Letters of Thomas Jefferson

1787

“Homer, New Jersey Farmers, and the Wheel”

DEAR SIR, -- I see by the Journal of this morning, that they are robbing us of another of our inventions to give it to the English.  The writer, indeed, only admits them to have revived what he thinks was known to the Greeks, that is, the making the circumference of a wheel of one single piece.  The farmers in New Jersey were the first who practised it, and they practised it commonly.  Dr. Franklin, in one of his trips to London, mentioned this practice to the man now in London, who has the patent for making those wheels.  The idea struck him.  The Doctor promised to go to his shop, and assist him in trying to make the wheel of one piece.  The Jersey farmers do it by cutting a young sapling, and bending it, while green and juicy, into a circle; and leaving it so until it becomes perfectly seasoned.  But in London there are no saplings.  The difficulty was, then, to give to old wood the pliancy of young.  The Doctor and the workman labored together some weeks, and succeeded; and the man obtained a patent for it, which has made his fortune.  I was in his shop in London, he told me the whole story himself, and acknowledged, not only the origin of the idea, but how much the assistance of Dr. Franklin had contributed to perform the operation on dry wood.  He spoke of him with love and gratitude.  I think I have had a similar account from Dr. Franklin, but cannot be quite certain.  I know, that being in Philadelphia when the first set of patent wheels arrived from London, and were spoken of by the gentleman (an Englishman) who brought them, as a wonderful discovery, the idea of its being a new discovery was laughed at by the Philadelphians, who, in their Sunday parties across the Delaware, had seen every farmer’s cart mounted on such wheels.  The writer in the paper, supposes the English workman got his idea from Homer.  But it is more likely the Jersey farmer got his idea from thence, because ours are the only farmers who can read Homer; because, too, the Jersey practice is precisely that stated by Homer: the English practice very different.  Homer’s words are (comparing a young hero killed by Ajax to a poplar felled by a workman) literally thus: ‘He fell on the ground, like a poplar, which has grown smooth, in the west part of a great meadow; with its branches shooting from its summit.  But the chariot maker, with his sharp axe, has felled it, that he may bend a wheel for a beautiful chariot.  It lies drying on the banks of the river.’ Observe the circumstances which coincide with the Jersey practice.  1.  It is a tree growing in a moist place, full of juices and easily bent.  2.  It is cut while green.  3.  It is bent into the circumference of a wheel.  4.  It is left to dry in that form.  You, who write French well and readily, should write a line for the Journal, to reclaim the honor of our farmers.  Adieu.
Yours affectionately,

“The People are the Only Censors . . .”

DEAR SIR, -- Uncertain whether you might be at New York at the moment of Colo. Franks’s arrival, I have inclosed my private letters for Virginia under cover to our delegation in general, which otherwise I would have taken the liberty to inclose particularly to you, as best acquainted with the situation of the persons to whom they are addressed.  Should this find you at New York, I will still ask your attention to them.  The two large packages addressed to Colo. N. Lewis contain seeds, not valuable enough to pay passage, but which I would wish to be sent by the stage, or any similar quick conveyance.  The letters to Colo. Lewis & Mr. Eppes (who take care of my affairs) are particularly interesting to me.  The package for Colo. Richd. Cary our judge of Admiralty near Hampton, contains seeds & roots, not to be sent by Post.  Whether they had better go by the stage, or by water, you will be the best judge.  I beg your pardon for giving you this trouble.  But my situation & your goodness will I hope excuse it.  In my letter to Mr. Jay, I have mentioned the meeting of the Notables appointed for the 29th inst.  It is now put off to the 7th or 8th of next month.  This event, which will hardly excite any attention in America, is deemed here the most important one which has taken place in their civil line during the present century.  Some promise their country great things from it, some nothing.  Our friend de La Fayette was placed on the list originally.  Afterwards his name disappeared; but finally was reinstated.  This shews that his character here is not considered as an indifferent one; and that it excites agitation.  His education in our school has drawn on him a very jealous eye from a court whose principles are the most absolute despotism.  But I hope he has nearly passed his crisis.  The King, who is a good man, is favorably disposed towards him: & he is supported by powerful family connections, & by the public good will.  He is the youngest man of the Notables except one whose office placed him on the list.

The Count de Vergennes has within these ten days had a very severe attack of what is deemed an unfixed gout.  He has been well enough however to do business to-day.  But anxieties for him are not yet quieted.  He is a great & good minister, and an accident to him might endanger the peace of Europe.

The tumults in America, I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state.  But it has not.  On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments.  The interposition of the people themselves on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here.  I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army.  They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves.  The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution.  To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty.  The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people.  The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.  But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.  I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments.  Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere.  Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep.  I do not exaggerate.  This is a true picture of Europe.  Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention.  Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them.  If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves.  It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.  The want of news has led me into disquisition instead of narration, forgetting you have every day enough of that.  I shall be happy to hear from you sometimes, only observing that whatever passes thro’ the post is read, & that when you write what should be read by myself only, you must be so good as to confide your letter to some passenger or officer of the packet.  I will ask your permission to write to you sometimes, and to assure you of the esteem & respect with which I have honour to be Dear Sir your most obedient & most humble servt.

“Rebellion, Secession, and Diplomacy”

DEAR SIR, -- My last to you was of the 16th of Dec, since which I have received yours of Nov 25, & Dec 4, which afforded me, as your letters always do, a treat on matters public, individual & oeconomical.  I am impatient to learn your sentiments on the late troubles in the Eastern states.  So far as I have yet seen, they do not appear to threaten serious consequences.  Those states have suffered by the stoppage of the channels of their commerce, which have not yet found other issues.  This must render money scarce, and make the people uneasy.  This uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable; but I hope they will provoke no severities from their governments.  A consciousness of those in power that their administration of the public affairs has been honest, may perhaps produce too great a degree of indignation: and those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from these instances of irregularity.  They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government but that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth, nor experience.  Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable.  1.  Without government, as among our Indians.  2.  Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states, in a great one.  3.  Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics.  To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen.  It is a government of wolves over sheep.  It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st condition is not the best.  But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population.  The second state has a great deal of good in it.  The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty & happiness.  It has it’s evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject.  But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing.  Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem.  Even this evil is productive of good.  It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs.  I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.  Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them.  An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much.  It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.  If these transactions give me no uneasiness, I feel very differently at another piece of intelligence, to wit, the possibility that the navigation of the Mississippi may be abandoned to Spain.  I never had any interest Westward of the Alleghaney; & I never will have any.  But I have had great opportunities of knowing the character of the people who inhabit that country.  And I will venture to say that the act which abandons the navigation of the Mississippi is an act of separation between the Eastern & Western country.  It is a relinquishment of five parts out of eight of the territory of the United States, an abandonment of the fairest subject for the paiment of our public debts, & the chaining those debts on our own necks in perpetuum.  I have the utmost confidence in the honest intentions of those who concur in this measure; but I lament their want of acquaintance with the character & physical advantages of the people who, right or wrong, will suppose their interests sacrificed on this occasion to the contrary interests of that part of the confederacy in possession of present power.  If they declare themselves a separate people, we are incapable of a single effort to retain them.  Our citizens can never be induced, either as militia or as souldiers, to go there to cut the throats of their own brothers & sons, or rather to be themselves the subjects instead of the perpetrators of the parricide.  Nor would that country requite the cost of being retained against the will of it’s inhabitants, could it be done.  But it cannot be done.  They are able already to rescue the navigation of the Mississippi out of the hands of Spain, & to add New Orleans to their own territory.  They will be joined by the inhabitants of Louisiana.  This will bring on a war between them & Spain; and that will produce the question with us whether it will not be worth our while to become parties with them in the war, in order to reunite them with us, & thus correct our error? & were I to permit my forebodings to go one step further, I should predict that the inhabitants of the U S would force their rulers to take the affirmative of that question.  I wish I may be mistaken in all these opinions.

