Letters of Thomas Jefferson

1807

“Discontents in the West”

MY DEAR AND ANCIENT FRIEND, -- I have duly received your favor of the 1st inst., and am ever thankful for communications which may guide me in the duties which I wish to perform as well as I am able.  It is but too true that great discontents exist in the territory of Orleans.  Those of the French inhabitants have for their sources, 1, the prohibition of importing slaves.  This may be partly removed by Congress permitting them to receive slaves from the other States, which, by dividing that evil, would lessen its danger; 2, the administration of justice in our forms, principles, & language, with all of which they are unacquainted, & are the more abhorrent, because of the enormous expense, greatly exaggerated by the corruption of bankrupt & greedy lawyers, who have gone there from the Ud S. & engrossed the practice; 3, the call on them by the land commissioners to produce the titles of their lands.  The object of this is really to record & secure their rights.  But as many of them hold on rights so ancient that the title papers are lost, they expect the land is to be taken from them wherever they cannot produce a regular deduction of title in writing.  In this they will be undeceived by the final result, which will evince to them a liberal disposition of the government towards them.  Among the American inhabitants it is the old division of federalists & republicans.  The former are as hostile there as they are everywhere, & are the most numerous & wealthy.  They have been long endeavoring to batter down the Governor, who has always been a firm republican.  There were characters superior to him whom I wished to appoint, but they refused the office: I know no better man who would accept of it, and it would not be right to turn him out for one not better.  But it is the 2d. cause, above mentioned, which is deep-seated & permanent.  The French members of the Legislature, being the majority in both Houses, lately passed an act declaring that the civil, or French laws, should be the laws of their land, and enumerated about 50 folio volumes, in Latin, as the depositories of these laws.  The Governor negatived the act.  One of the houses thereupon passed a vote for self-dissolution of the Legislature as a useless body, which failed in the other House by a single vote only.  They separated, however, & have disseminated all the discontent they could.  I propose to the members of Congress in conversation, the enlisting 30,000 volunteers, Americans by birth, to be carried at the public expense, & settled immediately on a bounty of 160 acres of land each, on the west side of the Mississippi, on the condition of giving two years of military service, if that country should be attacked within 7 years.  The defence of the country would thus be placed on the spot, and the additional number would entitle the territory to become a State, would make the majority American, & make it an American instead of a French State.  This would not sweeten the pill to the French; but in making that acquisition we had some view to our own good as well as theirs, and I believe the greatest good of both will be promoted by whatever will amalgamate us together.

I have tired you, my friend, with a long letter.  But your tedium will end in a few lines more.  Mine has yet two years to endure.  I am tired of an office where I can do no more good than many others, who would be glad to be employed in it.  To myself, personally, it brings nothing but unceasing drudgery & daily loss of friends.  Every office becoming vacant, every appointment made, me donne un ingrat, et cent ennemis.  My only consolation is in the belief that my fellow citizens at large give me credit for good intentions.  I will certainly endeavor to merit the continuance of that good-will which follows well-intended actions, and their approbation will be the dearest reward I can carry into retirement.

God bless you, my excellent friend, and give you yet many healthy and happy years.

“Laws of Virginia”

SIR, -- Your letter of Dec. 26th, was received in due time.  The only object I had in making my collection of the laws of Virginia, was to save all those for the Public which were not then already lost, in the hope that at some future day they might be republished.  Whether this be by public or private enterprise, my end will be equally answered.  The work divides itself into two very distinct parts; to wit, the printed and the unprinted laws.  The former begin in 1682, (Purvis’ collection.) My collection of these is in strong volumes, well bound, and therefore may safely be transported anywhere.  Any of these volumes which you do not possess, are at your service for the purpose of republication, but the unprinted laws are dispersed through many MS. volumes, several of them so decayed that the leaf can never be opened but once without falling into powder.  These can never bear removal further than from their shelf to a table.  They are, as well as I recollect, from 1622 downwards.  I formerly made such a digest of their order, and the volumes where they are to be found, that, under my own superintendence, they could be copied with once handling.  More they would not bear.  Hence the impracticability of their being copied but at Monticello.  But independent of them, the printed laws, beginning in 1682, with all our former printed collections, will be a most valuable publication, & sufficiently distinct.  I shall have no doubt of the exactness of your part of the work, but I hope you will take measures for having the typography & paper worthy of the work.  I am lead to this caution by the scandalous volume of our laws printed by Pleasants in 1803, & those by Davis, in 1796 were little better; both unworthy the history of Tom Thumb.  You can have them better & cheaper printed anywhere north of Richmond.  Accept my salutations & assurances of respect.

