Letters of Thomas Jefferson

1794 - 1796

“Lucerne and Potatoes”

DEAR SIR, -- Your several favors of Feb. 22, 27, & March 16. which had been accumulating in Richmond during the prevalence of the small pox in that place, were lately brought to me, on the permission given the post to resume his communication.  I am particularly to thank you for your favor in forwarding the Bee.  Your letters give a comfortable view of French affairs, and later events seem to confirm it.  Over the foreign powers I am convinced they will triumph completely, & I cannot but hope that that triumph, & the consequent disgrace of the invading tyrants, is destined, in the order of events, to kindle the wrath of the people of Europe against those who have dared to embroil them in such wickedness, and to bring at length, kings, nobles, & priests to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with human blood.  I am still warm whenever I think of these scoundrels, tho I do it as seldom as I can, preferring infinitely to contemplate the tranquil growth of my lucerne & potatoes.  I have so completely withdrawn myself from these spectacles of usurpation & misrule, that I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month; & I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.  We are alarmed here with the apprehensions of war; and sincerely anxious that it may be avoided; but not at the expense either of our faith or honor.  It seems much the general opinion here, that the latter has been too much wounded not to require reparation, & to seek it even in war, if that be necessary.  As to myself, I love peace, and I am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.  I love, therefore, Mr. Clarke’s proposition of cutting off all communication with the nation which has conducted itself so atrociously.  This, you will say, may bring on war.  If it does, we will meet it like men; but it may not bring on war, & then the experiment will have been a happy one.  I believe this war would be vastly more unanimously approved than any one we ever were engaged in; because the aggressions have been so wanton & bare-faced, and so unquestionably against our desire.  -- I am sorry Mr. Cooper & Priestly did not take a more general survey of our country before they fixed themselves.  I think they might have promoted their own advantage by it, and have aided the introduction of our improvement where it is more wanting.  The prospect of wheat for the ensuing year is a bad one.  This is all the sort of news you can expect from me.  From you I shall be glad to hear all sort of news, & particularly any improvements in the arts applicable to husbandry or household manufacture.

“Whiskey Rebels and Democratic Societies”

DEAR SIR, -- I have kept Mr. Jay’s letter a post or two, with an intention of considering attentively the observation it contains; but I have really now so little stomach for anything of that kind, that I have not resolution enough even to endeavor to understand the observations.  I therefore return the letter, not to delay your answer to it, and beg you in answering for yourself to assure him of my respects and thankful acceptance of Chalmers’ Treaties, which I do not possess, and if you possess yourself of the scope of his reasoning, make any answer to it you please for me.  If it had been on the rotation of my crops, I would have answered myself, lengthily perhaps, but certainly con gusto.

The denunciation of the democratic societies is one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the fraction of monocrats.  It is wonderful indeed, that the President should have permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of discussion, the freedom of writing, printing & publishing.  It must be a matter of rare curiosity to get at the modifications of these rights proposed by them, and to see what line their ingenuity would draw between democratical societies, whose avowed object is the nourishment of the republican principles of our constitution, and the society of the Cincinnati, a self-created one, carving out for itself hereditary distinctions, lowering over our Constitution eternally, meeting together in all parts of the Union, periodically, with closed doors, accumulating a capital in their separate treasury, corresponding secretly & regularly, & of which society the very persons denouncing the democrats are themselves the fathers, founders, & high officers.  Their sight must be perfectly dazzled by the glittering of crowns & coronets, not to see the extravagance of the proposition to suppress the friends of general freedom, while those who wish to confine that freedom to the few, are permitted to go on in their principles & practices.  I here put out of sight the persons whose misbehavior has been taken advantage of to slander the friends of popular rights; and I am happy to observe, that as far as the circle of my observation & information extends, everybody has lost sight of them, and views the abstract attempt on their natural & constitutional rights in all it’s nakedness.  I have never heard, or heard of, a single expression or opinion which did not condemn it as an inexcusable aggression.  And with respect to the transactions against the excise law, it appears to me that you are all swept away in the torrent of governmental opinions, or that we do not know what these transactions have been. We know of none which, according to the definitions of the law, have been anything more than riotous.  There was indeed a meeting to consult about a separation.  But to consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such a determination; but we shall see, I suppose, what the court lawyers, & courtly judges, & would-be ambassadors will make of it.  The excise law is an infernal one.  The first error was to admit it by the Constitution; the 2d., to act on that admission; the 3d & last will be, to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, & setting us all afloat to chuse which part of it we will adhere to.  The information of our militia, returned from the Westward, is uniform, that tho the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects of their laughter, not of their fear; that 1000 men could have cut off their whole force in a thousand places of the Alleganey; that their detestation of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government; & that separation which perhaps was a very distant & problematical event, is now near, & certain, & determined in the mind of every man.  I expected to have seen some justification of arming one part of the society against another; of declaring a civil war the moment before the meeting of that body which has the sole right of declaring war; of being so patient of the kicks & scoffs of our enemies, & rising at a feather against our friends; of adding a million to the public debt & deriding us with recommendations to pay it if we can &c., &c.  But the part of the speech which was to be taken as a justification of the armament, reminded me of parson Saunders’ demonstration why minus into minus make plus.  After a parcel of shreds of stuff from Aesop’s fables, and Tom Thumb, he jumps all at once into his Ergo, minus multiplied into minus make plus.  Just so the 15,000 men enter after the fables, in the speech.  -- However, the time is coming when we shall fetch up the leeway of our vessel.  The changes in your house, I see, are going on for the better, and even the Augean herd over your heads are slowly purging off their impurities.  Hold on then, my dear friend, that we may not shipwreck in the meanwhile.  I do not see, in the minds of those with whom I converse, a greater affliction than the fear of your retirement; but this must not be, unless to a more splendid & a more efficacious post.  There I should rejoice to see you; I hope I may say, I shall rejoice to see you.  I have long had much in my mind to say to you on that subject.  But double delicacies have kept me silent.  I ought perhaps to say, while I would not give up my own retirement for the empire of the universe, how I can justify wishing one whose happinesss I have so much at heart as yours, to take the front of the battle which is fighting for my security.  This would be easy enough to be done, but not at the heel of a lengthy epistle.

