Letters of Thomas Jefferson

1824

“A Plan of Emancipation”

DEAR SIR, -- I duly received your favor of the 13th, and with it, the last number of the North American Review.  This has anticipated the one I should receive in course, but have not yet received, under my subscription to the new series.  The article on the African colonization of the people of color, to which you invite my attention, I have read with great consideration.  It is, indeed, a fine one, and will do much good.  I learn from it more, too, than I had before known, of the degree of success and promise of that colony.

In the disposition of these unfortunate people, there are two rational objects to be distinctly kept in view.  First.  The establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa, which may introduce among the aborigines the arts of cultivated life, and the blessings of civilization and science.  By doing this, we may make to them some retribution for the long course of injuries we have been committing on their population.  And considering that these blessings will descend to the “nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis,” we shall in the long run have rendered them perhaps more good than evil.  To fulfil this object, the colony of Sierra Leone promises well, and that of Mesurado adds to our prospect of success.  Under this view, the colonization society is to be considered as a missionary society, having in view, however, objects more humane, more justifiable, and less aggressive on the peace of other nations, than the others of that appellation.

The subject object, and the most interesting to us, as coming home to our physical and moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to provide an asylum to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that population from among us, and establish them under our patronage and protection, as a separate, free and independent people, in some country and climate friendly to human life and happiness.  That any place on the coast of Africa should answer the latter purpose, I have ever deemed entirely impossible.  And without repeating the other arguments which have been urged by others, I will appeal to figures only, which admit no controversy.  I shall speak in round numbers, not absolutely accurate, yet not so wide from truth as to vary the result materially.  There are in the United States a million and a half of people of color in slavery.  To send off the whole of these at once, nobody conceives to be practicable for us, or expedient for them.  Let us take twenty-five years for its accomplishment, within which time they will be doubled.  Their estimated value as property, in the first place, (for actual property has been lawfully vested in that form, and who can lawfully take it from the possessors?) at an average of two hundred dollars each, young and old, would amount to six hundred millions of dollars, which must be paid or lost by somebody.  To this, add the cost of their transportation by land and sea to Mesurado, a year’s provision of food and clothing, implements of husbandry and of their trades, which will amount to three hundred millions more, making thirty-six millions of dollars a year for twenty-five years, with insurance of peace all that time, and it is impossible to look at the question a second time.  I am aware that at the end of about sixteen years, a gradual detraction from this sum will commence, from the gradual diminution of breeders, and go on during the remaining nine years.  Calculate this deduction, and it is still impossible to look at the enterprise a second time.  I do not say this to induce an inference that the getting rid of them is forever impossible.  For that is neither my opinion nor my hope.  But only that it cannot be done in this way.  There is, I think, a way in which it can be done; that is, by emancipating the after-born, leaving them, on due compensation, with their mothers, until their services are worth their maintenance, and then putting them to industrious occupations, until a proper age for deportation.  This was the result of my reflections on the subject five and forty years ago, and I have never yet been able to conceive any other practicable plan.  It was sketched in the Notes on Virginia, under the fourteenth query.  The estimated value of the new-born infant is so low, (say twelve dollars and fifty cents,) that it would probably be yielded by the owner gratis, and would thus reduce the six hundred millions of dollars, the first head of expense, to thirty-seven millions and a half; leaving only the expense of nourishment while with the mother, and of transportation.  And from what fund are these expenses to be furnished?  Why not from that of the lands which have been ceded by the very States now needing this relief?  And ceded on no consideration, for the most part, but that of the general good of the whole.  These cessions already constitute one fourth of the States of the Union.  It may be said that these lands have been sold; are now the property of the citizens composing those States; and the money long ago received and expended.  But an equivalent of lands in the territories since acquired, may be appropriated to that object, or so much, at least, as may be sufficient; and the object, although more important to the slave States, is highly so to the others also, if they were serious in their arguments on the Missouri question.  The slave States, too, if more interested, would also contribute more by their gratuitous liberation, thus taking on themselves alone the first and heaviest item of expense.