“Lessons of the Burr Conspiracy”

DEAR SIR, -- I pray you to read the enclosed letter, to seal and deliver it.  It explains itself so fully, that I need say nothing.  I am sincerely concerned for Mr. Reibelt, who is a man of excellent understanding and extensive science.  If you had any academical berth, he would be much better fitted for thatthan for the bustling business of life.  I enclose to General Wilkinson my message of January 22d.  I presume, however, you will have seen it in the papers.  It gives the history of Burr’s conspiracy, all but the last chapter, which will, I hope, be that of his capture before this time, at Natchez.  Your situations have been difficult, and we judge of the merit of our agents there by the magnitude of the danger as it appeared to them, not as it was known to us.  On great occasions every good officer must be ready to risk himself in going beyond the strict line of law, when the public preservation requires it; his motives will be a justification as far as there is any discretion in his ultra-legal proceedings, and no indulgence of private feelings.  On the whole, this squall, by showing with what ease our government suppresses movements which in other countries requires armies, has greatly increased its strength by increasing the public confidence in it.  It has been a wholesome lesson too to our citizens, of the necessary obedience to their government.  The Feds, and the little band of Quids, in opposition, will try to make something of the infringement of liberty by the military arrest and deportation of citizens, but if it does not go beyond such offenders as Swartwout, Bollman, Burr, Blennerhasset, Tyler, &c., they will be supported by the public approbation.  Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of esteem and respect.

“The Burr Trial”

DEAR SIR, -- Your favor of the 6th, on the subject of Burr’s offences, was received only 4 days ago.  That there should be anxiety & doubt in the public mind, in the present defective state of the proof, is not wonderful; and this has been sedulously encouraged by the tricks of the judges to force trials before it is possible to collect the evidence, dispersed through a line of 2000 miles from Maine to Orleans.  The federalists, too, give all their aid, making Burr’s cause their own, mortified only that he did not separate the Union or overturn the government, & proving, that had he had a little dawn of success, they would have joined him to introduce his object, their favorite monarchy, as they would any other enemy, foreign or domestic, who could rid them of this hateful republic for any other government in exchange.

        The first ground of complaint was the supine inattention of the administration to a treason stalking through the land in open day.  The present one, that they have crushed it before it was ripe for execution, so that no overt acts can be produced.  This last may be true; tho’ I believe it is not.  Our information having been chiefly by way of letter, we do not know of a certainty yet what will be proved.  We have set on foot an inquiry through the whole of the country which has been the scene of these transactions, to be able to prove to the courts, if they will give time, or to the public by way of communication to Congress, what the real facts have been.  For obtaining this, we are obliged to appeal to the patriotism of particular persons in different places, of whom we have requested to make the inquiry in their neighborhood, and on such information as shall be voluntarily offered.  Aided by no process or facilities from the federal courts, but frowned on by their new born zeal for the liberty of those whom we would not permit to overthrow the liberties of their country, we can expect no revealments from the accomplices of the chief offender.  Of treasonable intentions, the judges have been obliged to confess there is probable appearance.  What loophole they will find in it, when it comes to trial, we cannot foresee. Eaton, Stoddart, Wilkinson, and two others whom I must not name, will satisfy the world, if not the judges, on that head.  And I do suppose the following overt acts will be proved.  1.  The enlistment of men in a regular way.  2.  The regular mounting of guard round Blennerhassett’s island when they expected Governor Tiffin’s men to be on them, modo guerrino arraiali.  3.  The rendezvous of Burr with his men at the mouth of the Cumberland.  4.  His letter to the acting Governor of Mississippi, holding up the prospect of civil war.  5.  His capitulation regularly signed with the aids of the Governor, as between two independent & hostile commanders.