Let us quit this, and turn to the fine weather we are basking in.  We have had one of our tropical winters.  Once only a snow of 3. inches deep, which went off the next day, and never as much ice as would have cooled a bottle of wine.  And we have now but a month to go through of winter weather.  For February always gives us a good sample of the spring of which it is the harbinger.  I recollect no small news interesting to you.  You will have heard, I suppose, that Wilson Nicholas has bought Carr’s Carrsgrove and Harvey’s barracks.  I rejoice in the prosperity of a virtuous man, and hope his prosperity will not taint his virtue.  Present me respectfully to Mrs. Madison, and pray her to keep you where you are for her own satisfaction and the public good; and accept the cordial affections of all.  Adieu.

“Farming”

DEAR SIR, -- I have long owed you a letter, for which my conscience would not have let me rest in quiet but on the consideration that the paiment would not be worth your acceptance.  The debt is not merely for a letter the common traffic of every day, but for valuable ideas, which instructed me, which I have adopted, & am acting on them.  I am sensible of the truth of your observations that the atmosphere is the great storehouse of matter for recruiting our lands, that tho’ efficacious, it is slow in it’s operation, and we must therefore give them time instead of the loads of quicker manure given in other countries, that for this purpose we must avail ourselves of the great quantities of land we possess in proportion to our labour, and that while putting them to nurse with the atmosphere, we must protect them from the bite & tread of animals, which are nearly a counterpoise for the benefits of the atmosphere.  As good things, as well as evil, go in a train, this relieves us from the labor & expence of crossfences, now very sensibly felt on account of the scarcity & distance of timber.  I am accordingly now engaged in applying my cross fences to the repair of the outer ones and substituting rows of peach trees to preserve the boundaries of the fields.  And though I observe your strictures on rotations of crops, yet it appears that in this I differ from you only in words.  You keep half your lands in culture, the other half at nurse; so I propose to do.  Your scheme indeed requires only four years & mine six; but the proportion of labour & rest is the same.  My years of rest, however, are employed, two of them in producing clover, yours in volunteer herbage.  But I still understand it to be your opinion that clover is best where lands will produce them.  Indeed I think that the important improvement for which the world is indebted to Young is the substitution of clover crops instead of unproductive fallows; & the demonstration that lands are more enriched by clover than by volunteer herbage or fallows; and the clover crops are highly valuable.  That our red lands which are still in tolerable heart will produce fine clover I know from the experience of the last year; and indeed that of my neighbors had established the fact.  And from observations on accidental plants in the feilds which have been considerably harrassed with corn, I believe that even these will produce clover fit for soiling of animals green.  I think, therefore, I can count on the success of that improver.  My third year of rest will be devoted to cowpenning, & to a trial of the buckwheat dressing.  A further progress in surveying my open arable lands has shewn me that I can have 7 fields in each of my farms where I expected only six; consequently that I can add more to the portion of rest & ameliorating crops.  I have doubted on a question on which I am sure you can advise me well, whether I had better give this newly acquired year as an addition to the continuance of my clover, or throw it with some improving crop between two of my crops of grain, as for instance between my corn & rye.  I strongly incline to the latter, because I am not satisfied that one cleansing crop in seven years will be sufficient; and indeed I think it important to separate my exhausting crops by alternations of amelioraters.  With this view I think to try an experiment of what Judge Parker informs me he practises.  That is, to turn in my wheat stubble the instant the grain is off, and sow turneps to be fed out by the sheep.  But whether this will answer in our fields which are harrassed, I do not know.  We have been in the habit of sowing only our freshest lands in turneps, hence a presumption that wearied lands will not bring them.  But Young’s making turneps to be fed on by sheep the basis of his improvement of poor lands, affords evidence that tho they may not bring great crops, they will bring them in a sufficient degree to improve the lands.  I will try that experiment, however, this year, as well as the one of buckwheat. I have also attended to another improver mentioned by you, the winter-vetch, & have taken measures to get the seed of it from England, as also of the Siberian vetch which Millar greatly commends, & being a biennial might perhaps take the place of clover in lands which do not suit that.  The winter vetch I suspect may be advantageously thrown in between crops, as it gives a choice to use it as green feed in the spring if fodder be run short, or to turn it in as a green-dressing.  My rotation, with these amendments, is as follows: --

1.  Wheat, followed the same year by turneps, to be fed on by the sheep.

2.  Corn & potatoes mixed, & in autumn the vetch to be used as fodder in the spring if wanted, or to be turned in as a dressing.

