary principle of contest. This is my belief of it; it is that on which I have acted; and had it been a mere contest who should be permitted to administer the government according to its genuine republican principles, there has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

You expected to discover the difference of our party principles in General Washington's valedictory, and my inaugural address. Not at all. General Washington did not harbor one principle of federalism. He was neither an Angloman, a monarchist, nor a separatist. He sincerely wished the people to have as much self-government as they were competent to exercise themselves. The only point on which he and I ever differed in opinion, was, that I had more confidence than he had in the natural integrity and discretion of the people, and in the safety and extent to which they might trust themselves with a control over their government. He has asseverated to me a thousand times his determination that the existing government should have a fair trial, and that in support of it he would spend the last drop of his blood. He did this the more repeatedly, because he knew General Hamilton's political bias, and my apprehensions from it. It is a mere calumny, therefore, in the monarchists, to associate General Washington with their principles. But that may have happened in this case which has been often seen in ordinary cases, that, by oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves. It is a mere artifice in this party to bolster themselves up on the revered name of that first of our worthies. If I have dwelt longer on this subject than was necessary, it proves the estimation in which I hold your ultimate opinions, and my desire of placing the subject truly before them. In so doing, I am certain I risk [98]no use of the communication which may draw me into contention before the public. Tranquillity is the summum bonum of a Septagenaire.

To return to the merits of your work: I consider it as so lively a picture of the real state of our country, that if I can possibly obtain opportunities of conveyance, I propose to send a copy to a friend in France, and another to one in Italy, who, I know, will translate and circulate it as an antidote to the misrepresentations of former travellers. But whatever effect my profession of political faith may have on your general opinion, a part of my object will be obtained, if it satisfies you as to the principles of my own action, and of the high respect and consideration with which I tender you my salutations.

TO COLONEL DUANE.

Monticello, January 22, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I do not know how the publication of the Review turned out in point of profit, whether gainfully or not. I know it ought to have been a book of great sale. I gave a copy to a student of William and Mary college, and recommended it to Bishop Madison, then President of the college, who was so pleased with it that he established it as a school-book, and as the young gentleman informed me, every copy which could be had was immediately bought up, and there was a considerable demand for more. You probably know best whether new calls for it have been made. Pr. Madison was a good whig. * * * * * Your experiment on that work will enable you to decide whether you ought to undertake another, not of greater but of equal merit. I have received from France a MS. work on Political Economy, written by De Tutt Tracy, the most conspicuous writer of the present day in the metaphysical line. He has written a work entitled Ideology, which has given him a high reputation in France. He considers that as having laid a solid foundation for the present volume on Political Economy, and will follow it by one on [99]Moral Duties. The present volume is a work of great ability. It may be considered as a review of the principles of the Economists, of Smith and of Say, or rather an elementary book on the same subject. As Smith had corrected some principles of the Economists, and Say some of Smiths, so Tracy has done as to the whole. He has, in my opinion, corrected fundamental errors in all of them, and by simplifying principles, has brought the subject within a narrow compass. I think the volume would be of about the size of the Review of Montesquieu. Although he puts his name to the work, he is afraid to publish it in France, lest its freedom should bring him into trouble. If translated and published here, he could disavow it, if necessary. In order to enable you to form a better judgment of the work, I will subjoin a list of the chapters or heads, and if you think proper to undertake the translation and publication, I will send the work itself. You will certainly find it one of the very first order. It begins with * * * * *

Our war on the land has commenced most inauspiciously. I fear we are to expect reverses until we can find out who are qualified for command, and until these can learn their profession. The proof of a general, to know whether he will stand fire, costs a more serious price than that of a cannon; these proofs have already cost us thousands of good men, and deplorable degradation of reputation, and as yet have elicited but a few negative and a few positive characters. But we must persevere till we recover the rank we are entitled to.

Accept the assurances of my continued esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR MORRELL.

Monticello, February 5, 1813.

Sir,—The book which you were so kind as to take charge of at Paris for me, is safely received, and I thank you for your care of it, and more particularly for the indulgent sentiments you are so kind as to express towards myself. I am happy at all times to [100]hear of the welfare of my literary friends in that country; they have had a hard time of it since I left them. I know nothing which can so severely try the heart and spirit of man, and especially of the man of science, as the necessity of a passive acquiescence under the abominations of an unprincipled tyrant who is deluging the earth with blood to acquire for himself the reputation of a Cartouche or a Robin Hood. The petty larcenies of the Blackbeards and Buccaneers of the ocean, the more immediately exercised on us, are dirty and grovelling things addressed to our contempt, while the horrors excited by the Scelerat of France are beyond all human execrations. With my thanks for your kind attentions, be pleased to accept the assurance of my respect.

TO GENERAL BAILEY.

Monticello, February 6, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of January 25th is received, and I have to renew my thanks to you for the map accompanying it. These proofs of friendly remembrance give additional interest to the subjects which convey them. The scenes, too, which compose the map, are become highly interesting. Our first entrance on them has been peculiarly inauspicious. Our men are good, but force without conduct is easily baffled. The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses. But our turn of success will come by-and-bye, and we must submit to the previous misfortunes which are to be the price of it. I think with you on the subject of privateers. Our ships of force will undoubtedly be blockaded by the enemy, and we shall have no means of annoying them at sea but by small, swift-sailing vessels; these will be better managed and more multiplied in the hands of individuals than of the government. In short, they are our true and only weapon in a war against Great Britain, when once Canada and Nova Scotia shall have been rescued [101]from them. The opposition to them in Congress is merely partial. It is a part of the navy fever, and proceeds from the desire of securing men for the public ships by suppressing all other employments from them. But I do not apprehend that this ill-judged principle is that of a majority of Congress. I hope, on the contrary, they will spare no encouragement to that kind of enterprise. Our public ships, to be sure, have done wonders. They have saved our military reputation sacrificed on the shores of Canada; but in point of real injury and depredation on the enemy, our privateers without question have been most effectual. Both species of force have their peculiar value. I salute you with assurances of friendship and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Monticello, February 8, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 27th ult. has been duly received. You have had a long holiday from my intrusions. In truth I have had nothing to write about, and your time should not be consumed by letters about nothing. The enclosed paper however makes it a duty to give you the trouble of reading it. You know the handwriting and the faith due to it. Our intimacy with the writer leaves no doubt about his facts, and in his letter to me he pledges himself for their fidelity. He says the narrative was written at the request of a young friend in Virginia, and a copy made for my perusal, on the presumption it would be interesting to me. Whether the word "Confidential" at the head of the paper was meant only for his young friend or for myself also, nothing in his letter indicates. I must, therefore, govern myself by considerations of discretion and of duty combined. Discretion dictates that I ought not so to use the paper as to compromit my friend; an effect which would be as fatal to my peace as it might be to his person. But duty tells me that the public interest is so deeply concerned in your perfect [102]knowledge of the characters employed in its high stations, that nothing should be withheld which can give you useful information. On these grounds I commit it to yourself and the Secretary at War, to whose functions it relates more immediately. It may have effect on your future designation of those to whom particular enterprises are to be committed, and this is the object of the communication. If you should think it necessary that the minds of the other members of the Cabinet should be equally apprized of its contents, although not immediately respecting their departments, the same considerations, and an entire confidence in them personally, would dictate its communication to them also. But beyond this no sense of duty calls on me for its disclosure, and fidelity to my friend strongly forbids it. The paper presents such a picture of indecision in purpose, inattention to preparation, and imprudence of demeanor, as to fix a total incompetence for military direction. How greatly we were deceived in this character, as is generally the case in appointments not on our own knowledge. I remember when we appointed him we rejoiced in the acquisition of an officer of so much understanding and integrity, as we imputed to him; and placed him as near the head of the army as the commands then at our disposal admitted. Perhaps, still, you may possess information giving a different aspect to this case, of which I sincerely wish it may be susceptible. I will ask the return of the paper when no longer useful to you.

The accession to your Cabinet meets general approbation. This is chiefly at present given to the character most known, but will be equally so to the other when better known. I think you could not have made better appointments.

The autumn and winter have been most unfriendly to the wheat in red lands, by continued cold and alternate frosts and thaws. The late snow of about ten inches now disappearing, have received it. That grain is got to $2 at Richmond. This is the true barometer of the popularity of the war. Ever affectionately yours. [103]

TO GENERAL ARMSTRONG.

Monticello, February 8, 1813.

Dear General,—I have long ago in my heart congratulated our country on your call to the place you now occupy. But with yourself personally it is no subject of congratulation. The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind. The duties of office are a Corvée which must be undertaken on far other considerations than those of personal happiness. But whether this be a subject of congratulation or of condolence, it furnishes the occasion of recalling myself to your recollection, and of renewing the assurances of my friendship and respect. Whatever you do in office, I know will be honestly and ably done, and although we who do not see the whole ground may sometimes impute error, it will be because we, not you, are in the wrong; or because your views are defeated by the wickedness or incompetence of those you are obliged to trust with their execution. An instance of this is the immediate cause of the present letter. I have enclosed a paper to the President, with a request to communicate it to you, and if he thinks it should be known to your associates of the Cabinet, although not immediately respecting their departments, he will communicate it to them also. That it should go no further is rendered an obligation on me by considerations personal to a young friend whom I love and value, and by the confidence which has induced him to commit himself to me. I hope, therefore, it will never be known that such a narrative has been written, and much less by whom written, and to whom addressed. It is unfortunate that heaven has not set its stamp on the forehead of those whom it has qualified for military achievement. That it has left us to draw for them in a lottery of so many blanks to a prize, and where the blank is to be manifested only by the public misfortunes. If nature had planted the fœnum in cornu on the front of treachery, of cowardice, of imbecility, the unfortunate debut we have made on the theatre of war would not have sunk our [104]spirits at home, and our character abroad. I hope you will be ready to act on the first breaking of the ice, as otherwise we may despair of wresting Canada from our enemies. Their starving manufactories can furnish men for its defence much faster than we can enlist them for its assault.

Accept my prayers for success in all your undertakings, and the assurance of my affectionate esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR RUSH.

Monticello, March 6, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I received some time ago a letter signed "James Carver," proposing that myself, and my friends in this quarter, should subscribe and forward a sum of money towards the expenses of his voyage to London, and maintenance there while going through a course of education in their Veterinary school, with a view to his returning to America, and practising the art in Philadelphia. The name, person and character of the writer, were equally unknown to me, and unauthenticated, but as self-declared in the letter. I supposed him an Englishman, from the style in which he spoke of "His Majesty," and because an American, without offence to the laws, could not now be going, nor be sent by private individuals to England. The scheme did not appear to me either the shortest or surest way of going to work to accomplish the object. Because, if the Veterinary institution there be of the celebrity he described, it must already have produced subjects prepared for entering into practice, and disposed to come to a good position, claiming nothing till they should enter into function, or not more than their passage. I did not receive the letter until the day had elapsed on which the vessel was to depart wherein he had taken his passage; and his desire that the answer should go through you, is my only authority for troubling you with this, addressed to you, whom I know, love, and revere, and not to him, who, for any evidence I have but from himself, may be a zealous son of science, or an adventurer [105]wanting money to carry him to London. I know nothing of the Veterinary institution of London, yet have no doubt it merits the high character he ascribes to it. It is a nation which possesses many learned men. I know well the Veterinary school of Paris, of long standing, and saw many of its publications during my residence there. They were classically written, announced a want of nothing but certainty as to their facts, which granted, the hypotheses were learned and plausible. The coach-horses of the rich of Paris were availed of the institution; but the farmers even of the neighborhood could not afford to call a Veterinary Doctor to their plough-horses in the country, or to send them to a livery stable to be attended in the city. On the whole, I was not a convert to the utility of the Institution. You know I am so to that of medicine, even in human complaints, but in a limited degree. That there are certain diseases of the human body, so distinctly pronounced by well-articulated symptoms, and recurring so often, as not to be mistaken, wherein experience has proved that certain substances applied, will restore order, I cannot doubt. Such are Kinkina in Intermittents, Mercury in Syphilis, Castor Oil in Dysentery, &c. And so far I go with the physicians. But there are also a great mass of indistinct diseases, presenting themselves under no form clearly characterized, nor exactly recognized as having occurred before, and to which of course the application of no particular substance can be known to have been made, nor its effect on the case experienced. These may be called unknown cases, and they may in time be lessened by the progress of observation and experiment. Observing that there are in the construction of the animal system some means provided unknown to us, which have a tendency to restore order, when disturbed by accident, called by physicians the vis medicatrix naturæ, I think it safer to trust to this power in the unknown cases, than to uncertain conjectures built on the ever-changing hypothetical systems of medicine. Now, in the Veterinary department all are unknown cases. Man can tell his physician the seat of his pain, its nature, history, and sometimes its cause, and can follow his directions for the curative process—but [106]the poor dumb horse cannot signify where his pain is, what it is, or when or whence it came, and resists all process for its cure. If in the case of man, then, the benefit of medical interference in such cases admits of question, what must it be in that of the horse? And to what narrow limits is the real importance of the Veterinary art reduced? When a boy, I knew a Doctor Seymour, neighbor to our famous botanist Clayton, who imagined he could cure the diseases of his tobacco plants; he bled some, administered lotions to others, sprinkled powders on a third class, and so on—they only withered and perished the faster. I am sensible of the presumption of hazarding an opinion to you on a subject whereon you are so much better qualified for decision, both by reading and experience. But our opinions are not voluntary. Every man's own reason must be his oracle. And I only express mine to explain why I did not comply with Mr. Carver's request; and to give you a further proof that there are no bounds to my confidence in your indulgence in matters of opinion.

Mr. Adams and myself are in habitual correspondence. I owe him a letter at this time, and shall pay the debt as soon as I have something to write about: for with the commonplace topic of politics we do not meddle. Where there are so many others on which we agree, why should we introduce the only one on which we differ. Besides the pleasure which our naval successes have given to every honest patriot, his must be peculiar, because a navy has always been his hobby-horse. A little further time will show whether his ideas have been premature, and whether the little we can oppose on that element to the omnipotence of our enemy there, would lessen the losses of the war, or contribute to shorten its duration, the legitimate object of every measure. On the land, indeed, we have been most unfortunate; so wretched a succession of generals never before destroyed the fairest expectations of a nation, counting on the bravery of its citizens, which has proved itself on all these trials. Our first object must now be the vindication of our character in the field; after that, peace with the liberum mare, personal inviolability [107]there, and ouster from this continent of the incendiaries of savages. God send us these good things, and to you health and life here, till you wish to awake to it in another state of being.

TO M. DE LOMERIE.

Monticello, April 3, 1813.

Sir,—Your letter of the 26th has been received, as had been that of the 5th. The preceding ones had been complied with by applications verbal and written to the members of the government, to which I could expect no specific answers, their whole time being due to the public, and employed on their concerns. Had it been my good fortune to preserve at the age of seventy, all the activity of body and mind which I enjoyed in earlier life, I should have employed it now, as then, in incessant labors to serve those to whom I could be useful. But the torpor of age is weighing heavily on me. The writing table is become my aversion, and its drudgeries beyond my remaining powers. I have retired, then, of necessity, from all correspondence not indispensably called for by some special duty, and I hope that this necessity will excuse me with you from further interference in obtaining your passage to France, which requires solicitations and exertions beyond what I am able to encounter. I request this the more freely, because I am sure of finding, in your candor and consideration, an acquiescence in the reasonableness of my desire to indulge the feeble remains of life in that state of ease and tranquillity which my condition, physical and moral, require. Accept, then, with my adieux, my best wishes for a safe and happy return to your native country, and the assurances of my respect.

TO MR. THOMAS PAINE M'MATRON.

Monticello, April 3, 1813.

Sir,—Your favor of March 24th is received, and nothing could have been so pleasing to me as to have been able to comply wit [108]the request therein made, feeling especial motives to become useful to any person connected with Mr. M'Matron. But I shall state to you the circumstances which control my will, and rest on your candor their just estimate. When I retired from the government four years ago, it was extremely my wish to withdraw myself from all concern with public affairs, and to enjoy with my fellow citizens the protection of government, under the auspices and direction of those to whom it was so worthily committed. Solicitations from my friends, however, to aid them in their applications for office, drew from me an unwary compliance, till at length these became so numerous as to occupy a great portion of my time in writing letters to the President and heads of departments, and although these were attended to by them with great indulgence, yet I was sensible they could not fail of being very embarrassing. They kept me, at the same time, standing forever in the attitude of a suppliant before them, daily asking favors as humiliating and afflicting to my own mind, as they were unreasonable from their multitude. I was long sensible of the necessity of putting an end to these unceasing importunities, when a change in the heads of the two departments to which they were chiefly addressed, presented me an opportunity. I came to a resolution, therefore, on that change, never to make another application. I have adhered to it strictly, and find that on its rigid observance, my own happiness and the friendship of the government too much depend, for me to swerve from it in future. On consideration of these circumstances, I hope you will be sensible how much they import, both to the government and myself; and that you do me the justice to be assured of the reluctance with which I decline an opportunity of being useful to one so nearly connected with Mr. M'Matron, and that with the assurance of my regrets, you will accept that of my best wishes for your success, and of my great respect. [109]

TO COLONEL DUANE.

Monticello, April 4, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of February 14th has been duly received, and the MS. of the commentary on Montesquieu is also safe at hand. I now forward to you the work of Tracy, which you will find a valuable supplement and corrective to those we already possess on political economy. It is a little unlucky that its outset is of a metaphysical character, which may damp the ardor of perusal in some readers. He has been led to this by a desire to embody this work, as well as a future one he is preparing on morals, with his former treatise on Ideology. By-the-bye, it is merely to this work that Bonaparte alludes in his answer to his Council of State, published not long since, in which he scouts "the dark and metaphysical doctrine of Ideology, which, diving into first causes, founds on this basis a legislation of the people, &c." If, indeed, this answer be not a forgery, for everything is now forged, even to the fat of our beef and mutton: yet the speech is not unlike him, and affords scope for an excellent parody. I wish you may succeed in getting the commentary on Montesquieu reviewed by the Edinburgh Reviewers. I should expect from them an able and favorable analysis of it. I sent a copy of it to a friend in England, in the hope he would communicate it to them; not, however, expressing that hope, lest the source of it should have been made known. But the book will make its way, and will become a standard work. A copy which I sent to France was under translation by one of the ablest men of that country.

It is true that I am tired of practical politics, and happier while reading the history of ancient than of modern times. The total banishment of all moral principle from the code which governs the intercourse of nations, the melancholy reflection that after the mean, wicked and cowardly cunning of the cabinets of the age of Machiavel had given place to the integrity and good faith which dignified the succeeding one of a Chatham and Turgot, that this is to be swept away again by the daring profligacy and [110]avowed destitution of all moral principle of a Cartouche and a Blackbeard, sickens my soul unto death. I turn from the contemplation with loathing, and take refuge in the histories of other times, where, if they also furnished their Tarquins, their Catalines and Caligulas, their stories are handed to us under the brand of a Livy, a Sallust and a Tacitus, and we are comforted with the reflection that the condemnation of all succeeding generations has confirmed the censures of the historian, and consigned their memories to everlasting infamy, a solace we cannot have with the Georges and Napoleons but by anticipation.

In surveying the scenes of which we make a part, I confess that three frigates taken by our gallant little navy, do not balance in my mind three armies lost by the treachery, cowardice, or incapacity of those to whom they were intrusted. I see that our men are good, and only want generals. We may yet hope, however, that the talents which always exist among men will show themselves with opportunity, and that it will be found that this age also can produce able and honest defenders of their country, at what further expense, however, of blood and treasure, is yet to be seen. Perhaps this Russian mediation may cut short the history of the present war, and leave to us the laurels of the sea, while our enemies are bedecked with those of the land. This would be the reverse of what has been expected, and perhaps of what was to be wished.

I have never seen the work on Political Economy, of which you speak. Say and Tracy contain the sum of that science as far as it has been soundly traced in my judgment. And it is a pity that Say's work should not, as well as Tracy's, be made known to our countrymen by a good translation. It would supplant Smith's book altogether, because shorter, clearer and sounder.

Accept my friendly salutations and assurances of continued esteem and respect. [111]

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Monticello, May 21, 1813.

Dear Sir,—The enclosed letter from Whit was unquestionably intended for you. The subject, the address, both of title and place, prove it, and the mistake of the name only shows the writer to be a very uninquisitive statesman. Dr. Waterhouse's letter, too, was intended for your eye, and although the immediate object fails by previous appointment, yet he seems to entertain further wishes. I enclose, too, the newspapers he refers to, as some of their matter may have escaped your notice, and the traitorous designs fostered in Massachusetts, and explained in them, call for attention.

We have never seen so unpromising a crop of wheat as that now growing. The winter killed an unusual proportion of it, and the fly is destroying the remainder. We may estimate the latter loss at one-third at present, and fast increasing from the effect of the extraordinary drought. With such a prospect before us, the blockade is acting severely on our past labors. It caught nearly the whole wheat of the middle and upper country in the hands of the farmers and millers, whose interior situation had prevented their getting it to an earlier market. From this neighborhood very little had been sold. When we cast our eyes on the map, and see the extent of country from New York to North Carolina inclusive, whose produce is raised on the waters of the Chesapeake, (for Albemarle sound is, by the canal of Norfolk, become a water of the Chesapeake,) and consider its productiveness, in comparison with the rest of the Atlantic States, probably a full half, and that all this can be shut up by two or three ships of the line lying at the mouth of the bay, we see that an injury so vast to ourselves and so cheap to our enemy, must forever be resorted to by them, and constantly maintained. To defend all the shores of those waters in detail is impossible. But is there not a single point where they may be all defended by means to which the magnitude of the object gives a title? I mean at the mouth of the Chesapeake. Not by ships of the line, or frigates; [112]for I know that with our present enemy we cannot contend in that way. But would not a sufficient number of gun-boats of small draught, stationed in Lynhaven river, render it unsafe for ships of war either to ascend the Chesapeake or to lie at its mouth? I am not unaware of the effect of the ridicule cast on this instrument of defence by those who wished for engines of offence. But resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us. I know, too, the prejudices of the gentlemen of the navy, and that these are very natural. No one has been more gratified than myself by the brilliant achievements of our little navy. They have deeply wounded the pride of our enemy, and been balm to ours, humiliated on the land where our real strength was felt to lie. But divesting ourselves of the enthusiasm these brave actions have justly excited, it is impossible not to see that all these vessels must be taken and added to the already overwhelming force of our enemy; that even while we keep them, they contribute nothing to our defence, and that so far as we are to be defended by anything on the water, it must be by such vessels as can assail under advantageous circumstances, and under adverse ones withdraw from the reach of the enemy. This, in shoally waters, is the humble, the ridiculed, but the formidable gun-boats. I acknowledge that in the case which produces these reflections, the station of Lynhaven river would not be safe against land attacks on the boats, and that a retreat for them is necessary in this event. With a view to this there was a survey made by Colonel Tatham, which was lodged either in the war or navy office, showing the depth and length of a canal which would give them a retreat from Lynhaven river into the eastern branch of Elizabeth river. I think the distance is not over six or eight miles, perhaps not so much, through a country entirely flat, and little above the level of the sea. A cut of ten yards wide and four yards deep, requiring the removal of forty cubic yards of earth for every yard in length of the canal, at twenty cents the cubic yard, would cost about $15,000 a mile. But even doubling this to cover all errors of estimate, although in a country offering the cheapest kind of labor, it would be nothing compared [113]with the extent and productions of the country it is to protect. It would, for so great a country, bear no proportion to what has been expended, and justly expended by the Union, to defend the single spot of New York.

While such a channel of retreat secures effectually the safety of the gun-boats, it insures also their aid for the defence of Norfolk, if attacked from the sea. And the Norfolk canal gives them a further passage into Albemarle sound, if necessary for their safety, or in aid of the flotilla of that sound, or to receive the aid of that flotilla either at Norfolk or in Lynhaven river. For such a flotilla there also will doubtless be thought necessary, that being the only outlet now, as during the last war, for the waters of the Chesapeake. Colonel Monroe, I think, is personally intimate with the face of all that country, and no one, I am certain, is more able or more disposed than the present Secretary of the Navy, to place himself above the navy prejudices, and do justice to the aptitude of these humble and economical vessels to the shallow waters of the South. On the bold Northern shores they would be of less account, and the larger vessels will of course be more employed there. Were they stationed with us, they would rather attract danger than ward it off. The only service they can render us would be to come in a body when the occasion offers, of overwhelming a weaker force of the enemy occupying our bay, to oblige them to keep their force in a body, leaving the mass of our coast open.

Although it is probable there may not be an idea here which has not been maturely weighed by yourself, and with a much broader view of the whole field, yet I have frankly hazarded them, because possibly some of the facts or ideas may have escaped in the multiplicity of the objects engaging your notice, and because in every event they will cost you but the trouble of reading. The importance of keeping open a water which covers wholly or considerably five of the most productive States, containing three-fifths of the population of the Atlantic portion of our Union, and of preserving their resources for the support of the war, as far as the state of war and the means of the confederacy [114]will admit; and especially if it can be done for less than is contributed by the Union for more than one single city, will justify our anxieties to have it effected. And should my views of the subject be even wrong, I am sure they will find their apology with you in the purity of the motives of personal and public regard which induce a suggestion of them. In all cases I am satisfied you are doing what is for the best, as far as the means put into your hands will enable you, and this thought quiets me under every occurrence, and under every occurrence I am sincerely, affectionately and respectfully yours.

TO MADAME LA BARONNE DE STAEL-HOLSTEIN.

United States of America, May 24, 1813.

I received with great pleasure, my dear Madam and friend, your letter of November the 10th, from Stockholm, and am sincerely gratified by the occasion it gives me of expressing to you the sentiments of high respect and esteem which I entertain for you. It recalls to my remembrance a happy portion of my life, passed in your native city; then the seat of the most amiable and polished society of the world, and of which yourself and your venerable father were such distinguished members. But of what scenes has it since been the theatre, and with what havoc has it overspread the earth! Robespierre met the fate, and his memory the execration, he so justly merited. The rich were his victims, and perished by thousands. It is by millions that Bonaparte destroys the poor, and he is eulogized and deified by the sycophants even of science. These merit more than the mere oblivion to which they will be consigned; and the day will come when a just posterity will give to their hero the only pre-eminence he has earned, that of having been the greatest of the destroyers of the human race. What year of his military life has not consigned a million of human beings to death, to poverty and wretchedness! What field in Europe may not raise a monument of the murders, the burnings, the desolations, the famines [115]and miseries it has witnessed from him! And all this to acquire a reputation, which Cartouche attained with less injury to mankind, of being fearless of God or man.

To complete and universalize the desolation of the globe, it has been the will of Providence to raise up, at the same time, a tyrant as unprincipled and as overwhelming, for the ocean. Not in the poor maniac George, but in his government and nation. Bonaparte will die, and his tyrannies with him. But a nation never dies. The English government, and its piratical principles and practices, have no fixed term of duration. Europe feels, and is writhing under the scorpion whips of Bonaparte. We are assailed by those of England. The one continent thus placed under the gripe of England, and the other of Bonaparte, each has to grapple with the enemy immediately pressing on itself. We must extinguish the fire kindled in our own house, and leave to our friends beyond the water that which is consuming theirs. It was not till England had taken one thousand of our ships, and impressed into her service more than six thousand of our citizens; till she had declared, by the proclamation of her Prince Regent, that she would not repeal her aggressive orders as to us, until Bonaparte should have repealed his as to all nations; till her minister, in formal conference with ours, declared, that no proposition for protecting our seamen from being impressed, under color of taking their own, was practicable or admissible; that, the door to justice and to all amicable arrangement being closed, and negotiation become both desperate and dishonorable, we concluded that the war she had for years been waging against us, might as well become a war on both sides. She takes fewer vessels from us since the declaration of war than before, because they venture more cautiously; and we now make full reprisals where before we made none. England is, in principle, the enemy of all maritime nations, as Bonaparte is of the continental; and I place in the same line of insult to the human understanding, the pretension of conquering the ocean, to establish continental rights, as that of conquering the continent, to restore maritime rights. No, my dear Madam; the object of England [116]is the permanent dominion of the ocean, and the monopoly of the trade of the world. To secure this, she must keep a larger fleet than her own resources will maintain. The resources of other nations, then, must be impressed to supply the deficiency of her own. This is sufficiently developed and evidenced by her successive strides towards the usurpation of the sea. Mark them, from her first war after William Pitt, the little, came into her administration. She first forbade to neutrals all trade with her enemies in time of war, which they had not in time of peace. This deprived them of their trade from port to port of the same nation. Then she forbade them to trade from the port of one nation to that of any other at war with her, although a right fully exercised in time of peace. Next, instead of taking vessels only entering a blockaded port, she took them over the whole ocean, if destined to that port, although ignorant of the blockade, and without intention to violate it. Then she took them returning from that port, as if infected by previous infraction of blockade. Then came her paper blockades, by which she might shut up the whole world without sending a ship to sea, except to take all those sailing on it, as they must, of course, be bound to some port. And these were followed by her orders of council, forbidding every nation to go to the port of any other, without coming first to some port of Great Britain, there paying a tribute to her, regulated by the cargo, and taking from her a license to proceed to the port of destination; which operation the vessel was to repeat with the return cargo on its way home. According to these orders, we could not send a vessel from St. Mary's to St. Augustine, distant six hours sail on our own coast, without crossing the Atlantic four times, twice with the outward cargo, and twice with the inward. She found this too daring and outrageous for a single step, retracted as to certain articles of commerce, but left it in force as to others which constitute important branches of our exports. And finally, that her views may no longer rest on inference, in a recent debate her minister declared in open parliament, that the object of the present war is a monopoly of commerce.

[117]In some of these atrocities, France kept pace with her fully in speculative wrong, which her impotence only shortened in practical execution. This was called retaliation by both; each charging the other with the initiation of the outrage. As if two combatants might retaliate on an innocent bystander, the blows they received from each other. To make war on both would have been ridiculous. In order, therefore, to single out an enemy, we offered to both, that if either would revoke its hostile decrees, and the other should refuse, we would interdict all intercourse whatever with that other; which would be war of course, as being an avowed departure from neutrality. France accepted the offer, and revoked her decrees as to us. England not only refused, but declared by a solemn proclamation of her Prince Regent, that she would not revoke her orders even as to us, until those of France should be annulled as to the whole world. We thereon declared war, and with abundant additional cause.

In the meantime, an examination before parliament of the ruinous effects of these orders on her own manufacturers, exposing them to the nation and to the world, their Prince issued a palinodial proclamation, suspending the orders on certain conditions, but claiming to renew them at pleasure, as a matter of right. Even this might have prevented the war, if done and known here before its declaration. But the sword being once drawn, the expense of arming incurred, and hostilities in full course, it would have been unwise to discontinue them, until effectual provision should be agreed to by England, for protecting our citizens on the high seas from impressment by her naval commanders, through error, voluntary or involuntary; the fact being notorious, that these officers, entering our ships at sea under pretext of searching for their seamen, (which they have no right to do by the law or usage of nations, which they neither do, nor ever did, as to any other nation but ours, and which no nation ever before pretended to do in any case,) entering our ships, I say, under pretext of searching for and taking out their seamen, they took ours, native as well as naturalized, knowing them to be ours, merely because they wanted them; insomuch, [118]that no American could safely cross the ocean, or venture to pass by sea from one to another of our own ports. It is not long since they impressed at sea two nephews of General Washington, returning from Europe, and put them, as common seamen, under the ordinary discipline of their ships of war. There are certainly other wrongs to be settled between England and us; but of a minor character, and such as a proper spirit of conciliation on both sides would not permit to continue them at war. The sword, however, can never again be sheathed, until the personal safety of an American on the ocean, among the most important and most vital of the rights we possess, is completely provided for.

As soon as we heard of her partial repeal of her orders of council, we offered instantly to suspend hostilities by an armistice, if she would suspend her impressments, and meet us in arrangements for securing our citizens against them. She refused to do it, because impracticable by any arrangement, as she pretends; but, in truth, because a body of sixty to eighty thousand of the finest seamen in the world, which we possess, is too great a resource for manning her exaggerated navy, to be relinquished, as long as she can keep it open. Peace is in her hand, whenever she will renounce the practice of aggression on the persons of our citizens. If she thinks it worth eternal war, eternal war we must have. She alleges that the sameness of language, of manners, of appearance, renders it impossible to distinguish us from her subjects. But because we speak English, and look like them, are we to be punished? Are free and independent men to be submitted to their bondage?

England has misrepresented to all Europe this ground of the war. She has called it a new pretension, set up since the repeal of her orders of council. She knows there has never been a moment of suspension of our reclamation against it, from General Washington's time inclusive, to the present day; and that it is distinctly stated in our declaration of war, as one of its principal causes. She has pretended we have entered into the war to establish the principle of "free bottoms, free goods," or to protect [119]her seamen against her own rights over them. We contend for neither of these. She pretends we are partial to France; that we have observed a fraudulent and unfaithful neutrality between her and her enemy. She knows this to be false, and that if there has been any inequality in our proceedings towards the belligerents, it has been in her favor. Her ministers are in possession of full proofs of this. Our accepting at once, and sincerely, the mediation of the virtuous Alexander, their greatest friend, and the most aggravated enemy of Bonaparte, sufficiently proves whether we have partialities on the side of her enemy. I sincerely pray that this mediation may produce a just peace. It will prove that the immortal character, which has first stopped by war the career of the destroyer of mankind, is the friend of peace, of justice, of human happiness, and the patron of unoffending and injured nations. He is too honest and impartial to countenance propositions of peace derogatory to the freedom of the seas.

Shall I apologize to you, my dear Madam, for this long political letter? But yours justifies the subject, and my feelings must plead for the unreserved expression of them; and they have been the less reserved, as being from a private citizen, retired from all connection with the government of his country, and whose ideas, expressed without communication with any one, are neither known, nor imputable to them.

The dangers of the sea are now so great, and the possibilities of interception by sea and land such, that I shall subscribe no name to this letter. You will know from whom it comes, by its reference to the date of time and place of yours, as well as by its subject in answer to that. This omission must not lessen in your view the assurances of my great esteem, of my sincere sympathies for the share which you bear in the afflictions of your country, and the deprivation to which a lawless will has subjected you. In return, you enjoy the dignified satisfaction of having met them, rather than be yoked with the abject, to his car; and that, in withdrawing from oppression, you have followed the virtuous example of a father whose name will ever be [120]dear to your country and to mankind. With my prayers that you may be restored to it, that you may see it re-established in that temperate portion of liberty which does not infer either anarchy or licentiousness, in that high degree of prosperity which would be the consequence of such a government, in that, in short, which the constitution of 1789 would have insured it, if wisdom could have stayed at that point the fervid but imprudent zeal of men, who did not know the character of their own countrymen, and that you may long live in health and happiness under it, and leave to the world a well-educated and virtuous representative and descendant of your honored father, is the ardent prayer of the sincere and respectful friend who writes this letter.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, May 27, 1813.

Another of our friends of seventy-six is gone, my dear Sir, another of the co-signers of the Independence of our country. And a better man than Rush could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius, or more honest. We too must go; and that ere long. I believe we are under half a dozen at present; I mean the signers of the Declaration. Yourself, Gerry, Carroll, and myself, are all I know to be living. I am the only one south of the Potomac. Is Robert Treat Payne, or Floyd living? It is long since I heard of them, and yet I do not recollect to have heard of their deaths.

Moreton's deduction of the origin of our Indians from the fugitive Trojans, stated in your letter of January the 26th, and his manner of accounting for the sprinkling of their Latin with Greek, is really amusing. Adair makes them talk Hebrew. Reinold Foster derives them from the soldiers sent by Kouli Khan to conquer Japan. Brerewood, from the Tartars, as well as our bears, wolves, foxes, &c., which, he says, "must of necessity fetch their beginning from Noah's ark, which rested, after the deluge in Asia, seeing they could not proceed by the course of [121]nature, as the imperfect sort of living creatures do, from putrefaction." Bernard Romans is of opinion that God created an original man and woman in this part of the globe. Doctor Barton thinks they are not specifically different from the Persians; but, taking afterwards a broader range, he thinks, "that in all the vast countries of America, there is but one language, nay, that it may be proven, or rendered highly probable, that all the languages of the earth bear some affinity together." This reduces it to a question of definition, in which every one is free to use his own: to wit, what constitutes identity, or difference in two things, in the common acceptation of sameness? All languages may be called the same, as being all made up of the same primitive sounds, expressed by the letters of the different alphabets. But, in this sense, all things on earth are the same as consisting of matter. This gives up the useful distribution into genera and species, which we form, arbitrarily indeed, for the relief of our imperfect memories. To aid the question, from whence our Indian tribes descended, some have gone into their religion, their morals, their manners, customs, habits, and physical forms. By such helps it may be learnedly proved, that our trees and plants of every kind are descended from those of Europe; because, like them, they have no locomotion, they draw nourishment from the earth, they clothe themselves with leaves in spring, of which they divest themselves in autumn for the sleep of winter, &c. Our animals too must be descended from those of Europe, because our wolves eat lambs, our deer are gregarious, our ants hoard, &c. But, when for convenience we distribute languages, according to common understanding, into classes originally different, as we choose to consider them, as the Hebrew, the Greek, the Celtic, the Gothic; and these again into genera, or families, as the Icelandic, German, Swedish, Danish, English; and these last into species, or dialects, as English, Scotch, Irish, we then ascribe other meanings to the terms "same" and "different." In some one of these senses, Barton, and Adair, and Foster, and Brerewood, and Moreton, may be right, every one according to his own definition of what constitutes [122]"identity." Romans, indeed, takes a higher stand, and supposes a separate creation. On the same unscriptural ground, he had but to mount one step higher, to suppose no creation at all, but that all things have existed without beginning in time, as they now exist, and may forever exist, producing and reproducing in a circle, without end. This would very summarily dispose of Mr. Moreton's learning, and show that the question of Indian origin, like many others, pushed to a certain height, must receive the same answer, "Ignoro."

You ask if the usage of hunting in circles has ever been known among any of our tribes of Indians? It has been practised by them all; and is to this day, by those still remote from the settlements of the whites. But their numbers not enabling them, like Genghis Khan's seven hundred thousand, to form themselves into circles of one hundred miles diameter, they make their circle by firing the leaves fallen on the ground, which gradually forcing the animals to a centre, they there slaughter them with arrows, darts, and other missiles. This is called fire hunting, and has been practised in this State within my time, by the white inhabitants. This is the most probable cause of the origin and extension of the vast prairies in the western country, where the grass having been of extraordinary luxuriance, has made a conflagration sufficient to kill even the old as well as the young timber.

I sincerely congratulate you on the successes of our little navy; which must be more gratifying to you than to most men, as having been the early and constant advocate of wooden walls. If I have differed with you on this ground, it was not on the principle, but the time; supposing that we cannot build or maintain a navy, which will not immediately fall into the same gulf which has swallowed not only the minor navies, but even those of the great second-rate powers of the sea. Whenever these can be resuscitated, and brought so near to a balance with England that we can turn the scale, then is my epoch for aiming at a navy. In the meantime, one competent to keep the Barbary States in order, is necessary; these being the only smaller powers disposed [123]to quarrel with us. But I respect too much the weighty opinions of others, to be unyielding on this point, and acquiesce with the prayer "quod felix faustumque sit;" adding ever a sincere one for your health and happiness.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Monticello, May 30, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I thank you for the communication of the President's Message, which has not yet reached us through the public papers. It is an interesting document, always looked for with anxiety, and the late one is equally able as interesting. I hope Congress will act in conformity with it, in all its parts. The unwarrantable ideas often expressed in the newspapers, and by persons who ought to know better, that I intermeddle in the Executive councils, and the indecent expressions, sometimes, of a hope that Mr. Madison will pursue the principles of my administration, expressions so disrespectful to his known abilities and dispositions, have rendered it improper in me to hazard suggestions to him, on occasions even where ideas might occur to me, that might accidentally escape him. This reserve has been strengthened, too, by a consciousness that my views must be very imperfect, from the want of a correct knowledge of the whole ground.