But a moment’s calculation will shew that this evidence cannot be collected under 4 months, probably 5.  from the moment of deciding when & where the trial shall be.  I desired Mr. Rodney expressly to inform the Chief Justice of this, inofficially.  But Mr. Marshall says, “more than 5 weeks have elapsed since the opinion of the Supreme court has declared the necessity of proving the overt acts, if they exist.  Why are they not proved?”  In what terms of decency can we speak of this?  As if an express could go to Natchez, or the mouth of Cumberland, & return in 5 weeks, to do which has never taken less than twelve.  Again, “If, in Nov. or Dec. last, a body of troops had been assembled on the Ohio, it is impossible to suppose the affidavits establishing the fact could not have been obtained by the last of March.”  But I ask the judge where they should have been lodged?  At Frankfort?  at Cincinnati?  at Nashville?  St. Louis?  Natchez?  New Orleans?  These were the probable places of apprehension & examination.  It was not known at Washington till the 26th of March that Burr would escape from the Western tribunals, be retaken & brought to an Eastern one; and in 5 days after, (neither 5. months nor 5. weeks, as the judge calculated,) he says, it is “impossible to suppose the affidavits could not have been obtained.”  Where?  At Richmond he certainly meant, or meant only to throw dust in the eyes of his audience.  But all the principles of law are to be perverted which would bear on the favorite offenders who endeavor to overrun this odious Republic.  “I understand,” sais the judge, “probable cause of guilt to be a case made out by proof furnishing good reason to believe,” &c.  Speaking as a lawyer, he must mean legal proof, i. e., proof on oath, at least.  But this is confounding probability and proof.  We had always before understood that where there was reasonable ground to believe guilt, the offender must be put on his trial.  That guilty intentions were probable, the judge believed.  And as to the overt acts, were not the bundle of letters of information in Mr. Rodney’s hands, the letters and facts published in the local newspapers, Burr’s flight, & the universal belief or rumor of his guilt, probable ground for presuming the facts of enlistment, military guard, rendezvous, threats of civil war, or capitulation, so as to put him on trial?  Is there a candid man in the U S who does not believe some one, if not all, of these overt acts to have taken place?

If there ever had been an instance in this or the preceding administrations, of federal judges so applying principles of law as to condemn a federal or acquit a republican offender, I should have judged them in the present case with more charity.  All this, however, will work well.  The nation will judge both the offender & judges for themselves.  If a member of the Executive or Legislature does wrong, the day is never far distant when the people will remove him.  They will see then & amend the error in our Constitution, which makes any branch independent of the nation.  They will see that one of the great co-ordinate branches of the government, setting itself in opposition to the other two, and to the common sense of the nation, proclaims impunity to that class of offenders which endeavors to overturn the Constitution, and are themselves protected in it by the Constitution itself; for impeachment is a farce which will not be tried again.  If their protection of Burr produces this amendment, it will do more good than his condemnation would have done.  Against Burr, personally, I never had one hostile sentiment.  I never indeed thought him an honest, frank-dealing man, but considered him as a crooked gun, or other perverted machine, whose aim or stroke you could never be sure of.  Still, while he possessed the confidence of the nation, I thought it my duty to respect in him their confidence, & to treat him as if he deserved it; and if this punishment can be commuted now for any useful amendment of the Constitution, I shall rejoice in it.  My sheet being full, I perceive it is high time to offer you my friendly salutations, and assure you of my constant and affectionate esteem and respect.

