Letters of Thomas Jefferson

1790 - 1791

“Adieu to France”

I had hoped, Madame la Duchesse, to have again had the honor of paying my respects to you in Paris, but the wish of our government that I should take a share in its administration, has become a law to me.  Could I have persuaded myself that public offices were made for private convenience, I should undoubtedly have preferred a continuance in that which placed me nearer to you; but believing on the contrary that a good citizen should take his stand where the public authority marshals him, I have acquiesced.  Among the circumstances which reconcile me to my new position the most powerful is the opportunities it will give me of cementing the friendship between our two nations.  Be assured that to do this is the first wish of my heart.  I have but one system of ethics for men & for nations -- to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements and under all circumstances, to be open & generous, promotes in the long run even the interests of both; and I am sure it promotes their happiness.  The change in your government will approximate us to one another.  You have had some checks, some horrors since I left you; but the way to heaven, you know, has always been said to be strewed with thorns.  Why your nation have had fewer than any other on earth, I do not know, unless it be that it is the best on earth.  If I assure you, Madam, moreover, that I consider yourself personally as with the foremost of your nation in every virtue, it is not flattery, my heart knows not that, it is a homage to sacred truth, it is a tribute I pay with cordiality to a character in which I saw but one error; it was that of treating me with a degree of favor I did not merit.  Be assured I shall ever retain a lively sense of all your goodness to me, which was a circumstance of principal happiness to me during my stay in Paris.  I hope that by this time you have seen that my prognostications of a successful issue to your revolution have been verified.  I feared for you during a short interval; but after the declaration of the army, tho’ there might be episodes of distress, the denoument was out of doubt.  Heaven send that the glorious example of your country may be but the beginning of the history of European liberty, and that you may live many years in health & happiness to see at length that heaven did not make man in it’s wrath.  Accept the homage of those sentiments of sincere and respectfull esteem with which I have the honor to be, Madame la Duchesse, your most affectionate & obedient humble servant.

“Reading the Law”

DEAR SIR, -- Your uncle mr Garland informs me, that, your education being finished, you are desirous of obtaining some clerkship or something else under government whereby you may turn your talents to some account for yourself and he had supposed it might be in my power to provide you with some such office.  His commendations of you are such as to induce me to wish sincerely to be of service to you.  But there is not, and has not been, a single vacant office at my disposal.  Nor would I, as your friend, ever think of putting you into the petty clerkships in the several offices, where you would have to drudge through life for a miserable pittance, without a hope of bettering your situation.  But he tells me you are also disposed to the study of the law.  This therefore brings it more within my power to serve you.  It will be necessary for you in that case to go and live somewhere in my neighborhood in Albemarle.  The inclosed letter to Colo. Lewis near Charlottesville will show you what I have supposed could be best done for you there.  It is a general practice to study the law in the office of some lawyer.  This indeed gives to the student the advantage of his instruction.  But I have ever seen that the services expected in return have been more than the instructions have been worth.  All that is necessary for a student is access to a library, and directions in what order the books are to be read.  This I will take the liberty of suggesting to you, observing previously that as other branches of science, and especially history, are necessary to form a lawyer, these must be carried on together.  I will arrange the books to be read into three columns, and propose that you should read those in the first column till 12. oclock every day: those in the 2d. from 12. to 2. those in the 3d. after candlelight, leaving all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading: I will rather say more necessary, because health is worth more than learning.

1st.

Coke on Littleton

Coke’s 2d. 3d. & 4th.
institutes.

Coke’s reports.


Vaughan’s do
Salkeld’s


Ld. Raymond’s


Strange’s.


Burrows’s


Kaim’s Principles of equity.


Vernon’s reports.


Peere Williams.


Precedents in Chancery.


Tracy Atheyns.


Verey.


Hawkin’s Pleas of the crown.


Blackstone.


Virginia laws.




2d.


Dalrymple’s feudal system.


Hale’s history of the Com. law.


