Letters of Thomas Jefferson

1804 - 1806

“Jesus, Louisiana, and Malthus”

DEAR SIR, -- Your favor of December 12 came duly to hand, as did the 2’d. letter to Doctor Linn, and the treatise of Phlogiston, for which I pray you to accept my thanks.  The copy for Mr. Livingston has been delivered, together with your letter to him, to Mr. Harvie, my secretary, who departs in a day or two for Paris, & will deliver them himself to Mr. Livingston, whose attention to your matter cannot be doubted.  I have also to add my thanks to Mr. Priestley, your son, for the copy of your Harmony, which I have gone through with great satisfaction.  It is the first I have been able to meet with, which is clear of those long repetitions of the same transaction, as if it were a different one because related with some different circumstances.

I rejoice that you have undertaken the task of comparing the moral doctrines of Jesus with those of the ancient Philosophers.  You are so much in possession of the whole subject, that you will do it easier & better than any other person living.  I think you cannot avoid giving, as preliminary to the comparison, a digest of his moral doctrines, extracted in his own words from the Evangelists, and leaving out everything relative to his personal history and character.  It would be short and precious.  With a view to do this for my own satisfaction, I had sent to Philadelphia to get two testaments Greek of the same edition, & two English, with a design to cut out the morsels of morality, and paste them on the leaves of a book, in the manner you describe as having been pursued in forming your Harmony.  But I shall now get the thing done by better hands.

I very early saw that Louisiana was indeed a speck in our horizon which was to burst in a tornado; and the public are unapprized how near this catastrophe was.  Nothing but a frank & friendly development of causes & effects on our part, and good sense enough in Bonaparte to see that the train was unavoidable, and would change the face of the world, saved us from that storm.  I did not expect he would yield till a war took place between France and England, and my hope was to palliate and endure, if Messrs. Ross, Morris, &c. did not force a premature rupture, until that event.  I believed the event not very distant, but acknolege it came on sooner than I had expected.  Whether, however, the good sense of Bonaparte might not see the course predicted to be necessary & unavoidable, even before a war should be imminent, was a chance which we thought it our duty to try; but the immediate prospect of rupture brought the case to immediate decision.  The denoument has been happy; and I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievement to the mass of happiness which is to ensue.  Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part.  Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power.

Have you seen the new work of Malthus on population?  It is one of the ablest I have ever seen.  Altho’ his main object is to delineate the effects of redundancy of population, and to test the poor laws of England, & other palliations for that evil, several important questions in political economy, allied to his subject incidentally, are treated with a masterly hand.  It is a single 4’to. volume, and I have been only able to read a borrowed copy, the only one I have yet heard of.  Probably our friends in England will think of you, & give you an opportunity of reading it.  Accept my affectionate salutations, and assurances of great esteem & respect.

“Malthus and the New World”

DEAR SIR, -- I have to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter, and with it, of two very interesting volumes on Political Economy.  These found me engaged in giving the leisure moments I rarely find, to the perusal of Malthus’ work on population, a work of sound logic, in which some of the opinions of Adam Smith, as well as of the economists, are ably examined.  I was pleased, on turning to some chapters where you treat the same questions, to find his opinions corroborated by yours.  I shall proceed to the reading of your work with great pleasure.  In the meantime, the present conveyance, by a gentleman of my family going to Paris, is too safe to hazard a delay in making my acknowledgments for this mark of attention, and for having afforded to me a satisfaction, which the ordinary course of literary communications could not have given me for a considerable time.

The differences of circumstance between this and the old countries of Europe, furnish differences of fact whereon to reason, in questions of political economy, and will consequently produce sometimes a difference of result.  There, for instance, the quantity of food is fixed, or increasing in a slow and only arithmetical ratio, and the proportion is limited by the same ratio.  Supernumerary births consequently add only to your mortality.  Here the immense extent of uncultivated and fertile lands enables every one who will labor to marry young, and to raise a family of any size.  Our food, then, may increase geometrically with our laborers, and our births, however multiplied, become effective.  Again, there the best distribution of labor is supposed to be that which places the manufacturing hands alongside the agricultural; so that the one part shall feed both, and the other part furnish both with clothes and other comforts.  Would that be best here?  Egoism and first appearances say yes.  Or would it be better that all our laborers should be employed in agriculture?  In this case a double or treble portion of fertile lands would be brought into culture; a double or treble creation of food be produced, and its surplus go to nourish the now perishing births of Europe, who in return would manufacture and send us in exchange our clothes and other comforts.  Morality listens to this, and so invariably do the laws of nature create our duties and interests, that when they seem to be at variance, we ought to suspect some fallacy in our reasonings.  In solving this question, too, we should allow its just weight to the moral and physical preference of the agricultural, over the manufacturing, man.  My occupations permit me only to ask questions. They deny me the time, if I had the information, to answer them. Perhaps, as worthy the attention of the author of the Traite d’Economie Politique, I shall find them answered in that work.  If they are not, the reason will have been that you wrote for Europe; while I shall have asked them because I think for America.  Accept, Sir, my respectful salutations, and assurances of great consideration.