“History, Hume, and the Press”

SIR, -- Your letter of May 9 has been duly received.  The subject it proposes would require time & space for even moderate development.  My occupations limit me to a very short notice of them. I think there does not exist a good elementary work on the organization of society into civil government: I mean a work which presents in one full & comprehensive view the system of principles on which such an organization should be founded, according to the rights of nature.  For want of a single work of that character, I should recommend Locke on Government, Sidney, Priestley’s Essay on the first Principles of Government, Chipman’s Principles of Government, & the Federalist.  Adding, perhaps, Beccaria on crimes & punishments, because of the demonstrative manner in which he has treated that branch of the subject.  If your views of political inquiry go further, to the subjects of money & commerce, Smith’s Wealth of Nations is the best book to be read, unless Say’s Political Economy can be had, which treats the same subject on the same principles, but in a shorter compass & more lucid manner.  But I believe this work has not been translated into our language.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.  But as we have employed some of the best materials of the British constitution in the construction of our own government, a knolege of British history becomes useful to the American politician.  There is, however, no general history of that country which can be recommended.  The elegant one of Hume seems intended to disguise & discredit the good principles of the government, and is so plausible & pleasing in it’s style & manner, as to instil it’s errors & heresies insensibly into the minds of unwary readers.  Baxter has performed a good operation on it.  He has taken the text of Hume as his ground work, abridging it by the omission of some details of little interest, and wherever he has found him endeavoring to mislead, by either the suppression of a truth or by giving it a false coloring, he has changed the text to what it should be, so that we may properly call it Hume’s history republicanised.  He has moreover continued the history (but indifferently) from where Hume left it, to the year 1800.  The work is not popular in England, because it is republican; and but a few copies have ever reached America.  It is a single 4to. volume.  Adding to this Ludlow’s Memoirs, Mrs. M’Cauley’s & Belknap’s histories, a sufficient view will be presented of the free principles of the English constitution.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’  Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers.  It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood.  Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.  Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.  The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day.  I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables.  General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on.  I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.  He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this.  Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading the 1st, Truths.  2d, Probabilities.  3d, Possibilities.  4th, Lies.  The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and information from such sources, as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth.  The 2d would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true.  This, however, should rather contain too little than too much.  The 3d & 4th should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.

Such an editor too, would have to set his face against the demoralising practice of feeding the public mind habitually on slander, & the depravity of taste which this nauseous aliment induces.  Defamation is becoming a necessary of life; insomuch, that a dish of tea in the morning or evening cannot be digested without this stimulant.  Even those who do not believe these abominations, still read them with complaisance to their auditors, and instead of the abhorrence & indignation which should fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility that some may believe them, tho they do not themselves.  It seems to escape them, that it is not he who prints, but he who pays for printing a slander, who is it’s real author.

These thoughts on the subjects of your letter are hazarded at your request.  Repeated instances of the publication of what has not been intended for the public eye, and the malignity with which political enemies torture every sentence from me into meanings imagined by their own wickedness only, justify my expressing a solicitude, that this hasty communication may in nowise be permitted to find it’s way into the public papers.  Not fearing these political bull-dogs, I yet avoid putting myself in the way of being baited by them, and do not wish to volunteer away that portion of tranquillity, which a firm execution of my duties will permit me to enjoy.

I tender you my salutations, and best wishes for your success.

“A Subpoena for the President”

DEAR SIR, -- Mr. Latrobe now comes on as a witness against Burr.  His presence here is with great inconvenience dispensed with, as 150 workmen require his constant directions on various public works of pressing importance.  I hope you will permit him to come away as soon as possible.  How far his testimony will be important as to the prisoner, I know not; but I am desirous that those meetings of Yrujo with Burr and his principal accomplices, should come fully out, and judicially, as they will establish the just complaints we have against his nation.