Gilbert on Devises

Uses.
Tenures.
Rents.
Distresses.
Ejectments.
Executions.
Evidence.

Sayer’s law of costs.


Lambard’s circonantia.


Bacon. voce Pleas & Pleadings.


Cunningham’s law of bills.


Molloy de jure maritimo.


Locke on government.


Montesquieu’s Spirit of law.


Smith’s wealth of nations.


Beccaria.


Kaim’s moral essays.


Vattel’s law of nations.




3d.


Mallet’s North antiquit’.


History of England in 3. vols folio compiled by Kennet.


Ludlow’s memoirs


Burnet’s history.


Ld. Orrery’s history.


Burke’s George III.


Robertson’s hist. of Scotl’d

Robertson’s hist. of America.


Other American histories.


Voltaire’s historical works.

Should there be any little intervals in the day not otherwise occupied fill them up by reading Lowthe’s grammar, Blair’s lectures on rhetoric, Mason on poetic & prosaic numbers, Bolingbroke’s works for the sake of the stile, which is declamatory & elegant, the English poets for the sake of the style also.

As mr Peter Carr in Goochland is engaged in a course of law reading, and has my books for that purpose, it will be necessary for you to go to mrs Carr’s, and to receive such as he shall be then done with, and settle with him a plan of receiving from him regular the before mentioned books as fast as he shall get through them.  The losses I have sustained by lending my books will be my apology to you for asking your particular attention to the replacing them in the presses as fast as you finish them, and not to lend them to any body else, nor suffer anybody to have a book out of the Study under cover of your name.  You will find, when you get there, that I have had reason to ask this exactness.

I would have you determine beforehand to make yourself a thorough lawyer, & not be contented with a mere smattering.  It is superiority of knowledge which can alone lift you above the heads of your competitors, and ensure you success.  I think therefore you must calculate on devoting between two & three years to this course of reading, before you think of commencing practice.  Whenever that begins, there is an end of reading.

I shall be glad to hear from you from time to time, and shall hope to see you in the fall in Albemarle, to which place I propose a visit in that season.  In the mean time wishing you all the industry of patient perseverance which this course of reading will require I am with great esteem Dear Sir Your most obedient friend & servant.

“Whippoorwills and Strawberries”

MY DEAR MARIA -- I have recieved your letter of May 23. which was in answer to mine of May 2. but I wrote you also on the 23d. of May, so that you still owe me an answer to that, which I hope is now on the road.  In matters of correspondence as well as of money you must never be in debt.  I am much pleased with the account you give me of your occupations, and the making the pudding is as good an article of them as any.  When I come to Virginia I shall insist on eating a pudding of your own making, as well as on trying other specimens of your skill.  You must make the most of your time while you are with so good an aunt who can learn you every thing.  We had not peas nor strawberries here till the 8th. day of this month.  On the same day I heard the first Whip-poor-will whistle.  Swallows and martins appeared here on the 21st. of April.  When did they appear with you?  And when had you peas, strawberries, and whip-poor-wills in Virginia?  Take notice hereafter whether the whip-poor-wills always come with the strawberries and peas.  Send me a copy of the maxims I gave you, also a list of the books I promised you.  I have had a long touch of my periodical headach, but a very moderate one.  It has not quite left me yet.  Adieu, my dear, love your uncle, aunt and cousins, and me more than all.  Your’s affectionately,

“Rice From Timor and Africa”

DEAR SIR -- I feel myself much indebted to Mr. Vaughan your father for the opportunity he has furnished me of a direct correspondence with you, and also to yourself for the seeds of the Mountain rice you have been so good as to send me.  I had before received from your brother in London some of the same parcel brought by Capt. Bligh; but it was so late in the spring of the present year that tho the plants came up and grew luxuriantly, they did not produce seed.  Your present will enable me to enlarge the experiment I propose for the next year, and for which I had still reserved a few seeds of the former parcel.  About two months ago I was fortunate enough to recieve a cask of mountain rice from the coast of Africa.  This has enabled me to engage so many persons in the experiment as to be tolerably sure it will be fairly made by some of them.  It will furnish also a comparison with that from Timor.  I have the success of this species of rice at heart, because it will not only enable other states to cultivate rice which have not lands susceptible of inundation but because also if the rice be as good as is said, it may take place of the wet rice in the Southern states, & by superseding the necessity of overflowing their lands, save them from the pestilential & mortal fevers brought on by that operation.