In the plan sketched in the Notes on Virginia, no particular place of asylum was specified; because it was thought possible, that in the revolutionary state of America, then commenced, events might open to us some one within practicable distance.  This has now happened.  St. Domingo has become independent, and with a population of that color only; and if the public papers are to be credited, their Chief offers to pay their passage, to receive them as free citizens, and to provide them employment.  This leaves, then, for the general confederacy, no expense but of nurture with the mother a few years, and would call, of course, for a very moderate appropriation of the vacant lands.  Suppose the whole annual increase to be of sixty thousand effective births, fifty vessels, of four hundred tons burthen each, constantly employed in that short run, would carry off the increase of every year, and the old stock would die off in the ordinary course of nature, lessening from the commencement until its final disappearance.  In this way no violation of private right is proposed.  Voluntary surrenders would probably come in as fast as the means to be provided for their care would be competent to it. Looking at my own State only, and I presume not to speak for the others, I verily believe that this surrender of property would not amount to more, annually, than half our present direct taxes, to be continued fully about twenty or twenty-five years, and then gradually diminishing for as many more until their final extinction; and even this half tax would not be paid in cash, but by the delivery of an object which they have never yet known or counted as part of their property; and those not possessing the object will be called on for nothing.  I do not go into all the details of the burthens and benefits of this operation.  And who could estimate its blessed effects?  I leave this to those who will live to see their accomplishment, and to enjoy a beatitude forbidden to my age.  But I leave it with this admonition, to rise and be doing.  A million and a half are within their control; but six millions, (which a majority of those now living will see them attain,) and one million of these fighting men, will say, “we will not go.”

I am aware that this subject involves some constitutional scruples.  But a liberal construction, justified by the object, may go far, and an amendment of the constitution, the whole length necessary.  The separation of infants from their mothers, too, would produce some scruples of humanity.  But this would be straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel.

I am much pleased to see that you have taken up the subject of the duty on imported books.  I hope a crusade will be kept up against it, until those in power shall become sensible of this stain on our legislation, and shall wipe it from their code, and from the remembrance of man, if possible.

I salute you with assurances of high respect and esteem.

“Professors From Abroad”