“Grief and Grievances”

DEAR MADAM -- The affectionate sentiments which you have had the goodness to express in your letter of May 20. towards my dear departed daughter, have awakened in me sensibilities natural to the occasion, and recalled your kindnesses to her which I shall ever remember with gratitude and friendship.  I can assure you with truth they had made an indelible impression on her mind, and that, to the last, on our meetings after long separations, whether I had heard lately of you, and how you did, were among the earliest of her enquiries.  In giving you this assurance I perform a sacred duty for her, and at the same time am thankful for the occasion furnished me of expressing my regret that circumstances should have arisen which have seemed to draw a line of separation between us.  The friendship with which you honoured me has ever been valued, and fully reciprocated; and altho’ events have been passing which might be trying to some minds, I never believed yours to be of that kind, nor felt that my own was.  Neither my estimate of your character, nor the esteem founded in that, have ever been lessened for a single moment, although doubts whether it would be acceptable may have forbidden manifestations of it.  Mr. Adams’s friendship and mine began at an earlier date.  It accompanied us thro’ long and important scenes.  The different conclusions we had drawn from our political reading and reflections were not permitted to lessen mutual esteem, each party being conscious they were the result of an honest conviction in the other.  Like differences of opinion existing among our fellow citizens attached them to the one or the other of us, and produced a rivalship in their minds which did not exist in ours.  We never stood in one another’s way: for if either had been withdrawn at any time, his favorers would not have gone over to the other, but would have sought for some one of homogeneous opinions.  This consideration was sufficient to keep down all jealousy between us, and to guard our friendship from any disturbance by sentiments of rivalship: and I can say with truth that one act of Mr. Adams’s life, and one only, ever gave me a moment’s personal displeasure.  I did consider his last appointments to office as personally unkind.  They were from among my most ardent political enemies, from whom no faithful cooperation could ever be expected, and laid me under the embarrasment of acting thro’ men whose views were to defeat mine; or to encounter the odium of putting others in their places.  It seemed but common justice to leave a successor free to act by instruments of his own choice.  If my respect for him did not permit me to ascribe the whole blame to the influence of others, it left something for friendship to forgive, and after brooding over it for some little time, and not always resisting the expression of it, I forgave it cordially, and returned to the same state of esteem and respect for him which had so long subsisted.  Having come into life a little later than Mr. Adams, his career has preceded mine, as mine is followed by some other, and it will probably be closed at the same distance after him which time originally placed between us.  I maintain for him, and shall carry into private life an uniform and high measure of respect and good will, and for yourself a sincere attachment.  I have thus, my dear Madam, opened myself to you without reserve, which I have long wished an opportunity of doing; and, without knowing how it will be recieved, I feel relief from being unbosomed.  And I have now only to entreat your forgiveness for this transition from a subject of domestic affliction to one which seems of a different aspect.  But tho connected with political events, it has been viewed by me most strongly in it’s unfortunate bearings on my private friendships.  The injury these have sustained has been a heavy price for what has never given me equal pleasure.  That you may both be favored with health, tranquility and long life, is the prayer of one who tenders you the assurances of his highest consideration and esteem.

“Freedom of the Press”

DEAR SIR, -- Your favor of the 10th instant has been duly received.  Amidst the direct falsehoods, the misrepresentations of truth, the calumnies and the insults resorted to by a faction to mislead the public mind, and to overwhelm those entrusted with its interests, our support is to be found in the approving voice of our conscience and country, in the testimony of our fellow citizens, that their confidence is not shaken by these artifices.  When to the plaudits of the honest multitude, the sober approbation of the sage in his closet is added, it becomes a gratification of an higher order.  It is the sanction of wisdom superadded to the voice of affection.  The terms, therefore, in which you are so good as to express your satisfaction with the course of the present administration cannot but give me great pleasure.  I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many.  No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth.  Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth.The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press.  It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.  The firmness with which the people have withstood the late abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false, and to form a correct judgment between them.  As little is it necessary to impose on their senses, or dazzle their minds by pomp, splendor, or forms.  Instead of this artificial, how much surer is that real respect, which results from the use of their reason, and the habit of bringing everything to the test of common sense.

I hold it, therefore, certain, that to open the doors of truth, and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason, are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent.  The panic into which they were artfully thrown in 1798, the frenzy which was excited in them by their enemies against their apparent readiness to abandon all the principles established for their own protection, seemed for awhile to countenance the opinions of those who say they cannot be trusted with their own government.  But I never doubted their rallying; and they did rally much sooner than I expected.  On the whole, that experiment on their credulity has confirmed my confidence in their ultimate good sense and virtue.

I lament to learn that a like misfortune has enabled you to estimate the afflictions of a father on the loss of a beloved child.  However terrible the possibility of such another accident, it is still a blessing for you of inestimable value that you would not even then descend childless to the grave.  Three sons, and hopeful ones too, are a rich treasure.  I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive, and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self-government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.

The complement of midshipmen for the Tripoline squadron, is full; and I hope the frigates have left the Capes by this time.  I have, however, this day, signed warrants of midshipmen for the two young gentlemen you recommended.  These will be forwarded by the Secretary of the Navy.  He tells me that their first services will be to be performed on board the gun boats.

Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great esteem and respect.

“The Office of Hangman”

SIR, -- Your letter of the 10th came to hand yesterday evening.  It was written with frankness and independance and will be answered in the same way.  You complain that I did not answer your letters applying for office.  But if you will reflect a moment you may judge whether this ought to be expected.  To the successful applicant for an office the commission is the answer.  To the unsuccessful multitude am I to go with every one into the reasons for not appointing him?  Besides that this correspondence would literally engross my whole time, into what controversies would it lead me. Sensible of this dilemma, from the moment of coming into office I laid it down as a rule to leave the applicants to collect their answer from the facts.  To entitle myself to the benefit of the rule in any case it must be observed in every one: and I never have departed from it in a single case, not even for my bosom friends.  You observe that you are, or probably will be appointed an elector.  I have no doubt you will do your duty with a conscientious regard to the public good & to that only.  Your decision in favor of another would not excite in my mind the slightest dissatisfaction towards you.  On the contrary I should honor the integrity of your choice.  In the nominations I have to make, do the same justice to my motives.  Had you hundreds to nominate, instead of one, be assured they would not compose for you a bed of roses.  You would find yourself in most cases with one loaf and ten wanting bread.  Nine must be disappointed, perhaps become secret, if not open enemies.  The transaction of the great interests of our country costs us little trouble or difficulty.  There the line is plain to men of some experience.  But the task of appointment is a heavy one indeed.  He on whom it falls may envy the lot of a Sisyphus or Ixion.  Their agonies were of the body: this of the mind.  Yet, like the office of hangman it must be executed by some one.  It has been assigned to me and made my duty.  I make up my mind to it therefore, & abandon all regard to consequences.  Accept my salutations & assurances of respect.