We have lately had introduced a plant of the Melon species which, from it’s external resemblance to the pumpkin, we have called a pumpkin, distinguishing it specifically as the potatoe-pumpkin, on account of the extreme resemblance of it’s taste to that of the sweet-potatoe.  It is as yet but little known, is well esteemed at our table, and particularly valued by our negroe’s.  Coming much earlier than the real potatoe, we are so much the sooner furnished with a substitute for that root.  I know not from whence it came; so that perhaps it may be originally from your islands.  In that case you will only have the trouble of throwing away the few seeds I enclose you herewith.  On the other hand, if unknown with you, I think it will probably succeed in the islands, and may add to the catalogue of plants which will do as substitutes for bread.  I have always thought that if in the experiments to introduce or to communicate new plants, one species in an hundred is found useful & succeeds, the ninety nine found otherwise are more than paid for.  My present situation & occupations are not friendly to agricultural experiments, however strongly I am led to them by inclination.  I will ask permission to address myself to you for such seeds as might be worth trying from your quarter, freely offering you reciprocal services in the same or any other line in which you will be so good as to command them.  I have the honor to be with great respect & esteem, Sir Your most obedt. & most humble servt,

“A Scolding Letter”

MY DEAR DAUGHTER -- This is a scolding letter for you all.  I have not recieved a scrip of a pen from home since I left it which is now eleven weeks.  I think it so easy for you to write me one letter every week, which will be but once in three weeks for each of you, when I write one every week who have not one moment’s repose from business from the first to the last moment of the week.  Perhaps you think you have nothing to say to me.  It is a great deal to say you are all well, or that one has a cold, another a fever &c., besides that there is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me, nor any thing that moves, from yourself down to Bergere or Grizzle.  Write then my dear daughter punctually on your day, and Mr. Randolph and Polly on theirs.  I suspect you may have news to tell me of yourself of the most tender interest to me.  Why silent then?

I am still without a house, and consequently without a place to open my furniture.  This has prevented my sending you what I was to send for Monticello.  In the mean time the river is frozen up so as that no vessel can get out, nor probably will these two months: so that you will be much longer without them than I had hoped.  I know how inconvenient this will be and am distressed at it; but there is no help.  I send a pamphlet for Mr. Randolph.  My best affections to him, Polly and yourself.  Adieu my dear,

“A Heretical Sect”

DEAR SIR, -- I am to make you my acknowledgments for your favor of Jan. 10, & the information from France which it contained.  It confirmed what I had heard more loosely before, and accounts still more recent are to the same effect.  I look with great anxiety for the firm establishment of the new government in France, being perfectly convinced that if it takes place there, it will spread sooner or later all over Europe.  On the contrary a check there would retard the revival of liberty in other countries.  I consider the establishment and success of their government as necessary to stay up our own, and to prevent it from falling back to that kind of Half-way house, the English constitution.  It cannot be denied that we have among us a sect who believe that to contain whatever is perfect in human institutions; that the members of this sect have, many of them, names & offices which stand high in the estimation of our countrymen.  I still rely that the great mass of our community is untainted with these heresies, as is it’s head.  On this I build my hope that we have not laboured in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.  You have excited my curiosity in saying “there is a particular circumstance, little attended to, which is continually sapping the republicanism of the United States.”  What is it?  What is said in our country of the fiscal arrangements now going on?  I really fear their effect when I consider the present temper of the Southern states.  Whether these measures be right or wrong abstractedly, more attention should be paid to the general opinion.  However, all will pass -- the excise will pass -- the bank will pass.  The only corrective of what is corrupt in our present form of government will be the augmentation of the numbers in the lower house, so as to get a more agricultural representation, which may put that interest above that of the stock-jobbers.