DEAR SIR, -- It is now 35 years since I had the great pleasure of becoming acquainted with you in Paris, and since we saw together Louis XVI. led in triumph by his people thro’ the streets of his capital; these years too have been like ages in the events they have engendered without seeming at all to have bettered the condn of suffering man.  Yet his mind has been opening and advancing, a sentiment of his wrongs has been spreading, and it will end in the ultimate establishment of his rights.  To effect this nothing is wanting but a general concurrence of will, and some fortunate accident will produce that.  At a subsequent period you were so kind as to recall me to your recollection on the publicn of your invaluable book on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, a copy of which you sent me, and I have been happy to see it become the text book of most of our colleges & academies, and pass thro’ several reimpressions in the U.S.  An occurrence of a character dear to us both leads again to a renewal of our recollections and associates us in an occasion of still rendering some service to those we are about to leave.  The State of Virga, of which I am a native and resident, is establishing an university on a scale as extensive and liberal as circumstances permit or call for.  We have been 4 or 5 years in preparing our buildings, which are now ready to recieve their tenants.  We proceed, therefore, to the engaging professors, and anxious to recieve none but of the highest grade of science in their respective lines, we find we must have recourse to Europe, where alone that grade is to be found, and to Gr. Br. of preference, as the land of our own language, morals, manners, and habits.  To make the selection we send a special agent, M’r Francis W. Gilmer, who will have the honor of delivering you this letter.  He is well educated himself in most of the branches of science, of correct morals and habits, an enlarged mind, and a discretion meriting entire confidence.  From the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where we expect he will find persons duly qualified in the particular branches in which these seminaries are respectively eminent, he will pass on to Edinburg, distinguished for it’s school of Medicine as well as of other sciences, but when arrived there he will be a perfect stranger, and would have to grope his way in darkness and uncertainty; you can lighten his path, and to beseech you to do so is the object of this letter.  Your knolege of persons and characters there can guard him against being misled and lead him to the consummation of our wishes.  We do not expect to engage the high characters there who are at the head of their schools, established in offices, honors, & emoluments which can be bettered no where.  But we know there is always a junior set of aspirants, treading on their heels, ready to take their places, and as well & sometimes better qualified than they are.  These persons, unsettled as yet, surrounded by competitors of equal claims, and perhaps greater credit and interest, may be willing to accept immediately a comfortable certainty here in place of uncertain hopes there, and a lingering delay of even these.  From this description of persons we may hope to procure characters of the first order of science.  But how to distinguish them?  For we are told that were the mission of our agent once known, he would be overwhelmed with applicants, unworthy as well as worthy, yet all supported on recommendns and certificates equally exaggerated, and by names so respectable as to confound all discrimination.  Yet this discrimination is all important to us.  An unlucky selection at first would blast all our prospects.  Let me beseech you, then, good Sir, to lead Mr. Gilmer by the hand in his researches, to instruct him as to the competent characters, & guard him against those not so.  Besides the first degree of eminence in science, a professor with us must be of sober and correct morals & habits, having the talent of communicating his knolege with facility, and of an accomodating and peaceable temper.  The latter is all important for the harmony of the institution.  For minuter particulars I will refer you to Mr. Gilmer, who possesses a full knolege of everything & our full confidence in everything.  He takes with him plans of our establm’t, which will shew the comfortable accommodns provided for the professors, whether with or without families; and by the expensiveness and extent of the scale they will see it is not an ephemeral thing to which they are invited.

A knolege of your character & disposns to do good dispenses with all apology for the trouble I give you.  While the character and success of this institN, involving the future hopes and happiness of my country, will justify the anxieties I feel in the choice of it’s professors, I am sure the object will excite in your breast such sympathies of kind disposN, as will give us the benefits we ask of your counsels & attentions.  And, with my acknolegements for these, accept assurances of constant and sincere attamt, esteem & respect.

“Saxons, Constitutions, and a Case of Pious Fraud”

DEAR AND VENERABLE SIR, -- I am much indebted for your kind letter of February the 29th, and for your valuable volume on the English constitution.  I have read this with pleasure and much approbation, and think it has deduced the constitution of the English nation from its rightful root, the Anglo-Saxon.  It is really wonderful, that so many able and learned men should have failed in their attempts to define it with correctness.  No wonder then, that Paine, who thought more than he read, should have credited the great authorities who have declared, that the will of parliament is the constitution of England.  So Marbois, before the French revolution, observed to me, that the Almanac Royal was the constitution of France.  Your derivation of it from the Anglo-Saxons, seems to be made on legitimate principles.  Having driven out the former inhabitants of that part of the island called England, they became aborigines as to you, and your lineal ancestors.  They doubtless had a constitution; and although they have not left it in a written formula, to the precise text of which you may always appeal, yet they have left fragments of their history and laws, from which it may be inferred with considerable certainty.  Whatever their history and laws shew to have been practised with approbation, we may presume was permitted by their constitution; whatever was not so practised, was not permitted.  And although this constitution was violated and set at naught by Norman force, yet force cannot change right.  A perpetual claim was kept up by the nation, by their perpetual demand of a restoration of their Saxon laws; which shews they were never relinquished by the will of the nation.  In the pullings and haulings for these antient rights, between the nation, and its kings of the races of Plantagenets, Tudors and Stuarts, there was sometimes gain, and sometimes loss, until the final re-conquest of their rights from the Stuarts.  The destitution and expulsion of this race broke the thread of pretended inheritance, extinguished all regal usurpations, and the nation re-entered into all its rights; and although in their bill of rights they specifically reclaimed some only, yet the omission of the others was no renunciation of the right to assume their exercise also, whenever occasion should occur.  The new King received no rights or powers, but those expressly granted to him.  It has ever appeared to me, that the difference between the whig and the tory of England is, that the whig deduces his rights from the Anglo-Saxon source, and the tory from the Norman.  And Hume, the great apostle of toryism, says, in so many words, note AA to chapter 42, that, in the reign of the Stuarts, ‘it was the people who encroached upon the sovereign, not the sovereign who attempted, as is pretended, to usurp upon the people.’  This supposes the Norman usurpations to be rights in his successors.  And again, C, 159, ‘the commons established a principle, which is noble in itself, and seems specious, but is belied by all history and experience, that the people are the origin of all just power.’  And where else will this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society?  Will it be in the minority?  Or in an individual of that minority?

