you to remain longer in it. I hope the returning wisdom of Great Britain
will, ere long, put an end to this unnatural contest. There may be
people to whose tempers and dispositions contention is pleasing, and
who, therefore, wish a continuance of confusion; but to me it is of all
states but one, the most horrid: My first wish is a restoration of our
just rights; my second, a return of the happy period, when, consistently
with duty, I may withdraw myself totally from the public stage, and pass
the rest of my days in domestic ease and tranquillity, banishing every
desire of ever hearing what passes in the world. Perhaps, (for the
latter adds considerably to the warmth of the former wish,) looking
with fondness towards a reconciliation with Great Britain, I cannot help
hoping you may be able to contribute towards expediting this good work.
I think it must be evident to yourself, that the Ministry have been
deceived by their officers on this side of the water, who (for what
purpose, I cannot tell) have constantly represented the American
opposition as that of a small faction, in which the body of the people
took little part. This, you can inform them, of your own knowledge, is
untrue. They have taken it into their heads, too, that we are cowards,
and shall surrender at discretion to an armed force. The past and future
operations of the war must confirm or undeceive them on that head.
I wish they were thoroughly and minutely acquainted with every
circumstance relative to America, as it exists in truth. I am persuaded,
this would go far towards disposing them to reconciliation. Even those
in Parliament who are called friends to America, seem to know nothing
of our real determinations. I observe, they pronounced in the last
Parliament, that the Congress of 1774 did not mean to insist rigorously
on the terms they held out, but kept something in reserve, to give up:
and, in fact, that they would give up every thing but the article of
taxation. Now, the truth is far from this, as I can affirm, and put
my honor to the assertion. Their continuance in this error may perhaps
produce very ill consequences. The Congress stated the lowest terms they
thought possible to be accepted, in order to convince the world they
were not unreasonable. They gave up the monopoly and regulation of
trade, and all acts of Parliament prior to 1764, leaving to British
generosity to render these, at some future time, as easy to America
as the interest of Britain would admit. But this was before blood was
spilt. I cannot affirm, but have reason to think, these terms would not
now be accepted. I wish no false sense of honor, no ignorance of our
real intentions, no vain hope that partial concessions of right will be
accepted, may induce the Ministry to trifle with accommodation, till
it shall be out of their power ever to accommodate. If, indeed, Great
Britain, disjoined from her colonies, be a match for the most potent
nations of Europe, with the colonies thrown into their scale, they
may go on securely. But if they are not assured of this, it would be
certainly unwise, by trying the event of another campaign, to risk our
accepting a foreign aid, which perhaps may not be obtainable but on
condition of everlasting avulsion from Great Britain. This would be
thought a hard condition to those who still wish for reunion with their
parent country. I am sincerely one of those, and would rather be in
dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation upon
earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those, too, who, rather
than submit to the rights of legislating for us, assumed by the British
Parliament, and which late experience has shown they will so cruelly
exercise, would lend my hand to sink the whole island in the ocean.
If undeceiving the Minister, as to matters of fact, may change his
disposition, it will perhaps be in your power, by assisting to do
this, to render service to the whole empire at the most critical time,
certainly, that it has ever seen. Whether Britain shall continue the
head of the greatest empire on earth, or shall return to her original
station in the political scale of Europe, depends perhaps on the
resolutions of the succeeding winter. God send they may be wise and
salutary for us all. I shall be glad to hear from you as often as
you may be disposed to think of things here. You may be at liberty, I
expect; to communicate some things, consistently with your honor and the
duties you will owe to a protecting nation. Such a communication among
individuals may be mutually beneficial to the contending parties.
On this or any future occasion, if I affirm to you any facts, your
knowledge of me will enable you to decide on their credibility; if I
hazard opinions on the dispositions of men or other speculative points,
you can only know they are my opinions. My best wishes for your felicity
attend you wherever you go; and believe me to be, assuredly,
Your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER III.--TO JOHN RANDOLPH, November 29, 1775
TO JOHN RANDOLPH, ESQ..
Philadelphia,
November 29, 1775.
Dear Sir,
I am to give you the melancholy intelligence of the death of our most
worthy Speaker, which happened here on the 22nd of the last month. He
was struck with an apoplexy, and expired within five hours.
I have it in my power to acquaint you that the success of our arms has
corresponded with the justness of our cause. Chambly and St. Johns were
taken some weeks ago, and in them the whole regular army in Canada,
except about forty or fifty men. This day certain intelligence has
reached us that our General, Montgomery, is received into Montreal: and
we expect every hour to be informed that Quebec has opened its arms to
Colonel Arnold, who, with eleven hundred men, was sent from Boston up
the Kennebec, and down the Chaudiere river to that place. He expected
to be there early this month. Montreal acceded to us on the 13th, and
Carleton set out, with the shattered remains of his little army, for
Quebec, where we hope he will be taken up by Arnold. In a short time, we
have reason to hope, the delegates of Canada will join us in Congress,
and complete the American union as far as we wish to have it completed.