We have for some time expected that the Chevalier de la Luzerne would obtain a promotion in the diplomatic line, by being appointed to some of the courts where this country keeps an ambassador.  But none of the vacancies taking place which had been counted on, I think the present disposition is to require his return to his station in America.  He told me himself lately, that he should return in the spring.  I have never pressed this matter on the court, tho’ I knew it to be desirable and desired on our part; because if the compulsion on him to return had been the work of Congress, he would have returned in such ill temper with them, as to disappoint them in the good they expected from it.  He would forever have laid at their door his failure of promotion.  I did not press it for another reason, which is that I have great reason to believe that the character of the Count de Moustier, who would go were the Chevalier to be otherwise provided for, would give the most perfect satisfaction in America.

As you are now returned into Congress it will become of importance that you should form a just estimate of certain public characters: on which therefore I will give you such notes as my knolege of them has furnished me with.  You will compare them with the materials you are otherwise possessed of, and decide on a view of the whole.  You know the opinion I formerly entertained of my friend Mr. Adams.  Yourself & the governor were the first who shook that opinion.  I afterwards saw proofs which convicted him of a degree of vanity, and of a blindness to it, of which no germ had appeared in Congress.  A 7-month’s intimacy with him here and as many weeks in London have given me opportunities of studying him closely.  He is vain, irritable and a bad calculator of the force & probable effect of the motives which govern men.  This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him.  He is as disinterested as the being which made him: he is profound in his views: and accurate in his judgment except where knowledge of the world is necessary to form a judgment.  He is so amiable, that I pronounce you will love him, if ever you become acquainted with him.  He would be, as he was, a great man in Congress.  Mr. Carmichael, is, I think, very little known in America.  I never saw him, & while I was in Congress I formed rather a disadvantageous idea of him.  His letters, received then, showed him vain, & more attentive to ceremony & etiquette than we suppose men of sense should be.  I have now a constant correspondence with him, and find him a little hypochondriac and discontented.  He possesses very good understanding, tho’ not of the first order.  I have had great opportunities of searching into his character, and have availed myself of them.  Many persons of different nations, coming from Madrid to Paris, all speak of him as in high esteem, & I think it certain that he has more of the Count de Florida Blanca’s friendship, than any diplomatic character at that court.  As long as this minister is in office, Carmichael can do more than any other person who could be sent there.  You will see Franks, and doubtless he will be asking some appointment.  I wish there may be any one for which he is fit.  He is light, indiscreet, active, honest, affectionate.  Tho’ Bingham is not in diplomatic office, yet as he wishes to be so, I will mention such circumstances of him, as you might otherwise be deceived in.  He will make you believe he was on the most intimate footing with the first characters in Europe, & versed in the secrets of every cabinet.  Not a word of this is true.  He had a rage for being presented to great men, & had no modesty in the methods by which he could if he attained acquaintance.  Afterwards it was with such 90 who were susceptible of impression from the beauty of his wife.  I must except the Marquis de Bonclearren who had been an old acquaintance.

The Marquis de La Fayette is a most valuable auxiliary to me.  His zeal is unbounded, & his weight with those in power, great.  His education having been merely military, commerce was an unknown field to him.  But his good sense enabling him to comprehend perfectly whatever is explained to him, his agency has been very efficacious.  He has a great deal of sound genius, is well remarked by the King, & rising in popularity.  He has nothing against him, but the suspicion of republican principles.  I think he will one day be of the ministry.  His foible is, a canine appetite for popularity and fame; but he will get above this.  The Count de Vergennes is ill.  The possibility of his recovery, renders it dangerous for us to express a doubt of it: but he is in danger.  He is a great minister in European affairs, but has very imperfect ideas of our institutions, and no confidence in them.  His devotion to the principles of pure despotism, renders him unaffectionate to our governments.  But his fear of England makes him value us as a make weight.  He is cool, reserved in political conversations, but free and familiar on other subjects, and a very attentive, agreeable person to do business with.  It is impossible to have a clearer, better organized head; but age has chilled his heart.  Nothing should be spared, on our part, to attach this country to us.  It is the only one on which we can rely for support, under every event.  Its inhabitants love us more, I think, than they do any other nation on earth.  This is very much the effect of the good dispositions with which the French officers returned.  In a former letter, I mentioned to you the dislocation of my wrist.  I can make not the least use of it, except for the single article of writing, though it is going on five months since the accident happened.  I have great anxieties, lest I should never recover any considerable use of it.  I shall, by the advice of my surgeons, set out in a fortnight for the waters of Aix, in Provence.  I chose these out of several they proposed to me, because if they fail to be effectual, my journey will not be useless altogether.  It will give me an opportunity of examining the canal of Languedoc, and of acquiring knowledge of that species of navigation, which may be useful hereafter; but more immediately, it will enable me to make the tour of the ports concerned in commerce with us, to examine, on the spot, the defects of the late regulations respecting our commerce, to learn the further improvements which may be made in it, and on my return, to get this business finished.  I shall be absent between two and three months, unless anything happens to recall me here sooner, which may always be effected in ten days, in whatever part of my route I may be.  In speaking of characters, I omitted those of Reyneval and Hennin, the two eyes of Count de Vergennes.  The former is the most important character, because possessing the most of the confidence of the Count.  He is rather cunning than wise, his views of things being neither great nor liberal.  He governs himself by principles which he has learned by rote, and is fit only for the details of execution.  His heart is susceptible of little passions but not of good ones.  He is brother-in-law to M. Gerard, from whom he received disadvantageous impressions of us, which cannot be effaced.  He has much duplicity.  Hennin is a philosopher, sincere, friendly, liberal, learned, beloved by everybody; the other by nobody.  I think it a great misfortune that the United States are in the department of the former.  As particulars of this kind may be useful to you, in your present situation, I may hereafter continue the chapter.  I know it will be safely lodged in your discretion.

Feb. 5.  Since writing thus far, Franks is returned from England.  I learn that Mr. Adams desires to be recalled, & that Smith should be appointed charge des affaires there.  It is not for me to decide whether any diplomatic character should be kept at a court, which keeps none with us.  You can judge of Smith’s abilities by his letters.  They are not of the first order, but they are good.  For his honesty, he is like our friend Monroe; turn his soul wrong side outwards, and there is not a speck on it.  He has one foible, an excessive inflammability of temper, but he feels it when it comes on, and has resolution enough to suppress it, and to remain silent till it passes over.

I send you by Colo. Franks, your pocket telescope, walking stick & chemical box.  The two former could not be combined together.  The latter could not be had in the form you referred to.  Having a great desire to have a portable copying machine, & being satisfied from some experiments that the principle of the large machine might be applied in a small one, I planned one when in England & had it made.  It answers perfectly.  I have since set a workman to making them here, & they are in such demand that he has his hands full.  Being assured that you will be pleased to have one, when you shall have tried it’s convenience, I send you one by Colo. Franks.  The machine costs 96 livres, the appendages 24 livres, and I send you paper & ink for 12 livres; in all 132 livres.  There is a printed paper of directions; but you must expect to make many essays before you succeed perfectly.  A soft brush, like a shaving brush, is more convenient than the sponge.  You can get as much ink & paper as you please from London.  The paper costs a guinea a ream.