Our Revolution commenced on more favorable ground.  It presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased.  We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry.  We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts.  Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position.  We had never been permitted to exercise self-government.  When forced to assume it, we were novices in its science.  Its principles and forms had entered little into our former education.  We established however some, although not all its important principles.  The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.  In the structure of our legislatures, we think experience has proved the benefit of subjecting questions to two separate bodies of deliberants; but in constituting these, natural right has been mistaken, some making one of these bodies, and some both, the representatives of property instead of persons; whereas the double deliberation might be as well obtained without any violation of true principle, either by requiring a greater age in one of the bodies, or by electing a proper number of representatives of persons, dividing them by lots into two chambers, and renewing the division at frequent intervals, in order to break up all cabals.  Virginia, of which I am myself a native and resident, was not only the first of the States, but, I believe I may say, the first of the nations of the earth, which assembled its wise men peaceably together to form a fundamental constitution, to commit it to writing, and place it among their archives, where every one should be free to appeal to its text.  But this act was very imperfect.  The other States, as they proceeded successively to the same work, made successive improvements; and several of them, still further corrected by experience, have, by conventions, still further amended their first forms.  My own State has gone on so far with its premiere ebauche; but it is now proposing to call a convention for amendment.  Among other improvements, I hope they will adopt the subdivision of our counties into wards.  The former may be estimated at an average of twenty-four miles square; the latter should be about six miles square each, and would answer to the hundreds of your Saxon Alfred.  In each of these might be, 1.  An elementary school.  2.  A company of militia, with its officers.  3.  A justice of the peace and constable.  4.  Each ward should take care of their own poor.  5.  Their own roads.  6.  Their own police.  7.  Elect within themselves one or more jurors to attend the courts of justice.  And 8.  Give in at their Folk-house, their votes for all functionaries reserved to their election.  Each ward would thus be a small republic within itself, and every man in the State would thus become an acting member of the common government, transacting in person a great portion of its rights and duties, subordinate indeed, yet important, and entirely within his competence.  The wit of man cannot devise a more solid basis for a free, durable and well administered republic.

With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners.  They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter.  But this is not the case.  They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole.  To the State governments are reserved all legislation and administration, in affairs which concern their own citizens only, and to the federal government is given whatever concerns foreigners, or the citizens of other States; these functions alone being made federal.  The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government; neither having control over the other, but within its own department.  There are one or two exceptions only to this partition of power.  But, you may ask, if the two departments should claim each the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them?  In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground: but if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called, to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best.  You will perceive by these details, that we have not yet so far perfected our constitutions as to venture to make them unchangeable.  But still, in their present state, we consider them not otherwise changeable than by the authority of the people, on a special election of representatives for that purpose expressly: they are until then the lex legum.

