prepared for those oppressed with the labors of my office, and a long
declared resolution of relinquishing it to abler hands, has prepared
my way for retirement to a private station: still, as an individual, I
should feel the comfortable effects of your presence, and have (what I
thought could not have been) an additional motive for that gratitude,
esteem, and respect, with which
I have the honor to be,
your Excellency’s most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
[An interval of near three years here occurs in the
Author’s correspondence, during which he preserved only
memoranda of the contents of the letters written by him.]
*****
LETTER, LVIII.--TO GENERAL WASHINGTON, April 16, 1784
TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.
Annapolis, April 16, 1784.
Dear Sir,
I received your favor of April the 8th, by Colonel Harrison, The subject
of it is interesting, and, so far as you have stood connected with it,
has been matter of anxiety to me; because, whatever may be the ultimate
fate of the institution of the Cincinnati, as, in its course, it draws
to it some degree of disapprobation, I have wished to see you standing
on ground separated from it, and that the character which will be handed
to future ages at the head of our Revolution, may, in no instance, be
compromitted in subordinate altercations. The subject has been at the
point of my pen in every letter I have written to you, but has been
still restrained by the reflection that you had among your friends more
able counsellors, and, in yourself, one abler than them all. Your letter
has now rendered a duty what was before a desire, and I cannot better
merit your confidence than by a full and free communication of facts
and sentiments, as far as they have come within my observation. When the
army was about to be disbanded, and the officers to take final leave,
perhaps never again to meet, it was natural for men who had accompanied
each other through so many scenes of hardship, of difficulty and danger,
who, in a variety of instances, must have been rendered mutually dear
by those aids and good offices, to which their situations had given
occasion, it was natural, I say, for these to seize with fondness any
proposition which promised to bring them together again, at certain and
regular periods. And this, I take for granted, was the origin and object
of this institution: and I have no suspicion that they foresaw, much
less intended, those mischiefs which exist perhaps in the forebodings of
politicians only. I doubt, however, whether in its execution, it would
be found to answer the wishes of those who framed it, and to foster
those friendships it was intended to preserve. The members would be
brought together at their annual assemblies no longer to encounter a
common enemy, but to encounter one another in debate and sentiment.
For something, I suppose, is to be done at these meetings, and,
however unimportant, it will suffice to produce difference of opinion,
contradiction, and irritation. The way to make friends quarrel is to put
them in disputation under the public eye. An experience of near twenty
years has taught me, that few friendships stand this test, and that
public assemblies where every one is free to act and speak, are the
most powerful looseners of the bands of private friendship. I think,
therefore, that this institution would fail in its principal object, the
perpetuation of the personal friendships contracted through the war.
The objections of those who are opposed to the institution shall be
briefly sketched. You will readily fill them up. They urge that it
is against the Confederation--against the letter of some of our
constitutions--against the spirit of all of them;--that the foundation
on which all these are built, is the natural equality of man, the
denial of every pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office, and,
particularly, the denial of a pre-eminence by birth; that however, in
their present dispositions, citizens might decline accepting honorary
instalments[sp.]into the order; but a time, may come, when a change
of dispositions would render these flattering, when a well directed
distribution of them might draw into the order all the men of talents,
of office, and wealth, and in this case, would probably procure an
ingraftment into the government; that in this, they will be supported by
their foreign members, and the wishes and influence of foreign courts;
that experience has shown that the hereditary branches of modern
governments are the patrons of privilege and prerogative, and not of the
natural rights of the people, whose oppressors they generally are:
that besides these evils, which are remote, others may take place
more immediately; that a distinction is kept up between the civil and
military, which it is for the happiness of both to obliterate; that when
the members assemble the, will be proposing to do something, and what
that something may be, will depend on actual circumstances; that being
an organized body, under habits of subordination, the first obstruction
to enterprise will be already surmounted; that the moderation and virtue
of a single character have probably prevented this Revolution from being
closed as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was
intended to establish; that he is not immortal, and his successor, or
some of his successors, may be led by false calculation into a less
certain road to glory.
What are the sentiments of Congress on this subject, and what line they
will pursue, can only be stated, conjecturally. Congress as a body, if
left to themselves, will in my opinion say nothing on the subject. They
may, however, be forced into a declaration by instructions from some
of the States, or by other incidents. Their sentiments, if forced from
them, will be unfriendly to the institution. If permitted to pursue
their own path, they will check it by side-blows whenever it comes in
their way, and in competitions for office, on equal or nearly equal
ground, will give silent preferences to those who are not of the
fraternity. My reasons for thinking this are, 1. The grounds on which
they lately declined the foreign order proposed to be conferred on
some of our citizens. 2. The fourth of the fundamental articles of
constitution for the new States. I enclose you the report; it has
been considered by Congress, recommitted and reformed by a committee,
according to sentiments expressed on other parts of it, but the
principle referred to, having not been controverted at all, stands in
this as in the original report; it is not yet confirmed by Congress.