I did not see till last night the opinion of the Judge on the subpoena duces tecum against the President.  Considering the question there as coram non judice, I did not read his argument with much attention.  Yet I saw readily enough, that, as is usual where an opinion is to be supported, right or wrong, he dwells much on smaller objections, and passes over those which are solid.  Laying down the position generally, that all persons owe obedience to subpoenas, he admits no exception unless it can be produced in his law books.  But if the Constitution enjoins on a particular officer to be always engaged in a particular set of duties imposed on him, does not this supersede the general law, subjecting him to minor duties inconsistent with these?  The Constitution enjoins his constant agency in the concerns of 6. millions of people.  Is the law paramount to this, which calls on him on behalf of a single one?  Let us apply the Judge’s own doctrine to the case of himself & his brethren.  The sheriff of Henrico summons him from the bench, to quell a riot somewhere in his county.  The federal judge is, by the general law, a part of the posse of the State sheriff.  Would the Judge abandon major duties to perform lesser ones?  Again; the court of Orleans or Maine commands, by subpoenas, the attendance of all the judges of the Supreme Court.  Would they abandon their posts as judges, and the interests of millions committed to them, to serve the purposes of a single individual?  The leading principle of our Constitution is the independence of the Legislature, executive and judiciary of each other, and none are more jealous of this than the judiciary.  But would the executive be independent of the judiciary, if he were subject to the commands of the latter, & to imprisonment for disobedience; if the several courts could bandy him from pillar to post, keep him constantly trudging from north to south & east to west, and withdraw him entirely from his constitutional duties?  The intention of the Constitution, that each branch should be independent of the others, is further manifested by the means it has furnished to each, to protect itself from enterprises of force attempted on them by the others, and to none has it given more effectual or diversified means than to the executive.  Again; because ministers can go into a court in London as witnesses, without interruption to their executive duties, it is inferred that they would go to a court 1000. or 1500. miles off, and that ours are to be dragged from Maine to Orleans by every criminal who will swear that their testimony ‘may be of use to him.’  The Judge says, ‘it is apparent that the President’s duties as chief magistrate do not demand his whole time, & are not unremitting.’  If he alludes to our annual retirement from the seat of government, during the sickly season, he should be told that such arrangements are made for carrying on the public business, at and between the several stations we take, that it goes on as unremittingly there, as if we were at the seat of government.  I pass more hours in public business at Monticello than I do here, every day; and it is much more laborious, because all must be done in writing.  Our stations being known, all communications come to them regularly, as to fixed points.  It would be very different were we always on the road, or placed in the noisy & crowdedtaverns where courts are held.  Mr. Rodney is expected here every hour, having been kept away by a sick child.

I salute you with friendship and respect.

“Unlearned Views of Medicine”

DEAR SIR, -- I have a grandson, the son of Mr. Randolph, now about 15 years of age, in whose education I take a lively interest.  His time has not hitherto been employed to the greatest advantage, a frequent change of tutors having prevented the steady pursuit of any one plan.  Whether he possesses that lively imagination, usually called genius, I have not had opportunities of knowing.  But I think he has an observing mind & sound judgment.  He is assiduous, orderly, & of the most amiable temper & dispositions.  As he will be at ease in point of property, his education is not directed to any particular possession, but will embrace those sciences which give to retired life usefulness, ornament or amusement.  I am not a friend to placing growing men in populous cities, because they acquire there habits & partialities which do not contribute to the happiness of their after life.  But there are particular branches of science, which are not so advantageously taught anywhere else in the U.S. as in Philadelphia.  The garden at the Woodlands for Botany, Mr. Peale’s Museum for Natural History, your Medical school for Anatomy, and the able professors in all of them, give advantages not to be found elsewhere. We propose, therefore, to send him to Philadelphia to attend the schools of Botany, Natural History, Anatomy, & perhaps Surgery; but not of Medicine.  And why not of Medicine, you will ask?  Being led to the subject, I will avail myself of the occasion to express my opinions on that science, and the extent of my medical creed. But, to finish first with respect to my grandson, I will state the favor I ask of you, which is the object of this letter.