3.  Peas or potatoes, or both according to the quality of the field.

4.  Rye and clover sown on it in the spring.  Wheat may be substituted here for rye, when it shall be found that the 2’d., 3’d., 5’th., & 6’th. fields will subsist the farm.

5.  Clover.

6.  Clover, & in autumn turn it in & sow the vetch.

7.  Turn in the vetch in the spring, then sow buckwheat & turn that in, having hurdled off the poorest spots for cow-penning.  In autumn sow wheat to begin the circle again.

I am for throwing the whole force of my husbandry on the wheat-field, because it is the only one which is to go to market to produce money.  Perhaps the clover may bring in something in the form of stock.  The other fields are merely for the consumption of the farm.  Melilot, mentioned by you, I never heard of.  The horse bean I tried this last year.  It turned out nothing.  The President has tried it without success.  An old English farmer of the name of Spuryear, settled in Delaware, has tried it there with good success; but he told me it would not do without being well shaded, and I think he planted it among his corn for that reason.  But he acknoleged our pea was as good an ameliorater & a more valuable pulse, as being food for man as well as horse.  The succory is what Young calls Chicoria Intubus.  He sent some seed to the President, who gave me some, & I gave it to my neighbors to keep up till I should come home.  One of them has cultivated it with great success, is very fond of it, and gave me some seed which I sowed last spring.  Tho’ the summer was favorable it came on slowly at first, but by autumn became large & strong.  It did not seed that year, but will the next, & you shall be furnished with seed.  I suspect it requires rich ground, & then produces a heavy crop for green feed for horses & cattle.  I had poor success with my potatoes last year, not having made more than 60 or 70 bushels to the acre.  But my neighbors having made good crops, I am not disheartened.  The first step towards the recovery of our lands is to find substitutes for corn & bacon.  I count on potatoes, clover, & sheep.  The two former to feed every animal on the farm except my negroes, & the latter to feed them, diversified with rations of salted fish & molasses, both of them wholesome, agreeable, & cheap articles of food.

For pasture I rely on the forests by day, & soiling in the evening.  Why could we not have a moveable airy cow house, to be set up in the middle of the feild which is to be dunged, & soil our cattle in that thro’ the summer as well as winter, keeping them constantly up & well littered?  This, with me, would be in the clover feild of the 1’st. year, because during the 2’d. year it would be rotting, and would be spread on it in fallow the beginning of the 3’d., but such an effort would be far above the present tyro state of my farming.  The grosser barbarisms in culture which I have to encounter, are more than enough for all my attentions at present.  The dung-yard must be my last effort but one.  The last would be irrigation.  It might be thought at first view, that the interposition of these ameliorations or dressings between my crops will be too laborious, but observe that the turneps & two dressings of vetch do not cost a single ploughing.  The turning in the wheat-stubble for the turneps is the fallow for the corn of the succeeding year.  The 1’st. sowing of vetches is on the corn (as is now practised for wheat), and the turning it in is the flush-ploughing for the crop of potatoes & peas.  The 2’d. sowing of the vetch is on the wheat fallow, & the turning it in is the ploughing necessary for sowing the buckwheat.  These three ameliorations, then, will cost but a harrowing each.  On the subject of the drilled husbandry, I think experience has established it’s preference for some plants, as the turnep, pea, bean, cabbage, corn, &c., and that of the broadcast for other plants as all the bread grains & grasses, except perhaps lucerne & S’t. foin in soils & climates very productive of weeds.  In dry soils & climates the broadcast is better for lucerne & S’t. foin, as all the south of France can testify.

I have imagined and executed a mould-board which may be mathematically demonstrated to be perfect, as far as perfection depends on mathematical principles, and one great circumstance in it’s favor is that it may be made by the most bungling carpenter, & cannot possibly vary a hair’s breadth in it’s form, but by gross negligence.  You have seen the musical instrument called a sticcado.  Suppose all it’s sticks of equal length, hold the fore-end horizontally on the floor to receive the turf which presents itself horizontally, and with the right hand twist the hind-end to the perpendicular, or rather as much beyond the perpendicular as will be necessary to cast over the turf completely.  This gives an idea (tho not absolutely exact) of my mould-board.  It is on the principle of two wedges combined at right angles, the first in the direct line of the furrow to raise the turf gradually, the other across the furrow to turn it over gradually.  For both these purposes the wedge is the instrument of the least resistance.  I will make a model of the mould-board & lodge it with Col’o. Harvie in Richmond for you.  This brings me to my thanks for the drill plough lodged with him for me, which I now expect every hour to receive, and the price of which I have deposited in his hands to be called for when you please.  A good instrument of this kind is almost the greatest desideratum in husbandry.  I am anxious to conjecture beforehand what may be expected from the sowing turneps in jaded ground, how much from the acre, & how large they will be?  Will your experience enable you to give me a probable conjecture?  Also what is the produce of potatoes, & what of peas in the same kind of ground?  It must now have been several pages since you began to cry out ‘mercy.’  In mercy then I will here finish with my affectionate remembrance to my old friend.  Mr. Pendleton, & respects to your fireside, & to yourself assurances of the sincere esteem of, dear Sir,