I had no occasion to sound Mr. Madison on your fears expressed in your letter.  I knew before, as possessing his sentiments fully on that subject, that his value for you was undiminished.  I have always heard him say that though you and he appeared to differ in your systems, yet you were in truth nearer together than most persons who were classed under the same appellation.  You may quiet yourself in the assurance of possessing his complete esteem.  I have been endeavoring to obtain some little distinction for our useful customers, the French.  But there is a particular interest opposed to it, which I fear will prove too strong.  We shall soon see.  I will send you a copy of a report I have given in, as soon as it is printed.  I know there is one part of it contrary to your sentiments; yet I am not sure you will not become sensible that a change should be slowly preparing.  Certainly, whenever I pass your road, I shall do myself the pleasure of turning into it.  Our last year’s experiment, however, is much in favor of that by Newgate.

“Monuments of the Past”

SIR, -- I return you the two volumes of records, with thanks for the opportunity of looking into them.  They are curious monuments of the infancy of our country.  I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting.  Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices.  The late war has done the work of centuries in this business.  The last cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.  This being the tendency of your undertaking, be assured there is no one who wishes it more success than, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.

“Memories of Franklin”

DEAR SIR, -- I feel both the wish & the duty to communicate, in compliance with your request, whatever, within my knowledge, might render justice to the memory of our great countryman, D’r Franklin, in whom Philosophy has to deplore one of it’s principal luminaries extinguished.  But my opportunities of knowing the interesting facts of his life have not been equal to my desire of making them known.  I could indeed relate a number of those bon mots, with which he used to charm every society, as having heard many of them.  But these are not your object.  Particulars of greater dignity happened not to occur during his stay of nine months, after my arrival in France.

A little before that, Argand had invented his celebrated lamp, in which the flame is spread into a hollow cylinder, & thus brought into contact with the air within as well as without.  Doct’r Franklin had been on the point of the same discovery.  The idea had occurred to him; but he had tried a bull-rush as a wick, which did not succeed.  His occupations did not permit him to repeat & extend his trials to the introduction of a larger column of air than could pass through the stem of a bull-rush.

The animal magnetism too of the maniac Mesmer, had just received its death wound from his hand in conjunction with his brethren of the learned committee appointed to unveil that compound of fraud & folly.  But, after this, nothing very interesting was before the public, either in philosophy or politics, during his stay; & he was principally occupied in winding up his affairs there.

I can only therefore testify in general that there appeared to me more respect & veneration attached to the character of Doctor Franklin in France, than to that of any other person in the same country, foreign or native.  I had opportunities of knowing particularly how far these sentiments were felt by the foreign ambassadors & ministers at the court of Versailles.  The fable of his capture by the Algerines, propagated by the English newspapers, excited no uneasiness; as it was seen at once to be a dish cooked up to the palate of their readers.  But nothing could exceed the anxiety of his diplomatic brethren, on a subsequent report of his death, which, tho’ premature, bore some marks of authenticity.

I found the ministers of France equally impressed with the talents & integrity of Doct’r Franklin.  The C’t de Vergennes particularly gave me repeated and unequivocal demonstrations of his entire confidence in him.

When he left Passy, it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch.  On taking leave of the court, which he did by letter, the King ordered him to be handsomely complimented, & furnished him with a litter & mules of his own, the only kind of conveyance the state of his health could bear.

No greater proof of his estimation in France can be given than the late letters of condolence on his death, from the National Assembly of that country, & the Community of Paris, to the President of the United States, & to Congress, and their public mourning on that event.  It is, I believe, the first instance of that homage having been paid by a public body of one nation to a private citizen of another.