Having been born & brought up in a mountainous & healthy country, we should be unwilling he should go to Philadelphia until the autumnal diseases cease.  It is important therefore for us to know, at what period after that, the courses of lectures in Natural history, Botany, Chemistry, Anatomy & Surgery begin and end, and what days or hours they occupy?  The object of this is that we may be able so to marshal his pursuits as to bring their accomplishment within the shortest space practicable.  I shall write to Doctor Barton for information as to the courses of natural history & botany but not having a sufficient acquaintance with professors of chemistry & surgery, if you can add the information respecting their school to that of your own, I shall be much obliged to you.  What too are the usual terms of boarding?  What the compensations to professors?  And can you give me a conjectural estimate of other necessary expenses?  In these we do not propose to indulge him beyond what is necessary, decent, & usual, because all beyond that leads to dissipation & idleness, to which, at present, he has no propensities.  I think Mr. Peale has not been in the habit of receiving a boarder.  His house & family would, of themselves, be a school of virtue & instruction; & hours of leisure there would be as improving as busy ones elsewhere.  But I say this only on the possibility of so desirable a location for him, and not with the wish that the thought should become known to Mr. Peale, unless some former precedent should justify it’s suggestion to him.  I am laying a heavy tax on your busy time, but I think your goodness will pardon it in consideration of it’s bearing on my happiness.

This subject dismissed, I may now take up that which it led to, and further tax your patience with unlearned views of medicine; which, as in most cases, are, perhaps, the more confident in proportion as they are less enlightened.

We know, from what we see & feel, that the animal body in it’s organs and functions is subject to derangement, inducing pain, & tending to it’s destruction.  In this disordered state, we observe nature providing for the re-establishment of order, by exciting some salutary evacuation of the morbific matter, or by some other operation which escapes our imperfect senses and researches.  She brings on a crisis, by stools, vomiting, sweat, urine, expectoration, bleeding, &c., which, for the most part, ends in the restoration of healthy action.  Experience has taught us, also, that there are certain substances, by which, applied to the living body, internally or externally, we can at will produce these same evacuations, and thus do, in a short time, what nature would do but slowly, and do effectually, what perhaps she would not have strength to accomplish.  Where, then, we have seen a disease, characterized by specific signs or phenomena, and relieved by a certain natural evacuation or process, whenever that disease recurs under the same appearances, we may reasonably count on producing a solution of it, by the use of such substances as we have found produce the same evacuation or movement.  Thus, fulness of the stomach we can relieve by emetics; diseases of the bowels, by purgatives; inflammatory cases, by bleeding; intermittents, by the Peruvian bark; syphilis, by mercury: watchfulness, by opium; &c.  So far, I bow to the utility of medicine.  It goes to the well-defined forms of disease, & happily, to those the most frequent.  But the disorders of the animal body, & the symptoms indicating them, are as various as the elements of which the body is composed. The combinations, too, of these symptoms are so infinitely diversified, that many associations of them appear too rarely to establish a definite disease; and to an unknown disease, there cannot be a known remedy.  Here then, the judicious, the moral, the humane physician should stop.  Having been so often a witness to the salutary efforts which nature makes to re-establish the disordered functions, he should rather trust to their action, than hazard the interruption of that, and a greater derangement of the system, by conjectural experiments on a machine so complicated & so unknown as the human body, & a subject so sacred as human life.  Or, ifthe appearance of doing something be necessary to keep alive the hope & spirits of the patient, it should be of the most innocent character.  One of the most successful physicians I have ever known, has assured me, that he used more bread pills, drops of colored water, & powders of hickory ashes, than of all other medicines put together.  It was certainly a pious fraud.  But the adventurous physician goes on, & substitutes presumption for knolege.  From the scanty field of what is known, he launches into the boundless region of what is unknown.  He establishes for his guide some fanciful theory of corpuscular attraction, of chemical agency, of mechanical powers, of stimuli, of irritability accumulated or exhausted, of depletion by the lancet & repletion by mercury, or some other ingenious dream, which lets him into all nature’s secrets at short hand.  On the principle which he thus assumes, he forms his table of nosology, arrays his diseases into families, and extends his curative treatment, by analogy, to all the cases he has thus arbitrarily marshalled together.  I have lived myself to see the disciples of Hoffman, Boerhaave, Stalh, Cullen, Brown, succeed one another like the shifting figures of a magic lantern, & their fancies, like the dresses of the annual doll-babies from Paris, becoming, from their novelty, the vogue of the day, and yielding to the next novelty their ephemeral favor.  The patient, treated on the fashionable theory, sometimes gets well in spite of the medicine.  The medicine therefore restored him, & the young doctor receives new courage to proceed in his bold experiments on the lives of his fellow creatures.  I believe we may safely affirm, that the inexperienced & presumptuous band of medical tyros let loose upon the world, destroys more of human life in one year, than all the Robinhoods, Cartouches, & Macheaths do in a century.  It is in this part of medicine that I wish to see a reform, an abandonment of hypothesis for sober facts, the first degree of value set on clinical observation, and the lowest on visionary theories.  I would wish the young practitioner, especially, to have deeply impressed on his mind, the real limits of his art, & that when the state of his patient gets beyond these, his office is to be a watchful, but quiet spectator of the operations of nature, giving them fair play by a well-regulated regimen, & by all the aid they can derive from the excitement of good spirits & hope in the patient.  I have no doubt, that some diseases not yet understood may in time be transferred to the table of those known.  But, were I a physician, I would rather leave the transfer to the slow hand of accident, than hasten it by guilty experiments on those who put their lives into my hands.  The only sure foundations of medicine are, an intimate knolege of the human body, and observation on the effects of medicinal substances on that.  The anatomical & clinical schools, therefore, are those in which the young physician should be formed.  If he enters with innocence that of the theory of medicine, it is scarcely possible he should come out untainted with error.  His mind must be strong indeed, if, rising above juvenile credulity, it can maintain a wise infidelity against the authority of his instructors, & the bewitching delusions of their theories.  You see that I estimate justly that portion of instruction which our medical students derive from your labors; &, associating with it one of the chairs which my old & able friend, Doctor Rush, so honorably fills, I consider them as the two fundamental pillars of the edifice.  Indeed, I have such an opinion of the talents of the professors in the other branches which constitute the school of medicine with you, as to hope & believe, that it is from this side of the Atlantic, that Europe, which has taught us so many other things, will at length be led into sound principles in this branch of science, the most important of all others, being that to which we commit the care of health & life.