Your friend & serv’t,

“The Geneva Academy”

DEAR SIR, -- Your several favors on the affairs of Geneva found me here, in the month of December last.  It is now more than a year that I have withdrawn myself from public affairs, which I never liked in my life, but was drawn into by emergencies which threatened our country with slavery, but ended in establishing it free.  I have returned, with infinite appetite, to the enjoyment of my farm, my family & my books, and had determined to meddle in nothing beyond their limits.  Your proposition, however, for transplanting the college of Geneva to my own country, was too analogous to all my attachments to science, & freedom, the first-born daughter of science, not to excite a lively interest in my mind, and the essays which were necessary to try it’s practicability.  This depended altogether on the opinions & dispositions of our State legislature, which was then in session.  I immediately communicated your papers to a member of the legislature, whose abilities & zeal pointed him out as proper for it, urging him to sound as many of the leading members of the legislature as he could, & if he found their opinions favorable, to bring forward the proposition; but if he should find it desperate, not to hazard it; because I thought it best not to commit the honor either of our State or of your college, by an useless act of eclat.  It was not till within these three days that I have had an interview with him, and an account of his proceedings.  He communicated the papers to a great number of the members, and discussed them maturely, but privately, with them.  They were generally well-disposed to the proposition, and some of them warmly; however, there was no difference of opinion in the conclusion, that it could not be effected.  The reasons which they thought would with certainty prevail against it, were 1. that our youth, not familiarized but with their mother tongue, were not prepared to receive instructions in any other; 2d. that the expence of the institution would excite uneasiness in their constituents, & endanger it’s permanence; & 3. that it’s extent was disproportioned to the narrow state of the population with us.  Whatever might be urged on these several subjects, yet as the decision rested with others, there remained to us only to regret that circumstances were such, or were thought to be such, as to disappoint your & our wishes.  I should have seen with peculiar satisfaction the establishment of such a mass of science in my country, and should probably have been tempted to approach myself to it, by procuring a residence in it’s neighborhood, at those seasons of the year at least when the operations of agriculture are less active and interesting.  I sincerely lament the circumstances which have suggested this emigration.  I had hoped that Geneva was familiarized to such a degree of liberty, that they might without difficulty or danger fill up the measure to its maximum; a term, which, though in the insulated man, bounded only by his natural powers, must, in society, be so far restricted as to protect himself against the evil passions of his associates, & consequently, them against him.  I suspect that the doctrine, that small States alone are fitted to be republics, will be exploded by experience, with some other brilliant fallacies accredited by Montesquieu & other political writers.  Perhaps it will be found, that to obtain a just republic (and it is to secure our just rights that we resort to government at all) it must be so extensive as that local egoisms may never reach it’s greater part; that on every particular question, a majority may be found in it’s councils free from particular interests, and giving, therefore, an uniform prevalence to the principles of justice.  The smaller the societies, the more violent & more convulsive their schisms.  We have chanced to live in an age which will probably be distinguished in history, for it’s experiments in government on a larger scale than has yet taken place.  But we shall not live to see the result.  The grosser absurdities, such as hereditary magistracies, we shall see exploded in our day, long experience having already pronounced condemnation against them.  But what is to be the substitute?  This our children or grand children will answer.  We may be satisfied with the certain knowledge that none can ever be tried, so stupid, so unrighteous, so oppressive, so destructive of every end for which honest men enter into government, as that which their forefathers had established, & their fathers alone venture to tumble headlong from the stations they have so long abused.  It is unfortunate, that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors, & even with crimes.  But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end.  -- But I have been insensibly led by the general complexion of the times, from the particular case of Geneva, to those to which it bears no similitude. Of that we hope good things.  Its inhabitants must be too much enlightened, too well experienced in the blessings of freedom and undisturbed industry, to tolerate long a contrary state of things.  I shall be happy to hear that their government perfects itself, and leaves room for the honest, the industrious & wise; in which case, your own talents, & those of the persons for whom you have interested yourself, will, I am sure, find welcome & distinction.  My good wishes will always attend you, as a consequence of the esteem & regard with which I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient & most humble servant.