His death was an affliction which was to happen to us at some time or other.  We have reason to be thankful he was so long spared; that the most useful life should be the longest also; that it was protracted so far beyond the ordinary span allotted to man, as to avail us of his wisdom in the establishment of our own freedom, & to bless him with a view of its dawn in the east, where they seemed, till now, to have learned everything, but how to be free.

The succession to D’r Franklin, at the court of France, was an excellent school of humility.  On being presented to any one as the minister of America, the commonplace question used in such cases was “c’est vous, Monsieur, qui remplace le Docteur Franklin?” “it is you, Sir, who replace Doctor Franklin?”  I generally answered, “no one can replace him, Sir: I am only his successor.”

These small offerings to the memory of our great & dear friend, whom time will be making greater while it is spunging us from it’s records, must be accepted by you, Sir, in that spirit of love & veneration for him, in which they are made; and not according to their insignificance in the eyes of a world, who did not want this mite to fill up the measure of his worth.

“Capitol on the Potomac”

SIR, -- I am favored with your letter of the 4th instant, and in compliance with your request, I have examined my papers, and found the plans of Frankfort-on-the-Mayne, Carlsruhe, Amsterdam, Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons, Montpelier, Marseilles, Turin, and Milan, which I send in a roll by the post.  They are on large and accurate scales, having been procured by me while in those respective cities myself.  As they are connected with the notes I made in my travels, and often necessary to explain them to myself, I will beg your care of them, and to return them when no longer useful to you, leaving you absolutely free to keep them as long as useful.  I am happy that the President has left the planning of the town in such good hands, and have no doubt it will be done to general satisfaction.  Considering that the grounds to be reserved for the public are to be paid for by the acre, I think very liberal reservations should be made for them; and if this be about the Tyber and on the back of the town, it will be of no injury to the commerce of the place, which will undoubtedly establish itself on the deep waters towards the eastern branch and mouth of Rock Creek; the water about the mouth of the Tyber not being of any depth.  Those connected with the government will prefer fixing themselves near the public grounds in the centre, which will also be convenient to be resorted to as walks from the lower and upper town.  Having communicated to the President, before he went away, such general ideas on the subject of the town as occurred to me, I make no doubt that, in explaining himself to you on the subject, he has interwoven with his own ideas, such of mine as he approved.  For fear of repeating therefore what he did not approve, and having more confidence in the unbiassed state of his mind, than in my own, I avoided interfering with what he may have expressed to you.  Whenever it is proposed to prepare plans for the Capitol, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity, which have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the President’s house, I should prefer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which have already received the approbation of all good judges.  Such are the Galerie du Louire, the Gardes meubles, and two fronts of the Hotel de Salm.  But of this it is yet time enough to consider.  In the meantime I am, with great esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

“A Note on Indian Policy”

DEAR SIR, -- I received last night your favor of the 10th, with Mr. Brown’s receipt, and thank you for the trouble you have been so kind as to take in this business.

Our news from the westward is disagreeable.  Constant murders committing by the Indians, and their combination threatens to be more and more extensive.  I hope we shall give them a thorough drubbing this summer, and then change our tomahawk into a golden chain of friendship.  The most economical as well as most humane conduct towards them is to bribe them into peace, and to retain them in peace by eternal bribes.  The expedition this year would have served for presents on the most liberal scale for one hundred years; nor shall we otherwise ever get rid of any army, or of our debt.  The least rag of Indian depredation will be an excuse to raise troops for those who love to have troops, and for those who think that a public debt is a good thing.  Adieu, my dear Sir.  Yours affectionately.