“Blueprint of the University”

DEAR SIR, -- Your favor of December 24 never came to my hands till last night.  It’s importance induces me to hasten the answer.  No one can be more rejoiced at the information that the legislature of Virginia are likely at length to institute an University on a liberal plan.  Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, & that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.  This requires two grades of education.  First some institution where science in all it’s branches is taught, and in the highest degree to which the human mind has carried it.  This would prepare a few subjects in every State, to whom nature has given minds of the first order.  Secondly such a degree of learning given to every member of the society as will enable him to read, to judge & to vote understandingly on what is passing.  This would be the object of the township schools.  I understand from your letter that the first of these only is under present contemplation.  Let us receive with contentment what the legislature is now ready to give.  The other branch will be incorporated into the system at some more favorable moment.

The first step in this business will be for the legislature to pass an act of establishment equivalent to a charter.  This should deal in generals only.  It’s provisions should go 1.  to the object of the institution.  2.  it’s location.  3.  it’s endowment.  4.  it’s Direction.  On each of these heads I will hazard a first thought or two.  1.  It’s object should be defined only generally for teaching the useful branches of science, leaving the particulars to the direction of the day.  Science is progressive.  What was useful two centuries ago is now become useless, e.g. one half the professorships of Wm & Mary.  What is now deemed useful will in some of it’s parts become useless in another century.  The visitors will be the best qualified to keep their institution up in even pace with the science of the times.  Every one knows that Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, etc. are now a century or two behind the science of the age.  2.  The location.  The legislature is the proper judges of a general position, within certain limits, as for instance the county in which it shall be.  To fix on the spot identically they would not be so competent as persons particularly appointed to examine the grounds.  This small degree of liberty in location would place the landholders in the power of the purchasers: to fix the spot would place the purchaser in the power of the landholder.  3.  It’s endowment.  Bank stock, or public stock of any kind should be immediately converted into real estate.  In the form of stock it is a dead fund, it’s depreciation being equal to it’s interest.  Every one must see that money put into our funds when first established (in 1791) with all its interest from that day would not buy more now than the principal would then have done.  Mr. Pitt states to parliament that the expenses of living in England have, in the last 20 years, increased 50. percent: that is that money has depreciated that much.  Even the precious metals depreciate slowly so that in perpetual institutions, as colleges, that ought to be guarded against.  But in countries admitting paper, the abusive emissions of that produces two, three or four courses of depreciation & annihilation in a century.  Lands will keep advancing nominally so as to keep even really.  Canal shares are as good as lands, perhaps better: but the whole funds should not be risked in any one form.  They should be vested in the visitors, without any power given them to lessen their capital, or even to change what is real.  4.  The Direction.  This would of course be in the hands of Visitors.  The legislature would name the first set, & lay down the laws of their succession.  On death or resignation the legislature or the Chancellor might name three persons of whom the visitors should chuse one.  The visitors should be few.  If many, those half qualified would by their numbers bring every thing down to the level of their own capacities, by out-voting the few of real science.  I doubt if they should exceed five.  For this is an office for which good sense alone does not qualify a man.  To analyse science into it’s different branches, to distribute these into professorships, to superintend the course practiced by each professor, he must know what these sciences are and possess their outlines at least.  Can any state in the union furnish more than 5. men so qualified as to the whole field of the sciences.  The Visitors should receive no pay.  Such qualifications are properly rewarded by honor, not by money.

The charter being granted & the Visitors named, these become then the agents as to every thing else.  Their first objects will be 1.  the special location.  2.  the institution of professorships.  3.  the employment of their capital.  4.  the necessary buildings.  A word on each.  1.  Special location needs no explanation.  2.  Professorships.  They would have to select all the branches of science deemed useful at this day, & in this country: to groupe as many of these together as could be taught by one professor and thus reduce the number of professors to the minimum consistent with the essential object.  Having for some years entertained the hope that our country would some day establish an institution on a liberal scale, I have been taking measures to have in readiness such materials as would require time to collect.  I have from Dr. Priestley a designation of the branches of science grouped into professorships which he furnished at my request.  He was an excellent judge of what may be called the old studies, of those useful and those useless.  I have the same thing from Mr. Dupont, a good judge of the new branches.  His letter to me is quite a treatise.  I have the plan of the institutions of Edinburgh, & those of the National institute of France; and I expect from Mr. Pictet, one of the most celebrated professors of Geneva, their plan, in answer to a letter written some time ago.  From these the Visitors could select the branches useful for the country & how to groupe them.  A hasty view of the subject on a former occasion led me to believe 10. professorships would be necessary, but not all immediately.  Half a dozen of the most urgent would make a good beginning.  The salaries of the first professors should be very liberal, that we might draw the first names of Europe to our institution in order to give it a celebrity in the outset, which will draw to it the youth of all the states, and make Virginia their cherished & beloved Alma mater.  I have good reasons to believe we can command the services of some of the first men of Europe.  3.  The emploiment of their capital.  On this subject others are so much better judges than myself that I shall say nothing.  4.  Buildings.  The greatest danger will be their over-building themselves, by attempting a large house in the beginning, sufficient to contain the whole institution.  Large houses are always ugly, inconvenient, exposed to the accident of fire, and bad in cases of infection.  A plain small house for the school & lodging of each professor is best.  These connected by covered ways out of which the rooms of the students should open would be best.  These may then be built only as they shall be wanting.  In fact an University should not be an house but a village.  This will much lessen their first expenses.