I lately, however, hazarded to him a suggestion on the defence of the Chesapeake, because, although decided on provisionally with the Secretaries of War and the Navy formerly, yet as it was proposed only in the case of war, which did not actually arise, and not relating to his department, might not then have been communicated to him. Of this fact my memory did not ascertain me. I will now hazard another suggestion to yourself, which indeed grows out of that one: it is, the policy of keeping our frigates together in a body, in some place where they can be defended against a superior naval force, and from whence, nevertheless, they can easily sally forth on the shortest warning. This would oblige the enemy to take stations, or to cruise only in [124]masses equal at least, each of them, to our whole force; and of course they could be acting only in two or three spots at a time, and the whole of our coast, except the two or three portions where they might be present, would be open to exportation and importation. I think all that part of the United States over which the waters of the Chesapeake spread themselves, was blockaded in the early season by a single ship. This would keep our frigates in entire safety, as they would go out only occasionally to oppress a blockading force known to be weaker than themselves, and thus make them a real protection to our whole commerce. And it seems to me that this would be a more essential service, than that of going out by ones, or twos, in search of adventures, which contribute little to the protection of our commerce, and not at all to the defence of our coast, or the shores of our inland waters. A defence of these by militia is most harassing to them. The applications from Maryland, which I have seen in the papers, and those from Virginia, which I suspect, merely because I see such masses of the militia called off from their farms, must be embarrassing to the Executive, not only from a knowledge of the incompetency of such a mode of defence, but from the exhausture of funds which ought to be husbanded for the effectual operations of a long war. I fear, too, it will render the militia discontented, perhaps clamorous for an end of the war on any terms. I am happy to see that it is entirely popular as yet, and that no symptom of flinching from it appears among the people, as far as I can judge from the public papers, or from my own observation, limited to the few counties adjacent to the two branches of James river. I have such confidence that what I suggest has been already maturely discussed in the Cabinet, and that for wise and sufficient reasons the present mode of employing the frigates is the best, that I hesitate about sending this even after having written. Yet in that case it will only have given you the trouble of reading it. You will bury it in your own breast, as non-avenue, and see in it only an unnecessary zeal on my part, and a proof of the unlimited confidence of yours ever and affectionately. [125]

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, June 15, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I wrote you a letter on the 27th of May, which probably would reach you about the 3d instant, and on the 9th I received yours of the 29th of May. Of Lindsay's Memoirs I had never before heard, and scarcely indeed of himself. It could not, therefore, but be unexpected, that two letters of mine should have anything to do with his life. The name of his editor was new to me, and certainly presents itself for the first time under unfavorable circumstances. Religion, I suppose, is the scope of his book; and that a writer on that subject should usher himself to the world in the very act of the grossest abuse of confidence, by publishing private letters which passed between two friends, with no views to their ever being made public, is an instance of inconsistency as well as of infidelity, of which I would rather be the victim than the author.

By your kind quotation of the dates of my two letters, I have been enabled to turn to them. They had completely vanished from my memory. The last is on the subject of religion, and by its publication will gratify the priesthood with new occasion of repeating their comminations against me. They wish it to be believed that he can have no religion who advocates its freedom. This was not the doctrine of Priestley; and I honored him for the example of liberality he set to his order. The first letter is political. It recalls to our recollection the gloomy transactions of the times, the doctrines they witnessed, and the sensibilities they excited. It was a confidential communication of reflections on these from one friend to another, deposited in his bosom, and never meant to trouble the public mind. Whether the character of the times is justly portrayed or not, posterity will decide. But on one feature of them they can never decide, the sensations excited in free yet firm minds by the terrorism of the day. None can conceive who did not witness them, and they were felt by one party only. This letter exhibits their side of the medal. The federalists, no doubt, have presented the other in their private [126]correspondences as well as open action. If these correspondences should ever be laid open to the public eye, they will probably be found not models of comity towards their adversaries. The readers of my letter should be cautioned not to confine its view to this country alone. England and its alarmists were equally under consideration. Still less must they consider it as looking personally towards you. You happen, indeed, to be quoted, because you happened to express more pithily than had been done by themselves, one of the mottos of the party. This was in your answer to the address of the young men of Philadelphia. [See Selection of Patriotic Addresses, page 198.] One of the questions, you know, on which our parties took different sides, was on the improvability of the human mind in science, in ethics, in government, &c. Those who advocated reformation of institutions, pari passu with the progress of science, maintained that no definite limits could be assigned to that progress. The enemies of reform, on the other hand, denied improvement, and advocated steady adherence to the principles, practices and institutions of our fathers, which they represented as the consummation of wisdom, and acme of excellence, beyond which the human mind could never advance. Although in the passage of your answer alluded to, you expressly disclaim the wish to influence the freedom of inquiry, you predict that that will produce nothing more worthy of transmission to posterity than the principles, institutions and systems of education received from their ancestors. I do not consider this as your deliberate opinion. You possess, yourself, too much science, not to see how much is still ahead of you, unexplained and unexplored. Your own consciousness must place you as far before our ancestors as in the rear of our posterity. I consider it as an expression lent to the prejudices of your friends; and although I happened to cite it from you, the whole letter shows I had them only in view. In truth, my dear Sir, we were far from considering you as the author of all the measures we blamed. They were placed under the protection of your name, but we were satisfied they wanted much of your approbation. We ascribed them to their real authors, [127]the Pickerings, the Wolcotts, the Tracys, the Sedgwicks, et id genus omne, with whom we supposed you in a state of duress. I well remember a conversation with you in the morning of the day on which you nominated to the Senate a substitute for Pickering, in which you expressed a just impatience under "the legacy of secretaries which General Washington had left you," and whom you seemed, therefore, to consider as under public protection. Many other incidents showed how differently you would have acted with less impassioned advisers; and subsequent events have proved that your minds were not together. You would do me great injustice, therefore, by taking to yourself what was intended for men who were then your secret, as they are now your open enemies. Should you write on the subject, as you propose, I am sure we shall see you place yourself farther from them than from us.

As to myself, I shall take no part in any discussions. I leave others to judge of what I have done, and to give me exactly that place which they shall think I have occupied. Marshall has written libels on one side; others, I suppose, will be written on the other side; and the world will sift both and separate the truth as well as they can. I should see with reluctance the passions of that day rekindled in this, while so many of the actors are living, and all are too near the scene not to participate in sympathies with them. About facts you and I cannot differ; because truth is our mutual guide. And if any opinions you may express should be different from mine, I shall receive them with the liberality and indulgence which I ask for my own, and still cherish with warmth the sentiments of affectionate respect, of which I can with so much truth tender you the assurance.

TO MR. SHORT.

Monticello, June 18, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Yours of the 2d is received, and a copy of Higgenbotham's mortgage is now enclosed. The journey to Bedford [128]which I proposed in my last, my engagements here have obliged me to postpone till after harvest, which is now approaching; it is the most unpromising one I have seen. We have been some days in expectation of seeing M. Correa. If he is on the road, he has had some days of our very hottest weather. My thermometer has been for two days at 92 and 92½°, the last being the maximum ever seen here. Although we usually have the hottest day of the year in June, yet it is soon interrupted by cooler weather. In July the heat, though not so great, is more continuous and steady.

On the duration of the war I think there is uncertainty. Ever since the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, the object of Great Britain has visibly been the permanent conquest of the ocean, and levying a tribute on every vessel she permits to sail on it, as the Barbary powers do on the Mediterranean, which they call their sea. She must be conscious she cannot from her own resources maintain the exaggerated fleet she now has, and which is necessary to maintain her conquest; she must, therefore, levy the deficiency of duties of transit on other nations. If she should get another ministry with sense enough to abandon this senseless scheme, the war with us ought to be short, because there is no material cause now existing but impressment; and there our only difference is how to establish a mode of discrimination between our citizens which she does not claim, and hers which it is neither our wish or interest ever to employ. The seamen which our navigation raises had better be of our own. If this be all she aims at, it may be settled at Saint Petersburg. My principle has ever been that war should not suspend either exports or imports. If the piracies of France and England, however, are to be adopted as the law of nations, or should become their practice, it will oblige us to manufacture at home all the material comforts.

This may furnish a reason to check imports until necessary manufactures are established among us. This offers the advantage, too, of placing the consumer of our produce near the producer, but I should disapprove of the prohibition of exports even [129]to the enemy themselves, except indeed refreshments and water to their cruisers on our coast, in order to oblige them to intermit their cruises to go elsewhere for these supplies. The idea of starving them as to bread, is a very idle one. It is dictated by passion, not by reason. If the war is lengthened we shall take Canada, which will relieve us from Indians, and Halifax, which will put an end to their occupation of the American seas, because every vessel must then go to England to repair every accident. To retain these would become objects of first importance to us, and of great importance to Europe, as the means of curtailing the British marine. But at present, being merely in posse, they should not be an impediment to peace. We have a great and a just claim of indemnifications against them for the thousand ships they have taken piratically, and six thousand seamen impressed. Whether we can, on this score, successfully insist on curtailing their American possessions, by the meridian of Lake Huron, so as to cut them off from the Indians bordering on us, would be matter for conversation and experiment at the treaty of pacification. I sometimes allow my mind to wander thus into the political field, but rarely, and with reluctance. It is my desire as well as my duty to leave to the vigor of younger minds to settle concerns which are no longer mine, but must long be theirs. Affectionately adieu.

TO ——.

Your kind answer of the 16th entirely satisfies my doubts as to the employment of the navy, if kept within striking distance of our coast; and shows how erroneous views are apt to be with those who have not all in view. Yet as I know from experience that profitable suggestions sometimes come from lookers on, they may be usefully tolerated, provided they do not pretend to the right of an answer. They would cost very dear indeed were they to occupy the time of a high officer in writing when he should be acting. I intended no such trouble to you, [130]my dear Sir, and were you to suppose I expected it, I must cease to offer a thought on our public affairs. Although my entire confidence in their direction prevents my reflecting on them but accidentally, yet sometimes facts, and sometimes ideas occur, which I hazard as worth the trouble of reading but not of answering. Of this kind was my suggestion of the facts which I recollected as to the defence of the Chesapeake, and of what had been contemplated at the time between the Secretaries of War and the Navy and myself. If our views were sound, the object might be effected in one year, even of war, and at an expense which is nothing compared to the population and productions it would cover. We are here laboring under the most extreme drought ever remembered at this season. We have had but one rain to lay the dust in two months. That was a good one, but was three weeks ago. Corn is but a few inches high and dying. Oats will not yield their seed. Of wheat, the hard winter and fly leave us about two-thirds of an ordinary crop. So that in the lotteries of human life you see that even farming is but gambling. We have had three days of excessive heat. The thermometer on the 16th was at 92°, on the 17th 92½°, and yesterday at 93°. It had never before exceeded 92½ at this place; at least within the periods of my observations. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Monticello, June 18, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favors of the 7th and 16th are received, and I now return you the memoir enclosed in the former. I am much gratified by its communication, because, as the plan appeared in the newspapers soon after the new Secretary of War came into office, we had given him the credit of it. Every line of it is replete with wisdom; and we might lament that our tardy enlistments prevented its execution, were we not to reflect that these proceeded from the happiness of our people at home. It is more a subject of joy that we have so few of the desperate [131]characters which compose modern regular armies. But it proves more forcibly the necessity of obliging every citizen to be a soldier; this was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free State. Where there is no oppression there will be no pauper hirelings. We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can never be safe till this is done.

I have been persuaded, ab initio, that what we are to do in Canada must be done quickly; because our enemy, with a little time, can empty pickpockets upon us faster than we can enlist honest men to oppose them. If we fail in this acquisition, Hull is the cause of it. Pike, in his situation, would have swept their posts to Montreal, because his army would have grown as it went along. I fear the reinforcements arrived at Quebec will be at Montreal before General Dearborne, and if so, the game is up. If the marching of the militia into an enemy's country be once ceded as unconstitutional (which I hope it never will be), then will their force, as now strengthened, bid us permanent defiance. Could we acquire that country, we might perhaps insist successfully at St. Petersburg on retaining all westward of the meridian of Lake Huron, or of Ontario, or of Montreal, according to the pulse of the place, as an indemnification for the past and security for the future. To cut them off from the Indians even west of the Huron would be a great future security.

Your kind answer of the 16th, entirely satisfies my doubts as to the employment of a navy, if kept within striking distance of our coast, and shows how erroneous views are apt to be with those who have not all in view. Yet, as I know by experience that profitable suggestions sometimes come from lookers on, they may be usefully tolerated, provided they do not pretend to the right of an answer. They would cost very dear, indeed, were they to occupy the time of a high officer in writing when he should be acting. * * * * * * * [132]

TO MR. MATTHEW CARR.

Monticello, June 19, 1813.

Sir,—I thank you for the copy of Mr. Clarke's sketches of the naval history of the United States, which you have been so kind as to send me. It is a convenient repository of cases of that class, and has brought to my recollection a number of individual cases of the Revolutionary war which had escaped me. I received, also one of Mr. Clarke's circulars, asking supplementary communications for a second edition. But these things are so much out of the reach of my inland situation, that I am the least able of all men to contribute anything to his desire. I will indulge myself, therefore, in two or three observations, of which you will make what use you may think they merit. 1. Bushnel's Turtle is mentioned slightly. Would the description of the machine be too much for the sale of the work? It may be found very minutely given in the American Philosophical transactions. It was excellently contrived, and might perhaps, by improvement, be brought into real use. I do not know the difference between this and Mr. Fulton's submarine boat. But an effectual machine of that kind is not beyond the laws of nature; and whatever is within these, is not to be despaired of. It would be to the United States the consummation of their safety. 2. The account of the loss of the Philadelphia, does not give a fair impression of the transaction. The proofs may be seen among the records of the Navy office. After this loss, Capt. Bainbridge had a character to redeem. He has done it most honorably, and no one is more gratified by it than myself. But still the transaction ought to be correctly stated. 3. But why omit all mention of the scandalous campaigns of Commodore Morris? A two years' command of an effective squadron, with discretionary instructions, wasted in sailing from port to port of the Mediterranean, and a single half day before the port of the enemy against which he was sent. All this can be seen in the proceedings of the court on which he was dismissed; and it is due to the honorable truths with which the book abounds, to publish those which are not [133]so. A fair and honest narrative of the bad, is a voucher for the truth of the good. In this way the old Congress set an example to the world, for which the world amply repaid them, by giving unlimited credit to whatever was stamped with the name of Charles Thompson. It is known that this was never put to an untruth but once, and that where Congress was misled by the credulity of their General (Sullivan). The first misfortune of the Revolutionary war, induced a motion to suppress or garble the account of it. It was rejected with indignation. The whole truth was given in all its details, and there never was another attempt in that body to disguise it. These observations are meant for the good of the work, and for the honor of those whom it means to honor. Accept the assurance of my esteem and respect.

TO PRESIDENT MADISON.

Monticello, June 21, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 6th has been received, and I will beg leave to add a few supplementary observations on the subject of my former letter. I am not a judge of the best forms which may be given to the gunboat; and indeed I suppose they should be of various forms, suited to the various circumstances to which they would be applied. Among these, no doubt, Commodore Barney's would find their place. While the largest and more expensive are fitted for moving from one seaport to another, coast-wise, to aid in a particular emergency, those of smaller draught and expense suit shallower waters; and of these shallow and cheap forms must be those for Lynhaven river. Commodore Preble, in his lifetime, undertook to build such in the best manner for two or three thousand dollars. Colonel Monroe, to whose knowledge of the face of the country I had referred, approves, in a letter to me, of such a plan of defence as was suggested, adding to it a fort on the middle grounds; but thinks the work too great to be executed during a war. Such a fort, certainly, could not be built during a war, in the face of an enemy. Its [134]practicability at any time has been doubted, and although a good auxiliary, is not a necessary member of this scheme of defence. But the canal of retreat is really a small work, of a few months' execution; the laborers would be protected by the military guard on the spot, and many of these would assist in the execution, for fatigue, rations, and pay. The exact magnitude of the work I would not affirm, nor do I think we should trust for it to Tatham's survey: still less would I call in Latrobe, who would immediately contemplate a canal of Languedoc. I would sooner trust such a man as Thomas Monroe to take the level, measure the distances, and estimate the expense. And if the plan were all matured the ensuing winter, and laborers engaged at the proper season, it might be executed in time to mitigate the blockade of the next summer. On recurring to an actual survey of that part of the country, made in the beginning of the Revolutionary war, under the orders of the Governor and Council, by Mr. Andrews I think, a copy of which I took with great care, instead of the half a dozen miles I had conjectured in my former letter, the canal would seem to be of not half that length. I send you a copy of that part of the map, which may be useful to you on other occasions, and is more to be depended on for minutia, probably, than any other existing. I have marked on that the conjectured route of the canal, to wit, from the bridge on Lynhaven river to King's landing, on the eastern branch. The exact draught of water into Lynhaven river you have in the Navy office. I think it is over four feet.

When we consider the population and productions of the Chesapeake country, extending from the Génissee to the Saura towns and Albemarle Sound, its safety and commerce seem entitled even to greater efforts, if greater could secure them. That a defence at the entrance of the bay can be made mainly effective, that it will cost less in money, harass the militia less, place the inhabitants on its interior waters freer from alarm and depredation, and render provisions and water more difficult to the enemy, is so possible as to render thorough inquiry certainly expedient. Some of the larger gun-boats, or vessels better uniting [135]swiftness with force, would also be necessary to scour the interior, and cut off any pickaroons which might venture up the bay or rivers. The loss on James' river alone, this year, is estimated at two hundred thousand barrels of flour, now on hand, for which the half price is not to be expected. This then is a million of dollars levied on a single water of the Chesapeake, and to be levied every year during the war. If a concentration of its defence at the entrance of the Chesapeake should be found inadequate, then we must of necessity submit to the expenses of detailed defence, to the harassment of the militia, the burnings of towns and houses, depredations of farms, and the hard trial of the spirit of the Middle States, the most zealous supporters of the war, and, therefore, the peculiar objects of the vindictive efforts of the enemy. Those north of the Hudson need nothing, because treated by the enemy as neutrals. All their war is concentrated on the Delaware and Chesapeake; and these, therefore, stand in principal need of the shield of the Union. The Delaware can be defended more easily. But I should not think one hundred gun-boats (costing less than one frigate) an over-proportioned allotment to the Chesapeake country, against the over-proportioned hostilities pointed at it.

I am too sensible of the partial and defective state of my information, to be over-confident, or pertinacious, in the opinion I have formed. A thorough examination of the ground will settle it. We may suggest, perhaps it is a duty to do it. But you alone are qualified for decision, by the whole view which you can command; and so confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done. While I trust that no difficulties will dishearten us, I am anxious to lessen the trial as much as possible. Heaven preserve you under yours, and help you through all its perplexities and perversities. [136]

TO JOHN W. EPPES.

Monticello, June 24, 1813.

Dear Sir,—This letter will be on politics only. For although I do not often permit myself to think on that subject, it sometimes obtrudes itself, and suggests ideas which I am tempted to pursue. Some of these relating to the business of finance, I will hazard to you, as being at the head of that committee, but intended for yourself individually, or such as you trust, but certainly not for a mixed committee.

It is a wise rule, and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, "never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principle within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith." On such a pledge as this, sacredly observed, a government may always command, on a reasonable interest, all the lendable money of their citizens, while the necessity of an equivalent tax is a salutary warning to them and their constituents against oppressions, bankruptcy, and its inevitable consequence, revolution. But the term of redemption must be moderate, and at any rate within the limits of their rightful powers. But what limits, it will be asked, does this prescribe to their powers? What is to hinder them from creating a perpetual debt? The laws of nature, I answer. The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. The will and the power of man expire with his life, by nature's law. Some societies give it an artificial continuance, for the encouragement of industry; some refuse it, as our aboriginal neighbors, whom we call barbarians. The generations of men may be considered as bodies or corporations. Each generation has the usufruct of the earth during the period of its continuance. When it ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the succeeding generation, free and unincumbered, and so on, successively, from one generation to another forever. We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, [137]to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country. Or the case may be likened to the ordinary one of a tenant for life, who may hypothecate the land for his debts, during the continuance of his usufruct; but at his death, the reversioner (who is also for life only) receives it exonerated from all burthen. The period of a generation, or the term of its life, is determined by the laws of mortality, which, varying a little only in different climates, offer a general average, to be found by observation. I turn, for instance, to Buffon's tables, of twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four deaths, and the ages at which they happened, and I find that of the numbers of all ages living at one moment, half will be dead in twenty-four years and eight months. But (leaving out minors, who have not the power of self-government) of the adults (of twenty-one years of age) living at one moment, a majority of whom act for the society, one half will be dead in eighteen years and eight months. At nineteen years then from the date of a contract, the majority of the contractors are dead, and their contract with them. Let this general theory be applied to a particular case. Suppose the annual births of the State of New York to be twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four, the whole number of its inhabitants, according to Buffon, will be six hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred and three, of all ages. Of these there would constantly be two hundred and sixty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty-six minors, and three hundred and forty-eight thousand four hundred and seventeen adults, of which last, one hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and nine will be a majority. Suppose that majority, on the first day of the year 1794, had borrowed a sum of money equal to the fee-simple value of the State, and to have consumed it in eating, drinking and making merry in their day; or, if you please, in quarrelling and fighting with their unoffending neighbors. Within eighteen years and eight months, one half of the adult citizens were dead. Till then, being the majority, they might rightfully levy the interest of their debt annually on themselves and their fellow-revellers, or fellow-champions. [138]But at that period, say at this moment, a new majority have come into place, in their own right, and not under the rights, the conditions, or laws of their predecessors. Are they bound to acknowledge the debt, to consider the preceding generation as having had a right to eat up the whole soil of their country, in the course of a life, to alienate it from them, (for it would be an alienation to the creditors,) and would they think themselves either legally or morally bound to give up their country and emigrate to another for subsistence? Every one will say no; that the soil is the gift of God to the living, as much as it had been to the deceased generation; and that the laws of nature impose no obligation on them to pay this debt. And although, like some other natural rights, this has not yet entered into any declaration of rights, it is no less a law, and ought to be acted on by honest governments. It is, at the same time, a salutary curb on the spirit of war and indebtment, which, since the modern theory of the perpetuation of debt, has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burthens ever accumulating. Had this principle been declared in the British bill of rights, England would have been placed under the happy disability of waging eternal war, and of contracting her thousand millions of public debt. In seeking, then, for an ultimate term for the redemption of our debts, let us rally to this principle, and provide for their payment within the term of nineteen years at the farthest. Our government has not, as yet, begun to act on the rule of loans and taxation going hand in hand. Had any loan taken place in my time, I should have strongly urged a redeeming tax. For the loan which has been made since the last session of Congress, we should now set the example of appropriating some particular tax, sufficient to pay the interest annually, and the principle within a fixed term, less than nineteen years. And I hope yourself and your committee will render the immortal service of introducing this practice. Not that it is expected that Congress should formally declare such a principle They wisely enough avoid deciding on abstract questions. But they may be induced to keep themselves within its limits.

[139]I am sorry to see our loans begin at so exorbitant an interest. And yet, even at that you will soon be at the bottom of the loan-bag. We are an agricultural nation. Such an one employs its sparings in the purchase or improvement of land or stocks. The lendable money among them is chiefly that of orphans and wards in the hands of executors and guardians, and that which the farmer lays by till he has enough for the purchase in view. In such a nation there is one and one only resource for loans, sufficient to carry them through the expense of a war; and that will always be sufficient, and in the power of an honest government, punctual in the preservation of its faith. The fund I mean, is the mass of circulating coin. Every one knows, that although not literally, it is nearly true, that every paper dollar emitted banishes a silver one from the circulation. A nation, therefore, making its purchases and payments with bills fitted for circulation, thrusts an equal sum of coin out of circulation. This is equivalent to borrowing that sum, and yet the vendor receiving payment in a medium as effectual as coin for his purchases or payments, has no claim to interest. And so the nation may continue to issue its bills as far as its wants require, and the limits of the circulation will admit. Those limits are understood to extend with us at present, to two hundred millions of dollars, a greater sum than would be necessary for any war. But this, the only resource which the government could command with certainty, the States have unfortunately fooled away, nay corruptly alienated to swindlers and shavers, under the cover of private banks. Say, too, as an additional evil, that the disposal funds of individuals, to this great amount, have thus been withdrawn from improvement and useful enterprise, and employed in the useless, usurious and demoralizing practices of bank directors and their accomplices. In the war of 1755, our State availed itself of this fund by issuing a paper money, bottomed on a specific tax for its redemption, and, to insure its credit, bearing an interest of five per cent. Within a very short time, not a bill of this emission was to be found in circulation. It was locked up in the chests of executors, guardians, widows, farmers, &c. We [140]then issued bills bottomed on a redeeming tax, but bearing no interest. These were readily received, and never depreciated a single farthing. In the revolutionary war, the old Congress and the States issued bills without interest, and without tax. They occupied the channels of circulation very freely, till those channels were overflowed by an excess beyond all the calls of circulation. But although we have so improvidently suffered the field of circulating medium to be filched from us by private individuals, yet I think we may recover it in part, and even in the whole, if the States will co-operate with us. If treasury bills are emitted on a tax appropriated for their redemption in fifteen years, and (to insure preference in the first moments of competition) bearing an interest of six per cent. there is no one who would not take them in preference to the bank paper now afloat, on a principle of patriotism as well as interest; and they would be withdrawn from circulation into private hoards to a considerable amount. Their credit once established, others might be emitted, bottomed also on a tax, but not bearing interest; and if ever their credit faltered, open public loans, on which these bills alone should be received as specie. These, operating as a sinking fund, would reduce the quantity in circulation, so as to maintain that in an equilibrium with specie. It is not easy to estimate the obstacles which, in the beginning, we should encounter in ousting the banks from their possession of the circulation; but a steady and judicious alternation of emissions and loans, would reduce them in time. But while this is going on, another measure should be pressed, to recover ultimately our right to the circulation. The States should be applied to, to transfer the right of issuing circulating paper to Congress exclusively, in perpetuum, if possible, but during the war at least, with a saving of charter rights. I believe that every State west and South of Connecticut river, except Delaware, would immediately do it; and the others would follow in time. Congress would, of course, begin by obliging unchartered banks to wind up their affairs within a short time, and the others as their charters expired, forbidding the subsequent circulation of their paper. This they [141]would supply with their own, bottomed, every emission, on an adequate tax, and bearing or not bearing interest, as the state of the public pulse should indicate. Even in the non-complying States, these bills would make their way, and supplant the unfunded paper of their banks, by their solidity, by the universality of their currency, and by their receivability for customs and taxes. It would be in their power, too, to curtail those banks to the amount of their actual specie, by gathering up their paper, and running it constantly on them. The national paper might thus take place even in the non-complying States. In this way, I am not without a hope, that this great, this sole resource for loans in an agricultural country, might yet be recovered for the use of the nation during war; and, if obtained in perpetuum, it would always be sufficient to carry us through any war; provided, that in the interval between war and war, all the outstanding paper should be called in, coin be permitted to flow in again, and to hold the field of circulation until another war should require its yielding place again to the national medium.

But it will be asked, are we to have no banks? Are merchants and others to be deprived of the resource of short accommodations, found so convenient? I answer, let us have banks; but let them be such as are alone to be found in any country on earth, except Great Britain. There is not a bank of discount on the continent of Europe, (at least there was not one when I was there,) which offers anything but cash in exchange for discounted bills. No one has a natural right to the trade of a money lender, but he who has the money to lend. Let those then among us, who have a monied capital, and who prefer employing it in loans rather than otherwise, set up banks, and give cash or national bills for the notes they discount. Perhaps, to encourage them, a larger interest than is legal in the other cases might be allowed them, on the condition of their lending for short periods only. It is from Great Britain we copy the idea of giving paper in exchange for discounted bills; and while we have derived from that country some good principles of government and legislation, we unfortunately run into the most servile [142]imitation of all her practices, ruinous as they prove to her, and with the gulph yawning before us into which these very practices are precipitating her. The unlimited emission of bank paper has banished all her specie, and is now, by a depreciation acknowledged by her own statesmen, carrying her rapidly to bankruptcy, as it did France, as it did us, and will do us again, and every country permitting paper to be circulated, other than that by public authority, rigorously limited to the just measure for circulation. Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation, are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us. He who lent his money to the public or to an individual, before the institution of the United States Bank, twenty years ago, when wheat was well sold at a dollar the bushel, and receives now his nominal sum when it sells at two dollars, is cheated of half his fortune; and by whom? By the banks, which, since that, have thrown into circulation ten dollars of their nominal money where was one at that time.

Reflect, if you please, on these ideas, and use them or not as they appear to merit. They comfort me in the belief, that they point out a resource ample enough, without overwhelming war taxes, for the expense of the war, and possibly still recoverable; and that they hold up to all future time a resource within ourselves, ever at the command of government, and competent to any wars into which we may be forced. Nor is it a slight object to equalize taxes through peace and war.

* * * * * * * *

Ever affectionately yours

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, June 27, 1813.

And I too, my dear Sir, like the wood-cutter of Ida, should [143]doubt where to begin, were I to enter the forest of opinions, discussions, and contentions which have occurred in our day. I should say with Theocritus, Τι πρατον καταλεξω; επει παρα μυρια ειπην. But I shall not do it. The summum bonum with me is now truly epicurian, ease of body and tranquillity of mind; and to these I wish to consign my remaining days. Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the United States, have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the αριστοι should prevail, were questions which kept the States of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. And in fact, the terms of whig and tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals. To come to our own country, and to the times when you and I became first acquainted, we well remember the violent parties which agitated the old Congress, and their bitter contests. There you and I were together, and the Jays, and the Dickinsons, and other anti-independents, were arrayed against us. They cherished the monarchy of England, and we the rights of our countrymen. When our present government was in the mew, passing from Confederation to Union, how bitter was the schism between the Feds and Antis. Here you and I were together again. For although, for a moment, separated by the Atlantic from the scene of action, I favored the opinion that nine States should confirm the constitution, in order to secure it, and the others hold off until certain amendments, deemed favorable to freedom, should be made. I rallied in the first instant to the wiser proposition of Massachusetts, that all should confirm, and then all instruct their delegates to urge those amendments. The amendments were made, and all were reconciled to the government. But as soon as it was put into motion, the line of division was again drawn. We broke into two parties, each wishing [144]to give the government a different direction; the one to strengthen the most popular branch, the other the more permanent branches, and to extend their permanence. Here you and I separated for the first time, and as we had been longer than most others on the public theatre, and our names therefore were more familiar to our countrymen, the party which considered you as thinking with them, placed your name at their head; the other, for the same reason, selected mine. But neither decency nor inclination permitted us to become the advocates of ourselves, or to take part personally in the violent contests which followed. We suffered ourselves, as you so well expressed it, to be passive subjects of public discussion. And these discussions, whether relating to men, measures or opinions, were conducted by the parties with an animosity, a bitterness and an indecency which had never been exceeded. All the resources of reason and of wrath were exhausted by each party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions; one was upbraided with receiving the anti-federalists, the other the old tories and refugees, into their bosom. Of this acrimony, the public papers of the day exhibit ample testimony, in the debates of Congress, of State Legislatures, of stump-orators, in addresses, answers, and newspaper essays; and to these, without question, may be added the private correspondences of individuals; and the less guarded in these, because not meant for the public eye, not restrained by the respect due to that, but poured forth from the overflowings of the heart into the bosom of a friend, as a momentary easement of our feelings. In this way, and in answers to addresses, you and I could indulge ourselves. We have probably done it, sometimes with warmth, often with prejudice, but always, as we believed, adhering to truth. I have not examined my letters of that day. I have no stomach to revive the memory of its feelings. But one of these letters, it seems, has got before the public, by accident and infidelity, by the death of one friend to whom it was written, and of his friend to whom it had been communicated, and by the malice and treachery of a third person, of whom I had never before heard, merely to make mischief, and in the same [145]satanic spirit in which the same enemy had intercepted and published, in 1776, your letter animadverting on Dickinson's character. How it happened that I quoted you in my letter to Doctor Priestley, and for whom, and not for yourself, the strictures were meant, has been explained to you in my letter of the 15th, which had been committed to the post eight days before I received yours of the 10th, 11th and 14th. That gave you the reference which these asked to the particular answer alluded to in the one to Priestley. The renewal of these old discussions, my friend, would be equally useless and irksome. To the volumes then written on these subjects, human ingenuity can add nothing new, and the rather, as lapse of time has obliterated many of the facts. And shall you and I, my dear Sir, at our age, like Priam of old, gird on the arma, diu desueta, trementibus œvo humeris? Shall we, at our age, become the Athletæ of party, and exhibit ourselves as gladiators in the arena of the newspapers? Nothing in the universe could induce me to it. My mind has been long fixed to bow to the judgment of the world, who will judge by my acts, and will never take counsel from me as to what that judgment shall be. If your objects and opinions have been misunderstood, if the measures and principles of others have been wrongfully imputed to you, as I believe they have been, that you should leave an explanation of them, would be an act of justice to yourself. I will add, that it has been hoped that you would leave such explanations as would place every saddle on its right horse, and replace on the shoulders of others the burthens they shifted on yours.

But all this, my friend, is offered, merely for your consideration and judgment, without presuming to anticipate what you alone are qualified to decide for yourself. I mean to express my own purpose only, and the reflections which have led to it. To me, then, it appears, that there have been differences of opinion and party differences, from the first establishment of governments to the present day, and on the same question which now divides our own country; that these will continue through all future time; that every one takes his side in favor of the many, or of [146]the few, according to his constitution, and the circumstances in which he is placed; that opinions, which are equally honest on both sides, should not affect personal esteem or social intercourse; that as we judge between the Claudii and the Gracchi, the Wentworths and the Hampdens of past ages, so of those among us whose names may happen to be remembered for awhile, the next generations will judge, favorably or unfavorably, according to the complexion of individual minds, and the side they shall themselves have taken; that nothing new can be added by you or me to what has been said by others, and will be said in every age in support of the conflicting opinions on government; and that wisdom and duty dictate an humble resignation to the verdict of our future peers. In doing this myself, I shall certainly not suffer moot questions to affect the sentiments of sincere friendship and respect, consecrated to you by so long a course of time, and of which I now repeat sincere assurances.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, June 28, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I know not what, unless it were the prophet of Tippecanoe, had turned my curiosity to inquiries after the metaphysical science of the Indians, their ecclesiastical establishments, and theological theories; but your letter, written with all the accuracy, perpiscuity, and elegance of your youth and middle age, as it has given me great satisfaction, deserves my best thanks.

It has given me satisfaction, because, while it has furnished me with information where all the knowledge is to be obtained that books afford, it has convinced me that I shall never know much more of the subject than I do now. As I have never aimed at making my collection of books upon this subject, I have none of those you abridged in so concise a manner. Lafitan Adair, and De Bry, were known to me only by name.

The various ingenuity which has been displayed in inventions of hypothesis, to account for the original population of America, [147]and the immensity of learning profusely expended to support them, have appeared to me for a longer time than I can precisely recollect, what the physicians call the Literæ nihil Sanantes. Whether serpents teeth were sown here and sprang up men; whether men and women dropped from the clouds upon this Atlantic Island; whether the Almighty created them here, or whether they emigrated from Europe, are questions of no moment to the present or future happiness of man. Neither agriculture, commerce, manufactures, fisheries, science, literature, taste, religion, morals, nor any other good will be promoted, or any evil averted, by any discoveries that can be made in answer to these questions.

The opinions of the Indians and their usages, as they are represented in your obliging letter of the 11th of June, appear to me to resemble the Platonizing Philo, or the Philonizing Plato, more than the genuine system of Indianism.

The philosophy both of Philo and Plato are at least as absurd. It is indeed less intelligible.

Plato borrowed his doctrines from Oriental and Egyptian philosophers, for he had travelled both in India and Egypt.

The Oriental philosophy, imitated and adopted, in part, if not the whole, by Plato and Philo, was

1. One God the good.

2. The ideas, the thoughts, the reason, the intellect, the logos, the ratio of God.

3. Matter, the universe, the production of the logos, or contemplations of God. This matter was the source of evil.

Perhaps the three powers of Plato, Philo, the Egyptians, and Indians, cannot be distinctly made out, from your account of the Indians, but—

1. The great spirit, the good, who is worshipped by the kings, sachems, and all the great men, in their solemn festivals, as the Author, the Parent of good.

2. The Devil, or the source of evil. They are not metaphysicians enough as yet to suppose it, or at least to call it matter, like the wiscains of Antiquity, and like Frederick the Great [148]who has written a very silly essay on the origin of evil, in which he ascribes it all to matter, as if this was an original discovery of his own.

The watchmaker has in his head an idea of the system of a watch before he makes it. The mechanician of the universe had a complete idea of the universe before he made it; and this idea, this logos, was almighty, or at least powerful enough to produce the world, but it must be made of matter which was eternal; for creation out of nothing was impossible. And matter was unmanageable. It would not, and could not be fashioned into any system, without a large mixture of evil in it; for matter was essentially evil.

The Indians are not metaphysicians enough to have discovered this idea, this logos, this intermediate power between good and evil, God and matter. But of the two powers, the good and the evil, they seem to have a full conviction; and what son or daughter of Adam and Eve has not?

This logos of Plato seems to resemble, if it was not the prototype of, the Ratio and its Progress of Manilius, the astrologer; of the Progress of the Mind of Condorcet, and the Age of Reason of Tom Payne.

I could make a system too. The seven hundred thousand soldiers of Zingis, when the whole, or any part of them went to battle, they sent up a howl, which resembled nothing that human imagination has conceived, unless it be the supposition that all the devils in hell were let loose at once to set up an infernal scream, which terrified their enemies, and never failed to obtain them victory. The Indian yell resembles this; and, therefore, America was peopled from Asia.

Another system. The armies of Zingis, sometimes two or three or four hundred thousand of them, surrounded a province in a circle, and marched towards the centre, driving all the wild beasts before them, lions, tigers, wolves, bears, and every living thing, terrifying them with their howls and yells, their drums, trumpets, &c., till they terrified and tamed enough of them to victual the whole army. Therefore, the Scotch Highlanders, who practice the same thing in miniature, are emigrants from Asia. Therefore, the American Indians, who, for anything I know, [149]practice the same custom, are emigrants from Asia or Scotland.

I am weary of contemplating nations from the lowest and most beastly degradations of human life, to the highest refinement of civilization. I am weary of Philosophers, Theologians, Politicians, and Historians. They are an immense mass of absurdities, vices, and lies. Montesquieu had sense enough to say in jest, that all our knowledge might be comprehended in twelve pages in duodecimo, and I believe him in earnest. I could express my faith in shorter terms. He who loves the workman and his work, and does what he can to preserve and improve it, shall be accepted of him.

I have also felt an interest in the Indians, and a commiseration for them from my childhood. Aaron Pomham the priest, and Moses Pomham the king of the Punkapang and Neponset tribes, were frequent visitors at my father's house, at least seventy years ago. I have a distinct remembrance of their forms and figures. They were very aged, and the tallest and stoutest Indians I have ever seen. The titles of king and priest, and the names of Moses and Aaron, were given them no doubt by our Massachusetts divines and statesmen. There was a numerous family in this town, whose wigwam was within a mile of this house. This family were frequently at my father's house, and I, in my boyish rambles, used to call at their wigwam, where I never failed to be treated with whortleberries, blackberries, strawberries or apples, plums, peaches, &c., for they had planted a variety of fruit trees about them. But the girls went out to service, and the boys to sea, till not a soul is left. We scarcely see an Indian in a year. I remember the time when Indian murder, scalpings, depredations and conflagrations, were as frequent on the Eastern and Northern frontier of Massachusetts, as they are now in Indiana, and spread as much terror. But since the conquest of Canada, all has ceased; and I believe with you that another conquest of Canada will quiet the Indians forever, and be as great a blessing to them as to us.

[150]The instance of Aaron Pomham made me suspect that there was an order of priesthood among them. But, according to your account, the worship of the good spirit was performed by the kings, sachems, and warriors, as among the ancient Germans, whose highest rank of nobility were priests. The worship of the evil spirit, Αθανατους μὲν πρωτα θεους νομῳ ως διακειται τιμα.

We have war now in earnest. I lament the contumacious spirit that appears about me. But I lament the cause that has given too much apology for it; the total neglect and absolute refusal of all maritime protection and defence. Money, mariners, and soldiers, would be at the public service, if only a few frigates had been ordered to be built. Without this, our Union will be a brittle china vase, a house of ice, or a palace of glass.

I am, Sir, with an affectionate respect, yours

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, June 28, 1813.

Dear Sir,—It is very true that the denunciations of the priesthood are fulminated against every advocate for a complete freedom of religion. Comminations, I believe, would be plenteously pronounced by even the most liberal of them, against Atheism, Deism, against every man who disbelieved or doubted the resurrection of Jesus, or the miracles of the New Testament. Priestley himself would denounce the man who should deny the Apocalypse, or the Prophecies of Daniel. Priestley and Lindsay both have denounced as idolaters and blasphemers all the Trinitarians, and even the Arians.

Poor weak man, when will thy perfection arrive? Thy perfectability I shall not deny; for a greater character than Priestley or Godwin has said, "Be ye perfect," &c. For my part I can not deal damnation round the land on all I judge the foes of God and man. But I did not intend to say a word on this subject in this letter. As much of it as you please hereafter, but let me return to politics.

[151]With some difficulty I have hunted up, or down, the "address of the young men of the city of Philadelphia, the district of Southwark, and the Northern Liberties," and the answer.

The addresses say, "Actuated by the same principles on which our forefathers achieved their independence, the recent attempts of a foreign power to derogate from the dignity and rights of our country, awaken our liveliest sensibility, and our strongest indignation." Huzza my brave boys! Could Thomas Jefferson or John Adams hear those words with insensibility, and without emotion? These boys afterwards add, "We regard our liberty and independence as the richest portion given us by our ancestors." And who were those ancestors? Among them were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. And I very coolly believe that no two men among those ancestors did more towards it than those two. Could either hear this like statues? If, one hundred years hence, your letters and mine should see the light, I hope the reader will hunt up this address, and read it all; and remember that we were then engaged, or on the point of engaging, in a war with France. I shall not repeat the answer till we come to the paragraph upon which you criticised to Dr. Priestley, though every word of it is true, and I now rejoice to see it recorded, and though I had wholly forgotten it.