“Burke, Paine, and Mr. Adams”

SIR, -- The last week does not furnish one single public event worthy communicating to you: so that I have only to say “all is well.”  Paine’s answer to Burke’s pamphlet begins to produce some squibs in our public papers.  In Fenno’s paper they are Burkites, in the others, Painites.  One of Fenno’s was evidently from the author of the discourses on Davila.  I am afraid the indiscretion of a printer has committed me with my friend Mr. Adams, for whom, as one of the most honest & disinterested men alive, I have a cordial esteem, increased by long habits of concurrence in opinion in the days of his republicanism; and even since his apostacy to hereditary monarchy & nobility, tho’ we differ, we differ as friends should do. Beckley had the only copy of Paine’s pamphlet, & lent it to me, desiring when I should have read it, that I would send it to a Mr. J. B. Smith, who had asked it for his brother to reprint it.  Being an utter stranger to J. B. Smith, both by sight & character I wrote a note to explain to him why I (a stranger to him) sent him a pamphlet, to wit, that Mr. Beckley had desired it; & to take off a little of the dryness of the note, I added that I was glad to find it was to be reprinted, that something would at length be publicly said against the political heresies which had lately sprung up among us, & that I did not doubt our citizens would rally again round the standard of common sense.  That I had in my view the Discourses on Davila, which have filled Fenno’s papers, for a tuelvemonth, without contradiction, is certain, but nothing was ever further from my thoughts than to become myself the contradictor before the public.  To my great astonishment however, when the pamphlet came out, the printer had prefixed my note to it, without having given me the most distant hint of it.  Mr. Adams will unquestionably take to himself the charge of political heresy, as conscious of his own views of drawing the present government to the form of the English constitution, and, I fear will consider me as meaning to injure him in the public eye.  I learn that some Anglo men have censured it in another point of view, as a sanction of Paine’s principles tends to give offence to the British government.  Their real fear however is that this popular & republican pamphlet, taking wonderfully, is likely at a single stroke to wipe out all the unconstitutional doctrines which their bell-weather Davila has been preaching for a twelvemonth.  I certainly never made a secret of my being anti-monarchical, & anti-aristocratical; but I am sincerely mortified to be thus brought forward on the public stage, where to remain, to advance or to retire, will be equally against my love of silence & quiet, & my abhorrence of dispute.  -- I do not know whether you recollect that the records of Virginia were destroyed by the British in the year 1781.  Particularly the transactions of the revolution before that time.  I am collecting here all the letters I wrote to Congress while I was in the administration there, and this being done I shall then extend my views to the transactions of my predecessors, in order to replace the whole in the public offices in Virginia.  I think that during my administration, say between June 1. 1779. & June 1. 1781. I had the honor of writing frequent letters to you on public affairs, which perhaps may be among your papers at Mount Vernon.  Would it be consistent with any general resolution you have formed as to your papers, to let my letters of the above period come here to be copied, in order to make them a part of the records I am endeavoring to restore for the state? or would their selection be too troublesome?  If not, I would beg the loan of them, under an assurance that they shall be taken the utmost care of, & safely returned to their present deposit.

The quiet & regular movements of our political affairs leaves nothing to add but constant prayers for your health & welfare and assurances of the sincere respect & attachment of Sir Your most obedient, & most humble servt.

“A Northern Tour”