Not having written any three lines of this without interruption it has been impossible to keep my ideas rallied to the subject.  I must let these hasty outlines go therefore as they are.  Some are premature, some probably immature: but make what use you please of them except letting them get into print.  Should this establishment take place on a plan worthy of approbation, I shall have a valuable legacy to leave it, to wit, my library, which certainly has not cost less than 15,000 Dollars.  But it’s value is more in the selection, a part of which, that which respects America, is the result of my own personal searches in Paris for 6. or 7. years, & of persons employed by me in England, Holland, Germany and Spain to make similar searches.  Such a collection on that subject can never again be made.  With my sincere wishes for the success of this measure accept my salutations & assurances of great esteem & respect.

“The Two-Term Precedent”

DEAR SIR, -- Your favor of Dec. 26th has been duly received, and was received as a proof of your friendly partialities to me, of which I have so often had reason to be sensible.  My opinion originally was that the President of the U.S. should have been elected for 7. years, & forever ineligible afterwards.  I have since become sensible that 7. years is too long to be irremovable, and that there should be a peaceable way of withdrawing a man in midway who is doing wrong.  The service for 8. years with a power to remove at the end of the first four, comes nearly to my principle as corrected by experience.  And it is in adherence to that that I determined to withdraw at the end of my second term.  The danger is that the indulgence & attachments of the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes a dotard, that reelection through life shall become habitual, & election for life follow that.  Genl. Washington set the example of voluntary retirement after 8. years.  I shall follow it, and a few more precedents will oppose the obstacle of habit to anyone after a while who shall endeavor to extend his term.  Perhaps it may beget a disposition to establish it by an amendment of the constitution.  I believe I am doing right, therefore, in pursuing my principle.  I had determined to declare my intention, but I have consented to be silent on the opinion of friends, who think it best not to put a continuance out of my power in defiance of all circumstances.  There is, however, but one circumstance which could engage my acquiescence in another election, to wit, such a division about a successor as might bring in a Monarchist.  But this circumstance is impossible. While, therefore, I shall make no formal declarations to the public of my purpose, I have freely let it be understood in private conversation.  In this I am persuaded yourself & my friends generally will approve of my views: and should I at the end of a 2d term carry into retirement all the favor which the 1st has acquired, I shall feel the consolation of having done all the goodin my power, and expect with more than composure thetermination of a life no longer valuable to others or of im-portance to myself.  Accept my affectionate salutations & assurances of great esteem & respect.

“Climate, Fevers, and the Polygraph”

DEAR SIR, -- Your letter of November the 26th came to hand May the 14th; the books some time after, which were all distributed according to direction.  The copy for the East Indies went immediately by a safe conveyance.  The letter of April the 28th, and the copy of your work accompanying that, did not come to hand till August.  That copy was deposited in the Congressional library.  It was not till my return here from my autumnal visit to Monticello, that I had an opportunity of reading your work.  I have read it, and with great satisfaction.  Of the first part I am less a judge than most people, having never travelled westward of Staunton, so as to know any thing of the face of the country; nor much indulged myself in geological inquiries, from a belief that the skin-deep scratches which we can make or find on the surface of the earth, do not repay our time with as certain and useful deductions, as our pursuits in some other branches.  The subject of our winds is more familiar to me.  On that, the views you have taken are always great, supported in their outlines by your facts; and though more extensive observations, and longer continued, may produce some anomalies, yet they will probably take their place in this first great canvass which you have sketched.  In no case, perhaps, does habit attach our choice or judgment more than in climate.  The Canadian glows with delight in his sleigh and snow, the very idea of which gives me the shivers.  The comparison of climate between Europe and North America, taking together its corresponding parts, hangs chiefly on three great points.  1.  The changes between heat and cold in America, are greater and more frequent, and the extremes comprehend a greater scale on the thermometer in America than in Europe.  Habit, however, prevents these from affecting us more than the smaller changes of Europe affect the European.  But he is greatly affected by ours.  2.  Our sky is always clear; that of Europe always cloudy.  Hence a greater accumulation of heat here than there, in the same parallel.  3.  The changes between wet and dry are much more frequent and sudden in Europe than in America.  Though we have double the rain, it falls in half the time.  Taking all these together, I prefer much the climate of the United States to that of Europe.  I think it a more cheerful one.  It is our cloudless sky which has eradicated from our constitutions all disposition to hang ourselves, which we might otherwise have inherited from our English ancestors.  During a residence of between six and seven years in Paris, I never, but once, saw the sun shine through a whole day, without being obscured by a cloud in any part of it: and I never saw the moment, in which, viewing the sky through its whole hemisphere, I could say there was not the smallest speck of a cloud in it.  I arrived at Monticello, on my return from France, in January, and during only two months’ stay there, I observed to my daughters, who had been with me to France, that twenty odd times within that term, there was not a speck of a cloud in the whole hemisphere.  Still I do not wonder that an European should prefer his grey to our azure sky.  Habit decides our taste in this, as in most other cases.