The paragraph is, "Science and morals are the great pillars on which this country has been raised to its present population, opulence and prosperity, and these alone can advance, support, and preserve it. Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity, or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researches, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions, or systems of education more fit, in general, to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors."

Now, compare the paragraph in the answer with the paragraph in the address, as both are quoted above, and see if we can find the extent and the limits of the meaning of both.

Who composed that army of fine young fellows that was then before my eyes? There were among them Roman Catholics, [152]English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anabaptists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists, Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists; and "Protestans qui ne croyent rien." Very few however of several of these species. Nevertheless, all educated in the GENERAL PRINCIPLES of Christianity; and the general principles of English and American liberty.

Could my answer be understood by any candid reader or hearer, to recommend to all the others the general principles, institutions, or systems of education of the Roman Catholics? Or those of the Quakers? Or those of the Presbyterians? Or those of the Menonists? Or those of the Methodists? Or those of the Moravians? Or those of the Universalists? Or those of the Philosophers? No.

The GENERAL PRINCIPLES on which the fathers achieved independence, were the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young gentlemen could unite, and these principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer.

And what were these GENERAL PRINCIPLES? I answer, the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united; and the GENERAL PRINCIPLES of English and American liberty, in which all these young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence.

Now I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature, and our terrestrial mundane system. I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present information, that I believed they would never make discoveries in contradiction to these GENERAL PRINCIPLES. In favor of these GENERAL PRINCIPLES in philosophy, religion and government, I would fill sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, [153]Rousseau and Voltaire, as well as Newton and Locke; not to mention thousands of divines and philosophers of inferior fame.

I might have flattered myself that my sentiments were sufficiently known to have protected me against suspicions of narrow thoughts, contracted sentiments, bigoted, enthusiastic, or superstitious principles, civil, political, philosophical, or ecclesiastical. The first sentence of the preface to my defence of the constitution, vol. 1st, printed in 1787, is in these words: "The arts and sciences, in general, during the three or four last centuries, have had a regular course of progressive improvement. The inventions in mechanic arts, the discoveries in natural philosophy, navigation, and commerce, and the advancement of civilization and humanity, have occasioned changes in the condition of the world and the human character, which would have astonished the most refined nations of antiquity," &c. I will quote no farther; but request you to read again that whole page, and then say whether the writer of it could be suspected of recommending to youth "to look backward instead of forward" for instruction and improvement.

This letter is already too long. In my next I shall consider the Terrorism of the day. Meantime I am, as ever, your friend

TO DOCTOR JOHN L. E. W. SHECUT.

Monticello, June 29, 1813.

Sir,—I am very sensible of the honor done me by the Antiquarian Society of Charleston, in the Rule for the organization of their Society, which you have been so good as to communicate, and I pray you to do me the favor of presenting to them my thanks. Age, and my inland and retired situation, make it scarcely probable that I shall be able to render them any services. But, should any occasion occur wherein I can be useful to them, I shall receive their commands with pleasure, and execute them with fidelity. While the promotion of the arts and sciences is interesting to every nation, and at all times, it becomes peculiarly [154]so to ours, at this time, when the total demoralization of the governments of Europe, has rendered it safest, by cherishing internal resources, to lessen the occasions of intercourse with them. The works of our aboriginal inhabitants have been so perishable, that much of them must have disappeared already. The antiquarian researches, therefore, of the Society, cannot be too soon, or too assiduously directed, to the collecting and preserving what still remain.

Permit me to place here my particular thankfulness for the kind sentiments of personal regard which you have been pleased to express.

I have been in the constant hope of seeing the second volume of your excellent botanical work. Its alphabetical form and popular style, its attention to the properties and uses of plants, as well as to their descriptions, are well calculated to encourage and instruct our citizens in botanical inquiries.

I avail myself of this occasion, of enclosing you a little of the fruit of a Capsicum I have just received from the province of Texas, where it is indigenous and perennial, and is used as freely as salt by the inhabitants. It is new to me. It differs from your Capsicum Minimum, in being perennial and probably hardier; perhaps, too, in its size, which would claim the term of Minutissimum. This stimulant being found salutary in a visceral complaint known on the sea-coast, the introduction of a hardier variety may be of value. Accept the assurance of my great respect and consideration.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, June 30, 1813.

Dear Sir,—* * * * *

But to return, for the present, to "The sensations excited in free, yet firm minds by the Terrorism of the day." You say none can conceive them who did not witness them; and they were felt by one party only.

[155]Upon this subject I despair of making myself understood by posterity, by the present age, and even by you. To collect and arrange the documents illustrative of it, would require as many lives as those of a cat. You never felt the terrorism of Chaise's Rebellion in Massachusetts. I believe you never felt the terrorism of Gallatin's insurrection in Pennsylvania. You certainly never realized the terrorism of Tries's most outrageous riot and rescue, as I call it. Treason, rebellion—as the world, and great judges, and two juries pronounce it.

You certainly never felt the terrorism excited by Genet in 1793, when ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag Washington out of his house, and effect a revolution in the government, or compel it to declare war in favor of the French revolution, and against England. The coolest and the firmest minds, even among the Quakers in Philadelphia, have given their opinions to me, that nothing but the yellow fever, which removed Dr. Hutchinson and Jonathan Dickinson Sargent from this world, could have saved the United States from a total revolution of government. I have no doubt you were fast asleep in philosophical tranquillity when ten thousand people, and perhaps many more, were parading the streets of Philadelphia, on the evening of my Fast Day. When even Governor Mifflin himself, thought it his duty to order a patrol of horse and foot, to preserve the peace; when Market Street was as full as men could stand by one another, and even before my door; when some of my domestics, in phrenzy, determined to sacrifice their lives in my defence; when all were ready to make a desperate sally among the multitude, and others were with difficulty and danger dragged back by the others; when I myself judged it prudent and necessary to order chests of arms from the war office, to be brought through by lanes and back doors; determined to defend my house at the expense of my life, and the lives of the few, very few, domestics and friends within it. What think you of terrorism, Mr. Jefferson? Shall I investigate the causes, the motives, the incentives to these terrorisms? Shall I remind you of Phillip Freneau, of Loyd, of [156]Ned Church? Of Peter Markoe, of Andrew Brown, of Duane? Of Callender, of Tom Paine, of Greenleaf, of Cheatham, of Tennison at New York, of Benjamin Austin at Boston?

But above all, shall I request you to collect circular letters from members of Congress in the middle and southern States to their constituents? I would give all I am worth for a complete collection of all those circular letters. Please to recollect Edward Livingston's motions and speeches, and those of his associates, in the case of Jonathan Robbins. The real terrors of both parties have always been, and now are, the fear that they shall lose the elections, and consequently the loaves and fishes; and that their antagonists will obtain them. Both parties have excited artificial terrors, and if I were summoned as a witness to say, upon oath, which party had excited, Machiavillialy, the most terror, and which had really felt the most, I could not give a more sincere answer than in the vulgar style, put them in a bag and shake them, and then see which comes out first.

Where is the terrorism now, my friend? There is now more real terrorism in New England than there ever was in Virginia. The terror of a civil war, à La Vendee, a division of the States, &c., &c., &c. How shall we conjure down this damnable rivalry between Virginia and Massachusetts? Virginia had recourse to Pennsylvania and New York. Massachusetts has now recourse to New York. They have almost got New Jersey and Maryland, and they are aiming at Pennsylvania. And all this in the midst of a war with England, when all Europe is in flames.

I will give you a hint or two more on the subject of terrorism. When John Randolph in the House, and Stephens Thompson Mason in the Senate, were treating me with the utmost contempt; when Ned Livingston was threatening me with impeachment for the murder of Jonathan Robbins, the native of Danvers in Connecticut; when I had certain information, that the daily language in an Insurance Office in Boston was, even from the mouth of Charles Jarvis, "We must go to Philadelphia and drag that John Adams from his chair;" I thank God that terror never [157]yet seized on my mind. But I have had more excitements to it, from 1761 to this day, than any other man. Name the other if you can. I have been disgraced and degraded, and I have a right to complain. But as I always expected it, I have always submitted to it; perhaps often with too much tameness. The amount of all the speeches of John Randolph in the House, for two or three years is, that himself and myself are the only two honest and consistent men in the United States. Himself eternally in opposition to government, and myself as constantly in favor of it. He is now in correspondence with his friend Quincy. What will come of it, let Virginia and Massachusetts judge. In my next you may find something upon correspondences; Whig and Tory; Federal and Democratic; Virginian and Novanglian; English and French; Jacobinic and Despotic, &c.

Meantime I am as ever, your friend.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, July, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Correspondences! The letters of Bernard and Hutchinson, and Oliver and Paxton, &c., were detected and exposed before the Revolution. There are, I doubt not, thousands of letters now in being, (but still concealed from their party,) to their friends, which will, one day, see the light. I have wondered for more than thirty years, that so few have appeared; and have constantly expected that a Tory History of the rise and progress of the Revolution would appear; and wished it. I would give more for it than for Marshall, Gordon, Ramsay, and all the rest. Private letters of all parties will be found analogous to the newspapers, pamphlets, and historians of the times. Gordon's and Marshall's histories were written to make money; and fashioned and finished to sell high in the London market. I should expect to find more truth in a history written by Hutchinson, Oliver, or Sewall; and I doubt not, such histories will one day appear. Marshall's is a Mausolæum, 100 [158]feet square at the base, and 200 feet high. It will be as durable as the monuments of the Washington benevolent societies. Your character in history may easily be foreseen. Your administration will be quoted by philosophers as a model of profound wisdom; by politicians, as weak, superficial, and short sighted. Mine, like Pope's woman, will have no character at all. The impious idolatry to Washington destroyed all character. His legacy of ministers was not the worst part of the tragedy; though by his own express confession to me, and by Pickering's confession to the world, in his letters to Sullivan, two of them, at least, were fastened upon him by necessity, because he could get no other. The truth is, Hamilton's influence over him was so well known, that no man fit for the office of State or War would accept either. He was driven to the necessity of appointing such as would accept; and this necessity was, in my opinion, the real cause of his retirement from office; for you may depend upon it, that retirement was not voluntary.

My friend, you and I have passed our lives in serious times. I know not whether we have ever seen any moments more serious than the present. The Northern States are now retaliating upon the Southern States their conduct from 1797 to 1800. It is a mortification to me to see what servile mimics they are. Their newspapers, pamphlets, hand-bills, and their legislative proceedings, are copied from the examples set them, especially by Virginia and Kentucky. I know not which party has the most unblushing front, the most lying tongue, or the most impudent and insolent, not to say the most seditious and rebellious pen.

If you desire explanation on any of the points in this letter, you shall have them. This correspondence, I hope, will be concealed as long as Hutchinson's and Oliver's; but I should have no personal objection to the publication of it in the National Intelligencer. I am, and shall be for life, your friend. [159]

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, July 9, 1813.

Lord! Lord! What can I do with so much Greek? When I was of your age, young man, i. e., seven, or eight, or nine years ago, I felt a kind of pang of affection for one of the flames of my youth, and again paid my addresses to Isocrates, and Dionysius Hallicarnassensis, &c., &c. I collected all my Lexicons and Grammars, and sat down to περὶ συνθησεως ονοματων, &c. In this way I amused myself for some time; but I found, that if I looked a word to-day, in less than a week I had to look it again. It was to little better purpose than writing letters on a pail of water.

Whenever I set down to write to you, I am precisely in the situation of the wood-cutter on Mount Ida. I cannot see wood for trees. So many subjects crowd upon me, that I know not with which to begin. But I will begin, at random, with Belsham; who is, as I have no doubt, a man of merit. He had no malice against you, nor any thought of doing mischief; nor has he done any, though he has been imprudent. The truth is, the dissenters of all denominations in England, and especially the Unitarians, are cowed, as we used to say at College. They are ridiculed, insulted, persecuted. They can scarcely hold their heads above water. They catch at straws and shadows to avoid drowning. Priestley sent your letter to Linsay, and Belsham printed it from the same motive, i. e. to derive some countenance from the name of Jefferson. Nor has it done harm here Priestley says to Linsay, "You see he is almost one of us, and he hopes will soon be altogether such as we are." Even in our New England, I have heard a high Federal Divine say, your letters had increased his respect for you.

"The same political parties which now agitate the United States, have existed through all time;" precisely. And this is precisely the complaint in the preface to the first volume of my defence. While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced [160]now, than three or four thousand years ago. What is the reason? I say, parties and factions will not suffer, or permit improvements to be made. As soon as one man hints at an improvement, his rival opposes it. No sooner has one party discovered or invented an amelioration of the condition of man, or the order of society, than the opposite party belies it, misconstrues, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it. Records are destroyed. Histories are annihilated, or interpolated, or prohibited: sometimes by popes, sometimes by emperors, sometimes by aristocratical, and sometimes by democratical assemblies, and sometimes by mobs.

Aristotle wrote the history of eighteen hundred republics which existed before his time. Cicero wrote two volumes of discourses on government, which, perhaps, were worth all the rest of his works. The works of Livy and Tacitus, &c., that are lost, would be more interesting than all that remain. Fifty gospels have been destroyed, and where are St. Luke's world of books that have been written? If you ask my opinion who has committed all the havoc, I will answer you candidly,—Ecclesiastical and Imperial despotism has done it, to conceal their frauds.

Why are the histories of all nations, more ancient than the Christian era, lost? Who destroyed the Alexandrian library? I believe that Christian priests, Jewish rabbis, Grecian sages, and emperors, had as great a hand in it as Turks and Mahometans.

Democrats, Rebels and Jacobins, when they possessed a momentary power, have shown a disposition both to destroy and forge records as vandalical as priests and despots. Such has been and such is the world we live in.

I recollect, near some thirty years ago, to have said carelessly to you that I wished I could find time and means to write something upon aristocracy. You seized upon the idea, and encouraged me to do it with all that friendly warmth that is natural and habitual to you. I soon began, and have been writing upon that subject ever since. I have been so unfortunate as never to be able to make myself understood.

Your "ἄριστοι" are the most difficult animals to manage of [161]anything in the whole theory and practice of government. They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own subtlety, industry and courage, but they employ the commonalty to knock to pieces every plan and model that the most honest architects in legislation can invent to keep them within bounds. Both patricians and plebeians are as furious as the workmen in England, to demolish labor-saving machinery.

But who are these "ἄριστοι"? Who shall judge? Who shall select these choice spirits from the rest of the congregation? Themselves? We must first find out and determine who themselves are. Shall the congregation choose? Ask Xenophon; perhaps hereafter I may quote you Greek. Too much in a hurry at present, English must suffice. Xenophon says that the ecclesia always chooses the worst men they can find, because none others will do their dirty work. This wicked motive is worse than birth or wealth. Here I want to quote Greek again. But the day before I received your letter of June 27th, I gave the book to George Washington Adams, going to the academy at Hingham. The title is Ηθικη ποιησις, a collection of moral sentences from all the most ancient Greek poets. In one of the oldest of them, I read in Greek, that I cannot repeat, a couplet, the sense of which was: "Nobility in men is worth as much as it is in horses, asses, or rams; but the meanest blooded puppy in the world, if he gets a little money, is as good a man as the best of them." Yet birth and wealth together have prevailed over virtue and talents in all ages. The many will acknowledge no other "ἄριστοι"

Your experience of this truth will not much differ from that of your best friend.

MR ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, July 13, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Let me allude to one circumstance more in one of your letters to me, before I touch upon the subject of religion in your letters to Priestley.

[162]The first time that you and I differed in opinion on any material question, was after your arrival from Europe, and that point was the French revolution.

You were well persuaded in your own mind, that the nation would succeed in establishing a free republican government. I was as well persuaded in mine, that a project of such a government over five and twenty millions of people, when four and twenty millions and five hundred thousand of them could neither read nor write, was as unnatural, irrational and impracticable as it would be over the elephants, lions, tigers, panthers, wolves and bears in the royal menagerie at Versailles. Napoleon has lately invented a word which perfectly expresses my opinion, at that time and ever since. He calls the project Ideology; and John Randolph, though he was, fourteen years ago, as wild an enthusiast for equality and fraternity as any of them, appears to be now a regenerated proselyte to Napoleon's opinion and mine, that it was all madness.

The Greeks, in their allegorical style, said that the two ladies, Αριστοκρατια and δημοκρατια, always in a quarrel, disturbed every neighborhood with their brawls. It is a fine observation of yours, that "Whig and Tory belong to natural history." Inequalities of mind and body are so established by God Almighty, in his constitution of human nature, that no art or policy can ever plane them down to a level. I have never read reasoning more absurd, sophistry more gross, in proof of the Athanasian creed, or Transubstantiation, than the subtle labors of Helvetius and Rousseau, to demonstrate the natural equality of mankind. Jus cuique, the golden rule, do as you would be done by, is all the equality that can be supported or defended by reason, or reconciled to common sense.

It is very true, as you justly observe, I can say nothing new on this or any other subject of government. But when Lafayette harangued you and me and John Quincy Adams, through a whole evening in your hotel in the Cul de Sac, at Paris, and developed the plans then in operation to reform France, though I was as silent as you were, I then thought I could say something new to him.

[163]In plain truth, I was astonished at the grossness of his ignorance of government and history, as I had been for years before, at that of Turgot, Rochefaucault, Condorcet and Franklin. This gross Ideology of them all, first suggested to me the thought and the inclination which I afterwards hinted to you in London, of writing something upon aristocracy. I was restrained for years, by many fearful considerations. Who, and what was I? A man of no name or consideration in Europe. The manual exercise of writing was painful and distressing to me, almost like a blow on the elbow or knee. My style was habitually negligent, unstudied, unpolished; I should make enemies of all the French patriots, the Dutch patriots, the English republicans, dissenters, reformers, call them what you will; and what came nearer home to my bosom than all the rest, I knew I should give offence to many if not all of my best friends in America, and very probably destroy all the little popularity I ever had, in a country where popularity had more omnipotence than the British Parliament assumed. Where should I get the necessary books? What printer or bookseller would undertake to print such hazardous writings?

But when the French assembly of notables met, and I saw that Turgot's "government in one centre, and that centre the nation," a sentence as mysterious or as contradictory as the Athanasian creed, was about to take place, and when I saw that Shaise's rebellion was about breaking out in Massachusetts, and when I saw that even my obscure name was often quoted in France as an advocate for simple democracy, when I saw that the sympathies in America had caught the French flame, I was determined to wash my own hands as clean as I could of all this foulness. I had then strong forebodings that I was sacrificing all the honors and emoluments of this life, and so it has happened, but not in so great a degree as I apprehended.

In truth, my defence of the constitutions and "discourses on Davila," laid the foundation for that immense unpopularity which fell, like the tower of Siloam, upon me. Your steady defence of democratical principles, and your invariable favorable opinion [164]of the French revolution, laid the foundation of your unbounded popularity.

Sic transit gloria mundi! Now I will forfeit my life, if you can find one sentence in my defence of the constitutions, or the discourses on Davila, which, by a fair construction, can favor the introduction of hereditary monarchy or aristocracy into America.

They were all written to support and strengthen the constitutions of the United States.

The wood-cutter on Ida, though he was puzzled to find a tree to chop at first, I presume knew how to leave off when he was weary. But I never know when to cease when I begin to write to you.

TO DOCTOR SAMUEL BROWN.

Monticello, July 14, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of May 25th and June 13th have been duly received, as also the first supply of Capsicum, and the second of the same article with other seeds. I shall set great store by the Capsicum, if it is hardy enough for our climate, the species we have heretofore tried being too tender. The Galvance, too, will be particularly attended to, as it appears very different from what we cultivate by that name. I have so many grandchildren and others who might be endangered by the poison plant, that I think the risk overbalances the curiosity of trying it. The most elegant thing of that kind known is a preparation of the Jamestown weed, Datura-Stramonium, invented by the French in the time of Robespierre. Every man of firmness carried it constantly in his pocket to anticipate the Guillotine. It brings on the sleep of death as quietly as fatigue does the ordinary sleep, without the least struggle or motion. Condorcet, who had recourse to it, was found lifeless on his bed a few minutes after his landlady had left him there, and even the slipper which she had observed half suspended on his foot, was not shaken off. It seems far preferable to the Venesection of the Romans, the Hemlock of the Greeks, and the Opium of the [165]Turks. I have never been able to learn what the preparation is, other than a strong concentration of its lethiferous principle. Could such a medicament be restrained to self-administration, it ought not to be kept secret. There are ills in life as desperate as intolerable, to which it would be the rational relief, e. g. the inveterate cancer. As a relief from tyranny indeed, for which the Romans recurred to it in the times of the emperors, it has been a wonder to me that they did not consider a poignard in the breast of the tyrant as a better remedy.

I am sorry to learn that a banditti from our country are taking part in the domestic contests of the country adjoining you; and the more so as from the known laxity of execution in our laws, they cannot be punished, although the law has provided punishment. It will give a wrongful hue to a rightful act of taking possession of Mobile, and will be imputed to the national authority as Meranda's enterprise was, because not punished by it. I fear, too, that the Spaniards are too heavily oppressed by ignorance and superstition for self-government, and whether a change from foreign to domestic despotism will be to their advantage remains to be seen.

We have been unfortunate in our first military essays by land. Our men are good, but our generals unqualified. Every failure we have incurred has been the fault of the general, the men evincing courage in every instance. At sea we have rescued our character; but the chief fruit of our victories there is to prove to those who have fleets, that the English are not invincible at sea, as Alexander has proved that Bonaparte is not invincible by land. How much to be lamented that the world cannot unite and destroy these two land and sea monsters! The one drenching the earth with human gore, the other ravaging the ocean with lawless piracies and plunder. Bonaparte will die, and the nations of Europe will recover their independence with, I hope, better governments. But the English government never dies, because their king is no part of it, he is a mere formality, and the real government is the aristocracy of the country, for their House of Commons is of that class. Their aim is to claim [166]the dominion of the ocean by conquest, and to make every vessel navigating it pay a tribute to the support of the fleet necessary to maintain that dominion, to which their own resources are inadequate. I see no means of terminating their maritime dominion and tyranny but in their own bankruptcy, which I hope is approaching. But I turn from these painful contemplations to the more pleasing one of my constant friendship and respect for you.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, July 15, 1813.

Never mind it, my dear Sir, if I write four letters to your one, your one is worth more than my four.

It is true that I can say, and have said, nothing new on the subject of government. Yet I did say in my defence and in my discourses on Davila, though in an uncouth style, what was new to Locke, to Harrington, to Milton, to Hume, to Montesquieu, to Rousseau, to Turgot, to Condorcet, to Rochefaucault, to Price, to Franklin, and to yourself; and at that time to almost all Europe and America. I can prove all this by indisputable authorities and documents.

Writings on government had been not only neglected, but discountenanced and discouraged throughout all Europe, from the restoration of Charles the Second in England, till the French revolution commenced.

The English commonwealth, the fate of Charles the 1st, and the military despotism of Cromwell, had sickened mankind with disquisitions on government to such a degree, that there was scarcely a man in Europe who had looked into the subject.

David Hume had made himself so fashionable with the aid of the court and clergy, Atheist, as they called him, and by his elegant lies against the republicans and gaudy daubings of the courtiers, that he had nearly laughed into contempt Rapin, Sydney, and even Locke. It was ridiculous and even criminal [167]in almost all Europe to speak of constitutions, or writers upon the principles or the fabrics of them.

In this state of things my poor, unprotected, unpatronized books appeared; and met with a fate not quite so cruel as I had anticipated. They were at last, however, overborne by misrepresentations, and will perish in obscurity, though they have been translated into German as well as French. The three emperors of Europe, the Prince Regents, and all the ruling powers, would no more countenance or tolerate such writings, than the Pope, the emperor of Haiti, Ben Austin, or Tom Paine.

The nations of Europe appeared to me, when I was among them, from the beginning of 1778, to 1785, i. e. to the commencement of the troubles in France, to be advancing by slow but sure steps towards an amelioration of the condition of man in religion and government, in liberty, equality, fraternity, knowledge, civilization and humanity.

The French revolution I dreaded, because I was sure it would not only arrest the progress of improvement, but give it a retrograde course, for at least a century, if not many centuries. The French patriots appeared to me like young scholars from a college, or sailors flushed with recent pay or prize money, mounted on wild horses, lashing and spurring till they would kill the horses, and break their own necks.

Let me now ask you very seriously, my friend, where are now, in 1813, the perfection and the perfectability of human nature? Where is now the progress of the human mind? Where is the amelioration of society? Where the augmentations of human comforts? Where the diminutions of human pains and miseries? I know not whether the last day of Dr. Young can exhibit to a mind unstaid by philosophy and religion [for I hold there can be no philosophy without religion], more terrors than the present state of the world. When, where, and how is the present chaos to be arranged into order? There is not, there cannot be, a greater abuse of words than to call the writings of Calender, Paine, Austin and Lowell, or the speeches of Ned Livingston and John Randolph, public discussions. The [168]ravings and rantings of Bedlam merit the character as well; and yet Joel Barlow was about to record Tom Paine as the great author of the American Revolution! If he was, I desire that my name may be blotted out forever from its records.

You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.

I shall come to the subject of religion by-and-bye. Your friend.

I have been looking for some time for a space in my good husband's letters to add the regards of an old friend, which are still cherished and preserved through all the changes and vicissitudes which have taken place since we first became acquainted, and will, I trust, remain as long as

A. Adams.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, July 16, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your letters to Priestley have increased my grief, if that were possible, for the loss of Rush. Had he lived, I would have stimulated him to insist on your promise to him, to write him on the subject of religion. Your plan I admire.

In your letter to Priestley of March 21st, 1801, dated at Washington, you call "The Christian Philosophy, the most sublime and benevolent, but the most perverted system that ever shone upon man." That it is the most sublime and benevolent, I agree. But whether it has been more perverted than that of Moses, of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Sanchoniathan, of Numa, of Mahomet, of the Druids, of the Hindoos, &c., &c., I cannot as yet determine because I am not sufficiently acquainted with those systems, or the history of their effects, to form a decisive opinion of the result of the comparison.

In your letter dated Washington, April 9, 1803, you say, "In consequence of some conversations with Dr. Rush, in the years 1798-99. 1 had promised some day to write to him a letter, giving [169]him my view of the Christian system. I have reflected often on it since, and even sketched the outline in my own mind. I should first take a general view of the moral doctrines of the most remarkable of the ancient philosophers, of whose ethics we have sufficient information to make an estimate; say of Pythagoras, Epicurus, Epictetus, Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, Antonius. I should do justice to the branches of morality they have treated well, but point out the importance of those in which they are deficient. I should then take a view of the Deism and Ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation. I should proceed to a view of the life, character, and doctrines of Jesus, who, sensible of the incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of a pure Deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God—to reform their moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice, and philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state. This view would purposely omit the question of his Divinity, and even of his inspiration. To do him justice, it would be necessary to remark the disadvantages his doctrines have to encounter, not having been committed to writing by himself, but by the most unlettered of men, by memory, long after they had heard them from him, when much was forgotten, much misunderstood, and presented in very paradoxical shapes; yet such are the fragments remaining, as to show a master workman, and that his system of morality was the most benevolent and sublime, probably, that has been ever taught, and more perfect than those of any of the ancient philosophers. His character and doctrines have received still greater injury from those who pretend to be his special disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated his actions and precepts from views of personal interest, so as to induce the unthinking part of mankind to throw off the whole system in disgust, and to pass sentence, as an imposter, on the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that has ever been exhibited to man. This is the outline!"

"Sancte Socrate! ora pro nobis!"—Erasmus.

[170]Priestley in his letter to Linsay, enclosing a copy of your letter to him, says, "He is generally considered an unbeliever; if so, however, he cannot be far from us, and I hope in the way to be not only almost, but altogether what we are. He now attends public worship very regularly, and his moral conduct was never impeached."

Now, I see not but you are as good a Christian as Priestley and Linsay. Piety and morality were the end and object of the Christian system, according to them, and according to you. They believed in the resurrection of Jesus, in his miracles, and in his inspiration; but what inspiration? Not all that is recorded in the New Testament, nor the Old. They have not yet told us how much they believe, or how much they doubt or disbelieve. They have not told us how much allegory, how much parable, they find, nor how they explain them all, in the Old Testament or the New.

John Quincy Adams has written for years to his two sons, boys of ten and twelve, a series of letters, in which he pursues a plan more extensive than yours; but agreeing in most of the essential points. I wish these letters could be preserved in the bosoms of his boys, but women and priests will get them; and I expect, if he makes a peace, he will be obliged to retire like a Jay, to study prophecies to the end of his life. I have more to say on this subject of religion.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, July 18, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I have more to say on religion. For more than sixty years I have been attentive to this great subject. Controversies between Calvinists and Armenians, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Deists and Christians, Atheists and both, have attracted my attention, whenever the singular life I have led would admit, to all these questions. The history of this little village of Quincy, if it were worth recording, would explain to you how this happened. I think I can now say I have read away bigotry, [171]if not enthusiasm. What does Priestley mean by an unbeliever, when he applies it to you? How much did he "unbelieve" himself? Gibbon had him right, when he determined his creed "scanty." We are to understand, no doubt, that he believed the resurrection of Jesus; some of his miracles; his inspiration, but in what degree? He did not believe in the inspiration of the writings that contain his history, yet he believed in the Apocalyptic beast, and he believed as much as he pleased in the writings of Daniel and John. This great, excellent, and extraordinary man, whom I sincerely loved, esteemed, and respected, was really a phenomenon; a comet in the system, like Voltaire, Bolingbroke, and Hume. Had Bolingbroke or Voltaire taken him in hand, what would they have made of him and his creed.

I do not believe you have read much of Priestley's "corruptions of Christianity," his history of early opinions of Jesus Christ, his predestination, his no-soul system, or his controversy with Horsley.

I have been a diligent student for many years in books whose titles you have never seen. In Priestley's and Linsay's writings; in Farmer, in Cappe, in Tucker's or Edwards searches; Light of Nature pursued; in Edwards and Hopkins, and lately in Ezra Styles Ely; his reverend and learned panegyrists, and his elegant and spirited opponents. I am not wholly uninformed of the controversies in Germany, and the learned researches of universities and professors, in which the sanctity of the Bible and the inspiration of its authors are taken for granted, or waived, or admitted, or not denied. I have also read Condorcet's Progress of the Human Mind.

Now, what is all this to you? No more, than if I should tell you that I read Dr. Clark, and Dr. Waterland, and Emlyn, and Leland's view or review of the Deistical writers more than fifty years ago; which is a literal truth. I blame you not for reading Euclid and Newton, Thucydides and Theocrites; for I believe you will find as much entertainment and instruction in them, as I have found in my theological and ecclesiastical instructors; or [172]even as I have found in a profound investigation of the life, writings, and doctrines of Erastus, whose disciples were Milton, Harrington, Selden, St. John, the Chief Justice, father of Bolingbroke, and others, the choicest spirits of their age; or in Le Harpe's history of the philosophy of the eighteenth century, or in Vander Kemp's vast map of the causes of the revolutionary spirit in the same and preceding centuries. These things are to me, at present, the marbles and nine-pins of old age; I will not say the beads and prayer-books.

I agree with you, as far as you go, most cordially, and I think solidly. How much farther I go, how much more I believe than you, I may explain in a future letter. Thus much I will say at present, I have found so many difficulties, that I am not astonished at your stopping where you are; and so far from sentencing you to perdition, I hope soon to meet you in another country.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, July 22, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Dr. Priestley, in a letter to Mr. Linsey, Northumberland, November 4, 1803, says:

"As you were pleased with my comparison of Socrates and Jesus, I have begun to carry the same comparison to all the heathen moralists, and I have all the books that I want for the purpose except Simplicius and Arrian on Epictetus, and them I hope to get from a library in Philadelphia; lest, however, I should fail there, I wish you or Mr. Belsham would procure and send them from London. While I am capable of anything I cannot be idle, and I do not know that I can do anything better. This, too, is an undertaking that Mr. Jefferson recommends to me."

In another letter, dated Northumberland, January 16th, 1804, Dr. Priestley says to Mr. Linsey:

"I have now finished and transcribed for the press, my comparison of the Grecian philosophers with those of Revelation, and with more ease and more to my own satisfaction than I expected [173]They who liked my pamphlet entitled, 'Socrates and Jesus compared,' will not, I flatter myself, dislike this work. It has the same object and completes the scheme. It has increased my own sense of the unspeakable value of revelation, and must, I think, that of every person who will give due attention to the subject."

I have now given you all that relates to yourself in Priestley's letters.

This was possibly and not improbably, the last letter this great, this learned, indefatigable, most excellent and extraordinary man ever wrote, for on the 4th of February, 1804, he was released from his labors and sufferings. Peace, rest, joy and glory to his soul! For I believe he had one, and one of the greatest.

I regret, oh how I lament that he did not live to publish this work! It must exist in manuscript. Cooper must know something of it. Can you learn from him where it is, and get it printed?

I hope you will still perform your promise to Doctor Rush.

If Priestley had lived, I should certainly have corresponded with him. His friend Cooper, who, unfortunately for him and me and you, had as fatal an influence over him as Hamilton had over Washington, and whose rash hot head led Priestley into all his misfortunes and most of his errors in conduct, could not have prevented explanations between Priestley and me.

I should propose to him a thousand, a million questions. And no man was more capable or better disposed to answer them candidly than Dr. Priestley.

Scarcely anything that has happened to me in my curious life, has made a deeper impression upon me than that such a learned, ingenious, scientific and talented madcap as Cooper, could have influence enough to make Priestley my enemy.

I will not yet communicate to you more than a specimen of the questions I would have asked Priestley.

One is; Learned and scientific, Sir!—You have written largely about matter and spirit, and have concluded there is no human [174]soul. Will you please to inform me what matter is? and what spirit is? Unless we know the meaning of words, we cannot reason in or about words.

I shall never send you all my questions that I would put to Priestley, because they are innumerable; but I may hereafter send you two or three.

I am, in perfect charity, your old friend.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, August 9, 1813.

I believe I told you in my last that I had given you all in Linsey's memorial that interested you, but I was mistaken. In Priestley's letter to Linsey, December 19th, 1803, I find this paragraph:

"With the work I am now composing, I go on much faster and better than I expected, so that in two or three months, if my health continues as it now is, I hope to have it ready for the press, though I shall hardly proceed to print it till we have dispatched the notes.

"It is upon the same plan with that of Socrates and Jesus compared, considering all the more distinguished of the Grecian sects of philosophy, till the establishment of Christianity in the Roman empire. If you liked that pamphlet, I flatter myself you will like this.

"I hope it is calculated to show, in a peculiarly striking light, the great advantage of revelation, and that it will make an impression on candid unbelievers if they will read.

"But I find few that will trouble themselves to read anything on the subject, which, considering the great magnitude and interesting nature of the subject, is a proof of a very improper state of mind, unworthy of a rational being."

I send you this extract for several reasons. First, because you set him upon this work. Secondly, because I wish you to endeavor to bring it to light and get it printed. Thirdly, because [175]I wish it may stimulate you to pursue your own plan which you promised to Dr. Rush.

I have not seen any work which expressly compares the morality of the Old Testament with that of the New, in all their branches, nor either with that of the ancient philosophers. Comparisons with the Chinese, the East Indians, the Africans, the West Indians, &c., would be more difficult; with more ancient nations impossible. The documents are destroyed.

TO MR. ISAAC M'PHERSON.

Monticello, August 13, 1813.

Sir,—Your letter of August 3d asking information on the subject of Mr. Oliver Evans' exclusive right to the use of what he calls his Elevators, Conveyers, and Hopper-boys, has been duly received. My wish to see new inventions encouraged, and old ones brought again into useful notice, has made me regret the circumstances which have followed the expiration of his first patent. I did not expect the retrospection which has been given to the reviving law. For although the second proviso seemed not so clear as it ought to have been, yet it appeared susceptible of a just construction; and the retrospective one being contrary to natural right, it was understood to be a rule of law that where the words of a statute admit of two constructions, the one just and the other unjust, the former is to be given them. The first proviso takes care of those who had lawfully used Evans' improvements under the first patent; the second was meant for those who had lawfully erected and used them after that patent expired, declaring they "should not be liable to damages therefor." These words may indeed be restrained to uses already past, but as there is parity of reason for those to come, there should be parity of law. Every man should be protected in his lawful acts, and be certain that no ex post facto law shall punish or endamage him for them. But he is endamaged, if forbidden to use a machine lawfully erected, at considerable [176]expense, unless he will pay a new and unexpected price for it. The proviso says that he who erected and used lawfully should not be liable to pay damages. But if the proviso had been omitted, would not the law, construed by natural equity, have said the same thing. In truth both provisos are useless. And shall useless provisos, inserted pro majori cautela only, authorize inferences against justice? The sentiment that ex post facto laws are against natural right, is so strong in the United States, that few, if any, of the State constitutions have failed to proscribe them. The federal constitution indeed interdicts them in criminal cases only; but they are equally unjust in civil as in criminal cases, and the omission of a caution which would have been right, does not justify the doing what is wrong. Nor ought it to be presumed that the legislature meant to use a phrase in an unjustifiable sense, if by rules of construction it can be ever strained to what is just. The law books abound with similar instances of the care the judges take of the public integrity. Laws, moreover, abridging the natural right of the citizen, should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.

Your letter, however, points to a much broader question, whether what have received from Mr. Evans the new and proper name of Elevators, are of his invention. Because, if they are not, his patent gives him no right to obstruct others in the use of what they possessed before. I assume it is a Lemma, that it is the invention of the machine itself, which is to give a patent right, and not the application of it to any particular purpose, of which it is susceptible. If one person invents a knife convenient for pointing our pens, another cannot have a patent right for the same knife to point our pencils. A compass was invented for navigating the sea; another could not have a patent right for using it to survey land. A machine for threshing wheat has been invented in Scotland; a second person cannot get a patent right for the same machine to thresh oats, a third rye, a fourth peas, a fifth clover, &c. A string of buckets is invented and used for raising water, ore, &c., can a second have a patent right to the same machine for raising wheat, a third oats, a fourth rye, a [177]fifth peas, &c? The question then whether such a string of buckets was invented first by Oliver Evans, is a mere question of fact in mathematical history. Now, turning to such books only as I happen to possess, I find abundant proof that this simple machinery has been in use from time immemorial. Doctor Shaw, who visited Egypt and the Barbary coast in the years 1727-8-9, in the margin of his map of Egypt, gives us the figure of what he calls a Persian wheel, which is a string of round cups or buckets hanging on a pulley, over which they revolved, bringing up water from a well and delivering it into a trough above. He found this used at Cairo, in a well 264 feet deep, which the inhabitants believe to have been the work of the patriarch Joseph. Shaw's travels, 341, Oxford edition of 1738 in folio, and the Universal History, I. 416, speaking of the manner of watering the higher lands in Egypt, says, "formerly they made use of Archimedes's screw, thence named the Egyptian pump, but they now generally use wheels (wallowers) which carry a rope or chain of earthen pots holding about seven or eight quarts apiece, and draw the water from the canals. There are besides a vast number of wells in Egypt, from which the water is drawn in the same manner to water the gardens and fruit trees; so that it is no exaggeration to say, that there are in Egypt above 200,000 oxen daily employed in this labor." Shaw's name of Persian wheel has been since given more particularly to a wheel with buckets, either fixed or suspended on pins, at its periphery. Mortimer's husbandry, I. 18, Duhamel III. II., Ferguson's Mechanic's plate, XIII; but his figure, and the verbal description of the Universal History, prove that the string of buckets is meant under that name. His figure differs from Evans' construction in the circumstances of the buckets being round, and strung through their bottom on a chain. But it is the principle, to wit, a string of buckets, which constitutes the invention, not the form of the buckets, round, square, or hexagon; nor the manner of attaching them, nor the material of the connecting band, whether chain, rope, or leather. Vitruvius, L. x. c. 9, describes this machinery as a windlass, on which is a chain descending to the [178]water, with vessels of copper attached to it; the windlass being turned, the chain moving on it will raise the vessel, which in passing over the windlass will empty the water they have brought up into a reservoir. And Perrault, in his edition of Vitruvius, Paris, 1684, fol. plates 61, 62, gives us three forms of these water elevators, in one of which the buckets are square, as Mr. Evans' are. Bossut, Histoire des Mathematiques, i. 86, says, "the drum wheel, the wheel with buckets and the Chapelets, are hydraulic machines which come to us from the ancients. But we are ignorant of the time when they began to be put into use." The Chapelets are the revolving bands of the buckets which Shaw calls the Persian wheel, the moderns a chain-pump, and Mr. Evans elevators. The next of my books in which I find these elevators is Wolf's Cours de Mathematiques, i. 370, and plate 1, Paris 1747, 8vo; here are two forms. In one of them the buckets are square, attached to two chains, passing over a cylinder or wallower at top, and under another at bottom, by which they are made to revolve. It is a nearly exact representation of Evans' Elevators. But a more exact one is to be seen in Desagulier's Experimental Philosophy, ii. plate 34; in the Encyclopedie de Diderot et D'Alembert, 8vo edition of Lausanne, 1st volume of plates in the four subscribed Hydraulique. Norie, is one where round eastern pots are tied by their collars between two endless ropes suspended on a revolving lantern or wallower. This is said to have been used for raising ore out of a mine. In a book which I do not possess, L'Architecture Hydraulique de Belidor, the 2d volume of which is said [De la Lande's continuation of Montucla's Historie de Mathematiques, iii. 711] to contain a detail of all the pumps, ancient and modern, hydraulic machines, fountains, wells, &c., I have no doubt this Persian wheel, chain pump, chapelets, elevators, by whichever name you choose to call it, will be found in various forms. The last book I have to quote for it is Prony's Architecture Hydraulique i., Avertissement vii., and § 648, 649, 650. In the latter of which passages he observes that the first idea which occurs for raising water is to lift it in a bucket by hand. When the water [179]lies too deep to be reached by hand, the bucket is suspended by a chain and let down over a pulley or windlass. If it be desired to raise a continued stream of water, the simplest means which offers itself to the mind is to attach to an endless chain or cord a number of pots or buckets, so disposed that, the chain being suspended on a lanthorn or wallower above, and plunged in water below, the buckets may descend and ascend alternately, filling themselves at bottom and emptying at a certain height above, so as to give a constant stream. Some years before the date of Mr. Evans' patent, a Mr. Martin of Caroline county in this State, constructed a drill-plough, in which he used the band of buckets for elevating the grain from the box into the funnel, which let them down into the furrow. He had bands with different sets of buckets adapted to the size of peas, of turnip seed, &c. I have used this machine for sowing Benni seed also, and propose to have a band of buckets for drilling Indian Corn, and another for wheat. Is it possible that in doing this I shall infringe Mr. Evans' patent? That I can be debarred of any use to which I might have applied my drill, when I bought it, by a patent issued after I bought it?