We hear that one of the British transports has arrived at Boston; the
rest are beating off the coast, in very bad weather. You will have
heard, before this reaches you, that Lord Dunmore has commenced
hostilities in Virginia. That people bore with every thing, till he
attempted to burn the town of Hampton. They opposed and repelled him,
with considerable loss on his side, and none on ours. It has raised our
countrymen into a perfect phrenzy. It is an immense misfortune to the
whole empire to have a King of such a disposition at such a time. We are
told, and every thing proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy
we have. His Minister is able, and that satisfies me that ignorance, or
wickedness, somewhere, controls him. In an earlier part of this contest,
our petitions told him, that from our King there was but one appeal.
The admonition was despised, and that appeal forced on us. To undo his
empire, he has but one truth more to learn; that, after colonies have
drawn the sword, there is but one step more they can take. That step is
now pressed upon us by the measures adopted, as if they were afraid we
would not take it. Believe me, dear Sir, there is not in the British
empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I
do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield
to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and
in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America. We want neither
inducement nor power to declare and assert a separation. It is will
alone which is wanting, and that is growing apace under the fostering
hand of our King. One bloody campaign will probably decide everlastingly
our future course; I am sorry to find a bloody campaign is decided on.
If our winds and waters should not combine to rescue their shores from
slavery, and General Howe’s reinforcement should arrive in safety, we
have hopes he will be inspirited to come out of Boston and take another
drubbing: and we must drub him soundly before the sceptred tyrant will
know we are not mere brutes, to crouch under his hand, and kiss the rod
with which he deigns to scourge us.
Yours, &c.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER IV.--TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, August 13, 1777
TO DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PARIS.
Virginia,
August 13, 1777.
Honorable Sir,
I forbear to write you news, as the time of Mr. Shore’s departure being
uncertain, it might be old before you receive it, and he can, in person,
possess you of all we have. With respect to the State of Virginia in
particular, the people seem to have laid aside the monarchical, and
taken up the republican government, with as much ease as would have
attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.
Not a single throe has attended this important transformation. A
half dozen aristocratical gentlemen, agonizing under the loss of
pre-eminence, have sometimes ventured their sarcasms on our political
metamorphosis. They have been thought fitter objects of pity than of
punishment. We are at present in the complete and quiet exercise of well
organized government, save only that our courts of justice do not open
till the fall. I think nothing can bring the security of our continent
and its cause into danger, if we can support the credit of our paper. To
do that, I apprehend one of two steps must be taken. Either to procure
free trade by alliance with some naval power able to protect it; or, if
we find there is no prospect of that, to shut our ports totally to all
the world, and turn our colonies into manufactories. The former would be
most eligible, because most conformable to the habits and wishes of
our people. Were the British Court to return to their senses in time to
seize the little advantage which still remains within their reach from
this quarter, I judge that, on acknowledging our absolute independence
and sovereignty, a commercial treaty beneficial to them, and perhaps
even a league of mutual offence and defence, might, not seeing the
expense or consequences of such a measure, be approved by our people, if
nothing in the mean time, done on your part, should prevent it. But
they will continue to grasp at their desperate sovereignty, till every
benefit short of that is for ever out of their reach. I wish my domestic
situation had rendered it possible for me to join you in the very
honorable charge confided to you. Residence in a polite Court, society
of literati of the first order, a just cause and an approving God, will
add length to a life for which all men pray, and none more than
Your most obedient
and humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER V.--TO PATRICK HENRY, March 27, 1779
TO HIS EXCELLENCY PATRICK HENRY.
Albemarle,
March 27, 1779.
Sir,
A report prevailing here, that in consequence of some powers from
Congress, the Governor and Council have it in contemplation to
remove the Convention troops, [The troops under Burgoyne, captured at
Saratoga.] either wholly or in part, from their present situation,
I take the liberty of troubling you with some observations on that
subject. The reputation and interest of our country, in general, may
be affected by such a measure; it would, therefore, hardly be deemed an
indecent liberty, in the most private citizen, to offer his thoughts
to the consideration of the Executive. The locality of my situation,
particularly, in the neighborhood of the present barracks, and the
public relation in which I stand to the people among whom they are
situated, together with a confidence, which a personal knowledge of the
members of the Executive gives me, that they Will be glad of information
from any quarter, on a subject interesting to the public, induce me
to hope that they will acquit me of impropriety in the present
representation.