The account you give of the yellow fever, is entirely agreeable to what we then knew of it.  Further experience has developed more and more its peculiar character.  Facts appear to have established that it is originated here by a local atmosphere, which is never generated but in the lower, closer, and dirtier parts of our large cities, in the neighborhood of the water; and that, to catch the disease, you must enter the local atmosphere.  Persons having taken the disease in the infected quarter, and going into the country, are nursed and buried by their friends, without an example of communicating it.  A vessel going from the infected quarter, and carrying its atmosphere in its hold into another State, has given the disease to every person who there entered her.  These have died in the arms of their families without a single communication of the disease.  It is certainly, therefore, an epidemic, not a contagious disease; and calls on the chemists for some mode of purifying the vessel by a decomposition of its atmosphere, if ventilation be found insufficient.  In the long scale of bilious fevers, graduated by many shades, this is probably the last and most mortal term.  It seizes the native of the place equally with strangers.  It has not been long known in any part of the United States.  The shade next above it, called the stranger’s fever, has been coeval with the settlement of the larger cities in the southern parts, to wit, Norfolk, Charleston, New Orleans.  Strangers going to these places in the months of July, August or September, find this fever as mortal as the genuine yellow fever.  But it rarely attacks those who have resided in them some time.  Since we have known that kind of yellow fever which is no respecter of persons, its name has been extended to the stranger’s fever, and every species of bilious fever which produces a black vomit, that is to say, a discharge of very dark bile.  Hence we hear of yellow fever on the Alleganey mountains, in Kentucky, &c.  This is a matter of definition only: but it leads into error those who do not know how loosely and how interestedly some physicians think and speak.  So far as we have yet seen, I think we are correct insaying, that the yellow fever which seizes on all indiscriminately, is an ultimate degree of bilious fever never known in the United States till lately, nor farther south, as yet, than Alexandria, and that what they have recently called the yellow fever in New Orleans, Charleston and Norfolk, is what has always been known in those places as confined chiefly to strangers, and nearly as mortal to them, as the other is to all its subjects.  But both grades are local: the stranger’s fever less so, as it sometimes extends a little into the neighborhood; but the yellow fever rigorously so, confined within narrow and well defined limits, and not communicable out of those limits.  Such a constitution of atmosphere being requisite to originate this disease as is generated only in low, close, and ill-cleansed parts of a town, I have supposed it practicable to prevent its generation by building our cities on a more open plan.  Take, for instance, the chequer board for a plan.  Let the black squares only be building squares, and the white ones be left open, in turf and trees.  Every square of houses will be surrounded by four open squares, and every house will front an open square.  The atmosphere of such a town would be like that of the country, insusceptible of the miasmata which produce yellow fever.  I have accordingly proposed that the enlargements of the city of New Orleans, which must immediately take place, shall be on this plan.  But it is only in case of enlargements to be made, or of cities to be built, that this means of prevention can be employed.

The genus irritabile vatum could not let the author of the Ruins publish a new work, without seeking in it the means of discrediting that puzzling composition.  Some one of those holy calumniators has selected from your new work every scrap of a sentence, which, detached from its context, could displease an American reader.  A cento has been made of these, which has run through a particular description of newspapers, and excited a disapprobation even in friendly minds, which nothing but the reading of the book will cure.  But time and truth will at length correct error.

Our countrymen are so much occupied in the busy scenes of life, that they have little time to write or invent.  A good invention here, therefore, is such a rarity as it is lawful to offer to the acceptance of a friend.  A Mr. Hawkins of Frankford, near Philadelphia, has invented a machine which he calls a polygraph, and which carries two, three, or four pens.  That of two pens, with which I am now writing, is best; and is so perfect that I have laid aside the copying-press, for a twelve month past, and write always with the polygraph.  I have directed one to be made, of which I ask your acceptance.  By what conveyance I shall send it while Havre is blockaded, I do not yet know.  I think you will be pleased with it, and will use it habitually as I do; because it requires only that degree of mechanical attention which I know you to possess.  I am glad to hear that M. Cabanis is engaged in writing on the reformation of medicine.  It needs the hand of a reformer, and cannot be in better hands than his.  Will you permit my respects to him and the Abbe de la Roche to find a place here.

A word now on our political state.  The two parties which prevailed with so much violence when you were here, are almost wholly melted into one.  At the late Presidential election I have received one hundred and sixty-two votes against fourteen only.  Connecticut is still federal by a small majority; and Delaware on a poise, as she has been since 1775, and will be till Anglomany with her yields to Americanism.  Connecticut will be with us in a short time.  Though the people in mass have joined us, their leaders had committed themselves too far to retract.  Pride keeps them hostile; they brood over their angry passions, and give them vent in the newspapers which they maintain.  They still make as much noise as if they were the whole nation.  Unfortunately, these being the mercantile papers, published chiefly in the sea ports, are the only ones which find their way to Europe, and make very false impressions there.  I am happy to hear that the late derangement of your health is going off,and that you are re-established.  I sincerely pray for the continuance of that blessing, and with my affectionate salutations, tender you assurances of great respect and attachment.

P. S. The sheets which you receive are those of the copying pen of the polygraph, not of the one with which I have written.

“News of Captain Lewis”

DEAR SIR, -- Since mine of Feb. 18 of the last year, I have received yours of July 2.  I have been constantly looking out for an opportunity of sending your Polygraph; but the blockade of Havre has cut off that resource, and I have feared to send it to a port from which there would be only land carriage.  A safe conveyance now offering to Nantes, & under the particular care of Mr. Skipwith, who is returning to France, he will take care of it from Nantes by land if an easy carriage is found, or if not, then by the canal of Briare. Another year’s constant use of a similar one attaches me more and more to it as a most valuable convenience.  I send you also a pamphlet published here against the English doctrine which denies to neutrals a trade in war not open to them in peace in which you will find it pulverized by a logic not to be controverted.