“The Empty Bustle of Paris”

I know, Madam, that the twelve month is not yet expired; but it will be, nearly, before this will have the honor of being put into your hands.  You are then engaged to tell me, truly and honestly, whether you do not find the tranquil pleasures of America, preferable to the empty bustle of Paris.  For to what does that bustle tend?  At eleven o’clock, it is day, chez madame.  The curtains are drawn.  Propped on bolsters and pillows, and her head scratched into a little order, the bulletins of the sick are read, and the billets of the well.  She writes to some of her acquaintance, and receives the visits of others.  If the morning is not very thronged, she is able to get out and hobble round the cage of the Palais royal; but she must hobble quickly, for the coeffeur’s turn is come; and a tremendous turn it is!  Happy, if he does not make her arrive when dinner is half over!  The torpitude of digestion a little passed, she flutters half an hour through the streets, by way of paying visits, and then to the spectacles.  These finished, another half hour is devoted to dodging in and out of the doors of her very sincere friends, and away to supper.  After supper, cards; and after cards, bed; to rise at noon the next day, and to tread, like a mill horse, the same trodden circle over again.  Thus the days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us.  If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning.  In America, on the other hand, the society of your husband, the fond cares for the children, the arrangements of the house, the improvements of the grounds, fill every moment with a healthy and an useful activity.  Every exertion is encouraging, because to present amusement, it joins the promise of some future good.  The intervals of leisure are filled by the society of real friends, whose affections are not thinned to cob-web, by being spread over a thousand objects.  This is the picture, in the light it is presented to my mind; now let me have it in yours.  If we do not concur this year, we shall the next; or if not then, in a year or two more.  You see I am determined not to suppose myself mistaken.

To let you see that Paris is not changed in its pursuits, since it was honored with your presence, I send you its monthly history.  But this relating only to the embellishments of their persons, I must add, that those of the city go on well also.  A new bridge, for example, is begun at the Place Louis Quinze; the old ones are clearing of the rubbish which encumbered them in the form of houses; new hospitals erecting; magnificent walls of inclosure, and Custom houses at their entrances, &c. &c. &c.  I know of no interesting change among those whom you honored with your acquaintance, unless Monsieur de Saint James was of that number.  His bankruptcy, and taking asylum in the Bastile, have furnished matter of astonishment.  His garden, at the Pont de Neuilly, where, on seventeen acres of ground he had laid out fifty thousand louis, will probably sell for somewhat less money.  The workmen of Paris are making rapid strides towards English perfection.  Would you believe, that in the course of the last two years, they have learned even to surpass their London rivals in some articles?  Commission me to have you a phaeton made, and if it is not as much handsomer than a London one, as that is than a Fiacre, send it back to me.  Shall I fill the box with caps, bonnets, &c.?  Not of my own choosing, but -- I was going to say, of Mademoiselle Bertin’s, forgetting for the moment, that she too is bankrupt.  They shall be chosen then by whom you please; or, if you are altogether nonplused by her eclipse, we will call an Assemblee des Notables, to help you out of the difficulty, as is now the fashion.  In short, honor me with your commands of any kind, and they shall be faithfully executed.  The packets now established from Havre to New York, furnish good opportunities of sending whatever you wish.

I shall end where I began, like a Paris day, reminding you of your engagement to write me a letter of respectable length, an engagement the more precious to me, as it has furnished me the occasion, after presenting my respects to Mr. Bingham, of assuring you of the sincerity of those senti-ments of esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be, Dear Madam, your most obedient and most humble servant,

“A Little Rebellion Now and Then”

DEAR MADAM -- I am to acknolege the honor of your letter of Jan. 29. and of the papers you were so good as to send me.  They were the latest I had seen or have yet seen.  They left off too in a critical moment; just at the point where the Malcontents make their submission on condition of pardon, and before the answer of government was known.  I hope they pardoned them.  The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.  It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.  I like a little rebellion now and then.  It is like a storm in the Atmosphere.  It is wonderful that no letter or paper tells us who is president of Congress, tho’ there are letters in Paris to the beginning of January.  I suppose I shall hear when I come back from my journey, which will be eight months after he will have been chosen.  And yet they complain of us for not giving them intelligence.  Our Notables assembled to-day, and I hope before the departure of Mr. Cairnes I shall have heard something of their proceedings worth communicating to Mr. Adams.  The most remarkeable effect of this convention as yet is the number of puns and bon mots it has generated.  I think were they all collected it would make a more voluminous work than the Encyclopedie.  This occasion, more than any thing I have seen, convinces me that this nation is incapable of any serious effort but under the word of command.  The people at large view every object only as it may furnish puns and bon mots; and I pronounce that a good punster would disarm the whole nation were they ever so seriously disposed to revolt.  Indeed, Madam, they are gone.  When a measure so capable of doing good as the calling the Notables is treated with so much ridicule, we may conclude the nation desperate, and in charity pray that heaven may send them good kings.  -- The bridge at the place Louis XV. is begun.  The hotel dieu is to be abandoned and new ones to be built.  The old houses on the old bridges are in a course of demolition.  This is all I know of Paris.  We are about to lose the Count d’Aranda, who has desired and obtained his recall.  Fernand Nunnez, before destined for London is to come here.  The Abbes Arnoux and Chalut are well.  The Dutchess Danville somewhat recovered from the loss of her daughter.  Mrs. Barrett very homesick, and fancying herself otherwise sick.  They will probably remove to Honfleur.  This is all our news.  I have only to add then that Mr. Cairnes has taken charge of 15. aunes of black lace for you at 9 livres the aune, purchased by Petit and therefore I hope better purchased than some things have been for you; and that I am with sincere esteem Dear Madam your affectionate humble servt.,

“The Maison Carree”

Here I am, Madam, gazing whole hours at the Maison quarree, like a lover at his mistress.  The stocking weavers and silk spinners around it, consider me as a hypochondriac Englishman, about to write with a pistol, the last chapter of his history.  This is the second time I have been in love since I left Paris.  The first was with a Diana at the Chateau de Laye-Epinaye in Beaujolois, a delicious morsel of sculpture, by M. A. Slodtz.  This, you will say, was a rule, to fall in love with a female beauty: but with a house!  It is out of all precedent.  No, Madam, it is not without a precedent, in my own history.  While in Paris, I was violently smitten with the Hotel de Salm, and used to go to the Thuileries almost daily, to look at it.  The loueuse des chaises, inattentive to my passion, never had the complaisance to place a chair there, so that sitting on the parapet, and twisting my neck round to see the object of my admiration, I generally left it with a torti-colli.

From Lyons to Nismes I have been nourished with the remains of Roman grandeur.  They have always brought you to my mind, because I know your affection for whatever is Roman and noble.  At Vienne I thought of you.  But I am glad you were not there; for you would have seen me more angry than, I hope, you will ever see me.  The Praetorian palace, as it is called, comparable, for its fine proportions, to the Maison quarree, defaced by the barbarians who have converted it to its present purpose, its beautiful fluted Corinthian columns cut out, in part, to make space for Gothic windows, and hewed down, in the residue, to the plane of the building, was enough, you must admit, to disturb my composure.  At Orange too, I thought of you.  I was sure you had seen with pleasure, the sublime triumphal arch of Marius at the entrance of the city.  I went then to the Arenae.  Would you believe, Madam, that in this eighteenth century, in France, under the reign of Louis XVI. they are at this momont pulling down the circular wall of this superb remain, to pave a road?  And that too from a hill which is itself an entire mass of stone, just as fit, and more accessible?  A former intendant, a M. de Basville has rendered his memory dear to the traveller and amateur, by the pains he took to preserve and restore these monuments of antiquity.  The present one (I do not know who he is) is demolishing the object, to make a good road to it.  I thought of you again, and I was then in great good humor, at the Pont du Gard, a sublime antiquity, and well preserved.  But most of all here, where Roman taste, genius and magnificence, excite ideas analogous to yours at every step.  I could no longer oppose the inclination to avail myself of your permission to write to you, a permission given with too much complaisance by you, and used by me, with too much indiscretion.  Madame de Tott did me the same honor.  But she, being only the descendant of some of those puny heroes who boiled their own kettles before the walls of Troy, I shall write to her from a Grecian, rather than a Roman canton: when I shall find myself, for example among her Phocaean relations at Marseilles.