But can they be made unchangeable?  Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever?  I think not.  The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead.  Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed with will.  The dead are not even things.  The particles of matter which composed their bodies, make part now of the bodies of other animals, vegetables, or minerals, of a thousand forms.  To what then are attached the rights and powers they held while in the form of men?  A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves.  Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

I was glad to find in your bo ok a formal contradition, at length, of the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions, that Christianity is a part of the common law.  The proof of the contrary, which you have adduced, is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever existed.  But it may amuse you, to shew when, and by what means, they stole this law in upon us.  In a case of quare impedit in the Year-book 34. H. 6. folio 38. (anno 1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical law was to be respected in a common law court?  And Prisot, Chief Justice, gives his opinion in these words, ‘A tiel leis qu’ ils de seint eglise ont en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners leis sont fondes.  Et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obleges de conustre lour ley de saint eglise: et semblablement ils sont obliges de conustre nostre ley.  Et, Sir, si poit apperer or a nous que l’evesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou auterment nemy,’ &c. See S. C. Fitzh. Abr. Qu. imp. 89. Bro. Abr. Qu. imp. 12.  Finch in his first book, c. 3. is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and mistakes it thus.  ‘To such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence.’  And cites Prisot; mistranslating ‘ancien scripture,’ into ‘holy scripture.’  Whereas Prisot palpably says, ‘to such laws as those of holy church have in antient writing, it is proper for us to give credence;’ to wit, to their antient written laws.  This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot. Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. Wing. Max. 3.  And Sheppard, title, ‘Religion,’ in 1675, copies the same mistranslation, quoting the Y. B. Finch and Wingate.  Hale expresses it in these words; ‘Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.’  1 Ventr. 293. 3 Keb. 607.  But he quotes no authority.  By these echoings and re-echoings from one to another, it had become so established in 1728, that in the case of the King vs. Woolston, 2 Stra. 834, the court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable in the temporal court at common law?  Wood, therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and say, that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law; and cites 2 Stra. Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale, that ‘Christianity is part of the laws of England,’ citing Ventris and Strange.  And finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in Evans’ case, in 1767, says, that ‘the essential principles of revealed religion are part of the common law.’  Thus ingulphing Bible, Testament and all into the common law, without citing any authority. And thus we find this chain of authorities hanging link by link, one upon another, and all ultimately on one and the same hook, and that a mistranslation of the words ‘ancien scripture,’ used by Prisot.  Finch quotes Prisot; Wingate does the same.  Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch and Wingate.  Hale cites nobody.  The court in Woolston’s case, cite Hale.  Wood cites Woolston’s case.  Blackstone quotes Woolston’s case and Hale.  And Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority.  Here I might defy the best read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this judiciary forgery; and I might go on further to shew, how some of the Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred’s laws, the 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd chapters of Exodus, and the 15th of the Acts of the Apostles, from the 23rd to the 29th verses.  But this would lead my pen and your patience too far.  What a conspiracy this, between Church and State! Sing Tantarara, rogues all, rogues all, Sing Tantarara, rogues all!

I must still add to this long and rambling letter, my acknowledgments for your good wishes to the University we are now establishing in this State.  There are some novelties in it.  Of that of a professorship of the principles of government, you express your approbation.  They will be founded in the rights of man.  That of agriculture, I am sure, you will approve: and that also of Anglo-Saxon.  As the histories and laws left us in that type and dialect, must be the text books of the reading of the learners, they will imbibe with the language their free principles of government.  The volumes you have been so kind as to send, shall be placed in the library of the University.  Having at this time in England a person sent for the purpose of selecting some Professors, a Mr. Gilmer of my neighborhood, I cannot but recommend him to your patronage, counsel and guardianship, against imposition, misinformation, and the deceptions of partial and false recommendations, in the selection of characters.  He is a gentleman of great worth and correctness, my particular friend, well educated in various branches of science, and worthy of entire confidence.

Your age of eighty-four and mine of eighty-one years, insure us a speedy meeting.  We may then commune at leisure, and more fully, on the good and evil, which, in the course of our long lives, we have both witnessed; and in the mean time, I pray you to accept assurances of my high veneration and esteem for your person and character.