“Abjuring the Presidency”

DEAR SIR, -- Your letter of Mar 23. came to hand the 7th of April, and notwithstanding the urgent reasons for answering a part of it immediately, yet as it mentioned that you would leave Philadelphia within a few days, I feared that the answer might pass you on the road.  A letter from Philadelphia by the last post having announced to me your leaving that place the day preceding it’s date, I am in hopes this will find you in Orange.  In mine, to which yours of Mar 23. was an answer, I expressed my hope of the only change of position I ever wished to see you make, and I expressed it with entire sincerity, because there is not another person in the U S. who being placed at the helm of our affairs, my mind would be so completely at rest for the fortune of our political bark.  The wish too was pure, & unmixed with anything respecting myself personally.  For as to myself, the subject had been thoroughly weighed & decided on, & my retirement from office had been meant from all office high or low, without exception.  I can say, too, with truth, that the subject had not been presented to my mind by any vanity of my own.  I know myself & my fellow citizens too well to have ever thought of it.  But the idea was forced upon me by continual insinuations in the public papers, while I was in office.  As all these came from a hostile quarter, I knew that their object was to poison the public mind as to my motives, when they were not able to charge me with facts.  But the idea being once presented to me, my own quiet required that I should face it & examine it.  I did so thoroughly, & had no difficulty to see that every reason which had determined me to retire from the office I then held, operated more strongly against that which was insinuated to be my object.  I decided then on those general grounds which could alone be present to my mind at the time, that is to say, reputation, tranquillity, labor; for as to public duty, it could not be a topic of consideration in my case.  If these general considerations were sufficient to ground a firm resolution never to permit myself to think of the office, or to be thought of for it, the special ones which have supervened on my retirement, still more insuperably bar the door to it.  My health is entirely broken down within the last eight months; my age requires that I should place my affairs in a clear state; these are sound if taken care of, but capable of considerable dangers if longer neglected; and above all things, the delights I feel in the society of my family, and the agricultural pursuits in which I am so eagerly engaged.  The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present name.  In stating to you the heads of reasons which have produced my determination, I do not mean an opening for future discussion, or that I may be reasoned out of it.  The question is forever closed with me; my sole object is to avail myself of the first opening ever given me from a friendly quarter (and I could not with decency do it before), of preventing any division or loss of votes, which might be fatal to the Republican interest.  If that has any chance of prevailing, it must be by avoiding the loss of a single vote, and by concentrating all its strength on one object.  Who this should be, is a question I can more freely discuss with anybody than yourself.  In this I painfully feel the loss of Monroe.  Had he been here, I should have been at no loss for a channel through which to make myself understood; if I have been misunderstood by anybody through the instrumentality of Mr. Fenno & his abettors.  -- I long to see you.  I am proceeding in my agricultural plans with a slow but sure step.  To get under full way will require 4. or 5. years.  But patience & perseverance will accomplish it.  My little essay in red clover, the last year, has had the most encouraging success.  I sowed then about 40. acres.  I have sowed this year about 120. which the rain now falling comes very opportunely on.  From 160. to 200. acres, will be my yearly sowing.  The seed-box described in the agricultural transactions of New York, reduces the expense of seeding from 6/ to 2/3 the acre, and does the business better than is possible to be done by the human hand.  May we hope a visit from you?  If we may, let it be after the middle of May, by which time I hope to be returned from Bedford.  I had had a proposition to meet Mr. Henry there this month, to confer on the subject of a convention, to the calling of which he is now become a convert.  The session of our district court furnished me a just excuse for the time; but the impropriety of my entering into consultation on a measure in which I would take no part, is a permanent one.

Present my most respectful compliments to Mrs. Madison, & be assured of the warm attachment of, Dear Sir, yours affectionately.

“A Nail-Maker”