DEAR SIR, -- Mr. Madison & myself are so far on the tour we had projected.  We have visited in the course of it the principal scenes of Genl. Burgoyne’s misfortunes to wit the grounds at Stillwater where the action of that name was fought, & particularly the breastworks which cost so much blood to both parties, the encampments at Saratoga & ground where the British piled their arms, the field of the battle of Bennington about 9 miles from this place.  We have also visited Forts Wm. Henry & George, Ticonderoga, Crown point, &c. which have been scenes of blood from a very early part of our history.  We were more pleased however with the botanical objects which continually presented themselves.  Those either unknown or rare in Virgna were the Sugar maple in vast abundance, the Silver fir, White pine, Pitch pine, Spruce pine, a shrub with decumbent stems which they call Juniper, an azalea very different from the nudiflora, with very large clusters of flowers, more thickly set on the branches, of a deeper red, & high pink-fragrance.  It is the richest shrub I have seen.  The honeysuckle of the gardens growing wild on the banks’ of L. George, the paper-birch, an Aspen with a velvet leaf, a shrub-willow with downy catkins, a wild gooseberry, the wild cherry with single fruit (not the bunch cherry) strawberries in abundance.  From the Highlands to the lakes it is a limestone country.  It is in vast quantities on the Eastern sides of the lakes, but none on the Western sides.  The Sandy hill falls & Wing’s falls, two very remarkable cataracts of the Hudson of about 35 f. or 40 f. each between F. Edward & F. George are of limestone, in horizontal strata.  Those of the Cohoes, on the W. side of the Hudson, & of 70 f. height, we thought not of limestone.  We have met with a small red squirrel of the color of our fox-squirrel, with a black stripe on each side, weighing about 6 oz. generally, and in such abundance on L. Champlain particularly as that twenty odd were killed at the house we lodged in opposite Crown point the morning we arrived there, without going 10 yards from the door.  We killed 3 crossing the lakes, one of them just as he was getting ashore where it was 3 miles wide, & where with the high wind then blowing he must have made it 5 or 6 miles.

I think I asked the favr. of you to send for Anthony in the season for inoculn, as well as to do what is necessary in the orchard, as to pursue the object of inoculating all the Spontaneous cherry trees in the fields with good fruit.

We have now got over about 400 miles of our tour and have still about 450 more to go over.  Arriving here on the Saturday evening, and the laws of the state not permitting us to travel on the Sunday, has given me time to write to you from hence.  I expect to be at Philadelphia by the 20th or 21st.  I am, with great & sincere esteem Dear Sir yours affectionately.

“Breach of a Friendship”

DEAR SIR -- I have a dozen times taken up my pen to write to you and as often laid it down again, suspended between opposing considerations.  I determine however to write from a conviction that truth, between candid minds, can never do harm.

The first of Paine’s pamphlets on the Rights of man, which came to hand here, belonged to Mr. Beckley.  He lent it to Mr. Madison who lent it to me; and while I was reading it Mr. Beckley called on me for it, and, as I had not finished it, he desired me, as soon as I should have done so, to send it to Mr. Jonathan B. Smith, whose brother meant to reprint it.  I finished reading it, and, as I had no acquaintance with Mr. Jonathan B. Smith, propriety required that I should explain to him why I, a stranger to him, sent him the pamphlet.  I accordingly wrote a note of compliment informing him that I did it at the desire of Mr. Beckley, and, to take off a little of the dryness of the note, I added that I was glad it was to be reprinted here, and that something was to be publicly said against the political heresies which had sprung up among us etc.  I thought so little of this note that I did not even keep a copy of it: nor ever heard a tittle more of it till, the week following, I was thunderstruck with seeing it come out at the head of the pamphlet.  I hoped however it would not attract notice.  But I found on my return from a journey of a month that a writer came forward under the signature of Publicola, attacking not only the author and principles of the pamphlet, but myself as it’s sponsor, by name.  Soon after came hosts of other writers defending the pamphlet and attacking you by name as the writer of Publicola.  Thus were our names thrown on the public stage as public antagonists.  That you and I differ in our ideas of the best form of government is well known to us both: but we have differed as friends should do, respecting the purity of each other’s motives, and confining our difference of opinion to private conversation.  And I can declare with truth in the presence of the almighty that nothing was further from my intention or expectation than to have had either my own or your name brought before the public on this occasion.  The friendship and confidence which has so long existed between us required this explanation from me, and I know you too well to fear any misconstruction of the motives of it.  Some people here who would wish me to be, or to be thought, guilty of improprieties, have suggested that I was Agricola, that I was Brutus etc. etc.  I never did in my life, either by myself or by any other, have a sentence of mine inserted in a newspaper without putting my name to it; and I believe I never shall.