These verbal descriptions, applying so exactly to Mr. Evans' elevators, and the drawings exhibited to the eye, flash conviction both on reason and the senses that there is nothing new in these elevators but their being strung together on a strap of leather. If this strap of leather be an invention, entitling the inventor to a patent right, it can only extend to the strap, and the use of the string of buckets must remain free to be connected by chains, ropes, a strap of hempen girthing, or any other substance except leather. But, indeed, Mr. Martin had before used the strap of leather.

The screw of Archimedes is as ancient, at least, as the age of that mathematician, who died more than 2,000 years ago. Diodorus Siculus speaks of it, L. i., p. 21, and L. v., p. 217, of Stevens' edition of 1559, folio; and Vitruvius, xii. The cutting of its spiral worm into sections for conveying flour or grain, seems to have been an invention of Mr. Evans, and to be a fair subject [180]of a patent right. But it cannot take away from others the use of Archimedes' screw with its perpetual spiral, for any purposes of which it is susceptible.

The hopper-boy is an useful machine, and so far as I know, original.

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in [181]which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not. As a member of the patent board for several years, while the law authorized a board to grant or refuse patents, I saw with what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured. Some, however, were established by that board. One of these was, that a machine of which we were possessed, might be applied by every man to any use of which it is susceptible, and that this right ought not to be taken from him and given to a monopolist, because the first perhaps had occasion so to apply it. Thus a screw for crushing plaster might be employed for crushing corn-cobs. And a chain-pump for raising water might be used for raising wheat: this being merely a change of application. Another rule was that a change of material should not give title to a patent. As the making a plough-share of cast rather than of wrought iron; a comb of iron instead of horn or of ivory, or the connecting buckets by a band of leather rather than of hemp or iron. A third was that a mere [182]change of form should give no right to a patent, as a high-quartered shoe instead of a low one; a round hat instead of a three-square; or a square bucket instead of a round one. But for this rule, all the changes of fashion in dress would have been under the tax of patentees. These were among the rules which the uniform decisions of the board had already established, and under each of them Mr. Evans' patent would have been refused. First, because it was a mere change of application of the chain-pump from raising water to raise wheat. Secondly, because the using a leathern instead of a hempen band, was a mere change of material; and thirdly, square buckets instead of round, are only a change of form, and the ancient forms, too, appear to have been indifferently square or round. But there were still abundance of cases which could not be brought under rule, until they should have presented themselves under all their aspects; and these investigations occupying more time of the members of the board than they could spare from higher duties, the whole was turned over to the judiciary, to be matured into a system, under which every one might know when his actions were safe and lawful. Instead of refusing a patent in the first instance, as the board was authorized to do, the patent now issues of course, subject to be declared void on such principles as should be established by the courts of law. This business, however, is but little analogous to their course of reading, since we might in vain turn over all the lubberly volumes of the law to find a single ray which would lighten the path of the mechanic or the mathematician. It is more within the information of a board of academical professors, and a previous refusal of patent would better guard our citizens against harassment by law-suits. But England had given it to her judges, and the usual predominancy of her examples carried it to ours.

It happened that I had myself a mill built in the interval between Mr. Evans' first and second patents. I was living in Washington, and left the construction to the mill-wright. I did not even know he had erected elevators, conveyers and hopper-boys, until I learnt it by an application from Mr. Evans' agent [183]for the patent price. Although I had no idea he had a right to it by law, (for no judicial decision had then been given,) yet I did not hesitate to remit to Mr. Evans the old and moderate patent price, which was what he then asked, from a wish to encourage even the useful revival of ancient inventions. But I then expressed my opinion of the law in a letter, either to Mr. Evans or to his agent.

I have thus, Sir, at your request, given you the facts and ideas which occur to me on this subject. I have done it without reserve, although I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally. In thus frankly committing myself to you, I trust you will feel it as a point of honor and candor, to make no use of my letter which might bring disquietude on myself. And particularly, I should be unwilling to be brought into any difference with Mr. Evans, whom, however, I believe too reasonable to take offence at an honest difference of opinion. I esteem him much, and sincerely wish him wealth and honor. I deem him a valuable citizen, of uncommon ingenuity and usefulness. And had I not esteemed still more the establishment of sound principles, I should now have been silent. If any of the matter I have offered can promote that object, I have no objection to its being so used; if it offers nothing new, it will of course not be used at all. I have gone with some minuteness into the mathematical history of the elevator, because it belongs to a branch of science in which, as I have before observed, it is not incumbent on lawyers to be learned; and it is possible, therefore, that some of the proofs I have quoted may have escaped on their former arguments. On the law of the subject I should not have touched, because more familiar to those who have already discussed it; but I wished to state my own view of it merely in justification of myself, my name and approbation being subscribed to the act. With these explanations, accept the assurance of my respect. [184]

TO JOHN WALDO.

Monticello, August 16, 1813.

Sir,—Your favor of March 27th came during my absence on a journey of some length. It covered your "Rudiments of English Grammar," for which I pray you to accept my thanks. This acknowledgment of it has been delayed, until I could have time to give the work such a perusal as the avocations to which I am subject would permit. In the rare and short intervals which these have allotted me, I have gone over with pleasure a considerable part, although not yet the whole of it. But I am entirely unqualified to give that critical opinion of it which you do me the favor to ask. Mine has been a life of business, of that kind which appeals to a man's conscience, as well as his industry, not to let it suffer, and the few moments allowed me from labor have been devoted to more attractive studies, that of grammar having never been a favorite with me. The scanty foundation, laid in at school, has carried me though a life of much hasty writing, more indebted for style to reading and memory, than to rules of grammar. I have been pleased to see that in all cases you appeal to usage, as the arbiter of language; and justly consider that as giving law to grammar, and not grammar to usage. I concur entirely with you in opposition to Purists, who would destroy all strength and beauty of style, by subjecting it to a rigorous compliance with their rules. Fill up all the ellipses and syllepses of Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, &c., and the elegance and force of their sententious brevity are extinguished.

"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus, imperium appellant." "Deorum injurias, diis curæ." "Allieni appetens, sui profusus; ardens in cupiditatibus; satis loquentiæ, sapientiæ parum." "Annibal peto pacem." "Per diem Sol non uret te, neque Luna per noctem." Wire-draw these expressions by filling up the whole syntax and sense, and they become dull paraphrases on rich sentiments. We may say then truly with Quinctilian, "Aliud est Grammaticé, aliud Latiné loqui." I am no friend, therefore, to what is called Purism, but a zealous one to the Neology which [185]has introduced these two words without the authority of any dictionary. I consider the one as destroying the nerve and beauty of language, while the other improves both, and adds to its copiousness. I have been not a little disappointed, and made suspicious of my own judgment, on seeing the Edinburgh Reviews, the ablest critics of the age, set their faces against the introduction of new words into the English language; they are particularly apprehensive that the writers of the United States will adulterate it. Certainly so great growing a population, spread over such an extent of country, with such a variety of climates, of productions, of arts, must enlarge their language, to make it answer its purpose of expressing all ideas, the new as well as the old. The new circumstances under which we are placed, call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects. An American dialect will therefore be formed; so will a West-Indian and Asiatic, as a Scotch and an Irish are already formed. But whether will these adulterate, or enrich the English language? Has the beautiful poetry of Burns, or his Scottish dialect, disfigured it? Did the Athenians consider the Doric, the Ionian, the Æolic, and other dialects, as disfiguring or as beautifying their language? Did they fastidiously disavow Herodotus, Pindar, Theocritus, Sappho, Alcæus, or Grecian writers? On the contrary, they were sensible that the variety of dialects, still infinitely varied by poetical license, constituted the riches of their language, and made the Grecian Homer the first of poets, as he must ever remain, until a language equally ductile and copious shall again be spoken.

Every language has a set of terminations, which make a part of its peculiar idiom. Every root among the Greeks was permitted to vary its termination, so as to express its radical idea in the form of any one of the parts of speech; to wit, as a noun, an adjective, a verb, participle, or adverb; and each of these parts of speech again, by still varying the termination, could vary the shade of idea existing in the mind.

* * * * * * * *

It was not, then, the number of Grecian roots (for some other [186]languages may have as many) which made it the most copious of the ancient languages; but the infinite diversification which each of these admitted. Let the same license be allowed in English, the roots of which, native and adopted, are perhaps more numerous, and its idiomatic terminations more various than of the Greek, and see what the language would become. Its idiomatic terminations are:—

Subst. Gener-ation—ator; degener-acy; gener-osity—ousness—alship—alissimo; king-dom—ling; joy-ance; enjoy-er—ment; herb-age—alist; sanct-uary—imony—itude; royal-ism; lamb-kin; child-hood; bishop-ric; proceed-ure; horseman-ship; worthi-ness.

Adj. Gener-ant—ative—ic—ical—able—ous—al; joy-ful—less—some; herb-y; accous-escent—ulent; child-ish; wheat-en.

Verb. Gener-ate—alize.

Part. Gener-ating—ated.

Adv. Gener-al—ly.

I do not pretend that this is a complete list of all the terminations of the two languages. It is as much so as a hasty recollection suggests, and the omissions are as likely to be to the disadvantage of the one as the other. If it be a full, or equally fair enumeration, the English are the double of the Greek terminations.

But there is still another source of copiousness more abundant than that of termination. It is the composition of the root, and of every member of its family, 1, with prepositions, and 2, with other words. The prepositions used in the composition of Greek words are:—

* * * * * * * *

Now multiply each termination of a family into every preposition, and how prolific does it make each root! But the English language, besides its own prepositions, about twenty in number, which it compounds with English roots, uses those of the Greek for adopted Greek roots, and of the Latin for Latin roots. The English prepositions, with examples of their use, are a, as in a-long, a-board, a-thirst, a-clock; be, as in be-lie; mis, [187]as in mis-hap; these being inseparable. The separable, with examples, are above-cited, after-thought, gain-say, before-hand, fore-thought, behind-hand, by-law, for-give, fro-ward, in-born, on-set, over-go, out-go, thorough-go, under-take, up-lift, with-stand. Now let us see what copiousness this would produce, were it allowed to compound every root and its family with every preposition, where both sense and sound would be in its favor. Try it on an English root, the verb "to place," Anglo Saxon plæce,[4] for instance, and the Greek and Latin roots, of kindred meaning, adopted in English, to wit, θεσις and locatio, with their prepositions.

• mis-place
• after-place
• gain-place
• fore-place
• hind-place
• by-place
• for-place
• fro-place
• in-place
• on-place
• over-place
• out-place
• thorough-place
• under-place
• up-place
• with-place
• amphi-thesis
• ana-thesis
• anti-thesis
• apo-thesis
• dia-thesis
• ek-thesis
• en-thesis
• epi-thesis
• cata-thesis
• para-thesis
• peri-thesis
• pro-thesis
• pros-thesis
• syn-thesis
• hyper-thesis
• hypo-thesis
• a-location
• ab-location
• abs-location
• al-location
• anti-location
• circum-location
• cis-location
• col-location
• contra-location
• de-location
• di-location
• dis-location
• e-location
• ex-location
• extra-location
• il-location
• inter-location
• intro-location
• juxta-location
• ob-location
• per-location
• post-location
• pre-location
• preter-location
• pro-location
• retro-location
• re-location
• se-location
• sub-location
• super-location
• trans-location
• ultra-location

Some of these compounds would be new; but all present distinct meanings, and the synonisms of the three languages offer a choice of sounds to express the same meaning; add to this, that in some instances, usage has authorized the compounding an English root with a Latin preposition, as in de-place, dis-place, re-place. This example may suffice to show what the language [188]would become, in strength, beauty, variety, and every circumstance which gives perfection to language, were it permitted freely to draw from all its legitimate sources.

The second source of composition is of one family of roots with another. The Greek avails itself of this most abundantly, and beautifully. The English once did it freely, while in its Anglo-Saxon form, e. g. boc-cræft, book-craft, learning, riht-geleaf-full, right-belief-ful, orthodox. But it has lost by desuetude much of this branch of composition, which it is desirable however to resume.

If we wish to be assured from experiment of the effect of a judicious spirit of Neology, look at the French language. Even before the revolution, it was deemed much more copious than the English; at a time, too, when they had an academy which endeavored to arrest the progress of their language, by fixing it to a Dictionary, out of which no word was ever to be sought, used, or tolerated. The institution of parliamentary assemblies in 1789, for which their language had no opposite terms or phrases, as having never before needed them, first obliged them to adopt the Parliamentary vocabulary of England; and other new circumstances called for corresponding new words; until by the number of these adopted, and by the analogies for adoption which they have legitimated, I think we may say with truth that a Dictionaire Neologique of these would be half as large as the dictionary of the academy; and that at this time it is the language in which every shade of idea, distinctly perceived by the mind, may be more exactly expressed, than in any language at this day spoken by man. Yet I have no hesitation in saying that the English language is founded on a broader base, native and adopted, and capable, with the like freedom of employing its materials, of becoming superior to that in copiousness and euphony. Not indeed by holding fast to Johnson's Dictionary; not by raising a hue and cry against every word he has not licensed; but by encouraging and welcoming new compositions of its elements. Learn from Lye and Benson what the language would now have been if restrained to their vocabularies. Its [189]enlargement must be the consequence, to a certain degree, of its transplantation from the latitude of London into every climate of the globe; and the greater the degree the more precious will it become as the organ of the development of the human mind.

These are my visions on the improvement of the English language by a free use of its faculties. To realize them would require a course of time. The example of good writers, the approbation of men of letters, the judgment of sound critics, and of none more than of the Edinburgh Reviewers, would give it a beginning, and once begun, its progress might be as rapid as it has been in France, where we see what a period of only twenty years has effected. Under the auspices of British science and example it might commence with hope. But the dread of innovation there, and especially of any example set by France, has, I fear, palsied the spirit of improvement. Here, where all is new, no innovation is feared which offers good. But we have no distinct class of literati in our country. Every man is engaged in some industrious pursuit, and science is but a secondary occupation, always subordinate to the main business of his life. Few therefore of those who are qualified, have leisure to write. In time it will be otherwise. In the meanwhile, necessity obliges us to neologize. And should the language of England continue stationary, we shall probably enlarge our employment of it, until its new character may separate it in name as well as in power, from the mother-tongue.

Although the copiousness of a language may not in strictness make a part of its grammar, yet it cannot be deemed foreign to a general course of lectures on its structure and character; and the subject having been presented to my mind by the occasion of your letter, I have indulged myself in its speculation, and hazarded to you what has occurred, with the assurance of my great respect. [190]

TO MR. JOHN WILSON.

Monticello, August 17, 1813.

Sir,—Your letter of the 3d has been duly received. That of Mr. Eppes had before come to hand, covering your MS. on the reformation of the orthography of the plural of nouns ending in y, and ey, and on orthoepy. A change has been long desired in English orthography, such as might render it an easy and true index of the pronunciation of words. The want of conformity between the combinations of letters, and the sounds they should represent, increases to foreigners the difficulty of acquiring the language, occasions great loss of time to children in learning to read, and renders correct spelling rare but in those who read much. In England a variety of plans and propositions have been made for the reformation of their orthography. Passing over these, two of our countrymen, Dr. Franklin and Dr. Thornton, have also engaged in the enterprise; the former proposing an addition of two or three new characters only, the latter a reformation of the whole alphabet nearly. But these attempts in England, as well as here, have been without effect. About the middle of the last century an attempt was made to banish the letter d from the words bridge, judge, hedge, knowledge, &c., others of that termination, and to write them as we write age, cage, sacrilege, privilege; but with little success. The attempt was also made, which you mention in your second part, to drop the letter u in words of Latin derivation ending in our, and to write honor, candor, rigor, &c., instead of honour, candour, rigour. But the u having been picked up in the passage of these words from the Latin, through the French, to us, is still preserved by those who consider it as a memorial of our title to the words. Other partial attempts have been made by individual writers, but with as little success. Pluralizing nouns in y, and ey, by adding s only, as you propose, would certainly simplify the spelling, and be analogous to the general idiom of the language. It would be a step gained in the progress of general reformation, if it could prevail. But my opinion being [191]requested I must give it candidly, that judging of the future by the past, I expect no better fortune to this than similar preceding propositions have experienced. It is very difficult to persuade the great body of mankind to give up what they have once learned, and are now masters of, for something to be learnt anew. Time alone insensibly wears down old habits, and produces small changes at long intervals, and to this process we must all accommodate ourselves, and be content to follow those who will not follow us. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors had twenty ways of spelling the word "many." Ten centuries have dropped all of them and substituted that which we now use. I now return your MS. without being able, with the gentlemen whose letters are cited, to encourage hope as to its effect. I am bound, however, to acknowledge that this is a subject to which I have not paid much attention; and that my doubts therefore should weigh nothing against their more favorable expectations. That these may be fulfilled, and mine prove unfounded, I sincerely wish, because I am a friend to the reformation generally of whatever can be made better, and because it could not fail of gratifying you to be instrumental in this work. Accept the assurance of my respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, August 22, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Since my letter of June the 27th, I am in your debt for many; all of which I have read with infinite delight. They open a wide field for reflection, and offer subjects enough to occupy the mind and the pen indefinitely. I must follow the good example you have set, and when I have not time to take up every subject, take up a single one. Your approbation of my outline to Dr. Priestley is a great gratification to me; and I very much suspect that if thinking men would have the courage to think for themselves, and to speak what they think, it would be found they do not differ in religious opinions as much as is supposed. I remember to have heard Dr. Priestley say, that if all [192]England would candidly examine themselves, and confess, they would find that Unitarianism was really the religion of all; and I observe a bill is now depending in parliament for the relief of Anti-Trinitarians. It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one; to divide mankind by a single letter into ομοουσιανς and ὁμοιουσιανς. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of factitious religion, and they would catch no more flies. We should all then, like the Quakers, live without an order of priests, moralize for ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say nothing about what no man can understand, nor therefore believe; for I suppose belief to be the assent of the mind to an intelligible proposition.

It is with great pleasure I can inform you, that Priestley finished the comparative view of the doctrines of the philosophers of antiquity, and of Jesus, before his death; and that it was printed soon after. And, with still greater pleasure, that I can have a copy of his work forwarded from Philadelphia, by a correspondent there, and presented for your acceptance, by the same mail which carries you this, or very soon after. The branch of the work which the title announces, is executed with learning and candor, as was everything Priestley wrote, but perhaps a little hastily; for he felt himself pressed by the hand of death. The Abbé Batteux had, in fact laid the foundation of this part in his Causes Premieres, with which he has given us the originals of Ocellus and Timæus, who first committed the doctrines of Pythagoras to writing, and Enfield, to whom the Doctor refers, had done it more copiously. But he has omitted the important branch, which, in your letter of August the 9th, you say you have never seen executed, a comparison of the morality of the Old Testament with that of the New. And yet, no two things were ever more unlike. I ought not to have asked him to give it. He dared not. He would have been eaten alive [193]by his intolerant brethren, the Cannibal priests. And yet, this was really the most interesting branch of the work.

Very soon after my letter to Doctor Priestley, the subject being still in my mind, I had leisure during an abstraction from business for a day or two, while on the road, to think a little more on it, and to sketch more fully than I had done to him, a syllabus of the matter which I thought should enter into the work. I wrote it to Doctor Rush, and there ended all my labor on the subject; himself and Doctor Priestley being the only two depositories of my secret. The fate of my letter to Priestley, after his death, was a warning to me on that of Doctor Rush; and at my request, his family were so kind as to quiet me by returning my original letter and syllabus. By this, you will be sensible how much interest I take in keeping myself clear of religious disputes before the public, and especially of seeing my syllabus disembowelled by the Aruspices of the modern Paganism. Yet I enclose it to you with entire confidence, free to be perused by yourself and Mrs. Adams, but by no one else, and to be returned to me.

You are right in supposing, in one of yours, that I had not read much of Priestley's Predestination, his no-soul system, or his controversy with Horsley. But I have read his Corruptions of Christianity, and Early Opinions of Jesus, over and over again; and I rest on them, and on Middleton's writings, especially his letters from Rome, and to Waterland, as the basis of my own faith. These writings have never been answered, nor can be answered by quoting historical proofs, as they have done. For these facts, therefore, I cling to their learning, so much superior to my own.

I now fly off in a tangent to another subject. Marshall, in the first volume of his history, chapter 3, p. 180, ascribes the petition to the King, of 1774, (1 Journ. Cong. 67) to the pen of Richard Henry Lee. I think myself certain it was not written by him, as well from what I recollect to have heard, as from the internal evidence of style. His was loose, vague, frothy, rhetorical. He was a poorer writer than his brother Arthur; and Arthur's [194]standing may be seen in his Monitor's letters, to insure the sale of which, they took the precaution of tacking to them a new edition of the Farmer's letters, like Mezentius, who "mortua jungebat corpora vivis." You were of the committee, and can tell me who wrote this petition, and who wrote the address to the inhabitants of the colonies, ib. 45. Of the papers of July 1775, I recollect well that Mr. Dickinson drew the petition to the King, ib. 149; I think Robert R. Livingston drew the address to the inhabitants of Great Britain, ib. 152. Am I right in this? And who drew the address to the people of Ireland, ib. 180? On these questions I ask of your memory to help mine. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO MR. EPPES.

Poplar Forest, September 11, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I turn with great reluctance from the functions of a private citizen to matters of State. The swaggering on deck, as a passenger, is so much more pleasant than clambering the ropes as a seaman, and my confidence in the skill and activity of those employed to work the vessel is so entire, that I notice nothing en passant, but how smoothly she moves. Yet I avail myself of the leisure which a visit to this place procures me, to revolve again in my mind the subject of my former letter, and in compliance with the request of yours of ——, to add some further thoughts on it. Though intended as only supplementary to that, I may fall into repetitions, not having that with me, nor paper or book of any sort to supply the default of a memory on the wane.

The objects of finance in the United States have hitherto been very simple; merely to provide for the support of the government on its peace establishment, and to pay the debt contracted in the revolutionary war, a war which will be sanctioned by the approbation of posterity through all future ages. The means provided for these objects were ample, and resting on a [195]consumption which little affected the poor, may be said to have been sensibly felt by none. The fondest wish of my heart ever was that the surplus portion of these taxes, destined for the payment of that debt, should, when that object was accomplished, be continued by annual or biennial re-enactments, and applied, in time of peace, to the improvement of our country by canals, roads and useful institutions, literary or others; and in time of war to the maintenance of the war. And I believe that keeping the civil list within proper bounds, the surplus would have been sufficient for any war, administered with integrity and judgment. For authority to apply the surplus to objects of improvement, an amendment of the constitution would have been necessary. I have said that the taxes should be continued by annual or biennial re-enactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse, is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not to wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted to be free. No tax should ever be yielded for a longer term than that of the congress wanting it, except when pledged for the reimbursement of a loan. On this system, the standing income being once liberated from the revolutionary debt, no future loan nor future tax would ever become necessary, and wars would no otherwise affect our pecuniary interests than by suspending the improvements belonging to a state of peace. This happy consummation would have been achieved by another eight years' administration, conducted by Mr. Madison, and executed in its financial department by Mr. Gallatin, could peace have been so long preserved. So enviable a state in prospect for our country, induced me to temporize, and to bear with national wrongs which under no other prospect ought ever to have been unresented or unresisted. My hope was, that by giving time for reflection, and retraction of injury, a sound calculation of their own interests would induce the aggressing nations to redeem their own character by a return to the practice of right. But our lot happens to have been cast in an age when two nations to whom circumstances have given a temporary superiority over others, the one by land, the other by sea, throwing off all restraints of morality, [196]all pride of national character, forgetting the mutability of fortune and the inevitable doom which the laws of nature pronounce against departure from justice, individual or national, have dared to treat her reclamations with derision, and to set up force instead of reason as the umpire of nations. Degrading themselves thus from the character of lawful societies into lawless bands of robbers and pirates, they are abusing their brief ascendency by desolating the world with blood and rapine. Against such a banditti, war had become less ruinous than peace, for then peace was a war on one side only. On the final and formal declarations of England, therefore, that she never would repeal her orders of council as to us, until those of France should be repealed as to other nations as well as us, and that no practicable arrangement against her impressment of our seamen could be proposed or devised, war was justly declared, and ought to have been declared. This change of condition has clouded our prospects of liberation from debt, and of being able to carry on a war without new loans or taxes. But although deferred, these prospects are not desperate. We should keep forever in view the state of 1817, towards which we were advancing, and consider it as that which we must attain. Let the old funds continue appropriated to the civil list and revolutionary debt, and the reversion of the surplus to improvement during peace, and let us take up this war as a separate business, for which, substantive and distinct provision is to be made.

That we are bound to defray its expenses within our own time, and unauthorized to burthen posterity with them, I suppose to have been proved in my former letter. I will place the question nevertheless in one additional point of view. The former regarded their independent right over the earth; this over their own persons. There have existed nations, and civilized and learned nations, who have thought that a father had a right to sell his child as a slave, in perpetuity; that he could alienate his body and industry conjointly, and à fortiori his industry separately; and consume its fruits himself. A nation asserting this fratricide right might well suppose they could burthen with [197]public as well as private debt their "nati natorum, et qui nascentur at illis." But we, this age, and in this country especially, are advanced beyond those notions of natural law. We acknowledge that our children are born free; that that freedom is the gift of nature, and not of him who begot them; that though under our care during infancy, and therefore of necessity under a duly tempered authority, that care is confided to us to be exercised for the preservation and good of the child only; and his labors during youth are given as a retribution for the charges of infancy. As he was never the property of his father, so when adult he is sui juris, entitled himself to the use of his own limbs and the fruits of his own exertions: so far we are advanced, without mind enough, it seems, to take the whole step. We believe, or we act as if we believed, that although an individual father cannot alienate the labor of his son, the aggregate body of fathers may alienate the labor of all their sons, of their posterity, in the aggregate, and oblige them to pay for all the enterprises, just or unjust, profitable or ruinous, into which our vices, our passions, or our personal interests may lead us. But I trust that this proposition needs only to be looked at by an American to be seen in its true point of view, and that we shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority. In my former letter I supposed this to be a little[5] over twenty years. We must raise then ourselves the money for this war, either by taxes within the year, or by loans; and if by loans, we must repay them ourselves, proscribing forever the English practice of perpetual funding; the ruinous consequences of which, putting right out of the question, should be a sufficient warning to a considerate nation to avoid the example.

The raising money by Tontine, more practised on the continent of Europe than in England, is liable to the same objection, of encroachment on the independent rights of posterity; because [198]the annuities not expiring gradually, with the lives on which they rest, but all on the death of the last survivor only, they will of course over-pass the term of a generation, and the more probably as the subjects on whose lives the annuities depend, are generally chosen of the ages, constitutions and occupations most favorable to long life.

Annuities for single lives are also beyond our powers, because the single life may pass the term of a generation. This last practice is objectionable too, as encouraging celibacy, and the disinherison of heirs.

Of the modes which are within the limits of right, that of raising within the year its whole expenses by taxation, might be beyond the abilities of our citizens to bear. It, is moreover, generally desirable that the public contributions should be as uniform as practicable from year to year, that our habits of industry and of expense may become adapted to them; and that they may be duly digested and incorporated with our annual economy.

There remains then for us but the method of limited anticipation, the laying taxes for a term of years within that of our right, which may be sold for a present sum equal to the expenses of the year; in other words, to obtain a loan equal to the expenses of the year, laying a tax adequate to its interest, and to such a surplus as will reimburse, by growing instalments, the whole principal within the term. This is, in fact, what has been called raising money on the sale of annuities for years. In this way a new loan, and of course a new tax, is requisite every year during the continuance of the war; and should that be so long as to produce an accumulation of tax beyond our ability, in time of war the resource would be an enactment of the taxes requisite to ensure good terms, by securing the lender, with a suspension of the payment of instalments of principal and perhaps of interest also, until the restoration of peace. This method of anticipating our taxes, or of borrowing on annuities for years, insures repayment to the lender, guards the rights of posterity, prevents a perpetual alienation of the public contributions, and consequent destitution of every resource even for the ordinary [199]support of government. The public expenses of England during the present reign, have amounted to the fee simple value of the whole island. If its whole soil could be sold, farm by farm, for its present market price, it would not defray the cost of governing it during the reign of the present king, as managed by him. Ought not then the right of each successive generation to be guarantied against the dissipations and corruptions of those preceding, by a fundamental provision in our constitution? And, if that has not been made, does it exist the less; there being between generation and generation, as between nation and nation, no other law than that of nature? And is it the less dishonest to do what is wrong, because not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy, and that in instituting the system of finance to be hereafter pursued, we shall adopt the only safe, the only lawful and honest one, of borrowing on such short terms of reimbursement of interest and principal as will fall within the accomplishment of our own lives.

The question will be asked and ought to be looked at, what is to be the resource if loans cannot be obtained? There is but one, "Carthago delenda est." Bank paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs. It is the only fund on which they can rely for loans; it is the only resource which can never fail them, and it is an abundant one for every necessary purpose. Treasury bills, bottomed on taxes, bearing or not bearing interest, as may be found necessary, thrown into circulation will take the place of so much gold and silver, which last, when crowded, will find an efflux into other countries, and thus keep the quantum of medium at its salutary level. Let banks continue if they please, but let them discount for cash alone or for treasury notes. They discount for cash alone in every other country on earth except Great Britain, and her too often unfortunate copyist, the United States. If taken in time they may be rectified by degrees, and without injustice, but if let alone till the alternative forces itself on us, of submitting to the enemy for want of funds, or the suppression [200]of bank paper, either by law or by convulsion, we cannot foresee how it will end. The remaining questions are mathematical only. How are the taxes and the time of their continuance to be proportioned to the sum borrowed, and the stipulated interest?

The rate of interest will depend on the state of the money market, and the duration of the tax on the will of the legislature. Let us suppose that (to keep the taxes as low as possible) they adopt the term of twenty years for reimbursement, which we call their maximum; and let the interest they last gave of 7½ per cent. be that which they must expect to give. The problem then will stand in this form. Given the sum borrowed (which call s,) a million of dollars for example; the rate of interest .075 or 75/1000; (call it r-i) and the duration of the annuity or tax, twenty years, (=t,) what will be (a) the annuity or tax, which will reimburse principal and interest within the given term? This problem, laborious and barely practicable to common arithmetic, is readily enough solved, Algebraically and with the aid of Logarithms. The theorem applied to the case is a=(tr-1x1)/(1-1/n) the solution of which gives a=$98,684.2, nearly $100,000, or 1/10 of the sum borrowed.

It maybe satisfactory to see stated in figures the yearly progression of reimbursement of the million of dollars, and their interest at 7½ per cent. effected by the regular payment of —— dollars annually. It will be as follows:

[201]If we are curious to know the effect of the same annual sum on loans at lower rates of interest, the following process will give it:

From the Logarithm of a, subtract the Logarithm r-i, and from the number of the remaining Logarithm subtract s, then subtract the Logarithm of this last remainder from the difference between the Logarithm a and Logarithm r-i as found before, divide the remainder by Logarithm r, the quotient will be t. It will be found that —— dollars will reimburse a million,

By comparing the 1st and the last of these articles, we see that if the United States were in possession of the circulating medium, as they ought to be, they could redeem what they could borrow from that, dollar for dollar, and in ten annual instalments; whereas, the usurpation of that fund by bank paper, obliging them to borrow elsewhere at 7½ per cent., two dollars are required to reimburse one. So that it is literally true that the toleration of banks of paper-discount, costs the United States one-half their war taxes; or, in other words, doubles the expenses of every war. Now think, but for a moment, what a change of condition that would be, which should save half our war expenses, require but half the taxes, and enthral us in debt but half the time.

Two loans having been authorized, of sixteen and seven and a half millions, they will require for their due reimbursement two millions three hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the three millions expected from the taxes lately imposed. When the produce shall be known of the several items of these taxes, such of them as will make up this sum should be selected, appropriated, and pledged for the reimbursement of these loans. The balance [202]of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, will be a provision for 6½ millions of the loan of the next year; and in all future loans, I would consider it as a rule never to be departed from, to lay a tax of 1/10, and pledge it for the reimbursement.

In the preceding calculations no account is taken of the increasing population of the United States, which we know to be in a compound ratio of more than 3 per cent. per annum; nor of the increase of wealth, proved to be in a higher ratio by the increasing productiveness of the imports on consumption. We shall be safe therefore in considering every tax as growing at the rate of 3 per cent. compound ratio annually. I say every tax, for as to those on consumption the fact is known; and the same growth will be found in the value of real estate, if valued annually; or, which would be better, 3 per cent. might be assumed by the law as the average increase, and an addition of 1/33 of the tax paid the preceding year, be annually called for. Supposing then a tax laid which would bring in $100,000 at the time it is laid, and that it increases annually at the rate of 3 per cent. compound, its important effect may be seen in the following statement:

[203]This estimate supposes a million borrowed at 7½ per cent; but, if obtained from the circulation without interest, it would be reimbursed within eight years and eight months, instead of fourteen years, or of twenty years, on our first estimate.

But this view being in prospect only, should not affect the quantum of tax which the former circulation pronounces necessary. Our creditors have a right to certainty, and to consider these political speculations as make-weights only to that, and at our risk, not theirs. To us belongs only the comfort of hoping an earlier liberation than that calculation holds out, and the right of providing expressly that the tax hypothecated shall cease so soon as the debt it secures shall be actually reimbursed; and I will add that to us belongs also the regret that improvident legislators should have exposed us to a twenty years' thraldom of debts and taxes, for the necessary defence of our country, where the same contributions would have liberated us in eight or nine years; or have reduced us perhaps to an abandonment of our rights, by their abandonment of the only resource which could have ensured their maintenance.

I omit many considerations of detail because they will occur to yourself, and my letter is too long already. I can refer you to no book as treating of this subject fully and suitably to our circumstances. Smith gives the history of the public debt of England, and some views adapted to that; and Dr. Price, in his book on annuities, has given a valuable chapter on the effects of a sinking fund. But our business being to make every loan tax a sinking fund for itself, no general one will be wanting; and if my confidence is well founded that our original import, when freed from the revolutionary debt, will suffice to embellish and improve our country in peace, and defend her in war, the present may be the only occasion of perplexing ourselves with sinking funds.

Should the injunctions under which I laid you, as to my former letter, restrain any useful purpose to which you could apply it, I remove them; preferring public benefit to all personal considerations. My original disapprobation of banks circulating paper [204]is not unknown, nor have I since observed any effects either on the morals or fortunes of our citizens, which are any counterbalance for the public evils produced; and a thorough conviction that, if this war continues, that circulation must be suppressed, or the government shaken to its foundation by the weight of taxes, and impracticability to raise funds on them, renders duty to that paramount to the love of ease and quiet.

When I was here in May last, I left it without knowing that Francis was at school in this neighborhood. As soon as I returned, on the present occasion, I sent for him, but his tutor informed me that he was gone on a visit to you. I shall hope permission for him always to see me on my visits to this place, which are three or four times a year.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, September 14, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I owe you a thousand thanks for your favor of August 22d and its enclosures, and for Dr. Priestley's doctrines of Heathen Philosophy compared with those of Revelation. Your letter to Dr. Rush and the syllabus, I return enclosed with this according to your injunctions, though with great reluctance. May I beg a copy of both?

They will do you no harm; me and others much good.

I hope you will pursue your plan, for I am confident you will produce a work much more valuable than Priestley's, though that is curious, and considering the expiring powers with which it was written, admirable.

The bill in Parliament for the relief of Anti-Trinitarians, is a great event, and will form an epoch in ecclesiastical history. The motion was made by my friend Smith, of Clapham, a friend of the Belshams.

I should be very happy to hear that the bill is passed.

The human understanding is a revelation from its Maker which can never be disputed or doubted. There can be no scepticism, [205]Pyrrhonism, or incredulity, or infidelity, here. No prophecies, no miracles are necessary to prove the celestial communication.

This revelation has made it certain that two and one make three, and that one is not three nor can three be one. We can never be so certain of any prophecy, or the fulfilment of any prophecy, or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle, as we are from the revelation of nature, i. e., Nature's God, that two and two are equal to four. Miracles or prophecies might frighten us out of our wits; might scare us to death; might induce us to lie, to say that we believe that two and two make five. But we should not believe it. We should know the contrary.

Had you and I been forty days with Moses on Mount Sinai, and been admitted to behold the divine Shekinah, and there told that one was three and three one, we might not have had courage to deny it, but we could not have believed it.

The thunders, and lightnings, and earthquakes, and the transcendent splendors and glories might have overwhelmed us with terror and amazement, but we could not have believed the doctrine. We should be more likely to say in our hearts whatever we might say with our lips,—This is chance. There is no God, no truth. This is all delusion, fiction, and a lie, or it is all chance. But what is chance? It is motion, it is action, it is event, it is phenomenon without cause.

Chance is no cause at all, it is nothing. And nothing has produced all this pomp and splendor. And nothing may produce our eternal damnation in the flames of hell-fire and brimstone, for what we know, as well as this tremendous exhibition of terror and falsehood.

God has infinite wisdom, goodness and power. He created the universe. His duration is eternal, a parte ante and a parte post.

His presence is as extensive as space. What is space? An infinite spherical vacuum. He created this speck of dirt and the human species for his glory, and with the deliberate design of making nine-tenths of our species miserable forever, for his glory.

This is the doctrine of Christian Theologians in general, ten to one.

[206]Now, my friend, can prophecies or miracles convince you or me, that infinite benevolence, wisdom and power, created and preserves for a time, innumerable millions, to make them miserable forever for his own glory?

Wretch! what is his glory? Is he ambitious? Does he want promotion? Is he vain-tickled with adulation? Exulting and triumphing in his power and the sweetness of his vengeance?

Pardon me, my Maker, for these awful questions. My answer to them is always ready. I believe no such things. My adoration of the Author of the Universe is too profound and too sincere.

The love of God and his creation, delight, joy, triumph, exultation in my own existence, though but an atom, a molecule organique in the universe, are my religion. Howl, snarl, bite, ye Calvinistic, ye Athanasian divines, if you will. Ye will say I am no Christian. I say ye are no Christians, and there the account is balanced.

Yet I believe all the honest men among you are Christians, in my sense of the word.

When I was at college, I was a metaphysician, at least I thought myself such. And such men as Lock, Hemenway and West, thought me so too; for we were forever disputing though in great good humor.

When I was sworn as an Attorney, in 1758, in Boston, though I lived in Braintree, I was in a low state of health—thought in great danger of a consumption; living on milk, vegetable pudding and water. Not an atom of meat, or a drop of spirit. My next neighbor, my cousin, my friend Dr. Savil, was my physician. He was anxious about me, and did not like to take the sole responsibility of my recovery. He invited me to a ride. I mounted my horse and rode with him to Hingham, on a visit to Dr. Ezekiel Hersey, a physician of great fame, who felt my pulse, looked in my eyes, heard Savil describe my regimen and course of medicine, and then pronounced his oracle: "Persevere, and as sure as there is a God in Heaven you will recover."