DEAR SIR, -- Your favor of Mar. 30. from Philadelphia came to my hands a few days ago.  That which you mention to have written from London has never been received; nor had I been able to discover what has been your fortune during the troubles of France after the death of the King.  Being thoroughly persuaded that under all circumstances your conduct had been entirely innocent & friendly to the freedom of your country, I had hopes that you had not been obliged to quit your own country.  Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment & enjoiment by all mankind of as much liberty, as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavours to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.  I was intimate with the leading characters of the year 1789.  So I was with those of the Brissotine party who succeeded them: & have always been persuaded that their views were upright.  Those who have followed have been less known to me: but I have been willing to hope that they also meant the establishment of a free government in their country, excepting perhaps the party which has lately been suppressed.  The government of those now at the head of affairs appears to hold out many indications of good sense, moderation & virtue; & I cannot but presume from their character as well as your own that you would find a perfect safety in the bosom of your own country.  I think it fortunate for the United States to have become the asylum for so many virtuous patriots of different denominations: but their circumstances, with which you were so well acquainted before, enabled them to be but a bare asylum, & to offer nothing for them but an entire freedom to use their own means & faculties as they please.  There is no such thing in this country as what would be called wealth in Europe.  The richest are but a little at ease, & obliged to pay the most rigorous attention to their affairs to keep them together.  I do not mean to speak here of the Beaujons of America.  For we have some of these tho’ happily they are but ephemeral.  Our public oeconomy also is such as to offer drudgery and subsistence only to those entrusted with its administration, a wise & necessary precaution against the degeneracy of the public servants.  In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable.  I am myself a nail-maker.  On returning home after an absence of ten years, I found my farms so much deranged that I saw evidently they would be a burden to me instead of a support till I could regenerate them; & consequently that it was necessary for me to find some other resource in the meantime.  I thought for awhile of taking up the manufacture of pot-ash, which requires but small advances of money.  I concluded at length however to begin a manufacture of nails, which needs little or no capital, & I now employ a dozen little boys from 10. to 16. years of age, overlooking all the details of their business myself & drawing from it a profit on which I can get along till I can put my farms into a course of yielding profit.  My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe.  In the commercial line, the grocers business is that which requires the least capital in this country.  The grocer generally obtains a credit of three months, & sells for ready money so as to be able to make his paiments & obtain a new supply.  But I think I have observed that your countrymen who have been obliged to work out their own fortunes here, have succeeded best with a small farm.  Labour indeed is dear here, but rents are low & on the whole a reasonable profit & comfortable subsistence results.  It is at the same time the most tranquil, healthy, & independent.  And since you have been pleased to ask my opinion as to the best way of employing yourself till you can draw funds from France or return there yourself, I do presume that this is the business which would yield the most happiness & contentment to one of your philosophic turn.  But at the distance I am from New York, where you seem disposed to fix yourself, & little acquainted with the circumstances of that place I am much less qualified than disposed to suggest to you emploiments analogous to your turn of mind & at the same time to the circumstances of your present situation.  Be assured that it will always give me lively pleasure to learn that your pursuits, whatever they may be may lead you to contentment & success, being with very sincere esteem & respect, dear sir, your most obedient servant.

“Rogues and a Treaty”

It was not in my power to attend at Fredericksburg according to the kind invitation in your letter, and in that of Mr. Ogilvie.  The heat of the weather, the business of the farm, to which I have made myself necessary, forbade it; and to give one round reason for all, mature sanus, I have laid up my Rosinante in his stall, before his unfitness for the road shall expose him faultering to the world.  But why did not I answer you in time?  Because, in truth, I am encouraging myself to grow lazy, and I was sure you would ascribe the delay to anything sooner than a want of affection or respect to you, for this was not among the possible causes.  In truth, if anything could ever induce me to sleep another night out of my own house, it would have been your friendly invitation and my sollicitude for the subject of it, the education of our youth.  I do most anxiously wish to see the highest degrees of education given to the higher degrees of genius, and to all degrees of it, so much as may enable them to read & understand what is going on in the world, and to keep their part of it going on right: for nothing can keep it right but their own vigilant & distrustful superintendence.  I do not believe with the Rochefoucaults & Montaignes, that fourteen out of fifteen men are rogues: I believe a great abatement from that proportion may be made in favor of general honesty.  But I have always found that rogues would be uppermost, and I do not know that the proportion is too strong for the higher orders, and for those who, rising above the swinish multitude, always contrive to nestle themselves into the places of power & profit.  These rogues set out with stealing the people’s good opinion, and then steal from them the right of withdrawing it, by contriving laws and associations against the power of the people themselves.  Our part of the country is in considerable fermentation, on what they suspect to be a recent roguery of this kind.  They say that while all hands were below deck mending sails, splicing ropes, and every one at his own business, & the captain in his cabbin attending to his log book & chart, a rogue of a pilot has run them into an enemy’s port.  But metaphor apart, there is much dissatisfaction with Mr. Jay & his treaty.  For my part, I consider myself now but as a passenger, leaving the world, & it’s government to those who are likely to live longer in it.  That you may be among the longest of these, is my sincere prayer.  After begging you to be the bearer of my compliments & apologies to Mr. Ogilvie, I bid you an affectionate farewell, always wishing to hear from you.

“The Laws of Virginia”