Loving, as you do madam, the precious remains of antiquity, loving architecture, gardening, a warm sun and a clear sky, I wonder you have never thought of moving Chaville to Nismes.  This, as you know, has not always been deemed impracticable; and therefore, the next time a Sur-intendant des batiments du roi, after the example of M. Colbert, sends persons to Nismes to move the Maison quarree to Paris, that they may not come empty handed, desire them to bring Chaville with them, to replace it.  A propos of Paris.  I have now been three weeks from there, without knowing any thing of what has passed.  I suppose I shall meet it all at Aix, where I have directed my letters to be lodged, poste restante.  My journey has given me leisure to reflect on this Assemblee des Notables.  Under a good and a young King, as the present, I think good may be made of it.  I would have the deputies then, by all means, so conduct themselves as to encourage him to repeat the calls of this Assembly.  Their first step should be, to get themselves divided into two chambers instead of seven; the Noblesse and the Commons separately.  The second, to persuade the King, instead of choosing the deputies of the Commons himself, to summon those chosen by the people for the Provincial administrations.  The third, as the Noblesse is too numerous to be all of the Assemblee, to obtain permission for that body to choose its own deputies.  Two Houses, so elected, would contain a mass of wisdom which would make the people happy, and the King great; would place him in history where no other act can possibly place him.  They would thus put themselves in the track of the best guide they can follow, they would soon overtake it, become its guide in turn, and lead to the wholesome modifications wanting in that model, and necessary to constitute a rational government.  Should they attempt more than the established habits of the people are ripe for, they may lose all, and retard indefinitely the ultimate object of their aim.  These, Madam, are my opinions; but I wish to know yours, which, I am sure, will be better.

From a correspondent at Nismes, you will not expect news.  Were I to attempt to give you news, I should tell you stories one thousand years old.  I should detail to you the intrigues of the courts of the Caesars, how they affect us here, the oppressions of their praetors, prefects, &c.  I am immersed in antiquities from morning to night.  For me, the city of Rome is actually existing in all the splendor of its empire.  I am filled with alarms for the event of the irruptions daily making on us, by the Goths, the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Vandals, lest they should re-conquer us to our original barbarism.  If I am sometimes induced to look forward to the eighteenth century, it is only when recalled to it by the recollection of your goodness and friendship, and by those sentiments of sincere esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be, Madam, your most obedient and most humble servant,

“The Rewards of Travel”

Your head, my dear friend, is full of Notable things; and being better employed, therefore, I do not expect letters from you.  I am constantly roving about, to see what I have never seen before, and shall never see again.  In the great cities, I go to see what travellers think alone worthy of being seen; but I make a job of it, and generally gulp it all down in a day.  On the other hand, I am never satiated with rambling through the fields and farms, examining the culture and cultivators, with a degree of curiosity which makes some take me to be a fool, and others to be much wiser than I am.  I have been pleased to find among the people a less degree of physical misery than I had expected.  They are generally well clothed, and have a plenty of food, not animal indeed, but vegetable, which is as wholesome.  Perhaps they are over worked, the excess of the rent required by the landlord, obliging them to too many hours of labor in order to produce that, and where-with to feed and clothe themselves.  The soil of Champagne and Burgundy I have found more universally good than I had expected, and as I could not help making a comparison with England, I found that comparison more unfavorable to the latter than is generally admitted.  The soil, the climate, and the productions are superior to those of England, and the husbandry as good, except in one point; that of manure.  In England, long leases for twenty-one years, or three lives, to wit, that of the farmer, his wife, and son, renewed by the son as soon as he comes to the possession, for his own life, his wife’s and eldest child’s, and so on, render the farms there almost hereditary, make it worth the farmer’s while to manure the lands highly, and give the landlord an opportunity of occasionally making his rent keep pace with the improved state of the lands.  Here the leases are either during pleasure, or for three, six, or nine years, which does not give the farmer time to repay himself for the expensive operation of well manuring, and therefore, he manures ill, or not at all.  I suppose, that could the practice of leasing for three lives be introduced in the whole kingdom, it would, within the term of your life, increase agricultural productions fifty per cent; or were any one proprietor to do it with his own lands, it would increase his rents fifty per cent, in the course of twenty-five years.  But I am told the laws do not permit it.  The laws then, in this particular, are unwise and unjust, and ought to give that permission.  In the southern provinces, where the soil is poor, the climate hot and dry, and there are few animals, they would learn the art, found so precious in England, of making vegetable manure, and thus improving these provinces in the article in which nature has been least kind to them.  Indeed, these provinces afford a singular spectacle.  Calculating on the poverty of their soil, and their climate by its latitude only, they should have been the poorest in France.  On the contrary, they are the richest, from one fortuitous circumstance.  Spurs or ramifications of high mountains, making down from the Alps, and as it were, reticulating these provinces, give to the vallies the protection of a particular inclosure to each, and the benefit of a general stagnation of the northern winds produced by the whole of them, and thus countervail the advantage of several degrees of latitude.  From the first olive fields of Pierrelatte, to the orangeries of Hieres, has been continued rapture to me.  I have often wished for you.  I think you have not made this journey.  It is a pleasure you have to come, and an improvement to be added to the many you have already made.  It will be a great comfort to you, to know, from your own inspection, the condition of all the provinces of your own country, and it will be interesting to them at some future day, to be known to you.  This is, perhaps, the only moment of your life in which you can acquire that knowledge.  And to do it most effectually, you must be absolutely incognito, you must ferret the people out of their hovels as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds under pretence of resting yourself, but in fact to find if they are soft.  You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables.

You will not wonder at the subjects of my letter: they are the only ones which have been presented to my mind for some time past; and the waters must always be what are the fountains from which they flow.  According to this, indeed, I should have intermixed, from beginning to end, warm expressions of friendship to you.  But, according to the ideas of our country, we do not permit ourselves to speak even truths, when they may have the air of flattery.  I content myself, therefore, with saying once for all, that I love you, your wife and children.  Tell them so, and adieu.

Yours affectionately,

“The Grand Recipe for Felicity”

I write to you, my dear Patsy, from the Canal of Languedoc, on which I am at present sailing, as I have been for a week past, cloudless skies above, limpid waters below, and find on each hand a row of nightingales in full chorus.  This delightful bird had given me a rich treat before at the fountain of Vaucluse.  After visiting the tomb of Laura at Avignon, I went to see this fountain, a noble one of itself, and rendered for ever famous by the songs of Petrarch who lived near it.  I arrived there somewhat fatigued, and sat down by the fountain to repose myself.  It gushes, of the size of a river, from a secluded valley of the mountain, the ruins of Petrarch’s chateau being perched on a rock 200 feet perpendicular above.  To add to the enchantment of the scene, every tree and bush was filled with nightingales in full song.  I think you told me you had not yet noticed this bird. As you have trees in the garden of the convent, there must be nightingales in them, and this is the season of their song.  Endeavor my dear, to make yourself acquainted with the music of this bird, that when you return to your own country you may be able to estimate it’s merit in comparison with that of the mocking bird.  The latter has the advantage of singing thro’ a great part of the year, whereas the nightingale sings but about 5. or 6 weeks in the spring, and a still shorter term and with a more feeble voice in the fall.  I expect to be at Paris about the middle of next month.  By that time we may begin to expect our dear Polly.  It will be a circumstance of inexpressible comfort to me to have you both with me once more.  The object most interesting to me for the residue of my life, will be to see you both developing daily those principles of virtue and goodness which will make you valuable to others and happy in yourselves, and acquiring those talents and that degree of science which will guard you at all times against ennui, the most dangerous poison of life.  A mind always employed is always happy.  This is the true secret, the grand recipe for felicity. The idle are the only wretched.  In a world which furnishes so many emploiments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.  We are now entering the port of Toulouse, where I quit my bark; and of course must conclude my letter.  Be good and be industrious, and you will be what I shall most love in the world.  Adieu my dear child.  Yours affectionately,

“Affairs of Diplomacy”