He was an everlasting talker, and ran out into history, philosophy, [207]metaphysics, &c., and frequently put questions to me as if he wanted to sound me, and see if there was anything in me besides hectic fever. I was young, and then very bashful, however saucy I may have sometimes been since. I gave him very modest and very diffident answers. But when I got upon metaphysics, I seemed to feel a little bolder, and ventured into something like argument with him. I drove him up, as I thought, into a corner, from which he could not escape. "Sir, it will follow from what you have now advanced, that the universe, as distinct from God, is both infinite and eternal." "Very true," said Dr. Hersey, "your inference is just, the consequence is inevitable, and I believe the universe to be both eternal and infinite."

Here I was brought up! I was defeated. I was not prepared for this answer. This was fifty-five years ago.

When I was in England, from 1785 to 1788, I may say I was intimate with Dr. Price. I had much conversation with him at his own house, at my house, and at the houses and tables of my friends. In some of our most unreserved conversations, when we have been alone, he has repeatedly said to me: "I am inclined to believe that the universe is eternal and infinite. It seems to me that an eternal and infinite effect must necessarily flow from an eternal and infinite cause; and an infinite wisdom, goodness and power, that could have been induced to produce a universe in time, must have produced it from eternity. It seems to me the effect must flow from the cause."

Now, my friend Jefferson, suppose an eternal, self-existent being, existing from eternity, possessed of infinite wisdom, goodness and power, in absolute, total solitude, six thousand years ago, conceiving the benevolent project of creating a universe! I have no more to say at present.

It has been long, very long, a settled opinion in my mind, that there is now, never will be, and never was but one being who can understand the universe.

And that it is not only vain, but wicked, for insects to pretend to comprehend it. [208]

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, September 15, 1813.

Dear Sir,—My last sheet would not admit an observation that was material to my design.

Dr. Price was inclined to think that infinite wisdom and goodness could not permit infinite power to be inactive from eternity, but that an infinite and eternal universe must have necessarily flowed from these attributes.

Plato's system was "αγαθος" was eternal, self-existent, &c. His ideas, his word, his reason, his wisdom, his goodness, or in one word his "Logos" was omnipotent, and produced the universe from all eternity. Now! as far as you and I can understand Hersey, Price and Plato, are they not of one theory? Of one mind? What is the difference? I own an eternal solitude of a self-existent being, infinitely wise, powerful and good, is to me altogether incomprehensible and incredible. I could as soon believe the Athanasian creed.

You will ask me what conclusion I draw from all this? I answer, I drop into myself, and acknowledge myself to be a fool. No mind but one can see through the immeasurable system. It would be presumption and impiety in me to dogmatize on such subjects. My duties in my little infinitessimal circle I can understand and feel. The duties of a son, a brother, a father, a neighbor, a citizen, I can see and feel, but I trust the Ruler with his skies.

This world is a mixture of the sublime and the beautiful, the base and the contemptible, the whimsical and ridiculous, (according to our narrow sense and trifling feelings.) It is an enigma and a riddle. You need not be surprised, then, if I should descend from these heights to the most egregious trifle. But first let me say, I asked you in a former letter how far advanced we were in the science of aristocracy since Theognis' Stallions, Jacks and Rams? Have not Chancellor Livingston and Major General Humphreys introduced an hereditary aristocracy of Merino [209]Sheep? How shall we get rid of this aristocracy? It is entailed upon us forever. And an aristocracy of land jobbers and stock jobbers is equally and irremediably entailed upon us, to endless generations.

Now for the odd, the whimsical, the frivolous. I had scarcely sealed my last letter to you upon Theognis' doctrine of well-born Stallions, Jacks and Rams, when they brought me from the Post Office a packet, without post mark, without letter, without name, date or place. Nicely sealed was a printed copy of eighty or ninety pages, and in large full octavo, entitled: Section first—Aristocracy. I gravely composed my risible muscles and read it through. It is from beginning to end an attack upon me by name for the doctrines of aristocracy in my three volumes of Defence, &c. The conclusion of the whole is that an aristocracy of bank paper is as bad as the nobility of France or England. I most assuredly will not controvert this point with this man. Who he is I cannot conjecture. The honorable John Taylor of Virginia, of all men living or dead, first occurred to me.

Is it Oberon? Is it Queen Mab, that reigns and sports with us little beings? I thought my books as well as myself were forgotten. But behold! I am to become a great man in my expiring moments. Theognis and Plato, and Hersey and Price, and Jefferson and I, must go down to posterity together; and I know not, upon the whole, where to wish for better company. I wish to add Vanderkemp, who has been here to see me, after an interruption of twenty-four years. I could and ought to add many others, but the catalogue would be too long. I am, as ever.

P. S. Why is Plato associated with Theognis, &c.? Because no man ever expressed so much terror of the power of birth. His genius could invent no remedy or precaution against it, but a community of wives; a confusion of families; a total extinction of all relations of father, son and brother. Did the French Revolutionists contrive much better against the influence of birth? [210]

TO MR. WM. CANBY.

Monticello, September 18, 1813.

Sir,—I have duly received your favor of August 27th, am sensible of the kind intentions from which it flows, and truly thankful for them. The more so as they could only be the result of a favorable estimate of my public course. During a long life, as much devoted to study as a faithful transaction of the trusts committed to me would permit, no subject has occupied more of my consideration than our relations with all the beings around us, our duties to them, and our future prospects. After reading and hearing everything which probably can be suggested respecting them, I have formed the best judgment I could as to the course they prescribe, and in the due observance of that course, I have no recollections which give me uneasiness. An eloquent preacher of your religious society, Richard Motte, in a discourse of much emotion and pathos, is said to have exclaimed aloud to his congregation, that he did not believe there was a Quaker, Presbyterian, Methodist or Baptist in heaven, having paused to give his hearers time to stare and to wonder. He added, that in heaven, God knew no distinctions, but considered all good men as his children, and as brethren of the same family. I believe, with the Quaker preacher, that he who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven, as to the dogmas in which they all differ. That on entering there, all these are left behind us, and the Aristides and Catos, the Penns and Tillotsons, Presbyterians and Baptists, will find themselves united in all principles which are in concert with the reason of the supreme mind. Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus. He who follows this steadily need not, I think, be uneasy, although he cannot comprehend the subtleties and mysteries erected on his doctrines by those who, calling themselves his special followers and favorites, would make him come into the world to lay snares for all understandings but theirs. These [211]metaphysical heads, usurping the judgment seat of God, denounce as his enemies all who cannot perceive the Geometrical logic of Euclid in the demonstrations of St. Athanasius, that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three nor the three one. In all essential points you and I are of the same religion; and I am too old to go into inquiries and changes as to the unessential. Repeating, therefore, my thankfulness for the kind concern you have been so good as to express, I salute you with friendship and brotherly esteem.

TO GENERAL DUANE.

Monticello, September 18, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Repeated inquiries on the part of Senator Tracy what has become of his book, (the MS. I last sent you,) oblige me to ask of you what I shall say to him. I congratulate you on the brilliant affair of the Enterprise and Boxer. No heart is more rejoiced than mine at these mortifications of English pride, and lessons to Europe that the English are not invincible at sea. And if these successes do not lead us too far into the navy mania, all will be well. But when are to cease the severe lessons we receive by land, demonstrating our want of competent officers? The numbers of our countrymen betrayed into the hands of the enemy by the treachery, cowardice or incompetence of our high officers, reduce us to the humiliating necessity of acquiescing in the brutal conduct observed towards them. When, during the last war, I put Governor Hamilton and Major Hay into a dungeon and in irons for having themselves personally done the same to the American prisoners who had fallen into their hands, and was threatened with retaliation by Philips, then returned to New York, I declared to him I would load ten of their Saratoga prisoners (then under my care and within half a dozen miles of my house) with double irons for every American they should misuse under pretence of retaliation, and it put an end to the practice. But the ten for one are now with them. Our present [212]hopes of being able to do something by land seem to rest on Chauncey. Strange reverse of expectations that our land force should be under the wing of our little navy. Accept the assurance of my esteem and respect.

TO MR. ISAAC M'PHERSON.

Monticello, September 18, 1813.

Sir,—I thank you for the communication of Mr. Jonathan Ellicot's letter in yours of August 28th, and the information it conveys. With respect to mine of August 13th, I do not know that it contains anything but what any man of mathematical reading may learn from the same sources; however, if it can be used for the promotion of right, I consent to such an use of it. Your inquiry as to the date of Martin's invention of the drill plough, with a leathern band and metal buckets, I cannot precisely answer; but I received one from him in 1794, and have used it ever since for sowing various seeds, chiefly peas, turnips, and benni. I have always had in mind to use it for wheat; but sowing only a row at a time, I had proposed to him some years ago to change the construction so that it should sow four rows at a time, twelve inches apart; and I have been waiting for this to be done either by him or myself; and have not, therefore, commenced that use of it. I procured mine at first through Col. John Taylor of Caroline, who had been long in the use of it, and my impression was that it was not then a novel thing. Mr. Martin is still living, I believe. If not, Colonel Taylor, his neighbor, probably knows its date. If the bringing together under the same roof various useful things before known, which you mention as one of the grounds of Mr. Evans' claim, entitles him to an exclusive use of all these, either separately or combined, every utensil of life might be taken from us by a patent. I might build a stable, bring into it a cutting-knife to chop straw, a hand-mill to grind the grain, a curry comb and brush to clean the horses, and by a patent exclude every one from ever more [213]using these things without paying me. The elevator, the conveyer, the hopper-boy, are distinct things, unconnected but by juxtaposition. If no patent can be claimed for any one of these separately, it cannot be for all of them,—several nothings put together cannot make a something;—this would be going very wide of the object of the patent laws. I salute you with esteem and respect.

TO MR. JAMES MARTIN.

Monticello, September 20, 1813.

Sir,—Your letter of August 20th, enabled me to turn to mine of February 23d, 1798, and your former one of February 22d, 1801, and to recall to my memory the oration at Jamaica, which was the subject of them. I see with pleasure a continuance of the same sound principles in the address to Mr. Quincy. Your quotation from the former paper alludes, as I presume, to the term of office to our Senate; a term, like that of the judges, too long for my approbation. I am for responsibilities at short periods, seeing neither reason nor safety in making public functionaries independent of the nation for life, or even for long terms of years. On this principle I prefer the Presidential term of four years, to that of seven years, which I myself had at first suggested, annexing to it, however, ineligibility forever after; and I wish it were now annexed to the 2d quadrennial election of President.

The conduct of Massachusetts, which is the subject of your address to Mr. Quincy, is serious, as embarrassing the operations of the war, and jeopardizing its issue; and still more so, as an example of contumacy against the Constitution. One method of proving their purpose, would be to call a convention of their State, and to require them to declare themselves members of the Union, and obedient to its determinations, or not members, and let them go. Put this question solemnly to their people, and their answer cannot be doubtful. One half of them are republicans, and would cling to the Union from principle. Of the other half, [214]the dispassionate part would consider, 1st. That they do not raise bread sufficient for their own subsistence, and must look to Europe for the deficiency, if excluded from our ports, which vital interests would force us to do. 2d. That they are navigating people without a stick of timber for the hull of a ship, nor a pound of anything to export in it, which would be admitted at any market. 3d. That they are also a manufacturing people, and left by the exclusive system of Europe without a market but ours. 4th. That as the rivals of England in manufactures, in commerce, in navigation, and fisheries, they would meet her competition in every point. 5th. That England would feel no scruples in making the abandonment and ruin of such a rival the price of a treaty with the producing States; whose interest too it would be to nourish a navigation beyond the Atlantic, rather than a hostile one at our own door. And 6th. That in case of war with the Union, which occurrences between coterminous nations frequently produce, it would be a contest of one against fifteen. The remaining portion of the Federal moiety of the State would, I believe, brave all these obstacles, because they are monarchists in principle, bearing deadly hatred to their republican fellow-citizens, impatient under the ascendency of republican principles, devoted in their attachment to England, and preferring to be placed under her despotism, if they cannot hold the helm of government here. I see, in their separation, no evil but the example, and I believe that the effect of that would be corrected by an early and humiliating return to the Union, after losing much of the population of their country, insufficient in its own resources to feed her numerous inhabitants, and inferior in all its allurements to the more inviting soils, climates, and governments of the other States. Whether a dispassionate discussion before the public, of the advantages and disadvantages of separation to both parties, would be the best medicine for this dialytic fever, or to consider it as sacrilege ever to touch the question, may be doubted. I am, myself, generally disposed to indulge, and to follow reason; and believe that in no case would it be safer than in the present. Their refractory course, however, will not be [215]unpunished by the indignation of their co-States, their loss of influence with them, the censures of history, and the stain on the character of their State. With my thanks for the paper enclosed, accept the assurance of my esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR LOGAN.

Monticello, October 3, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I have duly received your favor of September 18th, and I perceive in it the same spirit of peace which I know you have ever breathed, and to preserve which you have made many personal sacrifices. That your efforts did much towards preventing declared war with France, I am satisfied. Of those with England, I am not equally informed. I have ever cherished the same spirit with all nations, from a consciousness that peace, prosperity, liberty, and morals, have an intimate connection. During the eight years of my administration, there was not a year that England did not give us such cause as would have provoked a war from any European government. But I always hoped that time and friendly remonstrances would bring her to a sounder view of her own interests, and convince her that these would be promoted by a return to justice and friendship towards us. Continued impressments of our seamen by her naval commanders, whose interest it was to mistake them for theirs, her innovations on the law of nations to cover real piracies, could illy be borne; and perhaps would not have been borne, had not contraventions of the same law by France, fewer in number but equally illegal, rendered it difficult to single the object of war. England, at length, singled herself, and took up the gauntlet, when the unlawful decrees of France being revoked as to us, she, by the proclamation of her Prince Regent, protested to the world that she would never revoke hers until those of France should be removed as to all nations. Her minister too, about the same time, in an official conversation with our Chargé, rejected our substitute for her practice of impressment; proposed no other; [216]and declared explicitly that no admissible one for this abuse could be proposed. Negotiation being thus cut short, no alternative remained but war, or the abandonment of the persons and property of our citizens on the ocean. The last one, I presume, no American would have preferred. War was therefore declared, and justly declared; but accompanied with immediate offers of peace on simply doing us justice. These offers were made through Russel, through Admiral Warren, through the government of Canada, and the mediation proposed by her best friend Alexander, and the greatest enemy of Bonaparte, was accepted without hesitation. An entire confidence in the abilities and integrity of those now administering the government, has kept me from the inclination, as well as the occasion, of intermeddling in the public affairs, even as a private citizen may justifiably do. Yet if you can suggest any conditions which we ought to accept, and which have not been repeatedly offered and rejected, I would not hesitate to become the channel of their communication to the administration. The revocation of the orders of council, and discontinuance of impressment, appear to me indispensable. And I think a thousand ships taken unjustifiably in time of peace, and thousands of our citizens impressed, warrant expectations of indemnification; such a Western frontier, perhaps, given to Canada, as may put it out of their power hereafter to employ the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the Indians on our women and children; or, what would be nearly equivalent, the exclusive right to the lakes. The modification, however, of this indemnification must be effected by the events of the war. No man on earth has stronger detestation than myself of the unprincipled tyrant who is deluging the continent of Europe with blood. No one was more gratified by his disasters of the last campaign; nor wished, more sincerely, success to the efforts of the virtuous Alexander. But the desire of seeing England forced to just terms of peace with us, makes me equally solicitous for her entire exclusion from intercourse with the rest of the world, until by this peaceable engine of constraint, she can be made to renounce her views of dominion over the ocean, of permitting no other nation to [217]navigate it but with her license, and on tribute to her; and her aggressions on the persons of our citizens who may choose to exercise their right of passing over that element. Should the continental armistice issue in closing Europe against her, she may become willing to accede to just terms with us; which I should certainly be disposed to meet, whatever consequences it might produce on our intercourse with the continental nations. My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to Him who has the disposal of them. I repeat, therefore, that if you can suggest what may lead to a just peace, I will willingly communicate it to the proper functionaries. In the meantime, its object will be best promoted by a vigorous and unanimous prosecution of the war.

I am happy in this occasion of renewing the interchange of sentiments between us, which has formerly been a source of much satisfaction to me; and with the homage of my affectionate attachment and respect to Mrs. Logan, I pray you to accept the assurance of my continued friendship and esteem for yourself.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, October 13, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Since mine of August the 22d, I have received your favors of August the 16th, September the 2d, 14th, 15th, and—, and Mrs. Adams' of September the 20th. I now send you, according to your request, a copy of the syllabus. To fill up this skeleton with arteries, with veins, with nerves, muscles and flesh, is really beyond my time and information. Whoever could undertake it would find great aid in Enfield's judicious abridgment of Brucker's History of Philosophy, in which he has reduced five or six quarto volumes, of one thousand pages each of Latin closely printed, to two moderate octavos of English open type.

To compare the morals of the Old, with those of the New Testament, would require an attentive study of the former, a [218]search through all its books for its precepts, and through all its history for its practices, and the principles they prove. As commentaries, too, on these, the philosophy of the Hebrews must be inquired into, their Mishna, their Gemara, Cabbala, Jezirah, Sohar, Cosri, and their Talmud, must be examined and understood, in order to do them full justice. Brucker, it would seem, has gone deeply into these repositories of their ethics, and Enfield his epitomizer, concludes in these words: "Ethics were so little understood among the Jews, that in their whole compilation called the Talmud, there is only one treatise on moral subjects. Their books of morals chiefly consisted in a minute enumeration of duties. From the law of Moses were deduced six hundred and thirteen precepts, which were divided into two classes, affirmative and negative, two hundred and forty-eight in the former, and three hundred and sixty-five in the latter. It may serve to give the reader some idea of the low state of moral philosophy among the Jews in the middle age, to add that of the two hundred and forty-eight affirmative precepts, only three were considered as obligatory upon women, and that in order to obtain salvation, it was judged sufficient to fulfil any one single law in the hour of death; the observance of the rest being deemed necessary, only to increase the felicity of the future life. What a wretched depravity of sentiment and manners must have prevailed, before such corrupt maxims could have obtained credit! It is impossible to collect from these writings a consistent series of moral doctrine." Enfield, B. 4, chap. 3. It was the reformation of this "wretched depravity" of morals which Jesus undertook. In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their Logos and Demiurgos, Æons and Dæmons, male and female, with a long train of &c. &c. &c., or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to [219]the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphiboligisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines, such as were professed and acted on by the unlettered Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Christians of the first century. Their Platonising successors, indeed, in after times, in order to legitimate the corruptions which they had incorporated into the doctrines of Jesus, found it necessary to disavow the primitive Christians, who had taken their principles from the mouth of Jesus himself, of his Apostles, and the Fathers cotemporary with them. They excommunicated their followers as heretics, branding them with the opprobrious name of Ebionites or Beggars.

For a comparison of the Grecian philosophy with that of Jesus, materials might be largely drawn from the same source. Enfield gives a history and detailed account of the opinions and principles of the different sects. These relate to the Gods, their natures, grades, places and powers; the demi-Gods and Dæmons, and their agency with man; the universe, its structure, extent and duration; the origin of things from the elements of fire, water, air and earth; the human soul, its essence and derivation; the summum bonum and finis bonorum; with a thousand idle dreams and fancies on these and other subjects, the knowledge of which is withheld from man; leaving but a short chapter for his moral duties, and the principal section of that given to what he owes himself, to precepts for rendering him impassible, and unassailable by the evils of life, and for preserving his mind in a state of constant serenity.

[220]Such a canvas is too broad for the age of seventy, and especially of one whose chief occupations have been in the practical business of life. We must leave, therefore, to others, younger and more learned than we are, to prepare this euthanasia for Platonic Christianity, and its restoration to the primitive simplicity of its founder. I think you give a just outline of the theism of the three religions, when you say that the principle of the Hebrew was the fear, of the Gentile the honor, and of the Christian the love of God.

An expression in your letter of September the 14th, that "the human understanding is a revelation from its maker," gives the best solution that I believe can be given of the question, "what did Socrates mean by his Dæmon?" He was too wise to believe, and too honest to pretend, that he had real and familiar converse with a superior and invisible being. He probably considered the suggestions of his conscience, or reason, as revelations or inspirations from the Supreme mind, bestowed, on important occasions, by a special superintending Providence.

I acknowledge all the merit of the hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter, which you ascribe to it. It is as highly sublime as a chaste and correct imagination can permit itself to go. Yet in the contemplation of a being so superlative, the hyperbolic flights of the Psalmist may often be followed with approbation, even with rapture; and I have no hesitation in giving him the palm over all the hymnists of every language and of every time. Turn to the 148th psalm, in Brady and Tate's version. Have such conceptions been ever before expressed? Their version of the 15th psalm is more to be esteemed for its pithiness than its poetry. Even Sternhold, the leaden Sternhold, kindles, in a single instance, with the sublimity of his original, and expresses the majesty of God descending on the earth, in terms not unworthy of the subject:

[221]The Latin versions of this passage by Buchanan and by Johnston, are but mediocres. But the Greek of Duport is worthy of quotation,

The best collection of these psalms is that of the Octagonian dissenters of Liverpool, in their printed form of prayer; but they are not always the best versions. Indeed, bad is the best of the English versions; not a ray of poetical genius having ever been employed on them. And how much depends on this, may be seen by comparing Brady and Tate's 15th psalm with Blacklock's Justum et tenacem propositi virum of Horace, quoted in Hume's history, Car. 2, ch. 65. A translation of David in this style, or in that of Pompei's Cleanthes, might give us some idea of the merit of the original. The character, too, of the poetry of these hymns is singular to us; written in monostichs, each divided into strophe and anti-strophe, the sentiment of the first member responded with amplification or antithesis in the second.

On the subject of the postscript of yours of August the 16th and of Mrs. Adams' letter, I am silent. I know the depth of the affliction it has caused, and can sympathise with it the more sensibly, inasmuch as there is no degree of affliction, produced by the loss of those dear to us, which experience has not taught me to estimate. I have ever found time and silence the only medicine, and these but assuage, they never can suppress, the deep drawn sigh which recollection forever brings up, until recollection and life are extinguished together. Ever affectionately yours.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, October 28, 1813.

Dear Sir,—According to the reservation between us, of taking up one of the subjects of our correspondence at a time, I turn to your letters of August the 16th and September the 2d.

[222]The passage you quote from Theognis, I think has an ethical rather than a political object. The whole piece is a moral exhortation, παραινεσις, and this passage particularly seems to be a reproof to man, who, while with his domestic animals he is curious to improve the race, by employing always the finest male, pays no attention to the improvement of his own race, but intermarries with the vicious, the ugly, or the old, for considerations of wealth or ambition. It is in conformity with the principle adopted afterwards by the Pythagoreans, and expressed by Ocellus in another form; περι δε τῆς ἐκ τῶν αλληλων ανθρωπων γενεσεως &c.—ουχ ηδονης ενεκα η μιξις: which, as literally as intelligibility will admit, may be thus translated: "concerning the interprocreation of men, how, and of whom it shall be, in a perfect manner, and according to the laws of modesty and sanctity, conjointly, this is what I think right. First to lay it down that we do not commix for the sake of pleasure, but of the procreation of children. For the powers, the organs and desires for coition have not been given by God to man for the sake of pleasure, but for the procreation of the race. For as it were incongruous, for a mortal born to partake of divine life, the immortality of the race being taken away, God fulfilled the purpose by making the generations uninterrupted and continuous. This, therefore, we are especially to lay down as a principle, that coition is not for the sake of pleasure." But nature, not trusting to this moral and abstract motive, seems to have provided more securely for the perpetuation of the species, by making it the effect of the oestrum implanted in the constitution of both sexes. And not only has the commerce of love been indulged on this unhallowed impulse, but made subservient also to wealth and ambition by marriage, without regard to the beauty, the healthiness, the understanding, or virtue of the subject from which we are to breed. The selecting the best male for a Harem of well chosen females also, which Theognis seems to recommend from the example of our sheep and asses, would doubtless improve the human, as it does the brute animal, and produce a race of veritable ἄριστοι. For experience proves, that the moral and physical [223]qualities of man, whether good or evil, are transmissible in a certain degree from father to son. But I suspect that the equal rights of men will rise up against this privileged Solomon and his Haram, and oblige us to continue acquiescence under the "Αμαυρωσις γενεος αστων" which Theognis complains of, and to content ourselves with the accidental aristoi produced by the fortuitous concourse of breeders. For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly, bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature, for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed, it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say, that that form of government is the best, which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency. On the question, what is the best provision, you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of our own reason, and mutually indulging its errors. You think it best to put the pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation, where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their co-ordinate branches, and where, also, they may be a protection to wealth against the Agrarian and plundering enterprises of the majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil. For if the co-ordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of [224]the co-ordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively. Of this, a cabal in the Senate of the United States has furnished many proofs. Nor do I believe them necessary to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of the legislation, to protect themselves. From fifteen to twenty legislatures of our own, in action for thirty years past, have proved that no fears of an equalization of property are to be apprehended from them. I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the really good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society.

It is probable that our difference of opinion may, in some measure, be produced by a difference of character in those among whom we live. From what I have seen of Massachusetts and Connecticut myself, and still more from what I have heard, and the character given of the former by yourself, (vol. 1, page 111,) who know them so much better, there seems to be in those two States a traditionary reverence for certain families, which has rendered the offices of the government nearly hereditary in those families. I presume that from an early period of your history, members of those families happening to possess virtue and talents, have honestly exercised them for the good of the people, and by their services have endeared their names to them. In coupling Connecticut with you, I mean it politically only, not morally. For having made the Bible the common law of their land, they seem to have modeled their morality on the story of Jacob and Laban. But although this hereditary succession to office with you, may, in some degree, be founded in real family merit, yet in a much higher degree, it has proceeded from your strict alliance of Church and State. These families are canonised in the eyes of the people on common principles, "you tickle me, and I will tickle you." In Virginia we have nothing of this. Our clergy, before the revolution, having been secured [225]against rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the trouble of acquiring influence over the people. Of wealth, there were great accumulations in particular families, handed down from generation to generation, under the English law of entails. But the only object of ambition for the wealthy was a seat in the King's Council. All their court then was paid to the crown and its creatures; and they Philipised in all collisions between the King and the people. Hence they were unpopular; and that unpopularity continues attached to their names. A Randolph, a Carter, or a Burwell must have great personal superiority over a common competitor to be elected by the people even at this day. At the first session of our legislature after the Declaration of Independence, we passed a law abolishing entails. And this was followed by one abolishing the privilege of primogeniture, and dividing the lands of intestates equally among all their children, or other representatives. These laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe to the foot of pseudo-aristocracy. And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been complete. It was a bill for the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of five or six miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools, who might receive, at the public expense, a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects, to be completed at an University, where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completely prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts. My proposition had, for a further object, to impart to these wards those portions of self-government for which they are best qualified, by confiding to them the care of their poor, their roads, police, elections, the nomination of jurors, administration of justice in small cases, elementary exercises of militia; in short, to have made them [226]little republics, with a warden at the head of each, for all those concerns which, being under their eye, they would better manage than the larger republics of the county or State. A general call of ward meetings by their wardens on the same day through the State, would at any time produce the genuine sense of the people on any required point, and would enable the State to act in mass, as your people have so often done, and with so much effect by their town meetings. The law for religious freedom, which made a part of this system, having put down the aristocracy of the clergy, and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind, and those of entails and descents nurturing an equality of condition among them, this on education would have raised the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety, and to orderly government; and would have completed the great object of qualifying them to select the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the pseudalists; and the same Theognis who has furnished the epigraphs of your two letters, assures us that "Ουδεμιαν πω, Κυρν', αγαθοι πολιν ωλεσαν ανδρες." Although this law has not yet been acted on but in a small and inefficient degree, it is still considered as before the legislature, with other bills of the revised code, not yet taken up, and I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will, at a favorable moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of the arch of our government.

With respect to aristocracy, we should further consider, that before the establishment of the American States, nothing was known to history but the man of the old world, crowded within limits either small or overcharged, and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A government adapted to such men would be one thing; but a very different one, that for the man of these States. Here every one may have land to labor for himself, if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation from labor in old age. Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law [227]and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private. The history of the last twenty-five years of France, and of the last forty years in America, nay of its last two hundred years, proves the truth of both parts of this observation.

But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun, of science, talents, and courage, against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe. Science is progressive, and talents and enterprise on the alert. Resort may be had to the people of the country, a more governable power from their principles and subordination; and rank, and birth, and tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance, even there. This, however, we have no right to meddle with. It suffices for us, if the moral and physical condition of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the direction of their government, with a recurrence of elections at such short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant, before the mischief he meditates may be irremediable.

I have thus stated my opinion on a point on which we differ, not with a view to controversy, for we are both too old to change opinions which are the result of a long life of inquiry and reflection; but on the suggestions of a former letter of yours, that we ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other. We acted in perfect harmony, through a long and perilous contest for our liberty and independence. A constitution has been acquired, which, though neither of us thinks perfect, [228]yet both consider as competent to render our fellow citizens the happiest and the securest on whom the sun has ever shone. If we do not think exactly alike as to its imperfections, it matters little to our country, which, after devoting to it long lives of disinterested labor, we have delivered over to our successors in life, who will be able to take care of it and of themselves.

Of the pamphlet on aristocracy which has been sent to you, or who may be its author, I have heard nothing but through your letter. If the person you suspect, it may be known from the quaint, mystical, and hyperbolical ideas, involved in affected, new-fangled and pedantic terms which stamp his writings. Whatever it be, I hope your quiet is not to be affected at this day by the rudeness or intemperance of scribblers; but that you may continue in tranquillity to live and to rejoice in the prosperity of our country, until it shall be your own wish to take your seat among the aristoi who have gone before you. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO JOHN W. EPPES.

Monticello, November 6, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I had not expected to have troubled you again on the subject of finance; but since the date of my last, I have received from Mr. Law a letter covering a memorial on that subject, which, from its tenor, I conjecture must have been before Congress at their two last sessions. This paper contains two propositions; the one for issuing treasury notes, bearing interest, and to be circulated as money; the other for the establishment of a national bank. The first was considered in my former letter; and the second shall be the subject of the present.

The scheme is for Congress to establish a national bank, suppose of thirty millions capital, of which they shall contribute ten millions in new six per cent. stock, the States ten millions, and individuals ten millions, one half of the two last contributions to be of similar stock, for which the parties are to give cash to Congress; [229]the whole, however, to be under the exclusive management of the individual subscribers, who are to name all the directors; neither Congress nor the States having any power of interference in its administration. Discounts are to be at five per cent., but the profits are expected to be seven per cent. Congress then will be paying six per cent. on twenty millions, and receiving seven per cent. on ten millions, being its third of the institution; so that on the ten millions cash which they receive from the States and individuals, they will, in fact, have to pay but five per cent. interest. This is the bait. The charter is proposed to be for forty or fifty years, and if any future augmentations should take place, the individual proprietors are to have the privilege of being the sole subscribers for that. Congress are further allowed to issue to the amount of three millions of notes, bearing interest, which they are to receive back in payment for lands at a premium of five or ten per cent., or as subscriptions for canals, roads, and bridges, in which undertakings they are, of course, to be engaged. This is a summary of the case as I understand it; but it is very possible I may not understand it in all its parts, these schemes being always made unintelligible for the gulls who are to enter into them. The advantages and disadvantages shall be noted promiscuously as they occur; leaving out the speculation of canals, &c., which, being an episode only in the scheme, may be omitted, to disentangle it as much as we can.

1. Congress are to receive five millions from the States (if they will enter into this partnership, which few probably will), and five millions from the individual subscribers, in exchange for ten millions of six per cent. stock, one per cent. of which, however, they will make on their ten millions of stock remaining in bank, and so reduce it, in effect, to a loan of ten millions at five per cent. interest. This is good; but

2. They authorize this bank to throw into circulation ninety millions of dollars, (three times the capital,) which increases our circulating medium fifty per cent., depreciates proportionably the present value of a dollar, and raises the price of all future purchases in the same proportion.

[230]3. This loan of ten millions at five per cent., is to be once for all, only. Neither the terms of the scheme, nor their own prudence could ever permit them to add to the circulation in the same, or any other way, for the supplies of the succeeding years of the war. These succeeding years then are to be left unprovided for, and the means of doing it in a great measure precluded.

4. The individual subscribers, on paying their own five millions of cash to Congress, become the depositories of ten millions of stock belonging to Congress, five millions belonging to the States, and five millions to themselves, say twenty millions, with which, as no one has a right ever to see their books, or to ask a question, they may choose their time for running away, after adding to their booty the proceeds of as much of their own notes as they shall be able to throw into circulation.

5. The subscribers may be one, two, or three, or more individuals, (many single individuals being able to pay in the five millions,) whereupon this bank oligarchy or monarchy enters the field with ninety millions of dollars, to direct and control the politics of the nation; and of the influence of these institutions on our politics, and into what scale it will be thrown, we have had abundant experience. Indeed, England herself may be the real, while her friend and trustee here shall be the nominal and sole subscriber.

6. This state of things is to be fastened on us, without the power of relief, for forty or fifty years. That is to say, the eight millions of people now existing, for the sake of receiving one dollar and twenty-five cents apiece, at five per cent. interest, are to subject the fifty millions of people who are to succeed them within that term, to the payment of forty-five millions of dollars, principal and interest, which will be payable in the course of the fifty years.

7. But the great and national advantage is to be the relief of the present scarcity of money, which is produced and proved by,

1. The additional industry created to supply a variety of articles for the troops, ammunition, &c.

[231]2. By the cash sent to the frontiers, and the vacuum occasioned in the trading towns by that.

3. By the late loans.

4. By the necessity of recurring to shavers with good paper, which the existing banks are not able to take up; and

5. By the numerous applications of bank charters, showing that an increase of circulating medium is wanting.

Let us examine these causes and proofs of the want of an increase of medium, one by one.

1. The additional industry created to supply a variety of articles for troops, ammunition, &c. Now, I had always supposed that war produced a diminution of industry, by the number of hands it withdraws from industrious pursuits for employment in arms, &c., which are totally unproductive. And if it calls for new industry in the articles of ammunition and other military supplies, the hands are borrowed from other branches on which the demand is slackened by the war; so that it is but a shifting of these hands from one pursuit to another.

2. The cash sent to the frontiers occasions a vacuum in the trading towns, which requires a new supply. Let us examine what are the calls for money to the frontiers. Not for clothing, tents, ammunition, arms, which are all bought in the trading towns. Not for provisions; for although these are bought partly in the immediate country, bank bills are more acceptable there than even in the trading towns. The pay of the army calls for some cash, but not a great deal, as bank notes are as acceptable with the military men, perhaps more so; and what cash is sent must find its way back again in exchange for the wants of the upper from the lower country. For we are not to suppose that cash stays accumulating there forever.

3. This scarcity has been occasioned by the late loans. But does the government borrow money to keep it in their coffers? Is it not instantly restored to circulation by payment for its necessary supplies? And are we to restore a vacuum of twenty millions of dollars by an emission of ninety millions?

4. The want of medium is proved by the recurrence of [232]individuals with good paper to brokers at exorbitant interest; and

5. By the numerous applications to the State governments for additional banks; New York wanting eighteen millions, Pennsylvania ten millions, &c. But say more correctly, the speculators and spendthrifts of New York and Pennsylvania, but never consider them as being the States of New York and Pennsylvania. These two items shall be considered together.

It is a litigated question, whether the circulation of paper, rather than of specie, is a good or an evil. In the opinion of England and of English writers it is a good; in that of all other nations it is an evil; and excepting England and her copyist, the United States, there is not a nation existing, I believe, which tolerates a paper circulation. The experiment is going on, however, desperately in England, pretty boldly with us, and at the end of the chapter, we shall see which opinion experience approves: for I believe it to be one of those cases where mercantile clamor will bear down reason, until it is corrected by ruin. In the meantime, however, let us reason on this new call for a national bank.

After the solemn decision of Congress against the renewal of the charter of the bank of the United States, and the grounds of that decision, (the want of constitutional power,) I had imagined that question at rest, and that no more applications would be made to them for the incorporation of banks. The opposition on that ground to its first establishment, the small majority by which it was overborne, and the means practiced for obtaining it, cannot be already forgotten. The law having passed, however, by a majority, its opponents, true to the sacred principle of submission to a majority, suffered the law to flow through its term without obstruction. During this, the nation had time to consider the constitutional question, and when the renewal was proposed, they condemned it, not by their representatives in Congress only, but by express instructions from different organs of their will. Here then we might stop, and consider the memorial as answered. But, setting authority apart, we will examine [233]whether the Legislature ought to comply with it, even if they had the power.

Proceeding to reason on this subject, some principles must be premised as forming its basis. The adequate price of a thing depends on the capital and labor necessary to produce it. [In the term capital, I mean to include science, because capital as well as labor has been employed to acquire it.] Two things requiring the same capital and labor, should be of the same price. If a gallon of wine requires for its production the same capital and labor with a bushel of wheat, they should be expressed by the same price, derived from the application of a common measure to them. The comparative prices of things being thus to be estimated and expressed by a common measure, we may proceed to observe, that were a country so insulated as to have no commercial intercourse with any other, to confine the interchange of all its wants and supplies within itself, the amount of circulating medium, as a common measure for adjusting these exchanges, would be quite immaterial. If their circulation, for instance, were of a million of dollars, and the annual produce of their industry equivalent to ten millions of bushels of wheat, the price of a bushel of wheat might be one dollar. If, then, by a progressive coinage, their medium should be doubled, the price of a bushel of wheat might become progressively two dollars, and without inconvenience. Whatever be the proportion of the circulating medium to the value of the annual produce of industry, it may be considered as the representative of that industry. In the first case, a bushel of wheat will be represented by one dollar; in the second, by two dollars. This is well explained by Hume, and seems admitted by Adam Smith, B. 2. c. 2, 436, 441, 490. But where a nation is in a full course of interchange of wants and supplies with all others, the proportion of its medium to its produce is no longer indifferent. Ib. 441. To trade on equal terms, the common measure of values should be as nearly as possible on a par with that of its corresponding nations, whose medium is in a sound state; that is to say, not in an accidental state of excess or deficiency. Now, one of the great advantages [234]of specie as a medium is, that being of universal value, it will keep itself at a general level, flowing out from where it is too high into parts where it is lower. Whereas, if the medium be of local value only, as paper money, if too little, indeed, gold and silver will flow in to supply the deficiency; but if too much, it accumulates, banishes the gold and silver not locked up in vaults and hoards, and depreciates itself; that is too say, its proportion to the annual produce of industry being raised, more of it is required to represent any particular article of produce than in the other countries. This is agreed by Smith, (B. 2. c. 2. 437,) the principal advocate for a paper circulation; but advocating it on the sole condition that it be strictly regulated. He admits, nevertheless, that "the commerce and industry of a country cannot be so secure when suspended on the Dædalian wings of paper money, as on the solid ground of gold and silver; and that in time of war, the insecurity is greatly increased, and great confusion possible where the circulation is for the greater part in paper." B. 2. c. 2. 484. But in a country where loans are uncertain, and a specie circulation the only sure resource for them, the preference of that circulation assumes a far different degree of importance, as is explained in my former letters.

The only advantage which Smith proposes by substituting paper in the room of gold and silver money, B. 2. c. 2. 434, is "to replace an expensive instrument with one much less costly, and sometimes equally convenient;" that is to say, page 437, "to allow the gold and silver to be sent abroad and converted into foreign goods," and to substitute paper as being a cheaper measure. But this makes no addition to the stock or capital of the nation. The coin sent out was worth as much, while in the country, as the goods imported and taking its place. It is only, then, a change of form in a part of the national capital, from that of gold and silver to other goods. He admits, too, that while a part of the goods received in exchange for the coin exported may be materials, tools and provisions for the employment of an additional industry, a part, also, may be taken back in foreign wines, silks, &c., to be consumed by idle people who produce [235]nothing; and so far the substitution promotes prodigality, increases expense and corruption, without increasing production. So far also, then, it lessens the capital of the nation. What may be the amount which the conversion of the part exchanged for productive goods may add to the former productive mass, it is not easy to ascertain, because, as he says, page 441, "it is impossible to determine what is the proportion which the circulating money of any country bears to the whole value of the annual produce. It has been computed by different authors, from a fifth[6] to a thirtieth of that value." In the United States it must be less than in any other part of the commercial world; because the great mass of their inhabitants being in responsible circumstances, the great mass of their exchanges in the country is effected on credit, in their merchants' ledger, who supplies all their wants through the year, and at the end of it receives the produce of their farms, or other articles of their industry. It is a fact, that a farmer with a revenue of ten thousand dollars a year, may obtain all his supplies from his merchant, and liquidate them at the end of the year, by the sale of his produce to him, without the intervention of a single dollar of cash. This, then, is merely barter, and in this way of barter a great portion of the annual produce of the United States is exchanged without the intermediation of cash. We might safely, then, state our medium at the minimum of one-thirtieth. But what is one-thirtieth of the value of the annual produce of the industry of the United States? Or what is the whole value of the annual produce of the United States? An able writer and competent judge of the subject, in 1799, on as good grounds as probably could be taken, estimated it, on the then population of four and a half millions of inhabitants, to be thirty-seven and a half millions sterling, or one hundred and sixty-eight and three-fourths millions of dollars. See [236]Cooper's Political Arithmetic, page 47. According to the same estimate for our present population, it will be three hundred millions of dollars, one-thirtieth of which, Smith's minimum, would be ten millions, and one-fifth, his maximum, would be sixty millions for the quantum of circulation. But suppose that instead of our needing the least circulating medium of any nation, from the circumstance before mentioned, we should place ourselves in the middle term of the calculation, to-wit: at thirty-five millions. One-fifth of this, at the least, Smith thinks should be retained in specie, which would leave twenty-eight millions of specie to be exported in exchange for other commodities; and if fifteen millions of that should be returned in productive goods, and not in articles of prodigality, that would be the amount of capital which this operation would add to the existing mass. But to what mass? Not that of the three hundred millions, which is only its gross annual produce, but to that capital of which the three hundred millions are but the annual produce. But this being gross, we may infer from it the value of the capital by considering that the rent of lands is generally fixed at one-third of the gross produce, and is deemed its nett profit, and twenty times that its fee simple value. The profits on landed capital may, with accuracy enough for our purpose, be supposed on a par with those of other capital. This would give us then for the United States, a capital of two thousand millions, all in active employment, and exclusive of unimproved lands lying in a great degree dormant. Of this, fifteen millions would be the hundred and thirty-third part. And it is for this petty addition to the capital of the nation, this minimum of one dollar, added to one hundred and thirty-three and a third or three-fourths per cent., that we are to give up our gold and silver medium, its intrinsic solidity, its universal value, and its saving powers in time of war, and to substitute for it paper, with all its train of evils, moral, political and physical, which I will not pretend to enumerate.