By an article in the Convention of Saratoga, it is stipulated, on the
part of the United States, that the officers shall not be separated
from their men. I suppose the term officers, includes general as well as
regimental officers. As there are general officers who command all the
troops, no part of them can be separated from these officers without a
violation of the article: they cannot, of course, be separated from one
another, unless the same general officer could be in different places
at the same time. It is true, the article adds the words, ‘as far as
circumstances will admit.’ This was a necessary qualification; because,
in no place in America, I suppose, could there have been found quarters
for both officers and men together; those for the officers to be
according to their rank. So far, then, as the circumstances of the place
where they should be quartered, should render a separation necessary, in
order to procure quarters for the officers, according to their rank, the
article admits that separation. And these are the circumstances which
must have been under the contemplation of the parties; both of whom, and
all the world beside (who are ultimate judges in the case), would still
understand that they were to be as near in the environs of the camp, as
convenient quarters could be procured; and not that the qualification
of the article destroyed the article itself and laid it wholly at our
discretion. Congress, indeed, have admitted of this separation; but
are they so far lords of right and wrong as that our consciences may
be quiet with their dispensation? Or is the case amended by saying they
leave it optional in the Governor and Council to separate the troops
or not? At the same time that it exculpates not them, it is drawing the
Governor and Council into a participation in the breach of faith. If
indeed it is only proposed, that a separation of the troops shall be
referred to the consent of their officers; that is a very different
matter. Having carefully avoided conversation with them on public
subjects, I cannot say, of my own knowledge, how they would relish
such a proposition. I have heard from others, that they will choose to
undergo any thing together, rather than to be separated, and that they
will remonstrate against it in the strongest terms. The Executive,
therefore, if voluntary agents in this measure, must be drawn into a
paper war with them, the more disagreeable, as it seems that faith and
reason will be on the other side. As an American, I cannot help feeling
a thorough mortification, that our Congress should have permitted an
infraction of our public honor; as a citizen of Virginia, I cannot help
hoping and confiding, that our supreme Executive, whose acts will be
considered as the acts of the Commonwealth, estimate that honor too
highly to make its infraction their own act. I may be permitted to hope,
then, that if any removal takes place, it will be a general one: and, as
it is said to be left to the Governor and Council to determine on
this, I am satisfied, that, suppressing every other consideration, and
weighing the matter dispassionately, they will determine upon this sole
question, Is it for the benefit of those for whom they act, that, the
Convention troops should be removed from among them? Under the head of
interest, these circumstances, viz. the expense of building barracks,
said to have been £25,000, and of removing the troops backwards and
forwards, amounting to I know not how much, are not to be pre-termitted,
merely because they are Continental expenses; for we are a part of the
Continent; we must pay a shilling of every dollar wasted. But the sums
of money, which, by these troops, or on their account, are brought into,
and expended in this State, are a great and local advantage. This can
require no proof. If, at the conclusion of the war, for instance, our
share of the Continental debt should be twenty millions of dollars, or
say that we are called on to furnish an annual quota of two millions
four hundred thousand dollars, to Congress, to be raised by tax, it is
obvious that we should raise these given sums with greater or less
ease, in proportion to the greater or less quantity of money found in
circulation among us. I expect that our circulating money is, by the
presence of these troops, at the rate of $30,000 a week, at the least. I
have heard, indeed, that an objection arises to their being kept within
this state, from the information of the commissary that they cannot
be subsisted here. In attending to the information of that officer,
it should be borne in mind that the county of King William and its
vicinities are one thing, the territory of Virginia another. If the
troops could be fed upon long letters, I believe the gentleman at the
head of that department in this country would be the best commissary
upon earth. But till I see him determined to act, not to write; to
sacrifice his domestic ease to the duties of his appointment, and apply
to the resources of this country, wheresoever they are to be had, I must
entertain a different opinion of him. I am mistaken, if, for the animal
sub-sistence of the troops hitherto, we are not principally indebted to
the genius and exertions of Hawkins, during the very short time he
lived after his appointment to that department, by your board. His
eye immediately pervaded the whole state; it was reduced at once to
a regular machine, to a system, and the whole put into movement and
animation by the _fiat_ of a comprehensive mind. If the Commonwealth
of Virginia cannot furnish these troops with bread, I would ask of the
commissariat, which of the thirteen is now become the grain colony? If
we are in danger of famine from the addition of four thousand mouths,
what is become of that surplus of bread, the exportation of which used
to feed the West Indies and Eastern States, and fill the colony with
hard money? When I urge the sufficiency of this State, however, to
subsist these troops, I beg to be understood, as having in contemplation
the quantity of provisions necessary for their real use, and not as
calculating what is to be lost by the wanton waste, mismanagement, and
carelessness of those employed about it. If magazines of beef and
pork are suffered to rot by slovenly butchering, or for want of
timely provision and sale; if quantities of flour are exposed by the
commissaries entrusted with the keeping it, to pillage and destruction;
and if, when laid up in the Continental stores, it is still to be
embezzled and sold, the land of Egypt itself would be insufficient
for their supply, and their removal would be necessary, not to a more
plentiful country, but to more able and honest commissaries. Perhaps,
the magnitude of this question, and its relation to the whole state,
may render it worth while to await, the opinion of the National Council,
which is now to meet within a few weeks. There is no danger of
distress in the mean time, as the commissaries affirm they have a great
sufficiency of provisions for some time to come. Should the measure of
removing them into another State be adopted, and carried into execution,
before the meeting of Assembly, no disapprobation of theirs will bring
them back, because they will then be in the power of others, who will
hardly give them up.