Our last news of Captn Lewis was that he had reached the upper part of the Missouri, & had taken horses to cross the Highlands to the Columbia river.  He passed the last winter among the Manians 1610 miles above the mouth of the river.  So far he had delineated it with as great accuracy as will probably be ever applied to it, as his courses & distances by mensuration were corrected by almost daily observations of latitude and longitude.  With his map he sent us specimens or information of the following animals not before known to the northern continent of America.  1.  The horns of what is perhaps a species of Ovis Ammon.  2.  A new variety of the deer having a black tail.  3.  An antelope.  4.  The badger, not before known out of Europe.  5.  A new species of marmotte.  6.  A white weasel.  7.  The magpie.  8.  The Prairie hen, said to resemble the Guinea hen (peintade). 9.  A prickly lizard.  To these are added a considerable collection of minerals, not yet analyzed.  He wintered in Lat. 47 degrees 20’ and found the maximum of cold 43 degrees below the zero of Fahrenheit.  We expect he has reached the Pacific, and is now wintering on the head of the Missouri, and will be here next autumn.  Having been disappointed in our view of sending an exploring party up the Red river the last year, they were sent up the Washita, as far as the hot springs, under the direction of Mr. Dunbar.  He found the temperature of the springs 150 degrees of Fahrenheit & the water perfectly potable when cooled.  We obtain also the geography of that river, so far with perfect accuracy.  Our party is just at this time setting out from Natchez to ascend the Red river.  These expeditions are so laborious, & hazardous, that men of science, used to the temperature & inactivity of their closet, cannot be induced to undertake them.  They are headed therefore by persons qualified expressly to give us the geography of the rivers with perfect accuracy, and of good common knolege and observation in the animal, vegetable & mineral departments.  When the route shall be once open and known, scientific men will undertake, & verify & class it’s subjects.  Our emigration to the western country from these states the last year is estimated at about 100,000.  I conjecture that about one-half the number of our increase will emigrate westwardly annually.  A newspaper paragraph tells me, with some details, that the society of agriculture of Paris had thought a mould-board of my construction worthy their notice & Mr. Dupont confirms it in a letter, but not specifying anything particular.  I send him a model with an advantageous change in the form, in which however the principle is rigorously the same.  I mention this to you lest he should have left France for America, and I notice it no otherwise lest there should have been any error in the information.  Present my respectful salutations to Doctr. Cabanis & accept them yourself with assurances of my constant friendship & attachment.

“A National Academy”

I return you the draft of the bill for the establishment of a National Academy & University at the city of Washington, with such alterations as we talked over the last night.  They are chiefly verbal.  I have often wished we could have a Philosophical society or academy so organized as that while the central academy should be at the seat of government, it’s members dispersed over the states, should constitute filiated academies in each state, publish their communications, from which the central academy should select unpublished what should be most choice.  In this way all the members wheresoever dispersed might be brought into action, and an useful emulation might arise between the filiated societies.  Perhaps the great societies now existing might incorporate themselves in this way with the National one.  But time does not allow me to pursue this idea, nor perhaps had we time at all to get it into the present bill.  I procured an Agricultural society to be established (voluntarily) on this plan, but it has done nothing.  Friendly salutations.

“Courting Alexander”

I owe an acknowledgment to your Imperial Majesty for the great satisfaction I have received from your letter of Aug. 20, 1805, and embrace the opportunity it affords of giving expression to the sincere respect and veneration I entertain for your character.  It will be among the latest and most soothing comforts of my life, to have seen advanced to the government of so extensive a portion of the earth, and at so early a period of his life, a sovereign whose ruling passion is the advancement of the happiness and prosperity of his people; and not of his own people only, but who can extend his eye and his good will to a distant and infant nation, unoffending in its course, unambitious in its views.

The events of Europe come to us so late, and so suspiciously, that observations on them would certainly be stale, and possibly wide of their actual state.  From their general aspect, however, I collect that your Majesty’s interposition in them has been disinterested and generous, and having in view only the general good of the great European family.  When you shall proceed to the pacification which is to re-establish peace and commerce, the same dispositions of mind will lead you to think of the general intercourse of nations, and to make that provision for its future maintenance which, in times past, it has so much needed.  The northern nations of Europe, at the head of which your Majesty is distinguished, are habitually peaceable.  The United States of America, like them, are attached to peace.  We have then with them a common interest in the neutral rights.  Every nation indeed, on the continent of Europe, belligerent as well as neutral, is interested in maintaining these rights, in liberalizing them progressively with the progress of science and refinement of morality, and in relieving them from restrictions which the extension of the arts has long since rendered unreasonable and vexatious.

Two personages in Europe, of which your Majesty is one, have it in their power, at the approaching pacification, to render eminent service to nations in general, by incorporating into the act of pacification, a correct definition of the rights of neutrals on the high seas.  Such a definition, declared by all the powers lately or still belligerent, would give to those rights a precision and notoriety, and cover them with an authority, which would protect them in an important degree against future violation; and should any further sanction be necessary, that of an exclusion of the violating nation from commercial intercourse with all the others, would be preferred to war, as more analogous to the offence, more easy and likely to be executed with good faith.  The essential articles of these rights, too, are so few and simple as easily to be defined.