There is another authority to which we may appeal for the proper quantity of circulating medium for the United States. The old Congress, when we were estimated at about two millions [237]of people, on a long and able discussion, June 22d, 1775, decided the sufficient quantity to be two millions of dollars, which sum they then emitted.[7] According to this, it should be eight millions, now that we are eight millions of people. This differs little from Smith's minimum of ten millions, and strengthens our respect for that estimate.

There is, indeed, a convenience in paper; its easy transmission from one place to another. But this may be mainly supplied by bills of exchange, so as to prevent any great displacement of actual coin. Two places trading together balance their dealings, for the most part, by their mutual supplies, and the debtor individuals of either may, instead of cash, remit the bills of those who are creditors in the same dealings; or may obtain them through some third place with which both have dealings. The cases would be rare where such bills could not be obtained, either directly or circuitously, and too unimportant to the nation to overweigh the train of evils flowing from paper circulation.

From eight to thirty-five millions then being our proper circulation, and two hundred millions the actual one, the memorial proposes to issue ninety millions more, because, it says, a great scarcity of money is proved by the numerous applications for banks; to wit, New York for eighteen millions, Pennsylvania ten millions, &c. The answer to this shall be quoted from Adam Smith, B. 2. c. 2. page 462; where speaking of the complaints of the trader against the Scotch bankers, who had already gone too far in their issues of paper, he says, "those traders and other undertakers having got so much assistance from banks, wished to get still more. The banks, they seem to have thought, could extend their credits to whatever sum might be wanted, without incurring any other expense besides that of a few reams of paper. They complained of the contracted views and dastardly spirit of the directors of those banks, which did not, they said, extend their credits in proportion to the extension of the trade of the [238]country; meaning, no doubt, by the extension of that trade, the extension of their own projects beyond what they could carry on, either with their own capital, or with what they had credit to borrow of private people in the usual way of bond or mortgage. The banks, they seem to have thought, were in honor bound to supply the deficiency, and to provide them with all the capital which they wanted to trade with." And again, page 470: "when bankers discovered that certain projectors were trading, not with any capital of their own, but with that which they advanced them, they endeavored to withdraw gradually, making every day greater and greater difficulties about discounting. These difficulties alarmed and enraged in the highest degree those projectors. Their own distress, of which this prudent and necessary reserve of the banks was no doubt the immediate occasion, they called the distress of the country; and this distress of the country, they said, was altogether owing to the ignorance, pusillanimity, and bad conduct of the banks, which did not give a sufficiently liberal aid to the spirited undertakings of those who exerted themselves in order to beautify, improve and enrich the country. It was the duty of the banks, they seemed to think, to lend for as long a time, and to as great an extent, as they might wish to borrow." It is, probably, the good paper of these projectors which the memorial says, the bank being unable to discount, goes into the hands of brokers, who (knowing the risk of this good paper) discount it at a much higher rate than legal interest, to the great distress of the enterprising adventurers, who had rather try trade on borrowed capital, than go to the plough or other laborious calling. Smith again says, page 478, "that the industry of Scotland languished for want of money to employ it, was the opinion of the famous Mr. Law. By establishing a bank of a particular kind, which, he seems to have imagined might issue paper to the amount of the whole value of all the lands in the country, he proposed to remedy this want of money. It was afterwards adopted, with some variations, by the Duke of Orleans, at that time Regent of France. The idea of the possibility of multiplying paper to almost any extent, was [239]the real foundation of what is called the Mississippi scheme, the most extravagant project both of banking and stock jobbing, that perhaps the world ever saw. The principles upon which it was founded are explained by Mr. Law himself, in a discourse concerning money and trade, which he published in Scotland when he first proposed his project. The splendid but visionary ideas which are set forth in that and some other works upon the same principles, still continue to make an impression upon many people, and have perhaps, in part, contributed to that excess of banking which has of late been complained of both in Scotland and in other places." The Mississippi scheme, it is well known, ended in France in the bankruptcy of the public treasury, the crush of thousands and thousands of private fortunes, and scenes of desolation and distress equal to those of an invading army, burning and laying waste all before it.

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a public debt being a public blessing;" that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams, and the gulls of that size entered bonâ fide into it. But the art and mystery of banks is a wonderful improvement on that. It is established on the principle that "private debts are a public blessing." That the evidences of those private debts, called bank notes, become active capital, and aliment the whole commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of the United States. Here are a set of people, for instance, who have bestowed on us the great blessing of running in our debt about two hundred millions of dollars, without our knowing who they are, where they are, or what property they have to pay this debt when called on; nay, who have made us so sensible of the blessings of letting them run in our debt, that we have exempted them by law from the repayment of these debts beyond a given proportion, (generally estimated at one-third.) And to fill up the measure of blessing, instead of paying, they receive an interest on what they owe from those to whom they owe; for all the notes, or evidences of what they [240]owe, which we see in circulation, have been lent to somebody on an interest which is levied again on us through the medium of commerce. And they are so ready still to deal out their liberalities to us, that they are now willing to let themselves run in our debt ninety millions more, on our paying them the same premium of six or eight per cent. interest, and on the same legal exemption from the repayment of more than thirty millions of the debt, when it shall be called for. But let us look at this principle in its original form, and its copy will then be equally understood. "A public debt is a public blessing." That our debt was juggled from forty-three up to eighty millions, and funded at that amount, according to this opinion was a great public blessing, because the evidences of it could be vested in commerce, and thus converted into active capital, and then the more the debt was made to be, the more active capital was created. That is to say, the creditors could now employ in commerce the money due them from the public, and make from it an annual profit of five per cent., or four millions of dollars. But observe, that the public were at the same time paying on it an interest of exactly the same amount of four millions of dollars. Where then is the gain to either party, which makes it a public blessing? There is no change in the state of things, but of persons only. A has a debt due to him from the public, of which he holds their certificate as evidence, and on which he is receiving an annual interest. He wishes, however, to have the money itself, and to go into business with it. B has an equal sum of money in business, but wishes now to retire, and live on the interest. He therefore gives it to A in exchange for A's certificates of public stock. Now, then, A has the money to employ in business, which B so employed before. B has the money on interest to live on, which A. lived on before; and the public pays the interest to B. which they paid to A. before. Here is no new creation of capital, no additional money employed, nor even a change in the employment of a single dollar. The only change is of place between A and B in which we discover no [241]creation of capital, nor public blessing. Suppose, again, the public to owe nothing. Then A not having lent his money to the public, would be in possession of it himself, and would go into business without the previous operation of selling stock. Here again, the same quantity of capital is employed as in the former case, though no public debt exists. In neither case is there any creation of active capital, nor other difference than that there is a public debt in the first case, and none in the last; and we may safely ask which of the two situations is most truly a public blessing? If, then, a public debt be no public blessing, we may pronounce, à fortiori, that a private one cannot be so. If the debt which the banking companies owe be a blessing to any body, it is to themselves alone, who are realizing a solid interest of eight or ten per cent. on it. As to the public, these companies have banished all our gold and silver medium, which, before their institution, we had without interest, which never could have perished in our hands, and would have been our salvation now in the hour of war; instead of which they have given us two hundred million of froth and bubble, on which we are to pay them heavy interest, until it shall vanish into air, as Morris' notes did. We are warranted, then, in affirming that this parody on the principle of "a public debt being a public blessing," and its mutation into the blessing of private instead of public debts, is as ridiculous as the original principle itself. In both cases, the truth is, that capital may be produced by industry, and accumulated by economy; but jugglers only will propose to create it by legerdemain tricks with paper.

I have called the actual circulation of bank paper in the United States, two hundred millions of dollars. I do not recollect where I have seen this estimate; but I retain the impression that I thought it just at the time. It may be tested, however, by a list of the banks now in the United States, and the amount of their capital. I have no means of recurring to such a list for the present day; but I turn to two lists in my possession for the years of 1803 and 1804. [242]

or say of fifty millions in round numbers. Now, every one knows the immense multiplication of these institutions since 1804. If they have only doubled, their capital will be of one hundred millions, and if trebled, as I think probable, it will be one hundred and fifty millions, on which they are at liberty to circulate treble the amount. I should sooner, therefore, believe two hundred millions to be far below than above the actual circulation. In England, by a late parliamentary document, (see Virginia Argus of October the 18th, 1813, and other public papers of about that date,) it appears that six years ago the Bank of England had twelve millions of pounds sterling in circulation, which had increased to forty-two millions in 1812, or to one hundred and eighty-nine millions of dollars. What proportion all the other banks may add to this, I do not know; if we were allowed to suppose they equal it, this would give a circulation of three hundred and seventy-eight millions, or the double of ours on a double population. But that nation is essentially commercial, ours essentially agricultural, and needing, therefore, less circulating medium, because the produce of the husbandman comes but once a year, and is then partly consumed at home, partly exchanged by barter. The dollar, which was of four shilling and sixpence sterling, was, by the same document, stated to be then six shillings and nine pence, a depreciation of exactly fifty per cent. The average price of wheat on the continent of Europe, at the commencement of its present war with England, was about a French crown, of one hundred and ten cents, the bushel. [243]With us it was one hundred cents, and consequently we could send it there in competition with their own. That ordinary price has now doubled with us, and more than doubled in England; and although a part of this augmentation may proceed from the war demand, yet from the extraordinary nominal rise in the prices of land and labor here, both of which have nearly doubled in that period, and are still rising with every new bank, it is evident that were a general peace to take place to-morrow, and time allowed for the re-establishment of commerce, justice, and order, we could not afford to raise wheat for much less than two dollars, while the continent of Europe, having no paper circulation, and that of its specie not being augmented, would raise it at their former price of one hundred and ten cents. It follows, then, that with our redundancy of paper, we cannot, after peace, send a bushel of wheat to Europe, unless extraordinary circumstances double its price in particular places, and that then the exporting countries of Europe could undersell us.

It is said that our paper is as good as silver, because we may have silver for it at the bank where it issues. This is not true. One, two, or three persons might have it; but a general application would soon exhaust their vaults, and leave a ruinous proportion of their paper in its intrinsic worthless form. It is a fallacious pretence, for another reason. The inhabitants of the banking cities might obtain cash for their paper, as far as the cash of the vaults would hold out, but distance puts it out of the power of the country to do this. A farmer having a note of a Boston or Charleston bank, distant hundreds of miles, has no means of calling for the cash. And while these calls are impracticable for the country, the banks have no fear of their being made from the towns; because their inhabitants are mostly on their books, and there on sufferance only, and during good behavior.

In this state of things, we are called on to add ninety millions more to the circulation. Proceeding in this career, it is infallible, that we must end where the revolutionary paper ended. Two hundred millions was the whole amount of all the emissions [244]of the old Congress, at which point their bills ceased to circulate. We are now at that sum, but with treble the population, and of course a longer tether. Our depreciation is, as yet, but about two for one. Owing to the support its credit receives from the small reservoirs of specie in the vaults of the banks, it is impossible to say at what point their notes will stop. Nothing is necessary to effect it but a general alarm; and that may take place whenever the public shall begin to reflect on, and perceive the impossibility that the banks should repay this sum. At present, caution is inspired no farther than to keep prudent men from selling property on long payments. Let us suppose the panic to arise at three hundred millions, a point to which every session of the legislatures hasten us by long strides. Nobody dreams that they would have three hundred millions of specie to satisfy the holders of their notes. Were they even to stop now, no one supposes they have two hundred millions in cash, or even the sixty-six and two-third millions, to which amount alone the law compels them to repay. One hundred and thirty-three and one-third millions of loss, then, is thrown on the public by law; and as to the sixty-six and two-thirds, which they are legally bound to pay, and ought to have in their vaults, every one knows there is no such amount of cash in the United States, and what would be the course with what they really have there? Their notes are refused. Cash is called for. The inhabitants of the banking towns will get what is in the vaults, until a few banks declare their insolvency; when, the general crush becoming evident, the others will withdraw even the cash they have, declare their bankruptcy at once, and leave an empty house and empty coffers for the holders of their notes. In this scramble of creditors, the country gets nothing, the towns but little. What are they to do? Bring suits? A million of creditors bring a million of suits against John Nokes and Robert Styles, wheresoever to be found? All nonsense. The loss is total. And a sum is thus swindled from our citizens, of seven times the amount of the real debt, and four times that of the fictitious one of the United States, at the close of the war. All this they will [245]justly charge on their legislatures; but this will be poor satisfaction for the two or three hundred millions they will have lost. It is time, then, for the public functionaries to look to this. Perhaps it may not be too late. Perhaps, by giving time to the banks, they may call in and pay off their paper by degrees. But no remedy is ever to be expected while it rests with the State legislatures. Personal motive can be excited through so many avenues to their will, that, in their hands, it will continue to go on from bad to worse, until the catastrophe overwhelms us. I still believe, however, that on proper representations of the subject, a great proportion of these legislatures would cede to Congress their power of establishing banks, saving the charter rights already granted. And this should be asked, not by way of amendment to the constitution, because until three-fourths should consent, nothing could be done; but accepted from them one by one, singly, as their consent might be obtained. Any single State, even if no other should come into the measure, would find its interest in arresting foreign bank paper immediately, and its own by degrees. Specie would flow in on them as paper disappeared. Their own banks would call in and pay off their notes gradually, and their constituents would thus be saved from the general wreck. Should the greater part of the States concede, as is expected, their power over banks to Congress, besides insuring their own safety, the paper of the non-conceding States might be so checked and circumscribed, by prohibiting its receipt in any of the conceding States, and even in the non-conceding as to duties, taxes, judgments, or other demands of the United States, or of the citizens of other States, that it would soon die of itself, and the medium of gold and silver be universally restored. This is what ought to be done. But it will not be done. Carthago non delibitur. The overbearing clamor of merchants, speculators, and projectors, will drive us before them with our eyes open, until, as in France, under the Mississippi bubble, our citizens will be overtaken by the crush of this baseless fabric, without other satisfaction than that of execrations on the heads of those functionaries, who, from ignorance, [246]pusillanimity or corruption, have betrayed the fruits of their industry into the hands of projectors and swindlers.

When I speak comparatively of the paper emission of the old Congress and the present banks, let it not be imagined that I cover them under the same mantle. The object of the former was a holy one; for if ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence. The object of the latter, is to enrich swindlers at the expense of the honest and industrious part of the nation.

The sum of what has been said is, that pretermitting the constitutional question on the authority of Congress, and considering this application on the grounds of reason alone, it would be best that our medium should be so proportioned to our produce, as to be on a par with that of the countries with which we trade, and whose medium is in a sound state; that specie is the most perfect medium, because it will preserve its own level; because, having intrinsic and universal value, it can never die in our hands, and it is the surest resource of reliance in time of war; that the trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals; that it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted; that it is already at a term of abuse in these States, which has never been reached by any other nation, France excepted, whose dreadful catastrophe should be a warning against the instrument which produced it; that we are already at ten or twenty times the due quantity of medium; insomuch, that no man knows what his property is now worth, because it is bloating while he is calculating; and still less what it will be worth when the medium shall be relieved from its present dropsical state; and that it is a palpable falsehood to say we can have specie for our paper whenever demanded. Instead, then, of yielding to the cries of scarcity of medium set up by speculators, projectors and commercial gamblers, no endeavors should be spared to begin the work of reducing it by such gradual means as may give time to private fortunes to preserve their poise, and [247]settle down with the subsiding medium; and that, for this purpose, the States should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount for paper.

To the existence of banks of discount for cash, as on the continent of Europe, there can be no objection, because there can be no danger of abuse, and they are a convenience both to merchants and individuals. I think they should even be encouraged, by allowing them a larger than legal interest on short discounts, and tapering thence, in proportion as the term of discount is lengthened, down to legal interest on those of a year or more. Even banks of deposit, where cash should be lodged, and a paper acknowledgment taken out as its representative, entitled to a return of the cash on demand, would be convenient for remittances, travelling persons, &c. But, liable as its cash would be to be pilfered and robbed, and its paper to be fraudulently re-issued, or issued without deposit, it would require skilful and strict regulation. This would differ from the bank of Amsterdam, in the circumstance that the cash could be redeemed on returning the note.

When I commenced this letter to you, my dear Sir, on Mr. Law's memorial, I expected a short one would have answered that. But as I advanced, the subject branched itself before me into so many collateral questions, that even the rapid views I have taken of each have swelled the volume of my letter beyond my expectations, and, I fear, beyond your patience. Yet on a revisal of it, I find no part which has not so much bearing on the subject as to be worth merely the time of perusal. I leave it then as it is; and will add only the assurances of my constant and affectionate esteem and respect.

TO JOHN JACOB ASTOR, ESQ.

Monticello, November 9, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of October 18th has been duly received, and I learn with great pleasure the progress you have [248]made towards an establishment on Columbia river. I view it as the germ of a great, free and independent empire on that side of our continent, and that liberty and self-government spreading from that as well as this side, will ensure their complete establishment over the whole. It must be still more gratifying to yourself to foresee that your name will be handed down with that of Columbus and Raleigh, as the father of the establishment and founder of such an empire. It would be an afflicting thing indeed, should the English be able to break up the settlement. Their bigotry to the bastard liberty of their own country, and habitual hostility to every degree of freedom in any other, will induce the attempt; they would not lose the sale of a bale of furs for the freedom of the whole world. But I hope your party will be able to maintain themselves. If they have assiduously cultivated the interests and affections of the natives, these will enable them to defend themselves against the English, and furnish them an asylum even if their fort be lost. I hope, and have no doubt our government will do for its success whatever they have power to do, and especially that at the negotiations for peace, they will provide, by convention with the English, for the safety and independence of that country, and an acknowledgment of our right of patronizing them in all cases of injury from foreign nations. But no patronage or protection from this quarter can secure the settlement if it does not cherish the affections of the natives and make it their interest to uphold it. While you are doing so much for future generations of men, I sincerely wish you may find a present account in the just profits you are entitled to expect from the enterprise. I will ask of the President permission to read Mr. Stuart's journal. With fervent wishes for a happy issue to this great undertaking, which promises to form a remarkable epoch in the history of mankind, I tender you the assurance of my great esteem and respect. [249]

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, November 12, 1813.

Dear Sir,—As I owe you more for your letters of October 12th and 28th than I shall be able to pay, I shall begin with the P. S. to the last.

I am very sorry to say that I cannot assist your memory in the inquiries of your letter of August 22d. I really know not who was the compositor of any one of the petitions or addresses you enumerate. Nay, further: I am certain I never did know. I was so shallow a politician that I was not aware of the importance of those compositions. They all appeared to me, in the circumstances of the country, like children's play at marbles or push-pin, or like misses in their teens, emulating each other in their pearls, their bracelets, their diamond pins and Brussels lace.

In the Congress of 1774, there was not one member, except Patrick Henry, who appeared to me sensible of the precipice, or rather the pinnacle on which we stood, and had candor and courage enough to acknowledge it. America is in total ignorance, or under infinite deception concerning that assembly. To draw the characters of them all would require a volume, and would now be considered as a characatured print. One-third Tories, another Whigs, and the rest Mongrels.

There was a little aristocracy among us of talents and letters. Mr. Dickinson was primus interpares, the bell-weather, the leader of the aristocratical flock.

Billy, alias Governor Livingston, and his son-in-law, Mr. Jay, were of the privileged order. The credit of most if not all those compositions, was often if not generally given to one or the other of these choice spirits. Mr. Dickinson, however, was not on any of the original committees. He came not into Congress till October 17th. He was not appointed till the 15th by his assembly.

Vol. 1, 30. Congress adjourned October 27th, though our correct secretary has not recorded any final adjournment or dissolution. Mr. Dickinson was in Congress but ten days. The business [250]was all prepared, arranged, and even in a manner finished before his arrival.

R. H. Lee was the chairman of the committee for preparing the loyal and dutiful address to his majesty. Johnson and Henry were acute spirits, and understood the controversy very well, though they had not the advantages of education like Lee and John Rutledge.

The subject had been near a month under discussion in Congress, and most of the materials thrown out there. It underwent another deliberation in committee, after which they made the customary compliment to their chairman, by requesting him to prepare and report a draught, which was done, and after examination, correction, amelioration or pejoration, as usual reported to Congress. October 3d, 4th and 5th were taken up in debating and deliberating on matters proper to be contained in the address to his majesty, vol. 122. October 21st. The address to the king was, after debate, re-committed, and Mr. John Dickinson added to the committee. The first draught was made, and all the essential materials put together by Lee. It might be embellished and seasoned afterwards with some of Mr. Dickinson's piety, but I know not that it was. Neat and handsome as the composition is, having never had any confidence in the utility of it, I never have thought much about it since it was adopted. Indeed, I never bestowed much attention on any of those addresses which were all but repetitions of the same things, the same facts and arguments, dress and ornament rather than body, soul or substance. My thoughts and cares were nearly monopolized by the theory of our rights and wrongs, by measures for the defence of the country, and the means of governing ourselves. I was in a great error, no doubt, and am ashamed to confess it; for those things were necessary to give popularity to our cause both at home and abroad. And to show my stupidity in a stronger light, the reputation of any one of those compositions has been a more splendid distinction than any aristocratical star or garter in the escutcheon of every man who has enjoyed it. Very sorry that I cannot give you more satisfactory information, and more [251]so that I cannot at present give more attention to your two last excellent letters. I am, as usual, affectionately yours.

N. B. I am almost ready to believe that John Taylor, of Caroline, or of Hazlewood, Port Royal, Virginia, is the author of 630 pages of printed octavo upon my books that I have received. The style answers every characteristic that you have intimated. Within a week I have received and looked into his Arator. They must spring from the same brain, as Minerva issued from the head of Jove, or rather as Venus rose from the froth of the sea. There is, however, a great deal of good sense in Arator, and there is some in his Aristocracy.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, November 15, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Accept my thanks for the comprehensive syllabus in your favor of October 12th.

The Psalms of David, in sublimity, beauty, pathos and originality, or, in one word, in poetry, are superior to all the odes, hymns and songs in our language. But I had rather read them in our prose translation, than in any version I have seen. His morality, however, often shocks me, like Tristram Shandy's execrations.

Blacklock's translation of Horace's "Justum," is admirable; superior to Addison's. Could David be translated as well, his superiority would be universally acknowledged. We cannot compare the sublime poetry. By Virgil's "Pollio," we may conjecture there was prophecy as well as sublimity. Why have those verses been annihilated? I suspect Platonic Christianity, Pharisaical Judaism or Machiavilian politics, in this case, as in all other cases, of the destruction of records and literary monuments,

Among all your researches in Hebrew history and controversy, [252]have you ever met a book the design of which is to prove that the ten commandments, as we have them in our Catechisms and hung up in our churches, were not the ten commandments written by the finger of God upon tables delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, and broken by him in a passion with Aaron for his golden calf, nor those afterwards engraved by him on tables of stone; but a very different set of commandments?

There is such a book, by J. W. Goethen, Schriften, Berlin 1775-1779. I wish to see this book. You will perceive the question in Exodus, 20: 1, 17, 22, 28, chapter 24: 3, &c.; chapter 24: 12; chapter 25: 31; chapter 31: 18; chapter 31: 19; chapter 34: 1; chapter 34: 10, &c.

I will make a covenant with all this people. Observe that which I command this day:

1. Thou shalt not adore any other God. Therefore take heed not to enter into covenant with the inhabitants of the country; neither take for your sons their daughters in marriage. They would allure thee to the worship of false Gods. Much less shall you in any place erect images.

2. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, at the time of the month Abib; to remember that about that time, I delivered thee from Egypt.

3. Every first born of the mother is mine; the male of thine herd, be it stock or flock. But you shall replace the first born of an ass with a sheep. The first born of your sons shall you redeem. No man shall appear before me with empty hands.

4. Six days shalt thou labor. The seventh day thou shalt rest from ploughing and gathering.

5. The feast of weeks shalt thou keep with the firstlings of the wheat harvest; and the feast of harvesting at the end of the year.

6. Thrice in every year all male persons shall appear before the Lord. Nobody shall invade your country, as long as you obey this command.

7. Thou shalt not sacrifice the blood of a sacrifice of mine, upon leavened bread.

[253]8. The sacrifice of the Passover shall not remain till the next day.

9. The firstlings of the produce of your land, thou shalt bring to the house of the Lord.

10. Thou shalt not boil the kid, while it is yet sucking.

And the Lord spake to Moses: Write these words, as after these words I made with you and with Israel a covenant.

I know not whether Goethen translated or abridged from the Hebrew, or whether he used any translation, Greek, Latin, or German. But he differs in form and words somewhat from our version, Exodus 34: 10 to 28. The sense seems to be the same. The tables were the evidence of the covenant, by which the Almighty attached the people of Israel to himself. By these laws they were separated from all other nations, and were reminded of the principal epochs of their history.

When and where originated our ten commandments? The tables and the ark were lost. Authentic copies in few, if any hands; the ten Precepts could not be observed, and were little remembered.

If the book of Deuteronomy was compiled, during or after the Babylonian captivity, from traditions, the error or amendment might come in those.

But you must be weary, as I am at present of problems, conjectures, and paradoxes, concerning Hebrew, Grecian and Christian and all other antiquities; but while we believe that the finis bonorum will be happy, we may leave learned men to their disquisitions and criticisms.

I admire your employment in selecting the philosophy and divinity of Jesus, and separating it from all mixtures. If I had eyes and nerves I would go through both Testaments and mark all that I understand. To examine the Mishna, Gemara, Cabbala, Jezirah, Sohar, Cosri and Talmud of the Hebrews would require the life of Methuselah, and after all his 969 years would be wasted to very little purpose. The dæmon of hierarchical despotism has been at work both with the Mishna and Gemara. In 1238 a French Jew made a discovery to the Pope (Gregory [254]9th) of the heresies of the Talmud. The Pope sent thirty-five articles of error to the Archbishops of France, requiring them to seize the books of the Jews and burn all that contained any errors. He wrote in the same terms to the kings of France, England, Arragon, Castile, Leon, Navarre and Portugal. In consequence of this order, twenty cartloads of Hebrew books were burnt in France; and how many times twenty cartloads were destroyed in the other kingdoms? The Talmud of Babylon and that of Jerusalem were composed from 120 to 500 years after the destruction of Jerusalem.

If Lightfoot derived light from what escaped from Gregory's fury, in explaining many passages in the New Testament, by comparing the expressions of the Mishna with those of the Apostles and Evangelists, how many proofs of the corruptions of Christianity might we find in the passages burnt?

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, November 15, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I cannot appease my melancholy commiseration for our armies in this furious snow storm, in any way so well as by studying your letter of Oct. 28.

We are now explicitly agreed upon one important point, viz., that there is a natural aristocracy among men, the grounds of which are virtue and talents. You very justly indulge a little merriment upon this solemn subject of aristocracy. I often laugh at it too, for there is nothing in this laughable world more ridiculous than the management of it by all the nations of the earth; but while we smile, mankind have reason to say to us, as the frogs said to the boys, what is sport to you, are wounds and death to us. When I consider the weakness, the folly, the pride, the vanity, the selfishness, the artifice, the low craft and mean cunning, the want of principle, the avarice, the unbounded ambition, the unfeeling cruelty of a majority of those (in all nations) who are allowed an aristocratical influence, and, on the other [255]hand, the stupidity with which the more numerous multitude not only become their dupes, but even love to be taken in by their tricks, I feel a stronger disposition to weep at their destiny, than to laugh at their folly. But though we have agreed in one point, in words, it is not yet certain that we are perfectly agreed in sense. Fashion has introduced an indeterminate use of the word talents. Education, wealth, strength, beauty, stature, birth, marriage, graceful attitudes and motions, gait, air, complexion, physiognomy, are talents, as well as genius, science, and learning. Any one of these talents that in fact commands or influences two votes in society, gives to the man who possesses it the character of an aristocrat, in my sense of the word. Pick up the first hundred men you meet, and make a republic. Every man will have an equal vote; but when deliberations and discussions are opened, it will be found that twenty-five, by their talents, virtues being equal, will be able to carry fifty votes. Every one of these twenty-five is an aristocrat in my sense of the word; whether he obtains his one vote in addition to his own, by his birth, fortune, figure, eloquence, science, learning, craft, cunning, or even his character for good fellowship, and a bon vivant.

What gave Sir William Wallace his amazing aristocratical superiority? His strength. What gave Mrs. Clark her aristocratical influence—to create generals, admirals, and bishops? Her beauty. What gave Pompadour and Du Barry the power of making cardinals and popes? And I have lived for years in the hotel de Valentinois, with Franklin, who had as many virtues as any of them. In the investigation of the meaning of the word "talents," I could write 630 pages as pertinent as John Taylor's, of Hazlewood; but I will select a single example; for female aristocrats are nearly as formidable as males. A daughter of a green grocer walks the streets in London daily, with a basket of cabbage sprouts, dandelions, and spinage, on her head. She is observed by the painters to have a beautiful face, an elegant figure, a graceful step, and a debonair. They hire her to sit. She complies, and is painted by forty artists in a circle around her. The scientific Dr. William Hamilton outbids the [256]painters, sends her to school for a genteel education, and marries her. This lady not only causes the triumphs of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, but separates Naples from France, and finally banishes the king and queen from Sicily. Such is the aristocracy of the natural talent of beauty. Millions of examples might be quoted from history, sacred and profane, from Eve, Hannah, Deborah, Susanna, Abigail, Judith, Ruth, down to Helen, Mrs. de Mainbenor, and Mrs. Fitzherbert. For mercy's sake do not compel me to look to our chaste States and territories to find women, one of whom let go would in the words of Holopherne's guards, deceive the whole earth.

The proverbs of Theognis, like those of Solomon, are observations on human nature, ordinary life, and civil society, with moral reflections on the facts. I quoted him as a witness of the fact, that there was as much difference in the races of men as in the breeds of sheep, and as a sharp reprover and censurer of the sordid, mercenary practice of disgracing birth by preferring gold to it. Surely no authority can be more expressly in point to prove the existence of inequalities, not of rights, but of moral, intellectual, and physical inequalities in families, descents and generations. If a descent from pious, virtuous, wealthy, literary, or scientific ancestors, is a letter of recommendation, or introduction in a man's favor, and enables him to influence only one vote in addition to his own, he is an aristocrat; for a democrat can have but one vote. Aaron Burr has 100,000 votes from the single circumstance of his descent from President Burr and President Edwards.

Your commentary on the proverbs of Theognis, reminded me of two solemn characters; the one resembling John Bunyan, the other Scarron. The one John Torrey, the other Ben Franklin. Torrey, a poet, an enthusiast, a superstitious bigot, once very gravely asked my brother, whether it would not be better for mankind if children were always begotten by religious motives only? Would not religion in this sad case have as little efficacy in encouraging procreation, as it has now in discouraging [257]it? I should apprehend a decrease of population, even in our country where it increases so rapidly.

In 1775, Franklin made a morning visit at Mrs. Yard's, to Sam Adams and John. He was unusually loquacious. "Man, a rational creature!" said Franklin. "Come, let us suppose a rational man. Strip him of all his appetites, especially his hunger and thirst. He is in his chamber, engaged in making experiments, or in pursuing some problem. He is highly entertained. At this moment a servant knocks. 'Sir, dinner is on the table.' 'Dinner! pox! pough! but what have you for dinner?' 'Ham and chickens.' 'Ham, and must I break the chain of my thoughts to go down and gnaw a morsel of damned hog's arse? Put aside your ham; I will dine to-morrow.'" Take away appetite, and the present generation would not live a month, and no future generation would ever exist; and thus the exalted dignity of human nature would be annihilated and lost, and in my opinion the whole loss would be of no more importance than putting out a candle, quenching a torch, or crushing a fire-fly, if in this world we only have hope. Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy, does not appear to me founded. Birth and wealth are conferred upon some men as imperiously by nature as genius, strength, or beauty. The heir to honors, and riches, and power, has often no more merit in procuring these advantages, than he has in obtaining a handsome face, or an elegant figure. When aristocracies are established by human laws, and honor, wealth, and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence; but this never commences till corruption in elections become dominant and uncontrollable. But this artificial aristocracy can never last. The everlasting envies, jealousies, rivalries, and quarrels among them; their cruel rapacity upon the poor ignorant people, their followers, compel them to set up Cæsar, a demagogue, to be a monarch, a master; pour mettre chacun à sa place. Here you have the origin of all artificial aristocracy, which is the origin of all monarchies. And both artificial aristocracy and monarchy, and civil, military, political, [258]and hierarchical despotism, have all grown out of the natural aristocracy of virtues and talents. We, to be sure, are far remote from this. Many hundred years must roll away before we shall be corrupted. Our pure, virtuous, public-spirited, federative republic will last forever, govern the globe, and introduce the perfection of man; his perfectibility being already proved by Price, Priestley, Condorcet, Rousseau, Diderot, and Godwin. Mischief has been done by the Senate of the United States. I have known and felt more of this mischief, than Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, all together. But this has been all caused by the constitutional power of the Senate, in executive business, which ought to be immediately, totally, and essentially abolished. Your distinction between the Αριστοι and ψευδο αριστοι, will not help the matter. I would trust one as well as the other with unlimited power. The law wisely refuses an oath as a witness in his own case, to the saint as well as the sinner. No romance would be more amusing than the history of your Virginian and our New England aristocratical families. Yet even in Rhode Island there has been no clergy, no church, and I had almost said no State, and some people say no religion. There has been a constant respect for certain old families. Fifty-seven or fifty-eight years ago, in company with Colonel, Counsellor, Judge, John Chandler, whom I have quoted before, a newspaper was brought in. The old sage asked me to look for the news from Rhode Island, and see how the elections had gone there. I read the list of Wanbous, Watrous, Greens, Whipples, Malboues, &c. "I expected as much," said the aged gentleman, "for I have always been of opinion that in the most popular governments, the elections will generally go in favor of the most ancient families." To this day, when any of these tribes—and we may add Ellerys, Channings, Champlins, &c.,—are pleased to fall in with the popular current, they are sure to carry all before them.

You suppose a difference of opinion between you and me on the subject of aristocracy. I can find none. I dislike and detest hereditary honors, offices, emoluments, established by law [259]So do you. I am for excluding legal, hereditary distinctions from the United States as long as possible. So are you. I only say that mankind have not yet discovered any remedy against irresistible corruption in elections to offices of great power and profit, but making them hereditary.

But will you say our elections are pure? Be it so, upon the whole; but do you recollect in history a more corrupt election than that of Aaron Burr to be President, or that of De Witt Clinton last year? By corruption here, I mean a sacrifice of every national interest and honor to private and party objects. I see the same spirit in Virginia that you and I see in Rhode Island and the rest of New England. In New York it is a struggle of family feuds—a feudal aristocracy. Pennsylvania is a contest between German, Irish and old England families. When Germans and Irish unite they give 30,000 majorities. There is virtually a white rose and a red rose, a Cæsar and a Pompey, in every State in this Union, and contests and dissensions will be as lasting. The rivalry of Bourbons and Noaillises produced the French revolution, and a similar competition for consideration and influence exists and prevails in every village in the world. Where will terminate the rabies agri? The continent will be scattered over with manors much larger than Livingston's, Van Rensselaers's, or Philips's; even our Deacon Strong will have a principality among you Southern folk. What inequality of talents will be produced by these land jobbers. Where tends the mania of banks? At my table in Philadelphia, I once proposed to you to unite in endeavors to obtain an amendment of the constitution prohibiting to the separate States the power of creating banks; but giving Congress authority to establish one bank with a branch in each State, the whole limited to ten millions of dollars. Whether this project was wise or unwise, I know not, for I had deliberated little on it then, and have never thought it worth thinking of since. But you spurned the proposition from you with disdain. This system of banks, begotten, brooded and hatched by Duer, Robert and Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton and Washington, I have always considered as a system [260]of national injustice. A sacrifice of public and private interest to a few aristocratical friends and favorites. My scheme could have had no such effect. Verres plundered temples, and robbed a few rich men, but he never made such ravages among private property in general, nor swindled so much out of the pockets of the poor, and middle class of people, as these banks have done. No people but this would have borne the imposition so long. The people of Ireland would not bear Wood's half-pence. What inequalities of talent have been introduced into this country by these aristocratical banks! Our Winthrops, Winslows, Bradfords, Saltonstalls, Quinceys, Chandlers, Leonards, Hutchinsons, Olivers, Sewalls, &c., are precisely in the situation of your Randolphs, Carters, and Burwells, and Harrisons. Some of them unpopular for the part they took in the late revolution, but all respected for their names and connections; and whenever they fell in with the popular sentiments are preferred ceteris paribus, to all others. When I was young the summum bonum in Massachusetts was to be worth £10,000 sterling, ride in a chariot, be Colonel of a regiment of militia, and hold a seat in his Majesty's council. No man's imagination aspired to anything higher beneath the skies. But these plumbs, chariots, colonelships, and counsellorships, are recorded and will never be forgotten. No great accumulations of land were made by our early settlers. Mr. Baudoin, a French refugee, made the first great purchases, and your General Dearborne, born under a fortunate star, is now enjoying a large portion of the aristocratical sweets of them. As I have no amanuenses but females, and there is so much about generation in this letter that I dare not ask any of them to copy it, and I cannot copy it myself, I must beg of you to return it to me. Your old friend.

TO ——.

November 28, 1813.

I will not fatigue you, my dear Sir, with long and labored excuses for having been so tardy in writing to you; but I will [261]briefly mention that the thousand hostile ships which cover the ocean render attempts to pass it now very unfrequent, and these concealing their intentions from all that they may not be known to the enemy, are gone before heard of in such inland situations as mine. To this, truth must add the torpidity of age as one of the obstacles to punctual correspondence.

Your letters of October 21 and November 15, 1811, and August 29, 1813, were duly received, and with that of November 15 came the MS. copy of your work on Economy. The extraordinary merit of the former volume had led me to anticipate great satisfaction and edification from the perusal of this, and I can say with truth and sincerity that these expectations were completely fulfilled, new principles developed, former ones corrected, or rendered more perspicuous, present us an interesting science, heretofore voluminous and embarrassed, now happily simplified and brought within a very moderate compass. After an attentive perusal, which enabled me to bear testimony to its worth, I took measures for getting it translated and printed in Philadelphia; the distance from which place prepared me to expect great and unavoidable delays. But notwithstanding my continual urgencies these have gone far beyond my calculations. In a letter of September 26th from the editor, in answer to one of mine, after urging in excuse the causes of the delay, he expresses his confidence that it would be ready by the last of October, and that period being now past, I am in daily expectation of hearing from him. As I write the present letter without knowing by what conveyance it may go, I am not without a hope of receiving a copy of the work in time to accompany this. I shall then be anxious to learn that better health and more encouraging circumstances enable you to pursue your plan through the two remaining branches of morals and legislation, which executed in the same lucid, logical and condensed style, will present such a whole as the age we live in will not before have received. Should the same motives operate for their first publication here, I am now offered such means, nearer to me, as promise a more encouraging promptitude in the execution. And certainly no [262]effort should be spared on my part to ensure to the world such an acquisition. The MS. of the first work has been carefully recalled and deposited with me. That of the second, when done with, shall be equally taken care of.