DEAR SIR -- I returned about three weeks ago from a very useless voiage.  Useless, I mean, as to the object which first suggested it, that of trying the effect of the mineral waters of Aix en Provence on my hand.  I tried these because recommended among six or eight others as equally beneficial, and because they would place me at the beginning of a tour to the seaports of Marseilles, Bourdeaux, Nantes and Lorient which I had long meditated, in hopes that a knowlege of the places and persons concerned in our commerce and the information to be got from them might enable me sometimes to be useful.  I had expected to satisfy myself at Marseilles of the causes of the difference of quality between the rice of Carolina and that of Piedmont which is brought in quantities to Marseilles.  Not being able to do it, I made an excursion of three weeks into the rice country beyond the Alps, going through it from Vercelli to Pavia about 60 miles.  I found the difference to be, not in the management as had been supposed both here and in Carolina, but in the species of rice, and I hope to enable them in Carolina to begin the Cultivation of the Piedmont rice and carry it on hand in hand with their own that they may supply both qualities, which is absolutely necessary at this market.  I had before endeavored to lead the depot of rice from Cowes to Honfleur and hope to get it received there on such terms as may draw that branch of commerce from England to this country.  It is an object of 250,000 guineas a year.  While passing thro’ the towns of Turin, Milan and Genoa, I satisfied myself of the practicability of introducing our whale oil for their consumption and I suppose it would be equally so in the other great cities of that country.  I was sorry that I was not authorized to set the matter on foot.  The merchants with whom I chose to ask conferences, met me freely, and communicated fully, knowing I was in a public character.  I could however only prepare a disposition to meet our oil merchants.  On the article of tobacco I was more in possession of my ground, and put matters into a train for inducing their government to draw their tobaccos directly from the U.S. and not as heretofore from G.B.  I am now occupied with the new ministry here to put the concluding hand to the new regulations for our commerce with this country, announced in the letter of M. de Calonnes which I sent you last fall.  I am in hopes in addition to those, to obtain a suppression of the duties on Tar, pitch, and turpentine, and an extension of the privileges of American whale oil, to their fish oils in general.  I find that the quantity of Codfish oil brought to Lorient is considerable.  This being got off hand (which will be in a few days) the chicaneries and vexations of the farmers on the article of tobacco, and their elusions of the order of Bernis, call for the next attention.  I have reason to hope good dispositions in the new ministry towards our commerce with this country.  Besides endeavoring on all occasions to multiply the points of contact and connection with this country, which I consider as our surest main-stay under every event, I have had it much at heart to remove from between us every subject of misunderstanding or irritation.  Our debts to the king, to the officers, and the farmers are of this description.  The having complied with no part of our engagements in these draws on us a great deal of censure, and occasioned a language in the Assemblees des notables very likely to produce dissatisfaction between us.  Dumas being on the spot in Holland, I had asked of him some time ago, in confidence, his opinion on the practicability of transferring these debts from France to Holland, and communicated his answer to Congress, pressing them to get you to go over to Holland and try to effect this business.  Your knowlege of the ground and former successes occasioned me to take this liberty without consulting you, because I was sure you would not weigh your personal trouble against public good.  I have had no answer from Congress, but hearing of your journey to Holland have hoped that some money operation had led you there.  If it related to the debts of this country I would ask a communication of what you think yourself at liberty to communicate, as it might change the form of my answers to the eternal applications I receive.  The debt to the officers of France carries an interest of about 2000 guineas, so we may suppose it’s principal is between 30. and 40,000.  This makes more noise against [us] than all our other debts put together.

I send you the arrets which begin the reformation here, and some other publications respecting America: together with copies of letters received from Obryon and Lambe.  It is believed that a naval armament has been ordered at Brest in correspondence with that of England.  We know certainly that orders are given to form a camp in the neighborhood of Brabant, and that Count Rochambeau has the command of it.  It’s amount I cannot assert.  Report says 15,000 men.  This will derange the plans of oeconomy.  I take the liberty of putting under your cover a letter for Mrs. Kinloch of South Carolina, with a packet, and will trouble you to enquire for her and have them delivered.  The packet is of great consequence, and therefore referred to her care, as she will know the safe opportunities of conveying it.  Should you not be able to find her, and can forward the packet to it’s address by any very safe conveiance I will beg you to do it.  I have the honour to be with sentiments of the most perfect friendship and esteem Dear Sir your most obedient and most humble servant,

“A Peep . . . Into Elysium”

You conclude, Madam, from my long silence that I am gone to the other world.  Nothing else would have prevented my writing to you so long.  I have not thought of you the less, but I took a peep only into Elysium.  I entered it at one door, & came out at another, having seen, as I past, only Turin, Milan, & Genoa.  I calculated the hours it would have taken to carry me on to Rome, but they were exactly so many more than I had to spare.  Was not this provoking?  In thirty hours from Milan I could have been at the espousals of the Doge and the Adriatic, but I am born to lose every thing I love.  Why were you not with me?  So many enchanting scenes which only wanted your pencil to consecrate them to fame.  Whenever you go to Italy you must pass at the Col de Tende.  You may go in your chariot in full trot from Nice to Turin, as if there were no mountain.  But have your pallet & pencil ready: for you will be sure to stop in the passage, at the chateau de Saorgio.  Imagine to yourself, madam, a castle & village hanging to a cloud in front, on one hand a mountain cloven through to let pass a gurgling stream; on the other a river, over which is thrown a magnificent bridge; the whole formed into a bason, it’s sides shagged with rocks, olive trees, vines, herds, &c.  I insist on your painting it.  How do you do?  How have you done? and when are you coming here?  If not at all, what did you ever come for?  Only to make people miserable at losing you.  Consider that you are but a day from Paris.  If you come by the way of St. Omers, which is but two posts further, you will see a new & beautiful country.  Come then, my dear Madam, and we will breakfast every day a Angloise, hie away to the Desert, dine under the bowers of Marly, and forget that we are ever to part again.  I received, in the moment of my departure your favor of Feb. 15. and long to receive another: but lengthy, warm, & flowing from the heart, as do the sentiments of friendship & esteem with which I have the honor to be, dear Madam, your affectionate friend and servant.

“The Homage of Reason”

DEAR PETER, -- I have received your two letters of Decemb. 30 and April 18, and am very happy to find by them, as well as by letters from Mr. Wythe, that you have been so fortunate as to attract his notice & good will; I am sure you will find this to have been one of the most fortunate events of your life, as I have ever been sensible it was of mine.  I inclose you a sketch of the sciences to which I would wish you to apply in such order as Mr. Wythe shall advise; I mention also the books in them worth your reading, which submit to his correction.  Many of these are among your father’s books, which you should have brought to you.  As I do not recollect those of them not in his library, you must write to me for them, making out a catalogue of such as you think you shall have occasion for in 18 months from the date of your letter, & consulting Mr. Wythe on the subject.  To this sketch I will add a few particular observations.

1.  Italian.  I fear the learning this language will confound your French and Spanish.  Being all of them degenerated dialects of the Latin, they are apt to mix in conversation.  I have never seen a person speaking the three languages who did not mix them.  It is a delightful language, but late events having rendered the Spanish more useful, lay it aside to prosecute that.

2.  Spanish.  Bestow great attention on this, & endeavor to acquire an accurate knowlege of it.  Our future connections with Spain & Spanish America will render that language a valuable acquisition.  The antient history of a great part of America, too, is written in that language.  I send you a dictionary.

3.  Moral philosophy.  I think it lost time to attend lectures in this branch.  He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science.  For one man of science, there are thousands who are not.  What would have become of them?  Man was destined for society.  His morality therefore was to be formed to this object.  He was endowed with a sense of right & wrong merely relative to this.  This sense is as much a part of his nature as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, & not the {to kalon}, truth, &c. as fanciful writers have imagined.  The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm.  It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree.  It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.  This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense.  State a moral case to a ploughman & a professor.  The former will decide it as well, & often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.  In this branch therefore read good books because they will encourage as well as direct your feelings.  The writings of Sterne particularly form the best course of morality that ever was written.  Besides these read the books mentioned in the enclosed paper; and above all things lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous &c.  Consider every act of this kind as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties, & increase your worth.