While the empress is refusing peace under a mediation unless Oczakow and it’s territory be ceded to her, she is offering peace on the perfect statu quo to the Porte, if they will conclude it without a mediation.  France has struck a severe blow at our navigation by a difference of duty on tob[acc]o carried in our and their ships, and by taking from foreign built ships the capability of naturalization.  She has placed our whale oil on rather a better footing than ever by consolidating the duties into a single one of 6. livres.  They amounted before to some sous over that sum.  I am told (I know not how truly) that England has prohibited our spermaceti oil altogether, and will prohibit our wheat till the price there is 52/ the quarter, which it almost never is.  We expect hourly to hear the true event of Genl. Scott’s expedition.  Reports give favorable hopes of it.  Be so good as to present my respectful compliments to Mrs. Adams and to accept assurances of the sentiments of sincere esteem and respect with which I am Dear Sir Your friend and servant.

“Hope for ‘Our Black Brethren’”

SIR, -- I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant and for the Almanac it contained.  No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.  I can add with truth, that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit.  I have taken the liberty of sending your Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic society, because I considered it as a document to which your whole colour had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.  I am with great esteem, Sir Your most obed’t humble serv’t.

“Strengthening the State Governments”

DEAR SIR, -- I received duly your favor of Octob 22. and should have answered it by the gentleman who delivered it, but that he left town before I knew of it.

That it is really important to provide a constitution for our state cannot be doubted: as little can it be doubted that the ordinance called by that name has important defects.  But before we attempt it, we should endeavor to be as certain as is practicable that in the attempt we should not make bad worse.  I have understood that Mr. Henry has always been opposed to this undertaking: and I confess that I consider his talents and influence such as that, were it decided that we should call a Convention for the purpose of amending, I should fear he might induce that convention either to fix the thing as at present, or change it for the worse.  Would it not therefore be well that means should be adopted for coming at his ideas of the changes he would agree to, & for communicating to him those which we should propose?  Perhaps he might find ours not so distant from his but that some mutual sacrifices might bring them together.

I shall hazard my own ideas to you as hastily as my business obliges me.  I wish to preserve the line drawn by the federal constitution between the general & particular governments as it stands at present, and to take every prudent means of preventing either from stepping over it.  Tho’ the experiment has not yet had a long enough course to shew us from which quarter encroachments are most to be feared, yet it is easy to foresee from the nature of things that the encroachments of the state governments will tend to an excess of liberty which will correct itself (as in the late instance) while those of the general government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cure, as all experience shews.  I would rather be exposed to the inconve-niencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.  Then it is important to strengthen the state governments: and as this cannot be done by any change in the federal constitution, (for the preservation of that is all we need contend for,) it must be done by the states themselves, erecting such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the general government.  The only barrier in their power is a wise government.  A weak one will lose ground in every contest.  To obtain a wise & an able government, I consider the following changes as important.  Render the legislature a desirable station by lessening the number of representatives (say to 100) and lengthening somewhat their term, and proportion them equally among the electors: adopt also a better mode of appointing Senators.  Render the Executive a more desirable post to men of abilities by making it more independant of the legislature.  To wit, let him be chosen by other electors, for a longer time, and ineligible for ever after.  Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government.  Let him feel the whole weight of it then by taking away the shelter of his executive council.  Experience both ways has already established the superiority of this measure.  Render the Judiciary respectable by every possible means, to wit, firm tenure in office, competent salaries, and reduction of their numbers.  Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country; & by taking in those who are not so, the able part of the body have their hands tied by the unable.  This branch of the government will have the weight of the conflict on their hands, because they will be the last appeal of reason.  -- These are my general ideas of amendments; but, preserving the ends, I should be flexible & conciliatory as to the means.  You ask whether Mr. Madison and myself could attend on a convention which should be called?  Mr. Madison’s engagements as a member of Congress will probably be from October to March or April in every year.  Mine are constant while I hold my office, and my attendance would be very unimportant.  Were it otherwise, my office should not stand in the way of it.  I am with great & sincere esteem, Dr Sir, your friend & servt.