If unmerited praise could give pleasure to a candid mind, I should have been highly exalted, in my own opinion, on the occasion of the first work. One of the best judges and best men of the age has ascribed it to myself; and has for some time been employed in translating it into French. It would be a gratification to which you are highly entitled, could I transcribe the sheets he has written me in praise, nay in rapture with the work; and were I to name the man, you would be sensible there is not another whose suffrage would be more encouraging. But the casualties which lie between us would render criminal the naming any one. In a letter which I am now writing him, I shall set him right as to myself, and acknowledge my humble station far below the qualifications necessary for that work; and shall discourage his perseverance in retranslating into French a work the original of which is so correct in its diction that not a word can be altered but for the worse; and from a translation, too, where the author's meaning has sometimes been illy understood, sometimes mistaken, and often expressed in words not the best chosen. Indeed, when the work, through its translation, becomes more generally known here, the high estimation in which it is held by all who become acquainted with it, encourage me to hope I may get it printed in the original. I sent a copy of it to the late President of William and Mary College of this State, who adopted it at once as the elementary book of that institution. From these beginnings it will spread and become a political gospel for a nation open to reason, and in a situation to adopt and profit by its results, without a fear of their leading to wrong.

I sincerely wish you all the health, comfort and leisure necessary to dispose and enable you to persevere in employing yourself so useful for present and future times, and I pray you to be assured you have not a more grateful votary for your benefactions to mankind, nor one of higher sentiments of esteem and affectionate respect. [263]

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, December 3, 1813.

Dear Sir,—The proverbs of the old Greek poets are as short and pithy as any of Solomon or Franklin. Hesiod has several. His Αθανατους μὲν πρῶτα θεους νομω ως διακειται Τιμα. Honor the gods established by law. I know not how we can escape martyrdom without a discreet attention to this precept. You have suffered, and I have suffered more than you, for want of a strict observance of this rule.

There is another oracle of this Hesiod, which requires a kind of dance upon a tight rope and a slack rope too, in philosophy and theology: Πιστις δ' αρα ομως και απιστια ωλεσαν ανδρας. If believing too little or too much is so fatal to mankind, what will become of us all?

In studying the perfectability of human nature and its progress towards perfection in this world, on this earth, remember that I have met many curious and interesting characters.

About three hundred years ago, there appeared a number of men of letters, who appeared to endeavor to believe neither too little nor too much. They labored to imitate the Hebrew archers, who could shoot to an hair's breadth. The Pope and his church believed too much. Luther and his church believed too little. This little band was headed by three great scholars: Erasmus, Vives and Badens. This triumvirate is said to have been at the head of the republic of letters in that age. Had Condorcet been master of his subject, I fancy he would have taken more notice, in his History of the Progress of Mind, of these characters. Have you their writings? I wish I had. I shall confine myself at present to Vives. He wrote commentaries on the City of God of St. Augustine, some parts of which were censured by the Doctors of the Louvain, as too bold and too free. I know not whether the following passage of the learned Spaniard was among the sentiments condemned or not:

"I have been much afflicted," says Vives, "when I have seriously considered how diligently, and with what exact care, the [264]actions of Alexander, Hannibal, Scipio, Pompey, Cæsar and other commanders, and the lives of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other philosophers, have been written and fixed in an everlasting remembrance, so that there is not the least danger they can ever be lost; but then the acts of the Apostles, and martyrs and saints of our religion, and of the affairs of the rising and established church, being involved in much darkness, are almost totally unknown, though they are of so much greater advantage than the lives of the philosophers or great generals, both as to the improvement of our knowledge and practice. For what is written of these holy men, except a very few things, is very much corrupted and defaced with the mixture of many fables, while the writer, indulging his own humor, doth not tell us what the saint did, but what the historian would have had him do. And the fancy of the writer dictates the life and not the truth of things." And again Vives says: "There have been men who have thought it a great piece of piety, to invent lies for the sake of religion."

The great Cardinal Barronius, too, confesses: "There is nothing which seems so much neglected to this day, as a true and certain account of the affairs of the church, collected with an exact diligence. And that I may speak of the more ancient, it is very difficult to find any of them who have published commentaries on this subject, which have hit the truth in all points."

Canus, too, another Spanish prelate of great name, says: "I speak it with grief and not by way of reproach, Laertius has written the lives of the philosophers with more ease and industry than the Christians have those of the saints. Suetonius has represented the lives of the Cæsars with much more truth and sincerity than the Catholics have the affairs (I will not say of the emperors) but even those of the martyrs, holy virgins and confessors. For they have not concealed the vice nor the very suspicions of vice, in good and commendable philosophers or princes, and in the worst of them they discover the very colors or appearances of virtue. But the greatest part of our writers either follow the conduct of their affections, or industriously feign many things; so that I, for my part, am very often both weary and [265]ashamed of them, because I know that they have thereby brought nothing of advantage to the church of Christ, but very much inconvenience." Vives and Canus are moderns, but Arnobius, the converter of Lætantius, was ancient. He says: "But neither could all that was done be written, or arrive at the knowledge of all men—many of our great actions being done by obscure men and those who had no knowledge of letters. And if some of them are committed to letters and writings, yet even here, by the malice of the devils and men like them, whose great design and study is to intercept and ruin this truth, by interpolating or adding some things to them, or by changing or taking out words, syllables or letters, they have put a stop to the faith of wise men, and corrupted the truth of things."

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism, which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents, wave succeeding wave in the Catholic church, from the Council of Nice, and long before, to this day.

Aristotle, no doubt, thought his Ουτε πασι πιστευοντες, ουτε πασιν απιστουντες, very wise and very profound; but what is its worth? What man, woman or child ever believed everything or nothing? Oh! that Priestley could live again, and have leisure and means! An inquirer after truth, who had neither time nor means, might request him to search and re-search for answers to a few questions:

1. Have we more than two witnesses of the life of Jesus—Matthew and John?

2. Have we one witness to the existence of Matthew's gospel in the first century?

3. Have we one witness of the existence of John's gospel in the first century?

4. Have we one witness of the existence of Mark's gospel in the first century?

5. Have we one witness of the existence of Luke's gospel in the first century?

[266]6. Have we any witness of the existence of St. Thomas' gospel, that is the gospel of the infancy in the first century?

7. Have we any evidence of the existence of the Acts of the Apostles in the first century?

8. Have we any evidence of the existence of the supplement to the Acts of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, or Paul and Tecle, in the first century?

Here I was interrupted by a new book, Chateaubriand's Travels in Greece, Palestine and Egypt, and by a lung fever with which the amiable companion of my life has been violently and dangerously attacked.

December 13th. I have fifty more questions to put to Priestley, but must adjourn them to a future opportunity.

I have read Chateaubriand with as much delight as I ever read Bunyan's Pilgrims' Progress, Robinson Crusoe's Travels, or Gulliver's, or Whitefield's, or Wesley's Life, or the Life of St. Francis, St. Anthony, or St. Ignatius Loyola. A work of infinite learning, perfectly well written, a magazine of information, but enthusiastic, bigoted, superstitious, Roman Catholic throughout. If I were to indulge in jealous criticism and conjecture, I should suspect that there had been an Œcuemenical counsel of Popes, Cardinals and Bishops, and that this traveller has been employed at their expense to make this tour, to lay a foundation for the resurrection of the Catholic Hierarchy in Europe.

Have you read La Harpe's Course de Literature, in fifteen volumes? Have you read St. Pierre's Studies of Nature?

I am now reading the controversy between Voltaire and Monotte.

Our friend Rush has given us for his last legacy, an analysis of some of the diseases of the mind.

Johnson said, "We are all more or less mad;" and who is or has been more mad than Johnson?

I know of no philosopher, or theologian, or moralist, ancient or modern, more profound, more infallible than Whitefield, if the anecdote I heard be true.

He began: "Father Abraham," with his hands and eyes gracefully [267]directed to the heavens, as I have more than once seen him; "Father Abraham, who have you there with you? Have you Catholics?" "No." "Have you Protestants?" "No." "Have you Churchmen?" "No." "Have you Dissenters?" "No." "Have you Presbyterians?" "No." "Quakers?" "No." "Anabaptists?" "No." "Who have you there? Are you alone?" "No."

"My brethren, you have the answer to all these questions in the words of my text: 'He who feareth God and worketh righteousness, shall be accepted of Him.'"

Allegiance to the Creator and Governor of the Milky-Way, and the Nebulæ, and benevolence to all his creatures, is my Religion.

I am as ever.

TO BARON DE HUMBOLDT.

December 6, 1813.

My Dear Friend and Baron,—I have to acknowledge your two letters of December 20 and 26, 1811, by Mr. Correa, and am first to thank you for making me acquainted with that most excellent character. He was so kind as to visit me at Monticello, and I found him one of the most learned and amiable of men. It was a subject of deep regret to separate from so much worth in the moment of its becoming known to us.

The livraison of your astronomical observations, and the 6th and 7th on the subject of New Spain, with the corresponding atlasses, are duly received, as had been the preceding cahiers. For these treasures of a learning so interesting to us, accept my sincere thanks. I think it most fortunate that your travels in those countries were so timed as to make them known to the world in the moment they were about to become actors on its stage. That they will throw off their European dependence I have no doubt; but in what kind of government their revolution will end I am not so certain. History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. [268]This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. The vicinity of New Spain to the United States, and their consequent intercourse, may furnish schools for the higher, and example for the lower classes of their citizens. And Mexico, where we learn from you that men of science are not wanting, may revolutionize itself under better auspices than the Southern provinces. These last, I fear, must end in military despotisms. The different casts of their inhabitants, their mutual hatreds and jealousies, their profound ignorance and bigotry, will be played off by cunning leaders, and each be made the instrument of enslaving the others. But of all this you can best judge, for in truth we have little knowledge of them to be depended on, but through you. But in whatever governments they end they will be American governments, no longer to be involved in the never-ceasing broils of Europe. The European nations constitute a separate division of the globe; their localities make them part of a distinct system; they have a set of interests of their own in which it is our business never to engage ourselves. America has a hemisphere to itself. It must have its separate system of interests, which must not be subordinated to those of Europe. The insulated state in which nature has placed the American continent, should so far avail it that no spark of war kindled in the other quarters of the globe should be wafted across the wide oceans which separate us from them. And it will be so. In fifty years more the United States alone will contain fifty millions of inhabitants, and fifty years are soon gone over. The peace of 1763 is within that period. I was then twenty years old, and of course remember well all the transactions of the war preceding it. And you will live to see the epoch now equally ahead of us; and the numbers which will then be spread over the other parts of the American hemisphere, catching long before that the principles of our portion of it, and concurring with us in the maintenance of the same system. You see how readily we run into ages beyond the grave; and even those of us to whom that grave is already opening its quiet [269]bosom. I am anticipating events of which you will be the bearer to me in the Elysian fields fifty years hence.

You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed possession. They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach. Already we have driven their patrons and seducers into Montreal, and the opening season will force them to their last refuge, the walls of Quebec. We have cut off all possibility of intercourse and of mutual aid, and may pursue at our leisure whatever plan we find necessary to secure ourselves against the future effects of their savage and ruthless warfare. The confirmed brutalization, if not the extermination of this race in our America, is therefore to form an additional chapter in the English history of the same colored man in Asia, and of the brethren of their own color in Ireland, and wherever else Anglo-mercantile cupidity can find a two-penny interest in deluging the earth with human blood. But let us turn from the loathsome contemplation of the degrading effects of commercial avarice.

That their Arrowsmith should have stolen your Map of Mexico, was in the piratical spirit of his country. But I should be sincerely sorry if our Pike has made an ungenerous use of your [270]candid communications here; and the more so as he died in the arms of victory gained over the enemies of his country. Whatever he did was on a principle of enlarging knowledge, and not for filthy shillings and pence of which he made none from that work. If what he has borrowed has any effect it will be to excite an appeal in his readers from his defective information to the copious volumes of it with which you have enriched the world. I am sorry he omitted even to acknowledge the source of his information. It has been an oversight, and not at all in the spirit of his generous nature. Let me solicit your forgiveness then of a deceased hero, of an honest and zealous patriot, who lived and died for his country.

You will find it inconceivable that Lewis's journey to the Pacific should not yet have appeared; nor is it in my power to tell you the reason. The measures taken by his surviving companion, Clarke, for the publication, have not answered our wishes in point of despatch. I think, however, from what I have heard, that the mere journal will be out within a few weeks in two volumes 8vo. These I will take care to send you with the tobacco seed you desired, if it be possible for them to escape the thousand ships of our enemies spread over the ocean. The botanical and zoological discoveries of Lewis will probably experience greater delay, and become known to the world through other channels before that volume will be ready. The Atlas, I believe, waits on the leisure of the engraver.

Although I do not know whether you are now at Paris or ranging the regions of Asia to acquire more knowledge for the use of men, I cannot deny myself the gratification of an endeavor to recall myself to your recollection, and of assuring you of my constant attachment, and of renewing to you the just tribute of my affectionate esteem and high respect and consideration. [271]

TO MADAM DE TESSÉ.

December 8, 1813.

While at war, my dear Madam and friend, with the leviathan of the ocean, there is little hope of a letter escaping his thousand ships; yet I cannot permit myself longer to withhold the acknowledgment of your letter of June 28 of the last year, with which came the memoirs of the Margrave of Bareuth. I am much indebted to you for this singular morsel of history which has given us a certain view of kings, queens and princes, disrobed of their formalities. It is a peep into the state of the Egyptian god Apis. It would not be easy to find grosser manners, coarser vices, or more meanness in the poorest huts of our peasantry. The princess shows herself the legitimate sister of Frederic, cynical, selfish, and without a heart. Notwithstanding your wars with England, I presume you get the publications of that country. The memoirs of Mrs. Clarke and of her darling prince, and the book, emphatically so called, because it is the Biblia Sacra Deorum et Dearum sub-cœlestium, the Prince Regent, his Princess and the minor deities of his sphere, form a worthy sequel to the memoirs of Bareuth; instead of the vulgarity and penury of the court of Berlin, giving us the vulgarity and profusion of that of London, and the gross stupidity and profligacy of the latter, in lieu of the genius and misanthropism of the former. The whole might be published as a supplement to M. de Buffon, under the title of the "Natural History of Kings and Princes," or as a separate work and called "Medicine for Monarchists." The "Intercepted Letters," a later English publication of great wit and humor, has put them to their proper use by holding them up as butts for the ridicule and contempt of mankind. Yet by such worthless beings is a great nation to be governed and even made to deify their old king because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his having lost to them a great and flourishing empire, added nine hundred millions sterling to their debt, for which the fee simple of the whole island would not sell, if offered farm by farm at public auction, and increased their [272]annual taxes from eight to seventy millions sterling, more than the whole rent-roll of the island. What must be the dreary prospect from the son when such a father is deplored as a national loss. But let us drop these odious beings and pass to those of an higher order, the plants of the field. I am afraid I have given you a great deal more trouble than I intended by my enquiries for the Maronnier or Castanea Saliva, of which I wished to possess my own country, without knowing how rare its culture was even in yours. The two plants which your researches have placed in your own garden, it will be all but impossible to remove hither. The war renders their safe passage across the Atlantic extremely precarious, and, if landed anywhere but in the Chesapeake, the risk of the additional voyage along the coast to Virginia, is still greater. Under these circumstances it is better they should retain their present station, and compensate to you the trouble they have cost you.

I learn with great pleasure the success of your new gardens at Auenay. No occupation can be more delightful or useful. They will have the merit of inducing you to forget those of Chaville. With the botanical riches which you mention to have been derived to England from New Holland, we are as yet unacquainted. Lewis's journey across our continent to the Pacific has added a number of new plants to our former stock. Some of them are curious, some ornamental, some useful, and some may by culture be made acceptable on our tables. I have growing, which I destine for you, a very handsome little shrub of the size of a currant bush. Its beauty consists in a great produce of berries of the size of currants, and literally as white as snow, which remain on the bush through the winter, after its leaves have fallen, and make it an object as singular as it is beautiful. We call it the snow-berry bush, no botanical name being yet given to it, but I do not know why we might not call it Chionicoccos, or Kallicoccos. All Lewis's plants are growing in the garden of Mr. McMahon, a gardener of Philadelphia, to whom I consigned them, and from whom I shall have great pleasure, when peace is restored, in ordering for you any of these or of [273]our other indigenous plants. The port of Philadelphia has great intercourse with Bordeaux and Nantes, and some little perhaps with Havre. I was mortified not long since by receiving a letter from a merchant in Bordeaux, apologizing for having suffered a box of plants addressed by me to you, to get accidentally covered in his warehouse by other objects, and to remain three years undiscovered, when every thing in it was found to be rotten. I have learned occasionally that others rotted in the ware-houses of the English pirates. We are now settling that account with them. We have taken their Upper Canada and shall add the Lower to it when the season will admit; and hope to remove them fully and finally from our continent. And what they will feel more, for they value their colonies only for the bales of cloth they take from them, we have established manufactures, not only sufficient to supersede our demand from them, but to rivalize them in foreign markets. But for the course of our war I will refer you to M. de La Fayette, to whom I state it more particularly.

Our friend Mr. Short is well. He makes Philadelphia his winter quarters, and New York, or the country, those of the summer. In his fortune he is perfectly independent and at ease, and does not trouble himself with the party politics of our country. Will you permit me to place here for M. de Tessé the testimony of my high esteem and respect, and accept for yourself an assurance of the warm recollections I retain of your many civilities and courtesies to me, and the homage of my constant and affectionate attachment and respect.

TO DON VALENTIN DE TORONDA CORUNA.

Monticello, December 14, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I have had the pleasure of receiving several letters from you, covering printed propositions and pamphlets on the state of your affairs, and all breathing the genuine sentiments of order, liberty and philanthropy, with which I know you to be [274]sincerely inspired. We learn little to be depended on here as to your civil proceedings, or of the division of sentiments among you; but in this absence of information I have made whatever you propose the polar star of my wishes. What is to be the issue of your present struggles we here cannot judge. But we sincerely wish it may be what is best for the happiness and reinvigoration of your country. That its divorce from its American colonies, which is now unavoidable, will be a great blessing, it is impossible not to pronounce on a review of what Spain was when she acquired them, and of her gradual descent from that proud eminence to the condition in which her present war found her. Nature has formed that peninsula to be the second, and why not the first nation in Europe? Give equal habits of energy to the bodies, and of science to the minds of her citizens, and where could her superior be found? The most advantageous relation in which she can stand with her American colonies is that of independent friendship, secured by the ties of consanguinity, sameness of language, religion, manners, and habits, and certain from the influence of these, of a preference in her commerce, if, instead of the eternal irritations, thwartings, machinations against their new governments, the insults and aggressions which Great Britain has so unwisely practised towards us, to force us to hate her against our natural inclinations, Spain yields, like a genuine parent, to the forisfamiliation of her colonies, now at maturity, if she extends to them her affections, her aid, her patronage in every court and country, it will weave a bond of union indissoluble by time. We are in a state of semi-warfare with your adjoining colonies, the Floridas. We do not consider this as affecting our peace with Spain or any other of her former possessions. We wish her and them well; and under her present difficulties at home, and her doubtful future relations with her colonies, both wisdom and interest will, I presume, induce her to leave them to settle themselves the quarrels they draw on themselves from their neighbors. The commanding officers in the Floridas have excited and armed the neighboring savages to war against us, and to murder and scalp many of our women [275]and children as well as men, taken by surprise—poor creatures! They have paid for it with the loss of the flower of their strength, and have given us the right, as we possess the power, to exterminate or to expatriate them beyond the Mississippi. This conduct of the Spanish officers will probably oblige us to take possession of the Floridas, and the rather as we believe the English will otherwise seize them, and use them as stations to distract and annoy us. But should we possess ourselves of them, and Spain retain her other colonies in this hemisphere, I presume we shall consider them in our hands as subjects of negociation.

We are now at the close of our second campaign with England. During the first we suffered several checks, from the want of capable and tried officers; all the higher ones of the Revolution having died off during an interval of thirty years of peace. But this second campaign has been more successful, having given us all the lakes and country of Upper Canada, except the single post of Kingston, at its lower extremity. The two immediate causes of the war were the Orders of Council, and impressment of our seamen. The first having been removed after we had declared war, the war is continued for the second; and a third has been generated by their conduct during the war, in exciting the Indian hordes to murder and scalp the women and children on our frontier. This renders peace for ever impossible but on the establishment of such a meridian boundary to their possessions, as that they never more can have such influence with the savages as to excite again the same barbarities. The thousand ships, too, they took from us in peace, and the six thousand seamen impressed, call for this indemnification. On the water we have proved to the world the error of their invincibility, and shown that with equal force and well-trained officers, they can be beaten by other nations as brave as themselves. Their lying officers and printers will give to Europe very different views of the state of their war with us. But you will see now, as in the Revolutionary war, that they will lie, and conquer themselves out of all their possessions on this continent.

[276]I pray for the happiness of your nation, and that it may be blessed with sound views and successful measures, under the difficulties in which it is involved; and especially that they may know the value of your counsels, and to yourself I tender the assurances of my high respect and esteem.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Quincy, December 25, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Answer my letters at your leisure. Give yourself no concern. I write as for a refuge and protection against ennui.

The fundamental principle of all philosophy and all christianity, is "Rejoice always in all things!" "Be thankful at all times for all good, and all that we call evil." Will it not follow that I ought to rejoice and be thankful that Priestley has lived? That Gibbon has lived? That Hume has lived, though a conceited Scotchman? That Bolingbroke has lived, though a haughty, arrogant, supercilious dogmatist? That Burke and Johnson have lived, though superstitious slaves, or self-deceiving hypocrites, both? Is it not laughable to hear Burke call Bolingbroke a superficial writer? To hear him ask: "Who ever read him through?" Had I been present, I would have answered him, "I, I myself, I have read him through more than fifty years ago, and more than five times in my life, and once within five years past. And in my opinion, the epithet 'superficial,' belongs to you and your friend Johnson more than to him."

I might say much more. But I believe Burke and Johnson to have been as political christians as Leo Tenth.

I return to Priestley, though I have great complaints against him for personal injuries and persecution, at the same time that I forgive it all, and hope and pray that he may be pardoned for it all above.

Dr. Brocklesby, an intimate friend and convivial companion of Johnson, told me that Johnson died in agonies of horror of annihilation; [277]and all the accounts we have of his death, corroborate this account of Brocklesby. Dread of annihilation! Dread of nothing! A dread of nothing, I should think, would be no dread at all. Can there be any real, substantial, rational fear of nothing? Were you on your death-bed, and in your last moments informed by demonstration of revelation, that you would cease to think and to feel, at your dissolution, should you be terrified? You might be ashamed of yourself for having lived so long to bear the proud man's contumely. You might be ashamed of your Maker, and compare him to a little girl, amusing herself, her brothers and sisters, by blowing bubbles in soap-suds. You might compare him to boys sporting with crackers and rockets, or to men employed in making mere artificial fire-works, or to men and women at fairs and operas, or Sadler's Wells' exploits, or to politicians in their intrigues, or to heroes in their butcheries, or to Popes in their devilisms. But what should you fear? Nothing. Emori nolo, sed me mortuum esse nihil estimo.

To return to Priestley. You could make a more luminous book than his, upon the doctrines of heathen philosophers compared with those of revelation. Why has he not given us a more satisfactory account of the Pythagorean Philosophy and Theology? He barely names Œileus, who lived long before Plato. His treatise of kings and monarchy has been destroyed, I conjecture, by Platonic Philosophers, Platonic Jews or Christians, or by fraudulent republicans or despots. His treatise of the universe has been preserved. He labors to prove the eternity of the world. The Marquis D'Argens translated it, in all its noble simplicity. The Abbé Batteaux has since given another translation. D'Argens not only explains the text, but sheds more light upon the ancient systems. His remarks are so many treatises, which develop the concatenation of ancient opinions. The most essential ideas of the theology, of the physics, and of the morality of the ancients are clearly explained, and their different doctrines compared with one another and with the modern discoveries. I wish I owned this book and one hundred thousand more that I want every day, now when I am almost incapable of making [278]any use of them. No doubt he informs us that Pythagoras was a great traveller. Priestley barely mentions Timæus, but it does not appear that he had read him. Why has he not given us an account of him and his book? He was before Plato, and gave him the idea of his Timæus, and much more of his philosophy.

After his master, he maintained the existence of matter; that matter was capable of receiving all sorts of forms; that a moving power agitated all the parts of it, and that an intelligence produced a regular and harmonious world. This intelligence had seen a plan, an idea (Logos) in conformity to which it wrought, and without which it would not have known what it was about, nor what it wanted to do. This plan was the idea, image or model which had represented to the Supreme Intelligence the world before it existed, which had directed it in its action upon the moving power, and which it contemplated in forming the elements, the bodies and the world. This model was distinguished from the intelligence which produced the world, as the architect is from his plans. He divided the productive cause of the world into a spirit which directed the moving force, and into an image which determined it in the choice of the directions which it gave to the moving force, and the forms which it gave to matter. I wonder that Priestley has overlooked this, because it is the same philosophy with Plato's, and would have shown that the Pythagorean as well as the Platonic philosophers probably concurred in the fabrication of the Christian Trinity. Priestley mentions the name of Achylas, but does not appear to have read him, though he was a successor of Pythagoras, and a great mathematician, a great statesman and a great general. John Gram, a learned and honorable Dane, has given a handsome edition of his works, with a Latin translation and an ample account of his life and writings. Seleucus, the Legislator of Locris, and Charondas, of Sybaris, were disciples of Pythagoras, and both celebrated to immortality for the wisdom of their laws, five hundred years before Christ. Why are those laws lost? I say the spirit of party has destroyed them; civil, political and ecclesiastical bigotry.

[279]Despotical, monarchical, aristocratical and democratical fury have all been employed in this work of destruction of everything that could give us true light, and a clear insight of antiquity. For every one of these parties, when possessed of power, or when they have been undermost, and struggling to get uppermost, has been equally prone to every species of fraud and violence and usurpation.

Why has not Priestley mentioned these Legislators? The preamble to the laws of Zaleucus, which is all that remains, is as orthodox christian theology as Priestley's, and christian benevolence and forgiveness of injuries almost as clearly expressed.

Priestley ought to have done impartial justice to philosophy and philosophers. Philosophy, which is the result of reason, is the first, the original revelation of the Creator to his creature, man. When this revelation is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it. Philosophy is not only the love of wisdom, but the science of the universe and its cause.

There is, there was, and there will be but one master of philosophy in the universe. Portions of it, in different degrees, are revealed to creatures.

Philosophy looks with an impartial eye on all terrestrial religions. I have examined all, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means and my busy life would allow me, and the result is, that the Bible is the best book in the world. It contains more of my little philosophy than all the libraries I have seen; and such parts of it as I cannot reconcile to my little philosophy, I postpone for future investigation.

Priestley ought to have given us a sketch of the religion and morals of Zoroaster, of Sanchoniathon, of Confucius, and all the founders of religions before Christ, whose superiority would, from such a comparison, have appeared the more transcendent.

Priestley ought to have told us that Pythagoras passed twenty years in his travels in India, in Egypt, in Chaldea, perhaps in Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sydon. He ought to have told us that in India he conversed with the Brahmins, and read the [280]Shasta, five thousand years old, written in the language of the sacred Sansosistes, with the elegance and sentiments of Plato. Where is to be found theology more orthodox, or philosophy more profound, than in the introduction to the Shasta? "God is one creator of all universal sphere, without beginning, without end. God governs all the creation by a general providence, resulting from his eternal designs. Search not the essence and the nature of the eternal, who is one; your research will be vain and presumptuous. It is enough that, day by day, and night by night, you adore his power, his wisdom and his goodness, in his works. The eternal willed in the fullness of time, to communicate of his essence and of his splendor, to beings capable of perceiving it. They as yet existed not. The eternal willed and they were. He created Birma, Vitsnou and Siv." These doctrines, sublime, if ever there were any sublime, Pythagoras learned in India, and taught them to Zaleucus and his other disciples. He there learned also his Metempsychosis, but this never was popular, never made much progress in Greece or Italy, or any other country besides India and Tartary, the region of the grand immortal Lama. And how does this differ from the possessions of demons in Greece and Rome? from the demon of Socrates? from the worship of cows and crocodiles in Egypt and elsewhere?

After migrating through various animals, from elephants to serpents, according to their behavior, souls that at last behaved well, became men and women, and then if they were good, they went to heaven.

All ended in heaven, if they became virtuous. Who can wonder at the widow of Malabar? Where is the lady, who, if her faith were without doubt that she should go to heaven with her husband on the one, or migrate into a toad or a wasp on the other, would not lay down on the pile, and set fire to the fuel?

Modifications and disguises of the Metempsychosis, has crept into Egypt, and Greece, and Rome, and other countries. Have you read Farmer on the Dæmons and possessions of the New Testament? According to the Shasta, Moisasor, with his companions, [281]rebelled against the eternal, and were precipitated down to Ondoro, the region of darkness.

Do you know anything of the Prophecy of Enoch? Can you give me a comment on the 6th, the 9th, the 14th verses of the epistle of Jude?

If I am not weary of writing, I am sure you must be of reading such incoherent rattle. I will not persecute you so severely in future, if I can help it.

So farewell.

TO THOMAS LIEPER.

Monticello, January 1, 1814.

Dear Sir,—I had hoped, when I retired from the business of the world, that I should have been permitted to pass the evening of life in tranquillity, undisturbed by the peltings and passions of which the public papers are the vehicles. I see, however, that I have been dragged into the newspapers by the infidelity of one with whom I was formerly intimate, but who has abandoned the American principles out of which that intimacy grew, and become the bigoted partisan of England, and malcontent of his own government. In a letter which he wrote to me, he earnestly besought me to avail our country of the good understanding which existed between the executive and myself, by recommending an offer of such terms to our enemy as might produce a peace, towards which he was confident that enemy was disposed. In my answer, I stated the aggressions, the insults and injuries, which England had been heaping on us for years, our long forbearance in the hope she might be led by time and reflection to a sounder view of her own interests, and of their connection with justice to us, the repeated propositions for accommodation made by us and rejected by her, and at length her Prince Regent's solemn proclamation to the world that he would never repeal the orders in council as to us, until France should have revoked her illegal decrees as to all the world, and her minister's [282]declaration to ours, that no admissible precaution against the impressment of our seamen, could be proposed: that the unavoidable declaration of war which followed these was accompanied by advances for peace, on terms which no American could dispense with, made through various channels, and unnoticed and unanswered through any; but that if he could suggest any other conditions which we ought to accept, and which had not been repeatedly offered and rejected, I was ready to be the channel of their conveyance to the government; and, to show him that neither that attachment to Bonaparte nor French influence, which they allege eternally without believing it themselves, affected my mind, I threw in the two little sentences of the printed extract enclosed in your friendly favor of the 9th ultimo, and exactly these two little sentences, from a letter of two or three pages, he has thought proper to publish, naked, alone, and with my name, although other parts of the letter would have shown that I wished such limits only to the successes of Bonaparte, as should not prevent his completely closing Europe against British manufactures and commerce; and thereby reducing her to just terms of peace with us.

Thus am I situated. I receive letters from all quarters, some from known friends, some from those who write like friends, on various subjects. What am I to do? Am I to button myself up in Jesuitical reserve, rudely declining any answer, or answering in terms so unmeaning as only to prove my distrust? Must I withdraw myself from all interchange, of sentiment with the world? I cannot do this. It is at war with my habits and temper. I cannot act as if all men were unfaithful because some are so; nor believe that all will betray me, because some do. I had rather be the victim of occasional infidelities, than relinquish my general confidence in the honesty of man.

So far as to the breach of confidence which has brought me into the newspapers, with a view to embroil me with my friends, by a supposed separation in opinion and principle from them. But it is impossible that there can be any difference of opinion among us on the two propositions contained in these two little [283]sentences, when explained, as they were explained in the context from which they were insulated. That Bonaparte is an unprincipled tyrant, who is deluging the continent of Europe with blood, there is not a human being, not even the wife of his bosom, who does not see: nor can there, I think, be a doubt as to the line we ought to wish drawn between his successes and those of Alexander. Surely none of us wish to see Bonaparte conquer Russia, and lay thus at his feet the whole continent of Europe. This done, England would be but a breakfast; and, although I am free from the visionary fears which the votaries of England have effected to entertain, because I believe he cannot effect the conquest of Europe; yet put all Europe into his hands, and he might spare such a force, to be sent in British ships, as I would as leave not have to encounter, when I see how much trouble a handful of British soldiers in Canada has given us. No. It cannot be to our interest that all Europe should be reduced to a single monarchy. The true line of interest for us, is, that Bonaparte should be able to effect the complete exclusion of England from the whole continent of Europe, in order, as the same letter said, "by this peaceable engine of constraint, to make her renounce her views of dominion over the ocean, of permitting no other nation to navigate it but with her license, and on tribute to her, and her aggressions on the persons of our citizens who may choose to exercise their right of passing over that element." And this would be effected by Bonaparte's succeeding so far as to close the Baltic against her. This success I wished him the last year, this I wish him this year; but were he again advanced to Moscow, I should again wish him such disasters as would prevent his reaching Petersburg. And were the consequences even to be the longer continuance of our war, I would rather meet them than see the whole force of Europe wielded by a single hand.

I have gone into this explanation, my friend, because I know you will not carry my letter to the newspapers, and because I am willing to trust to your discretion the explaining me to our honest fellow laborers, and the bringing them to pause and reflect, [284]if any of them have not sufficiently reflected on the extent of the success we ought to wish to Bonaparte, with a view to our own interests only; and even were we not men, to whom nothing human should be indifferent. But is our particular interest to make us insensible to all sentiments of morality? Is it then become criminal, the moral wish that the torrents of blood this man is shedding in Europe, the sufferings of so many human beings, good as ourselves, on whose necks he is trampling, the burnings of ancient cities, devastations of great countries, the destruction of law and order, and demoralization of the world, should be arrested, even if it should place our peace a little further distant? No. You and I cannot differ in wishing that Russia, and Sweden, and Denmark, and Germany, and Spain, and Portugal, and Italy, and even England, may retain their independence. And if we differ in our opinions about Towers and his four beasts and ten kingdoms, we differ as friends, indulging mutual errors, and doing justice to mutual sincerity and honesty. In this spirit of sincere confidence and affection, I pray God to bless you here and hereafter.

TO DOCTOR WALTER JONES.

Monticello, January 2, 1814.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of November the 25th reached this place December the 21st, having been near a month on the way. How this could happen I know not, as we have two mails a week both from Fredericksburg and Richmond. It found me just returned from a long journey and absence, during which so much business had accumulated, commanding the first attentions, that another week has been added to the delay.

I deplore, with you, the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them; and I enclose you a recent sample, the production of a New England judge, as a proof of the abyss of degradation into which we are fallen. [285]These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste, and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information, and a curb on our functionaries, they have rendered themselves useless, by forfeiting all title to belief. That this has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit, I agree with you; and I have read with great pleasure the paper you enclosed me on that subject, which I now return. It is at the same time a perfect model of the style of discussion which candor and decency should observe, of the tone which renders difference of opinion even amiable, and a succinct, correct, and dispassionate history of the origin and progress of party among us. It might be incorporated as it stands, and without changing a word, into the history of the present epoch, and would give to posterity a fairer view of the times than they will probably derive from other sources. In reading it with great satisfaction, there was but a single passage where I wished a little more development of a very sound and catholic idea; a single intercalation to rest it solidly on true bottom. It is near the end of the first page, where you make a statement of genuine republican maxims; saying, "that the people ought to possess as much political power as can possibly exist with the order and security of society." Instead of this, I would say, "that the people, being the only safe depository of power, should exercise in person every function which their qualifications enable them to exercise, consistently with the order and security of society; that we now find them equal to the election of those who shall be invested with their executive and legislative powers, and to act themselves in the judiciary, as judges in questions of fact; that the range of their powers ought to be enlarged," &c. This gives both the reason and exemplication of the maxim you express, "that they ought to possess as much political power," &c. I see nothing to correct either in your facts or principles.

You say that in taking General Washington on your shoulders, to bear him harmless through the federal coalition, you encounter a perilous topic. I do not think so. You have given the genuine history of the course of his mind through the trying [286]scenes in which it was engaged, and of the seductions by which it was deceived, but not depraved. I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these.

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no General ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in re-adjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his [287]deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.

How, then, can it be perilous for you to take such a man on your shoulders? I am satisfied the great body of republicans think of him as I do. We were, indeed, dissatisfied with him on his ratification of the British treaty. But this was short lived. We knew his honesty, the wiles with which he was encompassed, and that age had already began to relax the firmness of his purposes; and I am convinced he is more deeply seated in the love and gratitude of the republicans, than in the Pharisaical [288]homage of the federal monarchists. For he was no monarchist from preference of his judgment. The soundness of that gave him correct views of the rights of man, and his severe justice devoted him to them. He has often declared to me that he considered our new constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it. And these declarations he repeated to me the oftener and more pointedly, because he knew my suspicions of Colonel Hamilton's views, and probably had heard from him the same declarations which I had, to wit, "that the British constitution, with its unequal representation, corruption and other existing abuses, was the most perfect government which had ever been established on earth, and that a reformation of those abuses would make it an impracticable government." I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in something like a British constitution, had some weight in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birth-days, pompous meetings with Congress, and other forms of the same character, calculated to prepare us gradually for a change which he believed possible, and to let it come on with as little shock as might be to the public mind.

These are my opinions of General Washington, which I would vouch at the judgment seat of God, having been formed on an acquaintance of thirty years. I served with him in the Virginia legislature from 1769 to the Revolutionary war, and again, a short time in Congress, until he left us to take command of the army. During the war and after it we corresponded occasionally, and in the four years of my continuance in the office of Secretary of State, our intercourse was daily, confidential and cordial. After I retired from that office, great and malignant pains were taken by our federal monarchists, and not entirely without effect, [289]to make him view me as a theorist, holding French principles of government, which would lead infallibly to licentiousness and anarchy. And to this he listened the more easily, from my known disapprobation of the British treaty. I never saw him afterwards, or these malignant insinuations should have been dissipated before his just judgment, as mists before the sun. I felt on his death, with my countrymen, that "verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel."

More time and recollection would enable me to add many other traits of his character; but why add them to you who knew him well? And I cannot justify to myself a longer detention of your paper.

Vale, proprieque tuum, me esse tibi persuadeas.

TO JOHN PINTARD RECORDING SECRETARY OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

Monticello, January 9, 1814.

Sir,—I have duly received your favor of December 22d, informing me that the New York Historical Society had been pleased to elect me an honorary member of that institution. I am entirely sensible of the honor done me by this election, and I pray you to become the channel of my grateful acknowledgments to the society. At this distance, and at my time of life, I cannot but be conscious how little it will be in my power to further their establishment, and that I should be but an unprofitable member, carrying into the institution indeed, my best wishes for its success, and a readiness to serve it on any occasion which should occur. With these acknowledgments, be so good as to accept for the society, as well as for yourself, the assurances of my high respect and consideration. [290]

TO SAMUEL M. BURNSIDE, SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY.

Monticello, January 9, 1814.

Sir,—I have duly received your favor of the 13th of December, informing me of the institution of the American Antiquarian Society, and expressing its disposition to honor me with an admission into it, and the request of my co-operation in the advancement of its objects. No one can be more sensible of the honor and the favor of these dispositions, and I pray you to have the goodness to testify to them all the gratitude I feel on receiving assurances of them. There has been a time of life when I should have entered into their views with zeal, and with a hope of not being altogether unuseful. But, now more than septuagenary, retired from the active scenes and business of life, I am sensible how little I can contribute to the advancement of the objects of their views; but I shall certainly, and with great pleasure, embrace any occasion which shall occur, of rendering them any services in my power. With these assurances, be so good as to accept for them and for yourself, those of my high respect and consideration.

TO DOCTOR THOMAS COOPER.

Monticello, January 16, 1814.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of November 8th, if it was rightly dated, did not come to hand till December 13th, and being absent on a long journey, it has remained unanswered till now. The copy of your introductory lecture was received and acknowledged in my letter of July 12, 1812, with which I sent you Tracy's first volume on Logic. Your Justinian came safely also, and I have been constantly meaning to acknowledge it, but I wished, at the same time, to say something more. I possessed Theopilus', Vinnius' and Harris' editions, but read over your notes and the addenda et corrifenda, and especially the parallels [291]with the English law, with great satisfaction and edification. Your edition will be very useful to our lawyers, some of whom will need the translation as well as the notes. But what I had wanted to say to you on the subject, was that I much regret that instead of this work, useful as it may be, you had not bestowed the same time and research rather on a translation and notes on Bracton, a work which has never been performed for us, and which I have always considered as one of the greatest desiderata in the law. The laws of England, in their progress from the earliest to the present times, may be likened to the road of a traveller, divided into distinct stages or resting places, at each of which a review is taken of the road passed over so far. The first of these was Bracton's De legibus Angliæ; the second, Coke's Institutes; the third, the Abridgment of the law by Matthew Bacon; and the fourth, Blackstone's Commentaries. Doubtless there were others before Bracton which have not reached us. Alfred, in the preface to his laws, says they were compiled from those of Ina, Offa, and Aethelbert, into which, or rather preceding them, the clergy have interpolated the 20th, 21st, 22d, 23d and 24th chapters of Exodus, so as to place Alfred's preface to what was really his, awkwardly enough in the body of the work. An interpolation the more glaring, as containing laws expressly contradicted by those of Alfred. This pious fraud seems to have been first noted by Howard, in his Contumes Anglo Normandes (188), and the pious judges of England have had no inclination to question it; [of this disposition in these judges, I could give you a curious sample from a note in my common-place book, made while I was a student, but it is too long to be now copied. Perhaps I may give it to you with some future letter.] This digest of Alfred of the laws of the Heptarchy into a single code, common to the whole kingdom, by him first reduced into one, was probably the birth of what is called the common law. He has been styled, "Magnus Juris Anglicani Conditor;" and his code, the Dom-Dec, or doom-book. That which was made afterwards under Edward the Confessor, was but a restoration of Alfred's, with some intervening alterations. And this was the code which [292]the English so often, under the Norman princes, petitioned to have restored to them. But, all records previous to the Magna Charta having been early lost, Bracton's is the first digest of the whole body of law which has come down to us entire. What materials for it existed in his time we know not, except the unauthoritative collections of Lambard & Wilkins, and the treatise of Glanville, tempore H. 2. Bracton's is the more valuable, because being written a very few years after the Magna Charta, which commences what is called the statute law, it gives us the state of the common law in its ultimate form, and exactly at the point of division between the common and statute law. It is a most able work, complete in its matter and luminous in its method.