I dare say, that by this time, you are sufficiently sensible that old heads as well as young, may sometimes be charged with ignorance and presumption.  The natural course of the human mind is certainly from credulity to scepticism; and this is perhaps the most favorable apology I can make for venturing so far out of my depth, & to one too, to whom the strong as well as the weak points of this science are so familiar.  But having stumbled on the subject in my way, I wished to give a confession of my faith to a friend; & the rather, as I had perhaps, at time, to him as well as others, expressed my scepticism in medicine, without defining it’s extent or foundation.  At any rate, it has permitted me, for a moment, to abstract myself from the dry & dreary waste of politics, into which I have been impressed by the times on which I happened, and to indulge in the rich fields of nature, where alone I should have served as a volunteer, if left to my natural inclinations & partialities.

I salute you at all times with affection & respect.

“Torpedoes and Submarines”

SIR, -- Your letter of July 28, came to hand just as I was about leaving Washington, & it has not been sooner in my power to acknolege it.  I consider your torpedoes as very valuable means of defence of harbors, & have no doubt that we should adopt them to a considerable degree.  Not that I go the whole length (as I believe you do) of considering them as solely to be relied on.  Neither a nation nor those entrusted with it’s affairs, could be justifiable, however sanguine their expectations, in trusting solely to an engine not yet sufficiently tried, under all the circumstances which may occur, & against which we know not as yet what means of parrying may be devised.  If, indeed, the mode of attaching them to the cable of a ship be the only one proposed, modes of prevention cannot be difficult.  But I have ever looked to the submarine boat as most to be depended on for attaching them, & tho’ I see no mention of it in your letter, or your publications, I am in hopes it is not abandoned as impracticable.  I should wish to see a corps of young men trained to this service.  It would belong to the engineers if at land, but being nautical, I suppose we must have a corps of naval engineers, to practise & use them.  I do not know whether we have authority to put any part of our existing naval establishment in a course of training, but it shall be the subject of a consultation with the Secretary of the Navy.  Genl Dearborne has informed you of the urgency of our want of you at N Orleans for the locks there.

I salute you with great respect & esteem.