Want of information as to what may be the precise measure proposed by
the Governor and Council, obliges me to shift my ground, and take up the
subject in every possible form. Perhaps they have not thought to remove
the troops out of this State altogether, but to some other part of
it. Here, the objections arising from the expenses of removal, and of
building new barracks, recur. As to animal food, it may be driven to
one part of the country as easily as to another: that circumstance,
therefore, may be thrown out of the question. As to bread, I suppose
they will require about forty or forty-five thousand bushels of grain
a year. The place to which it is to be brought to them, is about the
centre of the State. Besides that the country round about is fertile,
all the grain made in the counties adjacent to any kind of navigation,
may be brought by water to within twelve miles of the spot. For these
twelve miles, wagons must be employed; I suppose half a dozen will be a
plenty. Perhaps this part of the expense might have been saved, had the
barracks been built on the water; but it is not sufficient to justify
their being abandoned now they are built. Wagonage, indeed, seems to
the commissariat, an article not worth economizing. The most wanton and
studied circuity of transportation has been practised: to mention
only one act, they have bought quantities of flour for these troops
in Cumberland, have ordered it to be wagoned down to Manchester, and
wagoned thence up to the barracks. This fact happened to fall within my
own knowledge. I doubt not there are many more such, in order either to
produce their total removal, or to run up the expenses of the present
situation, and satisfy Congress that the nearer they are brought to the
commissary’s own bed, the cheaper they will be subsisted. The grain made
in the Western counties may be brought partly in wagons, as conveniently
to this as to any other place; perhaps more so, on account of its
vicinity to one of the best passes through the Blue Ridge; and partly
by water, as it is near to James river, to the navigation of which, ten
counties are adjacent above the falls. When I said that the grain
might be brought hither from all the counties of the State, adjacent to
navigation, I did not mean to say it would be proper to bring it from
all. On the contrary, I think the commissary should be instructed, after
the next harvest, not to send one bushel of grain to the barracks
from below the falls of the rivers, or from the northern counties. The
counties on tide water are accessible to the calls for our own army.
Their supplies ought, therefore, to be husbanded for them. The counties
in the northwestern parts of the State are not only within reach for our
own grand army, but peculiarly necessary for the support of Macintosh’s
army; or for the support of any other northwestern expedition, which the
uncertain conduct of the Indians should render necessary; insomuch
that if the supplies of that quarter should be misapplied to any
other purpose, it would destroy in embryo every exertion, either for
particular or general safety there. The counties above tide water,
in the middle and southern and western parts of the country, are not
accessible to calls for either of those purposes, but at such an expense
of transportation as the article would not bear. Here, then, is a
great field, whose supplies of bread cannot be carried to our army, or,
rather, which will raise no supplies of bread, because there is no body
to eat them. Was it not, then, wise in Congress to remove to that field
four thousand idle mouths, who must otherwise have interfered with the
pasture of our own troops? And, if they are removed to any other part
of the country, will it not defeat this wise purpose? The mills on the
waters of James river, above the falls, open to canoe navigation,
are very many. Some of them are of great note, as manufacturers. The
barracks are surrounded by mills. There are five or six round about
Charlottesville. Any two or three of the whole might, in the course of
the winter, manufacture flour sufficient for the year. To say the worst,
then, of this situation, it is but twelve miles wrong. The safe custody
of these troops is another circumstance worthy consideration. Equally
removed from the access of an eastern or western enemy; central to the
whole State, so that, should they attempt an irruption in any direction,
they must pass through a great extent of hostile country; in a
neighborhood thickly inhabited by a robust and hardy people, zealous in
the American cause, acquainted with the use of arms, and the defiles and
passes by which they must issue: it would seem, that in this point of
view, no place could have been better chosen.