2. The statutes which introduced changes began now to be preserved; applications of the law to new cases by the courts, began soon after to be reported in the year-books, these to be methodized and abridged by Fitzherbert, Broke, Rolle, and others; individuals continued the business of reporting; particular treatises were written by able men, and all these, by the time of Lord Coke, had formed so large a mass of matter as to call for a new digest, to bring it within reasonable compass. This he undertook in his Institutes, harmonizing all the decisions and opinions which were reconcilable, and rejecting those not so. This work is executed with so much learning and judgment, that I do not recollect that a single position in it has ever been judicially denied. And although the work loses much of its value by its chaotic form, it may still be considered as the fundamental code of the English law.

3. The same processes re-commencing of statutory changes, new divisions, multiplied reports, and special treatises, a new accumulation had formed, calling for new reduction, by the time of Matthew Bacon. His work, therefore, although not pretending to the textual merit of Bracton's, or Coke's, was very acceptable. His alphabetical arrangement, indeed, although better than Coke's jumble, was far inferior to Bracton's. But it was a sound digest of the materials existing on the several alphabetical heads under which he arranged them. His work was not admitted [293]as authority in Westminster Hall; yet it was the manual of every judge and lawyer, and, what better proves its worth, has been its daily growth in the general estimation.

4. A succeeding interval of changes and additions of matter produced Blackstone's Commentaries, the most lucid in arrangement which had yet been written, correct in its matter, classical in style, and rightfully taking its place by the side of the Justinian Institutes. But, like them it was only an elementary book. It did not present all the subjects of the law in all their details. It still left it necessary to recur to the original works of which it was the summary. The great mass of law books from which it was extracted, was still to be consulted on minute investigations. It wanted, therefore, a species of merit which entered deeply into the value of those of Bracton, Coke and Bacon. They had in effect swept the shelves of all the materials preceding them. To give Blackstone, therefore, a full measure of value, another work is still wanting, to-wit: to incorporate with his principles a compend of the particular cases subsequent to Bacon, of which they are the essence. This might be done by printing under his text a digest like Bacon's continued to Blackstone's time. It would enlarge his work, and increase its value peculiarly to us, because just there we break off from the parent stem of the English law, unconcerned in any of its subsequent changes or decisions.

Of the four digests noted, the three last are possessed and understood by every one. But the first, the fountain of them all, remains in its technical Latin, abounding in terms antiquated, obsolete, and unintelligible but to the most learned of the body of lawyers. To give it to us then in English, with a glossary of its old terms, is a work for which I know nobody but yourself possessing the necessary learning and industry. The latter part of it would be furnished to your hand from the glossaries of Wilkins, Lambard, Spelman, Somner in the X. Scriptores, the index of Coke and the law dictionaries. Could not such an undertaking be conveniently associated with your new vocation of giving law lectures? I pray you to think of it.[8] A further operation [294]indeed, would still be desirable. To take up the doctrines of Bracton, separatim et seriatim, to give their history through the periods of Lord Coke and Bacon, down to Blackstone, to show when and how some of them have become extinct, the successive alterations made in others, and their progress to the state in which Blackstone found them. But this might be a separate work, left for your greater leisure or for some future pen.[9]

I have long had under contemplation, and been collecting materials for the plan of an university in Virginia which should comprehend all the sciences useful to us, and none others. The general idea is suggested in the Notes on Virginia, Qu. 14. This would probably absorb the functions of William and Mary College, and transfer them to a healthier and more central position: perhaps to the neighborhood of this place. The long and lingering decline of William and Mary, the death of its last president, its location and climate, force on us the wish for a new institution more convenient to our country generally, and better adapted to the present state of science. I have been told there will be an effort in the present session of our legislature, to effect such an establishment. I confess, however, that I have not great confidence that this will be done. Should it happen, it would offer places worthy of you, and of which you are worthy. It might produce, too, a bidder for the apparatus and library of Dr. Priestley, to which they might add mine on their own terms. This consists of about seven or eight thousand volumes, the best chosen collection of its size probably in America, and containing a great mass of what is most rare and valuable, and especially of what relates to America.

You have given us, in your Emporium, Bollman's medley on Political Economy. It is the work of one who sees a little of everything, and the whole of nothing; and were it not for your own notes on it, a sentence of which throws more just light on the subject than all his pages, we should regret the place it occupies of more useful matter. The bringing our countrymen to [295]a sound comparative estimate of the vast value of internal commerce, and the disproportionate importance of what is foreign, is the most salutary effort which can be made for the prosperity of these States, which are entirely misled from their true interests by the infection of English prejudices, and illicit attachments to English interests and connections. I look to you for this effort. It would furnish a valuable chapter for every Emporium; but I would rather see it also in the newspapers, which alone find access to every one.

Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper, as we were formerly by the old Continental paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burthen all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs. Prudent men must be on their guard in this game of Robin's alive, and take care that the spark does not extinguish in their hands. I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin. But our whole country is so fascinated by this Jack-lantern wealth, that they will not stop short of its total and fatal explosion.[10]

Have you seen the memorial to Congress on the subject of Oliver Evans' patent rights? The memorialists have published in it a letter of mine containing some views on this difficult subject. But I have opened it no further than to raise the questions belonging to it. I wish we could have the benefit of your lights on these questions. The abuse of the frivolous patents is likely to cause more inconvenience than is countervailed by those really useful. We know not to what uses we may apply implements which have been in our hands before the birth of our government, and even the discovery of America. The memorial is a thin pamphlet, printed by Robinson of Baltimore, a copy of which has been laid on the desk of every member of Congress.

[296]You ask if it is a secret who wrote the commentary on Montesquieu? It must be a secret during the author's life. I may only say at present that it was written by a Frenchman, that the original MS. in French is now in my possession, that it was translated and edited by General Duane, and that I should rejoice to see it printed in its original tongue, if any one would undertake it. No book can suffer more by translation, because of the severe correctness of the original in the choice of its terms. I have taken measures for securing to the author his justly-earned fame, whenever his death or other circumstances may render it safe for him. Like you, I do not agree with him in everything, and have had some correspondence with him on particular points. But on the whole, it is a most valuable work, one which I think will form an epoch in the science of government, and which I wish to see in the hands of every American student, as the elementary and fundamental institute of that important branch of human science.[11]

I have never seen the answer of Governor Strong to the judges of Massachusetts, to which you allude, nor the Massachusetts reports in which it is contained. But I am sure you join me in lamenting the general defection of lawyers and judges, from the free principles of government. I am sure they do not derive this degenerate spirit from the father of our science, Lord Coke. But it may be the reason why they cease to read him, and the source of what are now called "Blackstone lawyers."

Go on in all your good works, without regard to the eye "of suspicion and distrust with which you may be viewed by some," and without being weary in well doing, and be assured that you are justly estimated by the impartial mass of our fellow citizens, and by none more than myself. [297]

TO OLIVER EVANS, ESQ.

Monticello, January 16, 1814.

Sir,—In August last I received a letter from Mr. Isaac McPherson of Baltimore, on the controversies subsisting between yourself and some persons in that quarter interested in mills. These related to your patent rights for the elevators, conveyors, and hopper-boys; and he requested any information I could give him on that subject. Having been formerly a member of the patent board, as long as it existed, and bestowed in the execution of that trust much consideration on the questions belonging to it, I thought it an act of justice, and indeed of duty, to communicate such facts and principles as had occurred to me on the subject. I therefore wrote the letter of August 13, which is the occasion of your favor to me of the 7th instant, just now received, but without the report of the case tried in the circuit court of Maryland, or your memorial to Congress, mentioned in the letter as accompanying it. You request an answer to your letter, which my respect and esteem for you would of themselves have dictated; but I am not certain that I distinguish the particular points to which you wish a specific answer. You agree in the letter, that the chain of buckets and Archimedes screw are old inventions; that every one had, and still has, a right to use them and the hopper-boy, if that also existed previously, in the forms and constructions known before your patent; and that, therefore, you have neither a grant nor claim, to the exclusive right of using elevators, conveyors, hopper-boys, or drills, but only of the improved elevator, the improved hopper-boy, &c. In this, then, we are entirely agreed, and your right to your own improvements in the construction of these machines is explicitly recognized in my letter. I think, however, that your letter claims something more, although it is not so explicitly defined as to convey to my mind the precise idea which you perhaps meant to express. Your letter says that your patent is for your improvement in the manufacture of flour by the application of certain principles, and of such machinery as will carry those principles into operation, [298]whether of the improved elevator, improved hopper-boy, or (without being confined to them) of any machinery known and free to the public. I can conceive how a machine may improve the manufacture of flour; but not how a principle abstracted from any machine can do it. It must then be the machine, and the principle of that machine, which is secured to you by your patent. Recurring now to the words of your definition, do they mean that, while all are free to use the old string of buckets, and Archimedes' screw for the purposes to which they had been formerly applied, you alone have the exclusive right to apply them to the manufacture of flour? that no one has a right to apply his old machines to all the purposes of which they are susceptible? that every one, for instance, who can apply the hoe, the spade, or the axe to any purpose to which they have not been before applied, may have a patent for the exclusive right to that application? and may exclude all others, under penalties, from so using their hoe, spade, or axe? If this be the meaning, my opinion that the legislature never meant by the patent law to sweep away so extensively the rights of their constituents, to environ everything they touch with snares, is expressed in the letter of August 13, from which I have nothing to retract, nor ought to add but the observation that if a new application of our old machines be a ground of monopoly, the patent law will take from us much more good than it will give. Perhaps it may mean another thing, that while every one has a right to the distinct and separate use of the buckets, the screw, the hopper-boy, in their old forms, the patent gives you the exclusive right to combine their uses on the same object. But if we have a right to use three things separately, I see nothing in reason, or in the patent law, which forbids our using them all together. A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane separately; may he not combine their uses on the same piece of wood? He has a right to use his knife to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to combine their use on the same subject? Such a law, instead of enlarging our conveniences, [299]as was intended, would most fearfully abridge them, and crowd us by monopolies out of the use of the things we have.

I have no particular interest, however, in these questions, nor any inclination to be the advocate of either party; and I hope I shall be excused from it. I shall acquiesce cheerfully in the decisions in your favor by those to whom the laws have confided them, without blaming the other party for being unwilling, when so new a branch of science has been recently engrafted on our jurisprudence, one with which its professors have till now had no call to make themselves acquainted, one bearing little analogy to their professional educations or pursuits. That they should be unwilling, I say, to admit that one or two decisions, before inferior and local tribunals, before the questions shall have been repeatedly and maturely examined in all their bearings, before the cases shall have presented themselves in all their forms and attitudes, before a sanction by the greater part of the judges on the most solemn investigations, and before the industry and intelligence of many defendants may have excited to efforts for the vindication of the general rights of the citizen; that one or other of the precedents should forever foreclose the whole of a new subject.

To the publication of this answer with your letter, as you request, I have no objection. I wish right to be done to all parties, and to yourself, particularly and personally, the just rewards of genius; and I tender you the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL, ESQ.

Monticello, January 17, 1814.

Dear Sir,—In your last letter to me you expressed a desire to look into the question whether, by the laws of nature, one generation of men can, by any act of theirs, bind those which are to follow them? I say, by the laws of nature, there being between generation and generation, as between nation and nation, no other obligatory law; and you requested to see what I had said on the subject to Mr. Eppes. I enclose, for your own [300]perusal, therefore, three letters which I wrote to him on the course of our finances, which embrace the question before stated. When I wrote the first, I had no thought of following it by a second. I was led to that by his subsequent request, and after the second I was induced, in a third, to take up the subject of banks, by the communication of a proposition to be laid before Congress for the establishment of a new bank. I mention this to explain the total absence of order in these letters as a whole. I have said above that they are sent for your own perusal, not meaning to debar any use of the matter, but only that my name may in nowise be connected with it. I am too desirous of tranquillity to bring such a nest of hornets on me as the fraternities of banking companies, and this infatuation of banks is a torrent which it would be a folly for me to get into the way of. I see that it must take its course, until actual ruin shall awaken us from its delusions. Until the gigantic banking propositions of this winter had made their appearance in the different legislatures, I had hoped that the evil might still be checked; but I see now that it is desperate, and that we must fold our arms and go to the bottom with the ship. I had been in hopes that good old Virginia, not yet so far embarked as her northern sisters, would have set the example this winter, of beginning the process of cure, by passing a law that, after a certain time, suppose of six months, no bank bill of less than ten dollars should be permitted. That after some other reasonable term, there should be none less than twenty dollars, and so on, until those only should be left in circulation whose size would be above the common transactions of any but merchants. This would ensure to us an ordinary circulation of metallic money, and would reduce the quantum of paper within the bounds of moderate mischief. And it is the only way in which the reduction can be made without a shock to private fortunes. A sudden stoppage of this trash, either by law or its own worthlessness, would produce confusion and ruin. Yet this will happen by its own extinction, if left to itself. Whereas, by a salutary interposition of the legislature, it may be withdrawn insensibly and safely. Such a mode of doing it, too, [301]would give less alarm to the bank-holders, the discreet part of whom must wish to see themselves secured by some circumscription. It might be asked what we should do for change? The banks must provide it, first to pay off their five-dollar bills, next their ten-dollar bills and so on, and they ought to provide it to lessen the evils of their institution. But I now give up all hope. After producing the same revolutions in private fortunes as the old Continental paper did, it will die like that, adding a total incapacity to raise resources for the war.

Withdrawing myself within the shell of our own State, I have long contemplated a division of it into hundreds or wards, as the most fundamental measure for securing good government, and for instilling the principles and exercise of self-government into every fibre of every member of our commonwealth. But the details are too long for a letter, and must be the subject of conversation, whenever I shall have the pleasure of seeing you. It is for some of you young legislators to immortalize yourselves by laying this stone as the basis of our political edifice.

I must ask the favor of an early return of the enclosed papers, of which I have no copy. Ever affectionately yours.

TO MR. R. M. PATTERSON, SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

Monticello, January 20, 1814.

Sir,—I have duly received your favor of the 7th, informing me that the American Philosophical Society, at their meeting of that day, had been pleased unanimously to elect me as President of the Society. I receive with just sensibility this proof of their continued good will, and pray you to assure them of my gratitude for these favors, of my devotedness to their service, and the pleasure with which at all times I should in any way be made useful to them.

For yourself be pleased to accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect. [302]

TO PRESIDENT ADAMS.

Monticello, January 24, 1814.

Dear Sir,—I have great need of the indulgence so kindly extended to me in your favor of December 25, of permitting me to answer your friendly letters at my leisure. My frequent and long absences from home are a first cause of tardiness in my correspondence, and a second the accumulation of business during my absence, some of which imperiously commands first attentions. I am now in arrear to you for your letters of November 12, 14, 16, December 3, 19, 25.

* * * * * * * *

You ask me if I have ever seen the work of I. W. Goethen's Schriften? Never; nor did the question ever occur to me before where get we the ten commandments? The book indeed gives them to us verbatim, but where did it get them? For itself tells us they were written by the finger of God on tables of stone, which were destroyed by Moses; it specifies those on the second set of tables in different form and substance, but still without saying how the others were recovered. But the whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful, that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it; and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right from that cause to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. The matter of the first was such as would be preserved in the memory of the hearers, and handed on by tradition for a long time; the latter such stuff as might be gathered up, for imbedding it, anywhere, and at any time. I have nothing of Vives, or Budæus, and little of Erasmus. If the familiar histories of the Saints, the want of which they regret, would have given us the histories of those tricks which these writers acknowledge to have been practised, and of [303]the lies they agree have been invented for the sake of religion, I join them in their regrets. These would be the only parts of their histories worth reading. It is not only the sacred volumes they have thus interpolated, gutted, and falsified, but the works of others relating to them, and even the laws of the land. We have a curious instance of one of these pious frauds in the laws of Alfred. He composed, you know, from the laws of the Heptarchy, a digest for the government of the United Kingdom, and in his preface to that work he tells us expressly the sources from which he drew it, to wit, the laws of Ina, of Offa and Aethelbert, (not naming the Pentateuch.) But his pious interpolator, very awkwardly, premises to his work four chapters of Exodus (from the 20th to the 23d) as a part of the laws of the land; so that Alfred's preface is made to stand in the body of the work. Our judges too have lent a ready hand to further these frauds, and have been willing to lay the yoke of their own opinions on the necks of others; to extend the coercions of municipal law to the dogmas of their religion, by declaring that these make a part of the law of the land. In the Year-Book 34, H. 6, p. 38, in Quære impedit, where the question was how far the common law takes notice of the ecclesiastical law, Prisot, Chief Justice, in the course of his argument, says, "a tiels leis que ils de seint eglise ont, en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence; car ces common luy sur quels touts manners leis sont fondes; et auxy, siv, nous sumus obliges de canustre lour esy de saint eglise," &c. Finch begins the business of falsification by mistranslating and mistating the words of Prisot thus: "to such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture our law giveth credence." Citing the above case and the words of Prisot in the margin, Finch's law, B. 1, c. 3, here then we find ancien scripture, ancient writing, translated "holy scripture." This, Wingate, in 1658, erects into a maxim of law in the very words of Finch, but citing Prisot and not Finch. And Sheppard, tit. Religion, in 1675 laying it down in the same words of Finch, quotes the Year-Book, Finch and Wingate. Then comes Sir Matthew Hale, in the case of the King v. Taylor, [304]1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607, and declares that "Christianity is part and parcel of the laws of England." Citing nobody, and resting it, with his judgment against the witches, on his own authority, which indeed was sound and good in all cases into which no superstition or bigotry could enter. Thus strengthened, the court in 1728, in the King v. Woolston, would not suffer it to be questioned whether to write against Christianity was punishable at common law, saying it had been so settled by Hale in Taylor's case, 2 Stra. 834. Wood, therefore, 409, without scruple, lays down as a principle, that all blaspheming and profaneness are offences at the common law, and cites Strange. Blackstone, in 1763, repeats, in the words of Sir Matthew Hale, that "Christianity is part of the laws of England," citing Ventris and Strange, ubi supra. And Lord Mansfield, in the case of the Chamberlain of London v. Evans, in 1767, qualifying somewhat the position, says that "the essential principles of revealed religion are part of the common law." Thus we find this string of authorities all hanging by one another on a single hook, a mistranslation by Finch of the words of Prisot, or on nothing. For all quote Prisot, or one another, or nobody. Thus Finch misquotes Prisot; Wingate also, but using Finch's words; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate; Hale cites nobody; the court in Woolston's case cite Hale; Wood cites Woolston's case; Blackstone that and Hale, and Lord Mansfield volunteers his own ipse dixit. And who now can question but that the whole Bible and Testament are a part of the common law? And that Connecticut, in her blue laws, laying it down as a principle that the laws of God should be the laws of their land, except where their own contradicted them, did anything more than express, with a salvo, what the English judges had less cautiously declared without any restriction? And what, I dare say, our cunning Chief Justice would swear to, and find as many sophisms to twist it out of the general terms of our declarations of rights, and even the stricter text of the Virginia "act for the freedom of religion," as he did to twist Burr's neck out of the halter of treason. May we not say then with him who was all candor [305]and benevolence, "woe unto you, ye lawyers, for ye lade men with burthens grievous to bear."

I think with you, that Priestley, in his comparison of the doctrines of philosophy and revelation, did not do justice to the undertaking. But he felt himself pressed by the hand of death. Enfield has given us a more distinct account of the ethics of the ancient philosophers; but the great work of which Enfield's is an abridgment, Brucker's History of Philosophy, is the treasure which I would wish to possess, as a book of reference or of special research only, for who could read six volumes quarto, of one thousand pages each, closely printed, of modern Latin? Your account of D'Argens' Œileus makes me wish for him also. Œileus furnishes a fruitful text for a sensible and learned commentator. The Abbé Batteaux, which I have, is a meagre thing.

You surprise me with the account you give of the strength of family distinction still existing in your State. With us it is so totally extinguished, that not a spark of it is to be found but lurking in the hearts of some of our old tories; but all bigotries hang to one another, and this in the Eastern States hangs, as I suspect, to that of the priesthood. Here youth, beauty, mind and manners, are more valued than a pedigree.

I do not remember the conversation between us which you mention in yours of November 15th, on your proposition to vest in Congress the exclusive power of establishing banks. My opposition to it must have been grounded, not on taking the power from the States, but on leaving any vestige of it in existence, even in the hands of Congress; because it would only have been a change of the organ of abuse. I have ever been the enemy of banks, not of those discounting for cash, but of those foisting their own paper into circulation, and thus banishing our cash. My zeal against those institutions was so warm and open at the establishment of the Bank of the United States, that I was derided as a maniac by the tribe of bank-mongers, who were seeking to filch from the public their swindling and barren gains. But the errors of that day cannot be recalled. The evils they have engendered are now upon us, and the question is how we are to get [306]out of them? Shall we build an altar to the old paper money of the revolution, which ruined individuals but saved the republic, and burn on that all the bank charters, present and future, and their notes with them? For these are to ruin both republic and individuals. This cannot be done. The mania is too strong. It has seized, by its delusions and corruptions, all the members of our governments, general, special and individual. Our circulating paper of the last year was estimated at two hundred millions of dollars. The new banks now petitioned for, to the several legislatures, are for about sixty millions additional capital, and of course one hundred and eighty millions of additional circulation, nearly doubling that of the last year, and raising the whole mass to near four hundred millions, or forty for one, of the wholesome amount of circulation for a population of eight millions circumstanced as we are, and you remember how rapidly our money went down after our forty for one establishment in the revolution. I doubt if the present trash can hold as long. I think the three hundred and eighty millions must blow all up in the course of the present year, or certainly it will be consummated by the re-duplication to take place of course at the legislative meetings of the next winter. Should not prudent men, who possess stock in any monied institution, either draw and hoard the cash now while they can, or exchange it for canal stock, or such other as being bottomed on immovable property, will remain unhurt by the crush? I have been endeavoring to persuade a friend in our legislature to try and save this State from the general ruin by timely interference. I propose to him, First, to prohibit instantly, all foreign paper. Secondly, to give our banks six months to call in all their five-dollar bills (the lowest we allow); another six months to call in their ten-dollar notes, and six months more to call in all below fifty dollars. This would produce so gradual a diminution of medium, as not to shock contracts already made—would leave finally, bills of such size as would be called for only in transactions between merchant and merchant, and ensure a metallic circulation for those of the mass of citizens. But it will not be done. You might as [307]well, with the sailors, whistle to the wind, as suggest precautions against having too much money. We must bend then before the gale, and try to hold fast ourselves by some plank of the wreck. God send us all a safe deliverance, and to yourself every other species and degree of happiness.

P. S. I return your letter of November 15th, as it requests, and supposing that the late publication of the life of our good and really great Rittenhouse may not have reached you, I send a copy for your acceptance. Even its episodes and digressions may add to the amusement it will furnish you. But if the history of the world were written on the same scale, the whole world would not hold it. Rittenhouse, as an astronomer, would stand on a line with any of his time, and as a mechanician, he certainly has not been equalled. In this view he was truly great; but, placed along side of Newton, every human character must appear diminutive, and none would have shrunk more feelingly from the painful parallel than the modest and amiable Rittenhouse, whose genius and merit are not the less for this exaggerated comparison of his over zealous biographer.

TO MR. JOHN CLARKE.

Monticello, January 27, 1814.

Sir,—Your favor of December 2d came to hand some time ago, and I perceive in it the proofs of a mind worthily occupied on the best interests of our common country. To carry on our war with success, we want able officers, and a sufficient number of soldiers. The former, time and trial can alone give us; to procure the latter, we need only the tender of sufficient inducements and the assiduous pressure of them on the proper subjects. The inducement of interest proposed by you, is undoubtedly the principal one on which any reliance can be placed, and the assiduous pressure of it on the proper subjects would probably be better secured by making it the interest and the duty of a given [308]portion of the militia, rather than that of a mere recruiting officer. Whether, however, it is the best mode, belongs to the decision of others; but, satisfied that it is one of the good ones, I forwarded your letter to a member of the government, who will make it a subject of consideration by those with whom the authority rests. Whether the late discomfiture of Bonaparte will have the effect of shortening or lengthening our war, is uncertain. It is cruel that we should have been forced to wish any success to such a destroyer of the human race. Yet while it was our interest and that of humanity that he should not subdue Russia, and thus lay all Europe at his feet, it was desirable to us that he should so far succeed as to close the Baltic to our enemy, and force him, by the pressure of internal distress, into a disposition to return to the paths of justice towards us. If the French nation stand by Bonaparte, he may rally, rise again, and yet give Great Britain so much employment as to give time for a just settlement of our questions with her. We must patiently wait the solution of this doubt by time. Accept the assurances of my esteem and respect.

TO MR. SAMUEL GREENHOW.

Monticello, January 31, 1814.

Sir,—Your letter on the subject of the Bible Society arrived here while I was on a journey to Bedford, which occasioned a long absence from home. Since my return, it has lain, with a mass of others accumulated during my absence, till I could answer them. I presume the views of the society are confined to our own country, for with the religion of other countries my own forbids intermeddling. I had not supposed there was a family in this State not possessing a Bible, and wishing without having the means to procure one. When, in earlier life, I was intimate with every class, I think I never was in a house where that was the case. However, circumstances may have changed, and the society, I presume, have evidence of the fact. I therefore [309]enclose you cheerfully, an order on Messrs. Gibson & Jefferson for fifty dollars, for the purposes of the society, sincerely agreeing with you that there never was a more pure and sublime system of morality delivered to man than is to be found in the four evangelists. Accept the assurance of my esteem and respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL.

Monticello, January 31, 1814.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 23d is received. Say had come to hand safely. But I regretted having asked the return of him; for I did not find in him one new idea upon the subject I had been contemplating; nothing more than a succinct, judicious digest of the tedious pages of Smith.

You ask my opinion on the question, whether the States can add any qualifications to those which the constitution has prescribed for their members of Congress? It is a question I had never before reflected on; yet had taken up an off-hand opinion, agreeing with your first, that they could not; that to add new qualifications to those of the constitution, would be as much an alteration as to detract from them. And so I think the House of Representatives of Congress decided in some case; I believe that of a member from Baltimore. But your letter having induced me to look into the constitution, and to consider the question a little, I am again in your predicament, of doubting the correctness of my first opinion. Had the constitution been silent, nobody can doubt but that the right to prescribe all the qualifications and disqualifications of those they would send to represent them, would have belonged to the State. So also the constitution might have prescribed the whole, and excluded all others. It seems to have preferred the middle way. It has exercised the power in part, by declaring some disqualifications, to wit, those of not being twenty-five years of age, of not having been a citizen seven years, and of not being an inhabitant of the State at the time of election. But it does not [310]declare, itself, that the member shall not be a lunatic, a pauper, a convict of treason, of murder, of felony, or other infamous crime, or a non-resident of his district; nor does it prohibit to the State the power of declaring these, or any other disqualifications which its particular circumstances may call for; and these may be different in different States. Of course, then, by the tenth amendment, the power is reserved to the State. If, wherever the constitution assumes a single power out of many which belong to the same subject, we should consider it as assuming the whole, it would vest the General Government with a mass of powers never contemplated. On the contrary, the assumption of particular powers seems an exclusion of all not assumed. This reasoning appears to me to be sound; but, on so recent a change of view, caution requires us not to be too confident, and that we admit this to be one of the doubtful questions on which honest men may differ with the purest motives; and the more readily, as we find we have differed from ourselves on it.

I have always thought that where the line of demarcation between the powers of the General and the State governments was doubtfully or indistinctly drawn, it would be prudent and praiseworthy in both parties, never to approach it but under the most urgent necessity. Is the necessity now urgent, to declare that no non-resident of his district shall be eligible as a member of Congress? It seems to me that, in practice, the partialities of the people are a sufficient security against such an election; and that if, in any instance, they should ever choose a non-resident, it must be one of such eminent merit and qualifications, as would make it a good, rather than an evil; and that, in any event, the examples will be so rare, as never to amount to a serious evil. If the case then be neither clear nor urgent, would it not be better to let it lie undisturbed? Perhaps its decision may never be called for. But if it be indispensable to establish this disqualification now, would it not look better to declare such others, at the same time, as may be proper? I frankly confide to yourself these opinions, or rather no-opinions, of mine; but would not wish to have them go any farther. I want to be quiet; and although [311]some circumstances, now and then, excite me to notice them, I feel safe, and happier in leaving events to those whose turn it is to take care of them; and, in general, to let it be understood, that I meddle little or not at all with public affairs. There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe, the public education, and the sub division of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks. Of the first, you will, I am sure, be an advocate, as having already reflected on it, and of the last, when you shall have reflected. Ever affectionately yours.

TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ.

Monticello, February 10, 1814.

Dear Sir,—In my letter of January 16, I promised you a sample from my common-place book, of the pious disposition of the English judges, to connive at the frauds of the clergy, a disposition which has even rendered them faithful allies in practice. When I was a student of the law, now half a century ago, after getting through Coke Littleton, whose matter cannot be abridged, I was in the habit of abridging and common-placing what I read meriting it, and of sometimes mixing my own reflections on the subject. I now enclose you the extract from these entries which I promised. They were written at a time of life when I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way. This must be the apology, if you find the conclusions bolder than historical facts and principles will warrant. Accept with them the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

Common-place Book.

873. In Quare imp. in C. B. 34, H. 6, fo. 38, the def. Br. of Lincoln pleads that the church of the pl. became void by the [312]death of the incumbent, that the pl. and J. S. each pretending a right, presented two several clerks; that the church being thus rendered litigious, he was not obliged, by the Ecclesiastical law to admit either, until an inquisition de jure patronatus, in the ecclesiastical court: that, by the same law, this inquisition was to be at the suit of either claimant, and was not ex-officio to be instituted by the bishop, and at his proper costs; that neither party had desired such an inquisition; that six months passed whereon it belonged to him of right to present as on a lapse, which he had done. The pl. demurred. A question was, How far the Ecclesiastical law was to be respected in this matter by the common law court? and Prisot C. 3, in the course of his argument uses this expression, "A tiels leis que ils de seint eglise ont en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence, car ces common ley sur quel touts manners leis sont fondés: et auxy, sin, nous sumus obligès de conustre nostre ley; et, sin, si poit apperer or á nous que liévesque ad fait comme un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ces adjuger bon autrement nemy," &c. It does not appear that judgment was given. Y. B. ubi supra. S. C. Fitzh. abr. Qu. imp. 89. Bro. abr. Qu. imp. 12. Finch mistakes this in the following manner: "To such laws of the church as have warrant in Holy Scripture, our law giveth credence," and cites the above case, and the words of Prisot on the margin. Finch's law. B. 1, ch. 3, published 1613. Here we find "ancien scripture" [ancient writing] converted into "Holy Scripture," whereas it can only mean the ancient written laws of the church. It cannot mean the Scriptures, 1, because the "ancien scripture" must then be understood to mean the "Old Testament" or Bible, in opposition to the "New Testament," and to the exclusion of that, which would be absurd and contrary to the wish of those who cite this passage to prove that the Scriptures, or Christianity, is a part of the common law. 2. Because Prisot says, "Ceo [est] common ley, sur quel touts manners leis sont fondés." Now, it is true that the ecclesiastical law, so far as admitted in England, derives its authority from the common law. But it would not be true that the Scriptures [313]so derive their authority. 3. The whole case and arguments show that the question was how far the Ecclesiastical law in general should be respected in a common law court. And in Bro. abr. of this case, Littleton says, "Les juges del common ley prendra conusans quid est lax ecclesiæ, vel admiralitatis, et trujus modi." 4. Because the particular part of the Ecclesiastical law then in question, to wit, the right of the patron to present to his advowson, was not founded on the law of God, but subject to the modification of the lawgiver, and so could not introduce any such general position as Finch pretends. Yet Wingate [in 1658] thinks proper to erect this false quotation into a maxim of the common law, expressing it in the very words of Finch, but citing Prisot, wing. max. 3. Next comes Sheppard, [in 1675,] who states it in the same words of Finch, and quotes the Year-Book, Finch and Wingate. 3. Shepp. abr. tit. Religion. In the case of the King v. Taylor, Sir Matthew Hale lays it down in these words, "Christianity is parcel of the laws of England." 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607. But he quotes no authority, resting it on his own, which was good in all cases in which his mind received no bias from his bigotry, his superstitions, his visions about sorceries, demons, &c. The power of these over him is exemplified in his hanging of the witches. So strong was this doctrine become in 1728, by additions and repetitions from one another, that in the case of the King v. Woolston, the court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law, saying it had been so settled in Taylor's case, ante 2, stra. 834; therefore, Wood, in his Institute, lays it down that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law, and cites Strange ubi supra. Wood 409. And Blackstone [about 1763] repeats, in the words of Sir Matthew Hale, that "Christianity is part of the laws of England," citing Ventris and Strange ubi supra. 4. Blackst. 59. Lord Mansfield qualifies it a little by saying that "The essential principles of revealed religion are part of the common law." In the case of the Chamberlain of London v. Evans, 1767. But he cites no authority, and leaves us [314]at our peril to find out what, in the opinion of the judge, and according to the measure of his foot or his faith, are those essential principles of revealed religion obligatory on us as a part of the common law.

Thus we find this string of authorities, when examined to the beginning, all hanging on the same hook, a perverted expression of Prisot's, or on one another, or nobody. Thus Finch quotes Prisot; Wingate also; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate; Hale cites nobody; the court in Woolston's case cite Hale; Wood cites Woolston's case; Blackstone that and Hale; and Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority. In the earlier ages of the law, as in the year-books, for instance, we do not expect much recurrence to authorities by the judges, because in those days there were few or none such made public. But in latter times we take no judge's word for what the law is, further than he is warranted by the authorities he appeals to. His decision may bind the unfortunate individual who happens to be the particular subject of it; but it cannot alter the law. Though the common law may be termed "Lex non Scripta," yet the same Hale tells us "when I call those parts of our laws Leges non Scriptæ, I do not mean as if those laws were only oral, or communicated from the former ages to the latter merely by word. For all those laws have their several monuments in writing, whereby they are transferred from one age to another, and without which they would soon lose all kind of certainty. They are for the most part extant in records of pleas, proceedings, and judgments, in books of reports and judicial decisions, in tractates of learned men's arguments and opinions, preserved from ancient times and still extant in writing." Hale's H. c. d. 22. Authorities for what is common law may therefore be as well cited, as for any part of the Lex Scripta, and there is no better instance of the necessity of holding the judges and writers to a declaration of their authorities than the present; where we detect them endeavoring to make law where they found none, and to submit us at one stroke to a whole system, no particle of which has its foundation in the common law. For we know [315]that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first Christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever was adopted, therefore, into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the laws of this period we have a tolerable collection by Lambard and Wilkins, probably not perfect, but neither very defective; and if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. Another cogent proof of this truth is drawn from the silence of certain writers on the common law. Bracton gives us a very complete and scientific treatise of the whole body of the common law. He wrote this about the close of the reign of Henry III., a very few years after the date of the Magna Charta. We consider this book as the more valuable, as it was written about the time which divides the common and statute law, and therefore [316]gives us the former in its ultimate state. Bracton, too, was an ecclesiastic, and would certainly not have failed to inform us of the adoption of Christianity as a part of the common law, had any such adoption ever taken place. But no word of his, which intimates anything like it, has ever been cited. Fleta and Britton, who wrote in the succeeding reign (of Edward I.), are equally silent. So also is Glanvil, an earlier writer than any of them, (viz.: temp. H. 2,) but his subject perhaps might not have led him to mention it. Justice Fortescue Aland, who possessed more Saxon learning than all the judges and writers before mentioned put together, places this subject on more limited ground. Speaking of the laws of the Saxon kings, he says, "the ten commandments were made part of their laws, and consequently were once part of the law of England; so that to break any of the ten commandments was then esteemed a breach of the common law, of England; and why it is not so now, perhaps it may be difficult to give a good reason." Preface to Fortescue Aland's reports, 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 [317]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, [318]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 [319]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 [320]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 [321]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 [322]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 [323]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 [324]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, [325]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:

[326]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 [327]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 [328]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 [329]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.

[330]"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 [331]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 [332]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 [333]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 [334]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 [335]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 [336]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, [337]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 [338]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 [339]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; [340]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 [341]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 [342]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 [343]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 [344]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 [345]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 [346]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 [347]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. [348]

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 [349]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. [350]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 [351]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. [352]

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.

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.) [353]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 [354]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 [355]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 [356]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. [357]

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 [358]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 [359]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 [360]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, [361]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.

[362]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 [363]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. [364]

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 [365]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 [366]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 [367]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 [368]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 [369]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. [370]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 [371]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 [372]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. [373]

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 [374]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 [375]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 [376]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. [377]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 [378]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 [379]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, [380]

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 [381]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 [382]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 [383]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 [384]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 [385]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 [386]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.

[387]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 [388]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. [389]

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 [390]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 [391]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 [392]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, [393]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.[394]

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

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

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 [395]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, [396]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 [397]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.[398]

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 [399]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 [400]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 [401]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 [402]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.[403]

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 [404]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.[405]

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 [406]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 [407]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 [408]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 [409]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 [410]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 [411]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 [412]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, [413]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.[414]

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 [415]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 [416]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 [417]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 [418]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 [419]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 [420]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.[421]

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 [422]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 [423]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 [424]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 [425]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 [426]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.

[427]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.[428]

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 [429]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.[430]

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, [431]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 [432]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. [433]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 [434]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.

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 [435]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:

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 [436]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 [437]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 ¼ 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 ¼ of a, or of pure negro blood, to wit ⅛ only, is no longer a mulatto, so that a third cross clears the blood.

From these elements let us examine their compounds. For [438]example, let h and q cohabit, their issue will be h/2 + q/2 = a/4 + A/4 + a/8 + A/8 + B/4 = 3a/8 + 3A/8 + B/4 wherein we find ⅜ 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 = 5a/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 = 3a/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 [439]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, [440]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 [441]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 [442]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 [443]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 [444]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 [445]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, [446]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, [447]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. [448]

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 [449]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 [450]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.

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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 [451]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.

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[452]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 [453]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, [454]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, [455]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 [456]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, [457]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 [458]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, [459]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, [460]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 [461]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 [462]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 [463]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, [464]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 [465]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 [466]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 [467]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 [468]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 [469]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 [470]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 [471]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 [472]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.[473]

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 [474]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?

[475]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 [476]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 [477]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.

[478]"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 [479]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.[480]

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.[481]

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. [482]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. [483]

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 [484]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, [485]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, [486]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 [487]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 [488]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 [489]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 [490]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 [491]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 [492]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? [493]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 [494]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, [495]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 [496]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 [497]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.[498]

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 [499]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 [500]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 [501]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 [502]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[503]

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 [504]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 [505]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 [506]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: 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 [507]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 [508]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 [509]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 [510]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 [511]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.

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 [512]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 [513]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,

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 [514]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 [515]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 [516]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. [517]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.[518]

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 [519]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.[520]

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 [521]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? [522]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 [523]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, [524]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, [525]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 [526]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 [527]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, [528]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 [529]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 [530]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.[531]

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, [532]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:

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 [533]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.[534]

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 [535]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 [536]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.[537]

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 [538]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 [539]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 [540]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 [541]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 [542]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 [543]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 [544]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.[545]

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 [546]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 [547]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.

[548]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 [549]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. [550]

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 [551]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 [552]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 [553]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 [554]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 [555]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; [556]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 [557]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 [558]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 [559]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 [560]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.

[561]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 [562]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 [563]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. [564]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 [565]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 [566]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 [567]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.

[568]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 [569]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.

[570]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 [571]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, [572]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 [573]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 [574]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 [575]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.

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 [576]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; [577]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 [578]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.

[579]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 [580]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 [581]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 [582]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 [583]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? [584]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 [585]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 [586]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 [587]"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 [588]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.

[589]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 [590]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 [591]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 [592]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 [593]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 [594]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. [595]

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 [596]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 [597]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.[598]

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, [599]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, [600]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 [601]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 [602]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 [603]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 [604]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 [605]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 [606]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, [607]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.

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 [608]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.
• [610]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.
• [611]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.