Having taken no part in the past or existing troubles of Europe, we have no part to act in its pacification.  But as principles may then be settled in which we have a deep interest, it is a great happiness for us that they are placed under the protection of an umpire, who, looking beyond the narrow bounds of an individual nation, will take under the cover of his equity the rights of the absent and unrepresented.  It is only by a happy concurrence of good characters and good occasions, that a step can now and then be taken to advance the well-being of nations.  If the present occasion be good, I am sure your Majesty’s character will not be wanting to avail the world of it.  By monuments of such good offices, may your life become an epoch in the history of the condition of man; and may He who called it into being, for the good of the human family, give it length of days and success, and have it always in His holy keeping.

“A Tribute of Gratitude”

SIR, -- I have received a copy of the evidence at large respecting the discovery of the vaccine inoculation which you have been pleased to send me, and for which I return you my thanks.  Having been among the early converts, in this part of the globe, to its efficiency, I took an early part in recommending it to my countrymen.  I avail myself of this occasion of rendering you a portion of the tribute of gratitude due to you from the whole human family.  Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility.  Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood was a beautiful addition to our knowledge of the animal economy, but on a review of the practice of medicine before and since that epoch, I do not see any great amelioration which has been derived from that discovery.  You have erased from the calendar of human afflictions one of its greatest.  Yours is the comfortable reflection that mankind can never forget that you have lived.  Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome small-pox has existed and by you has been extirpated.

Accept my fervent wishes for your health and happiness and assurances of the greatest respect and consideration.

“Schism and the Majority Leadership”

SIR, -- Your favor of June the 21st has been duly received.  We have not as yet heard from General Skinner on the subject of his office.  Three persons are proposed on the most respectable recommendations, and under circumstances of such equality as renders it difficult to decide between them.  But it shall be done impartially.  I sincerely congratulate you on the triumph of republicanism in Massachusetts.  The Hydra of federalism has now lost all its heads but two.  Connecticut I think will soon follow Massachusetts.  Delaware will probably remain what it ever has been, a mere county of England, conquered indeed, and held under by force, but always disposed to counter-revolution.  I speak of its majority only.

Our information from London continues to give us hopes of an accommodation there on both the points of ‘accustomed commerce and impressment.’  In this there must probably be some mutual concession, because we cannot expect to obtain every thing and yield nothing. But I hope it will be such an one as may be accepted.  The arrival of the Hornet in France is so recently known, that it will yet be some time before we learn our prospects there.  Notwithstanding the efforts made here, and made professedly to assassinate that negotiation in embryo, if the good sense of Buonaparte should prevail over his temper, the present state of things in Europe may induce him to require of Spain that she should do us justice at least.  That he should require her to sell us East Florida, we have no right to insist: yet there are not wanting considerations which may induce him to wish a permanent foundation for peace laid between us.  In this treaty, whatever it shall be, our old enemies the federalists, and their new friends, will find enough to carp at.  This is a thing of course, and I should suspect error where they found no fault.  The buzzard feeds on carrion only.  Their rallying point is ‘war with France and Spain, and alliance with Great Britain:’ and every thing is wrong with them which checks their new ardor to be fighting for the liberties of mankind; on the sea always excepted.  There one nation is to monopolise all the liberties of the others.

I read, with extreme regret, the expressions of an inclination on your part to retire from Congress.  I will not say that this time, more than all others, calls for the service of every man; but I will say, there never was a time when the services of those who possess talents, integrity, firmness and sound judgment, were more wanted in Congress.  Some one of that description is particularly wanted to take the lead in the House of Representatives, to consider the business of the nation as his own business, to take it up as if he were singly charged with it, and carry it through.  I do not mean that any gentleman, relinquishing his own judgment, should implicitly support all the measures of the administration; but that,where he does not disapprove of them, he should not suffer them to go off in sleep, but bring them to the attention of the House, and give them a fair chance.  Where he disapproves, he will of course leave them to be brought forward by those who concur in the sentiment.  Shall I explain my idea by an example?  The classification of the militia was communicated to General Varnum and yourself merely as a proposition, which, if you approved, it was trusted you would support.  I knew, indeed, that General Varnum was opposed to any thing which might break up the present organization of the militia: but when so modified as to avoid this, I thought he might, perhaps, be reconciled to it.  As soon as I found it did not coincide with your sentiments, I could not wish you to support it; but using the same freedom of opinion, I procured it to be brought forward elsewhere.  It failed there also, and for a time perhaps, may not prevail: but a militia can never be used for distant service on any other plan; and Buonaparte will conquer the world, if they do not learn his secret of composing armies of young men only, whose enthusiasm and health enable them to surmount all obstacles.  When a gentleman, through zeal for the public service, undertakes to do the public business, we know that we shall hear the cant of backstairs counsellors.  But we never heard this while the declaimer was himself a backstairs man, as he calls it, but in the confidence and views of the administration, as may more properly and respectfully be said.  But if the members are to know nothing but what is important enough to be put into a public message, and indifferent enough to be made known to all the world; if the executive is to keep all other information to himself, and the House to plunge on in the dark, it becomes a government of chance and not of design.  The imputation was one of those artifices used to despoil an adversary of his most effectual arms; and men of mind will place themselves above a gabble of this order.  The last session of Congress was indeed an uneasy one for a time: but as soon as the members penetrated into the views of those who were taking a new course, they rallied in as solid a phalanx as I have ever seen act together.  Indeed I have never seen a House of better dispositions.  They want only a man of business & in whom they can confide to conduct things in the house; and they are as much disposed to support him as can be wished.  It is only speaking a truth to say that all eyes look to you.  It was not perhaps expected from a new member, at his first session, & before the forms & style of doing business were familiar.  But it would be a subject of deep regret were you to refuse yourself to the conspicuous part in the business of the house which all assign you.  Perhaps I am not entitled to speak with so much frankness; but it proceeds from no motive which has not a right to your forgiveness.  Opportunities of candid explanation are so seldom afforded me, that I must not lose them when they occur.