4.  Religion.  Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object.  In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of novelty & singularity of opinion.  Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion.  It is too important, & the consequences of error may be too serious.  On the other hand shake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched.  Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.  Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.  You will naturally examine first the religion of your own country.  Read the bible then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus.  The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus.  The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature does not weigh against them.  But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces.  Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from god.  Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature in the case he relates.  For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours.  Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c.  But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired.  Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired.  The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it.  On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration.  Is this arrest of the earth’s motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities?  You will next read the new testament.  It is the history of a personage called Jesus.  Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions 1.  of those who say he was begotten by god, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven: and 2.  of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, & was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile or death in furca.  See this law in the Digest Lib. 48. tit. 19. 28. 3. & Lipsius Lib. 2. de cruce. cap. 2.  These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion, & several others.  They will assist you in your inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all.  Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of it’s consequences.  If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort & pleasantness you feel in it’s exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.  If you find reason to believe there is a god, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love.  In fine, I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, & neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons, or description of persons have rejected or believed it.  Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision.  I forgot to observe when speaking of the new testament that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists.  Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, & not by the reason of those ecclesiastics.  Most of these are lost.  There are some however still extant, collected by Fabricius which I will endeavor to get & send you.

5.  Travelling.  This makes men wiser, but less happy.  When men of sober age travel, they gather knolege which they may apply usefully for their country, but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret, their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects, & they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home.  Young men who travel are exposed to all these inconveniences in a higher degree, to others still more serious, and do not acquire that wisdom for which a previous foundation is requisite by repeated & just observations at home.  The glare of pomp & pleasure is analogous to the motion of their blood, it absorbs all their affection & attention, they are torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their home as to a place of exile & condemnation.  Their eyes are for ever turned back to the object they have lost, & it’s recollection poisons the residue of their lives.  Their first & most delicate passions are hackneyed on unworthy objects here, & they carry home only the dregs, insufficient to make themselves or anybody else happy.  Add to this that a habit of idleness, an inability to apply themselves to business is acquired & renders them useless to themselves & their country.  These observations are founded in experience.  There is no place where your pursuit of knolege will be so little obstructed by foreign objects as in your own country, nor any wherein the virtues of the heart will be less exposed to be weakened.  Be good, be learned, & be industrious, & you will not want the aid of travelling to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself.  I repeat my advice to take a great deal of exercise, & on foot.  Health is the first requisite after morality.  Write to me often & be assured of the interest I take in your success, as well as of the warmth of those sentiments of attachment with which I am, dear Peter, your affectionate friend.

P.S.  Let me know your age in your next letter.  Your cousins here are well & desire to be remembered to you.

ENCLOSURE


Antient history. Herodot. Thucyd. Xenoph. hellen. Xenoph. Anab.
   Q. Curt. Just.
   Livy. Polybius. Sallust. Caesar. Suetonius. Tacitus. Aurel.
   Victor. Herodian.
   Gibbons’ decline of the Roman empire. Milot histoire ancienne.
Mod. hist. English. Tacit. Germ. & Agricole -- Hume to the end of
   H.VI. then Habington’s E.IV. -- S’t. Thomas Moor’s E.5. &
   R.3. -- L’d Bacon’s H.7. -- L’d. Herbert of Cherbury’s H.8. -- K.
   Edward’s journal (in Burnet) B’p. of Hereford’s E.6. & Mary.--
   Cambden’s Eliz. -- Wilson’s Jac.I. -- Ludlow (omit Clarendon as
   too seducing for a young republican. By and by read him)
   Burnet’s Charles 2. Jac.2. W’m. & Mary & Anne -- L’d Orrery down to
   George 1. & 2. -- Burke’s G.3. -- Robertson’s hist. of Scotland.
American. Robertson’s America. -- Douglass’s N. America --
   Hutcheson’s Massachusets. Smith’s N. York. -- Smith’s N. Jersey
   -- Franklin’s review of Pennsylvania. -- Smith’s, Stith’s,
   Keith’s, & Beverley’s hist. of Virginia
Foreign. Mallet’s North’n. Antiquities by Percy --
      Puffendorf’s hist’y.
      of Europe & Martiniere’s of Asia, Africa & America -- Milot
   histoire Moderne. Voltaire histoire universelle -- Milot hist. de
   France -- Mariana’s hist. of Spain in Span. -- Robertson’s Charles
   V. -- Watson’s Phil. II. & III. -- Grotii Belgica. Mosheim’s
   Ecclesiastical history.
Poetry Homer -- Milton -- Ossian -- Sophocles -- Aeschylus
      -- Eurip. -- Metastasio -- Shakesp. -- Theocritus
      -- Anacreon [ . . . ]
   Mathematics Bezout & whatever else Mr. Madison recommends.
   Astronomy Delalande &’c. as Mr. Madison shall recommend.
   Natural Philosophy. Musschenbroeck.


Botany. Linnaei Philosophia Botanica -- Genera plantarum --
   Species plantarum -- Gronorii flora [ . . . ]
Chemistry. Fourcroy.
Agriculture. Home’s principles of Agriculture -- Tull &c.
Anatomy. Cheselden.
Morality. The Socratic dialogues -- Cicero’s Philosophies -- Kaim’s
   principles of Nat’l. religion -- Helvetius de l’esprit et
     de l’homme. Locke’s Essay. -- Lucretius -- Traite de Morale
     & du bonheur
Religion. Locke’s Conduct of the mind. -- Middleton’s works --
   Bolingbroke’s philosoph. works -- Hume’s essays -- Voltaire’s
   works -- Beattie
Politics & Law. Whatever Mr. Wythe pleases, who will be so good
   as to correct also all the preceding articles which are only
   intended as a groundwork to be finished by his pencil.

“Revolt of the Nobles”

DEAR SIR -- Since your favor of July 10. mine have been of July 17. 23 and 28.  The last inclosed a bill of exchange from Mr. Grand on Tessier for pound 46-17-10 sterl. to answer Genl. Sullivan’s bill for that sum.  I hope it got safe to hand, tho’ I have been anxious about it as it went by post and my letters thro’ that channel sometimes miscarry.