“The Progress of Society”

SIR, -- The idea which you present in your letter of July 30th, of the progress of society from its rudest state to that it has now attained, seems conformable to what may be probably conjectured. Indeed, we have under our eyes tolerable proofs of it.  Let a philosophic observer commence a journey from the savages of the Rocky Mountains, eastwardly towards our sea-coast.  These he would observe in the earliest stage of association living under no law but that of nature, subscribing and covering themselves with the flesh and skins of wild beasts.  He would next find those on our frontiers in the pastoral state, raising domestic animals to supply the defects of hunting. Then succeed our own semi-barbarous citizens, the pioneers of the advance of civilization, and so in his progress he would meet the gradual shades of improving man until he would reach his, as yet, most improved state in our seaport towns.  This, in fact, is equivalent to a survey, in time, of the progress of man from the infancy of creation to the present day.  I am eighty-one years of age, born where I now live, in the first range of mountains in the interior of our country.  And I have observed this march of civilization advancing from the sea coast, passing over us like a cloud of light, increasing our knowledge and improving our condition, insomuch as that we are at this time more advanced in civilization here than the seaports were when I was a boy.  And where this progress will stop no one can say.  Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth.  You seem to think that this advance has brought on too complicated a state of society, and that we should gain in happiness by treading back our steps a little way. I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it.  Your experiment seems to have this in view.  A society of seventy families, the number you name, may very possibly be governed as a single family, subsisting on their common industry, and holding all things in common.  Some regulators of the family you still must have, and it remains to be seen at what period of your increasing population your simple regulations will cease to be sufficient to preserve order, peace, and justice.  The experiment is interesting; I shall not live to see its issue, but I wish it success equal to your hopes, and to yourself and society prosperity and happiness.

“Return of the Hero”

I have duly received, my dear friend and General, your letter of the 1st from Philadelphia, giving us the welcome assurance that you will visit the neighborhood which, during the march of our enemy near it, was covered by your shield from his robberies and ravages.  In passing the line of your former march you will experience pleasing recollections of the good you have done.  My neighbors, too, of our academical village, who well remember their obligations to you, have expressed to you, in a letter from a committee appointed for that purpose, their hope that you will accept manifestations of their feelings, simple indeed, but as cordial as any you will have received.  It will be an additional honor to the University of the State that you will have been its first guest.  Gratify them, then, by this assurance to their committee, if it has not been done.  But what recollections, dear friend, will this call up to you and me!  What a history have we to run over from the evening that yourself, Meusnier, Bernau, and other patriots settled, in my house in Paris, the outlines of the constitution you wished!  And to trace it through all the disastrous chapters of Robespierre, Barras, Bonaparte, and the Bourbons!  These things, however, are for our meeting.  You mention the return of Miss Wright to America, accompanied by her sister; but do not say what her stay is to be, nor what her course.  Should it lead her to a visit of our University, which, in its architecture only, is as yet an object, herself and her companion will nowhere find a welcome more hearty than with Mrs. Randolph, and all the inhabitants of Monticello.  This Athenaeum of our country, in embryo, is as yet but promise; and not in a state to recall the recollections of Athens.  But everything has its beginning, its growth, and end; and who knows with what future delicious morsels of philosophy, and by what future Miss Wright raked from its ruins, the world may, some day, be gratified and instructed?  Your son George we shall be very happy indeed to see, and to renew in him the recollections of your very dear family; and the revolutionary merit of M. le Vasseur has that passport to the esteem of every American, and, to me, the additional one of having been your friend and co-operator, and he will, I hope, join you in making head-quarters with us at Monticello.  But all these things a revoir -- ; in the meantime we are impatient that your ceremonies at York should be over, and give you to the embraces of friendship.

P. S.  Will you come by Mr. Madison’s, or let him or me know on what day he may meet you here, and join us in our greetings?