In my letter which accompanied the box containing my collection of Printed laws, I promised to send you by post a statement of the contents of the box.  On taking up the subject I found it better to take a more general view of the whole of the laws I possess, as well Manuscript as printed, as also of those which I do not possess, and suppose to be no longer extant.  This general view you will have in the enclosed paper, whereof the articles stated to be printed constitute the contents of the box I sent you.  Those in MS. were not sent, because not supposed to have been within your view, and because some of them will not bear removal, being so rotten, that in turning over a leaf it sometimes falls into powder.  These I preserve by wrapping & sewing them up in oiled cloth, so that neither air nor moisture can have access to them.  Very early in the course of my researches into the laws of Virginia, I observed that many of them were already lost, and many more on the point of being lost, as existing only in single copies in the hands of careful or curious individuals, on whose death they would probably be used for waste paper.  I set myself therefore to work, to collect all which were then existing, in order that when the day should come in which the public should advert to the magnitude of their loss in these precious monuments of our property, and our history, a part of their regret might be spared by information that a portion has been saved from the wreck, which is worthy of their attention & preservation.  In searching after these remains, I spared neither time, trouble, nor expense; and am of opinion that scarcely any law escaped me, which was in being as late as the year 1778 in the middle or Southern parts of the State.  In the Northern parts, perhaps something might still be found.  In the clerk’s office in the antient counties, some of these MS. copies of the laws may possibly still exist, which used to be furnished at the public expense to every county, before the use of the press was introduced; and in the same places, and in the hands of antient magistrates or of their families, some of the fugitive sheets of the laws of separate sessions, which have been usually distributed since the practice commenced of printing them.  But recurring to what we actually possess, the question is, what means will be the most effectual for preserving these remains from future loss?  All the care I can take of them, will not preserve them from the worm, from the natural decay of the paper, from the accidents of fire, or those of removal when it is necessary for any public purposes, as in the case of those now sent you.  Our experience has proved to us that a single copy, or a few, deposited in MS. in the public offices, cannot be relied on for any great length of time.  The ravages of fire and of ferocious enemies have had but too much part in producing the very loss we are now deploring.  How many of the precious works of antiquity were lost while they were preserved only in manuscript?  Has there ever been one lost since the art of printing has rendered it practicable to multiply & disperse copies?  This leads us then to the only means of preserving those remains of our laws now under consideration, that is, a multiplication of printed copies.  I think therefore that there should be printed at public expense, an edition of all the laws ever passed by our legislatures which can now be found; that a copy should be deposited in every public library in America, in the principal public offices within the State, and some perhaps in the most distinguished public libraries of Europe, and that the rest should be sold to individuals, towards reimbursing the expences of the edition.  Nor do I think that this would be a voluminous work.  The MSS. would probably furnish matter for one printed volume in folio, would comprehend all the laws from 1624 to 1701, which period includes Purvis.  My collection of Fugitive sheets forms, as we know, two volumes, and comprehends all the extant laws from 1734 to 1783; and the laws which can be gleaned up from the Revisals to supply the chasm between 1701 & 1734, with those from 1783 to the close of the present century, (by which term the work might be compleated,) would not be more than the matter of another volume.  So that four volumes in folio, would give every law ever passed which is now extant; whereas those who wish to possess as many of them as can be procured, must now buy the six folio volumes of Revisals, to wit, Purvis & those of 1732, 1748, 1768, 1783, & 1794, and in all of them possess not one half of what they wish.  What would be the expence of the edition I cannot say, nor how much would be reimbursed by the sales; but I am sure it would be moderate, compared with the rates which the public have hitherto paid for printing their laws, provided a sufficient latitude be given as to printers & places.  The first step would be to make out a single copy for the MSS., which would employ a clerk about a year or something more, to which expence about a fourth should be added for the collation of the MSS., which would employ 3. persons at a time about half a day, or a day in every week.  As I have already spent more time in making myself acquainted with the contents & arrangement of these MSS. than any other person probably ever will, & their condition does not admit their removal to a distance, I will chearfully undertake the direction & superintendence of this work, if it can be done in the neighboring towns of Charlottesville or Milton, farther than which I could not undertake to go from home.  For the residue of the work, my printed volumes might be delivered to the Printer.

I have troubled you with these details, because you are in the place where they may be used for the public service, if they admit of such use, & because the order of assembly, which you mention, shews they are sensible of the necessity of preserving such of these laws as relate to our landed property; and a little further consideration will perhaps convince them that it is better to do the whole work once for all, than to be recurring to it by piece-meal, as particular parts of it shall be required, & that too perhaps when the materials shall be lost.  You are the best judge of the weight of these observations, & of the mode of giving them any effect they may merit.  Adieu affectionately.

“An Age of Experiments”

I am to thank you, my dear Sir, for forwarding Mr. D’Ivernois’ book on the French revolution.  I recieve every thing with respect which comes from him.  But it is on politics, a subject I never loved, and now hate.  I will not promise therefore to read it thoroughly.  I fear the oligarchical executive of the French will not do.  We have always seen a small council get into cabals and quarrels, the more bitter and relentless the fewer they are.  We saw this in our committee of the states; and that they were, from their bad passions, incapable of doing the business of their country.  I think that for the prompt, clear and consistent action so necessary in an Executive, unity of person is necessary as with us.  I am aware of the objection to this, that the office becoming more important may bring on serious discord in elections.  In our country I think it will be long first; not within our day; and we may safely trust to the wisdom of our successors the remedies of the evil to arise in theirs.  Both experiments however are now fairly committed, and the result will be seen.  Never was a finer canvas presented to work on than our countrymen.  All of them engaged in agriculture or the pursuits of honest industry, independant in their circumstances, enlightened as to their rights, and firm in their habits of order and obedience to the laws.  This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded on principles of honesty, not of mere force.  We have seen no instance of this since the days of the Roman republic, nor do we read of any before that.  Either force or corruption has been the principle of every modern government, unless the Dutch perhaps be excepted, and I am not well enough informed to except them absolutely.  If ever the morals of a people could be made the basis of their own government, it is our case; and he who could propose to govern such a people by the corruption of their legislature, before he could have one night of quiet sleep, must convince himself that the human soul as well as body is mortal.  I am glad to see that whatever grounds of apprehension may have appeared of a wish to govern us otherwise than on principles of reason and honesty, we are getting the better of them.  I am sure, from the honesty of your heart, you join me in detestation of the corruption of the English government, and that no man on earth is more incapable than yourself of seeing that copied among us, willingly.  I have been among those who have feared the design to introduce it here, and it has been a strong reason with me for wishing there was an ocean of fire between that island and us.  But away politics.