From the separation of the Notables to the present moment has been perhaps the most interesting interval ever known in this country.  The propositions of the Government, approved by the Notables, were precious to the nation and have been in an honest course of execution, some of them being carried into effect, and others preparing.  Above all the establishment of the Provincial assemblies, some of which have begun their sessions, bid fair to be the instrument for circumscribing the power of the crown and raising the people into consideration.  The election given to them is what will do this.  Tho’ the minister who proposed these improvements seems to have meant them as the price of the new supplies, the game has been so played as to secure the improvements to the nation without securing the price.  The Notables spoke softly on the subject of the additional supplies, but the parliament took them up roundly, refused to register the edicts for the new taxes, till compelled in a bed of justice and prefered themselves to be transferred to Troyes rather than withdraw their opposition.  It is urged principally against the king, that his revenue is 130. millions more than that of his predecessor was, and yet he demands 120. millions further.  You will see this well explained in the ‘Conference entre un ministre d’etat et un Conseiller au parlement’ which I send you with some other small pamphlets.  In the mean time all tongues in Paris (and in France as it is said) have been let loose, and never was a license of speaking against the government exercised in London more freely or more universally.  Caracatures, placards, bon mots, have been indulged in by all ranks of people, and I know of no well attested instance of a single punishment.  For some time mobs of 10; 20; 30,000 people collected daily, surrounded the parliament house, huzzaed the members, even entered the doors and examined into their conduct, took the horses out of the carriages of those who did well, and drew them home.  The government thought it prudent to prevent these, drew some regiments into the neighborhood, multiplied the guards, had the streets constantly patrolled by strong parties, suspended privileged places, forbad all clubs, etc.  The mobs have ceased: perhaps this may be partly owing to the absence of parliament.  The Count d’Artois, sent to hold a bed of justice in the Cour des Aides, was hissed and hooted without reserve by the populace; the carriage of Madame de (I forget the name) in the queen’s livery was stopped by the populace under a belief that it was Madame de Polignac’s whom they would have insulted, the queen going to the theater at Versailles with Madame de Polignac was received with a general hiss.  The king, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges deeper and deeper; the queen cries but sins on.  The Count d’Artois is detested, and Monsieur [Louis, Comte de Provence] the general favorite.  The Archbishop of Thoulouse is made Ministre principale, a virtuous, patriotic and able character.  The Marechal de Castries retired yesterday notwithstanding strong sollicitations to remain in office.  The Marechal de Segur retired at the same time, prompted to it by the court.  Their successors are not yet known.  M. de St. Prist goes Ambassador to Holland in the room of Verac transferred to Switzerland, and the Count de Moustier goes to America in the room of the Chevalier de la Luzerne who has a promise of the first vacancy.  These nominations are not yet made formally, but they are decided on and the parties are ordered to prepare for their destination.  As it has been long since I have had a confidential conveiance to you, I have brought together the principal facts from the adjournment of the Notables to the present moment which, as you will perceive from their nature, required a confidential conveyance. I have done it the rather because, tho’ you will have heard many of them and seen them in the public papers, yet floating in the mass of lies which constitute the atmospheres of London and Paris, you may not have been sure of their truth: and I have mentioned every truth of any consequence to enable you to stamp as false the facts pretermitted.  I think that in the course of three months the royal authority has lost, and the rights of the nation gained, as much ground, by a revolution of public opinion only, as England gained in all her civil wars under the Stuarts.  I rather believe too they will retain the ground gained, because it is defended by the young and the middle aged, in opposition to the old only.  The first party increases, and the latter diminishes daily from the course of nature.  You may suppose that under this situation, war would be unwelcome to France.  She will surely avoid it if not forced by the courts of London and Berlin.  If forced, it is probable she will change the system of Europe totally by an alliance with the two empires, to whom nothing would be more desireable.  In the event of such a coalition, not only Prussia but the whole European world must receive from them their laws.  But France will probably endeavor to preserve the present system if it can be done by sacrifising to a certain degree the pretensions of the patriotic party in Holland.  But of all these matters you can judge, in your position, where less secrecy is observed, better than I can.  I have news from America as late as July 19.  Nothing had then transpired from the Federal convention.  I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members.  Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions, and ignorance of the value of public discussions.  I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise.  It is really an assembly of demigods.  Genl. Washington was of opinion they should not separate till October.  I have the honour to be with every sentiment of friendship and respect Dear Sir Your most obedient and most humble servant,

“A Moose from New Hampshire”

SIR, -- I had the honour of informing you some time ago that I had written to some of my friends in America, desiring they would send me such of the spoils of the Moose, Caribou, Elk & deer as might throw light on that class of animals; but more particularly to send me the complete skeleton, skin, & horns of the Moose, in such condition as that the skin might be sewed up & stuffed on it’s arrival here.  I am happy to be able to present to you at this moment the bones & skin of a Moose, the horns of the Caribou, the elk, the deer, the spiked horned buck, & the Roebuck of America.  They all come from New Hampshire & Massachusetts.  I give you their popular names, as it rests with yourself to decide their real names.  The skin of the Moose was drest with the hair on, but a great deal of it has come off, and the rest is ready to drop off.  The horns of the elk are remarkably small.  I have certainly seen of them which would have weighed five or six times as much.  This is the animal which we call elk in the Southern parts of America, and of which I have given some description in the Notes on Virginia, of which I had the honour of presenting you a copy.  I really doubt whether the flat-horned elk exists in America; and I think this may be properly classed with the elk, the principal difference being in the horns.  I have seen the Daim, the Cerf, the Chevreuil of Europe.  But the animal we call Elk, and which may be distinguished as the Round-horned elk, is very different from them.  I have never seen the Brand-hirtz or Cerf d’Ardennes, nor the European elk.  Could I get a sight of them I think I should be able to say to which of them the American elk resembles most, as I am tolerably well acquainted with that animal.  I must observe also that the horns of the Deer, which accompany these spoils, are not of the fifth or sixth part of the weight of some that I have seen.  This individual has been of age, according to our method of judging.  I have taken measures particularly to be furnished with large horns of our elk & our deer, & therefore beg of you not to consider those now sent as furnishing a specimen of their ordinary size.  I really suspect you will find that the Moose, the Round horned elk, & the American deer are species not existing in Europe.  The Moose is perhaps of a new class.  I wish these spoils, Sir, may have the merit of adding anything new to the treasures of nature which have so fortunately come under your observation, & of which she seems to have given you the key: they will in that case be some gratification to you, which it will always be pleasing to me to have procured, having the honor to be with sentiments of the most perfect esteem & respect, Sir, your most obedient, & most humble servant.

“The New Constitution”

DEAR SIR, -- I am now to acknoledge the receipt of your favors of October the 4th, 8th, & 26th.  In the last you apologise for your letters of introduction to Americans coming here.  It is so far from needing apology on your part, that it calls for thanks on mine.  I endeavor to shew civilities to all the Americans who come here, & will give me opportunities of doing it: and it is a matter of comfort to know from a good quarter what they are, & how far I may go in my attentions to them.  Can you send me Woodmason’s bills for the two copying presses for the M. de la Fayette, & the M. de Chastellux?  The latter makes one article in a considerable account, of old standing, and which I cannot present for want of this article.  -- I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution.  I beg leave through you to place them where due.  It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America.  There are very good articles in it: & very bad.  I do not know which preponderate.  What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: & what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life.  Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying.  The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves.  Yet where does this anarchy exist?  Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts?  And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted?  I say nothing of it’s motives.  They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness.  God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.  The people cannot be all, & always, well informed.  The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.  If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.  We have had 13. states independent 11. years.  There has been one rebellion.  That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state.  What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms.  The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them.  What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.  It is it’s natural manure.  Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order.  I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.  -- You ask me if any thing transpires here on the subject of S. America?  Not a word.  I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only.  But this country probably will join the extinguishers.  -- The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation.  We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.

“More on the Constitution”

DEAR SIR -- This will be delivered you by young Mr. Rutledge.  Your knowledge of his father will introduce him to your notice.  He merits it moreover on his own account.

I am now to acknolege your favors of Oct. 8 and 26.  That of August 25. was duly received, nor can I recollect by what accident I was prevented from acknoleging it in mine of Sep. 28.  It has been the source of my subsistence hitherto, and must continue to be so till I receive letters on the affairs of money from America.  Van Staphorsts & Willinks have answered my draughts.  -- Your books for M. de la Fayette are received here.  I will notify it to him, who is at present with his provincial assembly in Auvergne.

Little is said lately of the progress of the negociations between the courts of Petersburg, Vienna, and Versailles.  The distance of the former and the cautious, unassuming character of it’s minister here is one cause of delays: a greater one is the greediness and instable character of the emperor.  Nor do I think that the Principal here [Brienne] will be easily induced to lend himself to any connection which shall threaten a war within a considerable number of years.  His own reign will be that of peace only, in all probability; and were any accident to tumble him down, this country would immediately gird on it’s sword and buckler, and trust to occurrences for supplies of money.  The wound their honour has sustained festers in their hearts, and it may be said with truth that the Archbishop and a few priests, determined to support his measures because proud to see their order come again into power, are the only advocates for the line of conduct which has been pursued.  It is said and believed thro’ Paris literally that the Count de Monmorin ‘pleuroit comme un enfant [“wept like a child”]’ when obliged to sign the counter declaration.  Considering the phrase as figurative, I believe it expresses the distress of his heart.  Indeed he has made no secret of his individual opinion.  In the mean time the Principal goes on with a firm and patriotic spirit, in reforming the cruel abuses of the government and preparing a new constitution which will give to this people as much liberty as they are capable of managing.  This I think will be the glory of his administration, because, tho’ a good theorist in finance, he is thought to execute badly.  They are about to open a loan of 100. millions to supply present wants, and it is said the preface of the Arret will contain a promise of the Convocation of the States general during the ensuing year. 12. or 15. provincial assemblies are already in action, and are going on well; and I think that tho’ the nation suffers in reputation, it will gain infinitely in happiness under the present administration.  I inclose to Mr. Jay a pamphlet which I will beg of you to forward.  I leave it open for your perusal.  When you shall have read it, be so good as to stick a wafer in it.  It is not yet published, nor will be for some days.  This copy has been ceded to me as a favor.