The information I receive from your quarter agrees with that from the south; that the late schism has made not the smallest impression on the public, and that the seceders are obliged to give to it other grounds than those which we know to be the true ones.  All we have to wish is, that at the ensuing session, every one may take the part openly which he secretly befriends.  I recollect nothing new and true, worthy communicating to you.  As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers.  Among other things, are those perpetual alarms as to the Indians, for no one ofwhich has there ever been the slightest ground.  They are the suggestions of hostile traders, always wishing to embroil us with the Indians, to perpetuate their own extortionate commerce.  I salute you with esteem and respect.

“Gardens for Monticello”

Your favor of the 7’th came duly to hand and the plant you are so good as to propose to send me will be thankfully rec’d.  The little Mimosa Julibrisin you were so kind as to send me the last year is flourishing.  I obtained from a gardener in this nbh’d [neighborhood] 2 plants of the paper mulberry; but the parent plant being male, we are to expect no fruit from them,unless your [trees] should chance to be of the sex wanted.  At a future day, say two years hence I shall ask from you some seeds of the Mimosa Farnesiana or Nilotica, of which you were kind enough before to furnish me some.  But the plants have been lost during my absence from home.  I remember seeing in your greenhouse a plant of a couple of feet height in a pot the fragrance of which (from it’s gummy bud if I recollect rightly) was peculiarly agreeable to me and you were so kind as to remark that it required only a greenhouse, and that you would furnish me one when I should be in a situation to preserve it.  But it’s name has entirely escaped me & I cannot suppose you can recollect or conjecture in your vast collection what particular plant this might be.  I must acquiese therefore in a privation which my own defect of memory has produced, unless indeed I could some of these days make an impromptu visit to Phila. & recognise it myself at the Woodlands.

Having decisively made up my mind for retirement at the end of my present term, my views and attentions are all turned homewards.  I have hitherto been engaged in my buildings which will be finished in the course of the present year.  The improvement of my grounds has been reserved formy occupation on my return home.  For this reason it is that I have put off to the fall of the year after next the collection of such curious trees as will bear our winters in the open air.

The grounds which I destine to improve in the style of the English gardens are in a form very difficult to be managed.  They compose the northern quadrant of a mountain for about 2/3 of its height & then spread for the upper third over its whole crown.  They contain about three hundred acres, washed at the foot for about a mile, by a river of the size of the Schuylkill.  The hill is generally too steep for direct ascent, but we make level walks successively along it’s side, which in it’s upper part encircle the hill & intersect these again by others of easy ascent in various parts.  They are chiefly still in their native woods, which are majestic, and very generally a close undergrowth, which I have not suffered to be touched, knowing how much easier it is to cut away than to fill up.  The upper third is chiefly open, but to the South is covered with a dense thicket of Scotch broom (Spartium scoparium Lin.) which being favorably spread before the sun will admit of advantageous arrangement for winter enjoyment.  You are sensible that this disposition of the ground takes from me the first beauty in gardening, the variety of hill & dale, & leaves me as an awkward substitute a few hanging hollows & ridges, this subject is so unique and at the same time refractory, that to make a disposition analogous to its character would require much more of the genius of the landscape painter & gardener than I pretend to.  I had once hoped to get Parkins to go and give me some outlines, but I was disappointed.  Certainly I could never wish your health to be such as to render travelling necessary; but should a journey at any time promise improvement to it, there is no one on which you would be received with more pleasure than at Monticello.  Should I be there you will have an opportunity of indulging on a new field some of the taste which has made the Woodlands the only rival which I have known in America to what may be seen in England.

Thither without doubt we are to go for models in this art.  Their sunless climate has permitted them to adopt what is certainly a beauty of the very first order in landscape.  Their canvas is of open ground, variegated with clumps of trees distributed with taste.  They need no more of wood than will serve to embrace a lawn or a glade.  But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium.  In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.  This organ must yield it’s gratification to that of the other senses; without the hope of any equivalent to the beauty relinquished.  The only substitute I have been able to imagine is this.  Let your ground be covered with trees of the loftiest stature.  Trim up their bodies as high as the constitution & form of the tree will bear, but so as that their tops shall still unite & yeild dense shade.  A wood, so open below, will have nearly the appearance of open grounds.  Then, when in the open ground you would plant a clump of trees, place a thicket of shrubs presenting a hemisphere the crown of which shall distinctly show itself under the branches of the trees.  This may be effected by a due selection & arrangement of the shrubs, & will I think offer a group not much inferior to that of trees.  The thickets may be varied too by making some of them of evergreens altogether, our red cedar made to grow in a bush, evergreen privet, pyrocanthus, Kalmia, Scotch broom.  Holly would be elegant but it does not grow in my part of the country.

Of prospect I have a rich profusion and offering itself at every point of the compass.  Mountains distant & near, smooth & shaggy, single & in ridges, a little river hiding itself among the hills so as to shew in lagoons only, cultivated grounds under the eye and two small villages.  To prevent a satiety of this is the principal difficulty.  It may be successively offered, & in different portions through vistas, or which will be better, between thickets so disposed as to serve as vistas, with the advantage of shifting the scenes as you advance on your way.

You will be sensible by this time of the truth of my information that my views are turned so steadfastly homeward that the subject runs away with me whenever I get on it.  I sat down to thank you for kindnesses received, & to bespeak permission to ask further contributions from your collection & I have written you a treatise on gardening generally, in which art lessons would come with more justice from you to me.