I owe a letter to the Auditor [Richard Harrison] on the subject of my accounts while a foreign minister, and he informs me yours hang on the same difficulties with mine.  Before the present government there was a usage either practised on or understood which regulated our charges.  This government has directed the future by a law.  But this is not retrospective, and I cannot conceive why the treasury cannot settle accounts under the old Congress on the principles that body acted on.  I shall very shortly write to Mr. Harrison on this subject, and if we cannot have it settled otherwise I suppose we must apply to the legislature.  In this I will act in concert with you if you approve of it.  Present my very affectionate respects to Mrs. Adams, and be assured that no one more cordially esteems your virtues than Dear Sir Your sincere friend and servt.

“The Boisterous Sea of Liberty”

MY DEAR FRIEND, -- Your letter of Oct. 26. 1795. is just received and gives me the first information that the bills forwarded for you to V. S. & H. of Amsterdam on V. Anderson for pound 39-17-10 1/2 & on George Barclay for pound 70-8-6 both of London have been protested.  I immediately write to the drawers to secure the money if still unpaid.  I wonder I have never had a letter from our friends of Amsterdam on that subject as well as acknoleging the subsequent remittances.  Of these I have apprised you by triplicates, but for fear of miscarriage will just mention that on Sep. 8.  I forwarded them Hodgden’s bill on Robinson Saunderson & Rumney of Whitehaven for pound 300. and Jan. 31. that of the same on the same for pound 137-16-6 both received from Mr.  Blair for your stock sold out.  I have now the pleasure to inform you that Dohrman has settled his account with you, has allowed the New York damage of 20. per cent for the protest, & the New York interest of 7. per cent. and after deducting the partial payments for which he held receipts the balance was three thousand & eighty-seven dollars which sum he has paid into Mr. Madison’s hands & as he (Mr. Madison) is now in Philadelphia, I have desired him to invest the money in good bills on Amsterdam & remit them to the V. Staphorsts & H. whom I consider as possessing your confidence as they do mine beyond any house in London.  The pyracies of that nation lately extended from the sea to the debts due from them to other nations renders theirs an unsafe medium to do business through.  I hope these remittances will place you at your ease & I will endeavor to execute your wishes as to the settlement of the other small matters you mention: tho’ from them I expect little.  E. R. is bankrupt, or tantamount to it.  Our friend M. P. is embarrassed, having lately sold the fine lands he lives on, & being superlatively just & honorable I expect we may get whatever may be in his hands.  Lomax is under greater difficulties with less means, so that I apprehend you have little more to expect from this country except the balance which will remain for Colle after deducting the little matter due to me, & what will be recovered by Anthony.  This will be decided this summer.

I have written to you by triplicates with every remittance I sent to the V. S. & H. & always recapitulated in each letter the objects of the preceding ones.  I enclosed in two of them some seeds of the squash as you desired.  Send me in return some seeds of the winter vetch, I mean that kind which is sewn in autumn & stands thro the cold of winter, furnishing a crop of green fodder in March.  Put a few seeds in every letter you may write to me.  In England only the spring vetch can be had.  Pray fail not in this.  I have it greatly at heart.

The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us.  In place of that noble love of liberty, & republican government which carried us triumphantly thro’ the war, an Anglican monarchical, & aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government.  The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a great mass of talents.  Against us are the Executive, the Judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants & Americans trading on British capitals, speculators & holders in the banks & public funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption, & for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model.  It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field & Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England.  In short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors & perils.  But we shall preserve them; and our mass of weight & wealth on the good side is so great, as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us.  We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors.  I will forward the testimonial of the death of Mrs. Mazzei, which I can do the more incontrovertibly as she is buried in my grave yard, and I pass her grave daily.  The formalities of the proof you require, will occasion delay.  John Page & his son Mann are well.  The father remarried to a lady from N. York.  Beverley Randolph e la sua consorte living & well.  Their only child married to the 2d of T. M. Randolph.  The eldest son you know married my eldest daughter, is an able learned & worthy character, but kept down by ill health.  They have two children & still live with me.  My younger daughter well.  Colo. Innis is well, & a true republican still as are all those before named.  Colo. Monroe is our M. P. at Paris a most worthy patriot & honest man.  These are the persons you inquire after.  I begin to feel the effects of age.  My health has suddenly broke down, with symptoms which give me to believe I shall not have much to encounter of the tedium vitae.  While it remains, however, my heart will be warm in it’s friendships, and among these, will always foster the affection with which I am, dear Sir, your friend and servant.