How do you like our new constitution?  I confess there are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed.  The house of federal representatives will not be adequate to the management of affairs either foreign or federal.  Their President seems a bad edition of a Polish king.  He may be reelected from 4. years to 4. years for life.  Reason and experience prove to us that a chief magistrate, so continuable, is an officer for life.  When one or two generations shall have proved that this is an office for life, it becomes on every succession worthy of intrigue, of bribery, of force, and even of foreign interference.  It will be of great consequence to France and England to have America governed by a Galloman or Angloman.  Once in office, and possessing the military force of the union, without either the aid or check of a council, he would not be easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to withdraw their votes from him.  I wish that at the end of the 4. years they had made him for ever ineligible a second time.  Indeed I think all the good of this new constitution might have been couched in three or four new articles to be added to the good, old, and venerable fabrick, which should have been preserved even as a religious relique.  -- Present me and my daughters affectionately to Mrs. Adams.  The younger one continues to speak of her warmly.  Accept yourself assurances of the sincere esteem and respect with which I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

P. S.  I am in negociation with de la Blancherie.  You shall hear from me when arranged.

“Objections to the Constitution”

DEAR SIR, -- My last to you was of Oct. 8 by the Count de Moustier.  Yours of July 18. Sep. 6. & Oct. 24. have been successively received, yesterday, the day before & three or four days before that.  I have only had time to read the letters, the printed papers communicated with them, however interesting, being obliged to lie over till I finish my dispatches for the packet, which dispatches must go from hence the day after tomorrow.  I have much to thank you for.  First and most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself.  These little informations are very material towards forming my own decisions.  I would be glad even to know when any individual member thinks I have gone wrong in any instance.  If I know myself it would not excite ill blood in me, while it would assist to guide my conduct, perhaps to justify it, and to keep me to my duty, alert.  I must thank you too for the information in Thos. Burke’s case, tho’ you will have found by a subsequent letter that I have asked of you a further investigation of that matter.  It is to gratify the lady who is at the head of the Convent wherein my daughters are, & who, by her attachment & attention to them, lays me under great obligations.  I shall hope therefore still to receive from you the result of the further enquiries my second letter had asked.  -- The parcel of rice which you informed me had miscarried accompanied my letter to the Delegates of S. Carolina.  Mr. Bourgoin was to be the bearer of both & both were delivered together into the hands of his relation here who introduced him to me, and who at a subsequent moment undertook to convey them to Mr. Bourgoin.  This person was an engraver particularly recommended to D’r. Franklin & Mr. Hopkinson.  Perhaps he may have mislaid the little parcel of rice among his baggage.  -- I am much pleased that the sale of Western lands is so successful.  I hope they will absorb all the Certificates of our Domestic debt speedily, in the first place, and that then offered for cash they will do the same by our foreign one.

The season admitting only of operations in the Cabinet, and these being in a great measure secret, I have little to fill a letter.  I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few words on the Constitution proposed by our Convention.  I like much the general idea of framing a government which should go on of itself peaceably, without needing continual recurrence to the state legislatures.  I like the organization of the government into Legislative, Judiciary & Executive.  I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly.  For tho’ I think a house chosen by them will be very illy qualified to legislate for the Union, for foreign nations &c. yet this evil does not weigh against the good of preserving inviolate the fundamental principle that the people are not to be taxed but by representatives chosen immediately by themselves.  I am captivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great & little states, of the latter to equal, and the former to proportional influence.  I am much pleased too with the substitution of the method of voting by persons, instead of that of voting by states: and I like the negative given to the Executive with a third of either house, though I should have liked it better had the Judiciary been associated for that purpose, or invested with a similar and separate power.  There are other good things of less moment.  I will now add what I do not like.  First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly & without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal & unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land & not by the law of nations.  To say, as Mr. Wilson does that a bill of rights was not necessary because all is reserved in the case of the general government which is not given, while in the particular ones all is given which is not reserved, might do for the audience to whom it was addressed, but is surely a gratis dictum, opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as from the omission of the clause of our present confederation which had declared that in express terms.  It was a hard conclusion to say because there has been no uniformity among the states as to the cases triable by jury, because some have been so incautious as to abandon this mode of trial, therefore the more prudent states shall be reduced to the same level of calamity.  It would have been much more just & wise to have concluded the other way that as most of the states had judiciously preserved this palladium, those who had wandered should be brought back to it, and to have established general right instead of general wrong.  Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.  The second feature I dislike, and greatly dislike, is the abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation in office, and most particularly in the case of the President.  Experience concurs with reason in concluding that the first magistrate will always be re-elected if the Constitution permits it.  He is then an officer for life.  This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to certain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs that they will interfere with money & with arms.  A Galloman or an Angloman will be supported by the nation he befriends.  If once elected, and at a second or third election out voted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government, be supported by the States voting for him, especially if they are the central ones lying in a compact body themselves & separating their opponents: and they will be aided by one nation of Europe, while the majority are aided by another.  The election of a President of America some years hence will be much more interesting to certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a king of Poland was.  Reflect on all the instances in history antient & modern, of elective monarchies, and say if they do not give foundation for my fears.  The Roman emperors, the popes, while they were of any importance, the German emperors till they became hereditary in practice, the kings of Poland, the Deys of the Ottoman dependances.  It may be said that if elections are to be attended with these disorders, the seldomer they are renewed the better.  But experience shews that the only way to prevent disorder is to render them uninteresting by frequent changes.  An incapacity to be elected a second time would have been the only effectual preventative.  The power of removing him every fourth year by the vote of the people is a power which will not be exercised.  The king of Poland is removeable every day by the Diet, yet he is never removed.  -- Smaller objections are the Appeal in fact as well as law, and the binding all persons Legislative Executive & Judiciary by oath to maintain that constitution.  I do not pretend to decide what would be the best method of procuring the establishment of the manifold good things in this constitution, and of getting rid of the bad.  Whether by adopting it in hopes of future amendment, or, after it has been duly weighed & canvassed by the people, after seeing the parts they generally dislike, & those they generally approve, to say to them ‘We see now what you wish.  Send together your deputies again, let them frame a constitution for you omitting what you have condemned, & establishing the powers you approve.  Even these will be a great addition to the energy of your government.’  --  At all events I hope you will not be discouraged from other trials, if the present one should fail of its full effect.  -- I have thus told you freely what I like & dislike: merely as a matter of curiosity, for I know your own judgment has been formed on all these points after having heard everything which could be urged on them.  I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government.  It is always oppressive.  The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done.  Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course of 11 years, is but one for each state in a century & a half.  No country should be so long without one.  Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections.  France, with all it’s despotism, and two or three hundred thousand men always in arms has had three insurrections in the three years I have been here in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts & a great deal more blood was spilt.  In Turkey, which Montesquieu supposes more despotic, insurrections are the events of every day.  In England, where the hand of power is lighter than here, but heavier than with us they happen every half dozen years.  Compare again the ferocious depredations of their insurgents with the order, the moderation & the almost self extinguishment of ours.  -- After all, it is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.  If they approve the proposed Convention in all it’s parts, I shall concur in it chearfully, in hopes that they will amend it whenever they shall find it work wrong.  I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America.  When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.  Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.  I have tired you by this time with my disquisitions & will therefore only add assurances of the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem & attachment with which I am Dear Sir your affectionate friend & servant

P. S.  The instability of our laws is really an immense evil.  I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions that there shall always be a twelve-month between the ingrossing a bill & passing it: that it should then be offered to it’s passage without changing a word: and that if circumstances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of both houses instead of a bare majority.