3. Private conversations on this subject with the members. Since the
receipt of your letter I have taken occasion to extend these; not,
indeed, to the military members, because, being of the order, delicacy
forbade it, but to the others pretty generally; and, among these, I have
as yet found but one who is not opposed to the institution, and that
with an anguish of mind, though covered under a guarded silence which
I have not seen produced by any circumstance before. I arrived at
Philadelphia before the separation of the last Congress, and saw there
and at Princeton some of its members not now in delegation. Burke’s
piece happened to come out at that time, which occasioned this
institution to be the subject of conversation. I found the same
impressions made on them which their successors have received. I hear
from other quarters that it is disagreeable, generally, to such citizens
as have attended to it, and, therefore, will probably be so to all, when
any circumstance shall present it to the notice of all.
This, Sir, is as faithful an account of sentiments and facts as I am
able to give you. You know the extent of the circle within which my
observations are at present circumscribed, and can estimate how far, as
forming a part of the general opinion, it may merit notice, or ought to
influence your particular conduct.
It now remains to pay obedience to that part of your letter, which
requests sentiments on the most eligible measures to be pursued by the
society, at their next meeting. I must be far from pretending to be a
judge of what would, in fact, be the most, eligible measures for the
society. I can only give you the opinions of those with whom I have
conversed, and who, as I have before observed, are unfriendly to it.
They lead to these conclusions. 1. If the society proceed according to
its institution, it will be better to make no applications to Congress
on that subject, or any other, in their associated character. 2. If they
should propose to modify it, so as to render it unobjectionable, I think
it would not be effected without such a modification as would
amount almost to annihilation: for such would it be to part with its
inheritability, its organization, and its assemblies. 3. If they shall
be disposed to discontinue the whole, it would remain with them to
determine whether they would choose it to be done by their own act only,
or by a reference of the matter to Congress, which would infallibly
produce a recommendation of total discontinuance.
You will be sensible, Sir, that these communications are without
reserve. I supposed such to be your wish, and mean them but as
materials, with such others as you may collect, for your better judgment
to work on. I consider the whole matter as between ourselves alone,
having determined to take no active part in this or any thing else,
which may lead to altercation, or disturb that quiet and tranquillity of
mind, to which I consign the remaining portion of my life. I have been
thrown back by events, on a stage where I had never more thought to
appear. It is but for a time, however, and as a day-laborer, free to
withdraw, or be withdrawn at will. While I remain, I shall pursue in
silence the path of right, but in every situation, public or private,
I shall be gratified by all occasions of rendering you service, and of
convincing you there is no one, to whom your reputation and happiness
are dearer than to, Sir,
your most obedient
and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER LIX.--TO COLONEL URIAH FORREST, October 20, 1784
TO COLONEL URIAH FORREST.
Paris, Cul-de-Sac Tetebout,
October 20, 1784.
Sir,
I received yesterday your favor of the 8th instant, and this morning
went to Auteuil and Passy, to consult with Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin
on the subject of it. We conferred together, and think it is a case in
which we could not interpose (were there as yet cause for interposition)
without express instructions from Congress. It is, however, our private
opinion, which we give as individuals, only, that Mr. McLanahan, while
in England, is subject to the laws of England; that, therefore, he must
employ counsel, and be guided in his defence by their advice. The law
of nations and the treaty of peace, as making a part of the law of the
land, will undoubtedly be under the consideration of the judges who
pronounce on Mr. McLanahan’s case; and we are willing to hope that, in
their knowledge and integrity, he will find certain resources against
injustice, and a reparation of all injury to which he may have been
groundlessly exposed. A final and palpable failure on their part, which
we have no reason to apprehend, might make the case proper for the
consideration of Congress.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of great respect and esteem, for
Mr. McLanahan, as well as yourself.
Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER LX.--TO JOHN JAY, May 11, 1785
TO JOHN JAY.
Paris, May 11, 1785.
Sir,
I was honored on the 2nd instant with the receipt of your favor of March
the 15th, enclosing the resolution of Congress of the 10th of the same
month, appointing me their Minister Plenipotentiary at this court, and
also of your second letter of March 22nd, covering the commission and
letter of credence for that appointment. I beg permission through you,
Sir, to testify to Congress my gratitude for this new mark of their
favor, and my assurances of endeavoring to merit it by a faithful
attention to the discharge of the duties annexed to it. Fervent zeal is
all which I can be sure of carrying into their service; and where I fail
through a want of those powers which nature and circumstances deny me, I
shall rely on their indulgence, and much also on that candor with which
your Goodness will present my proceedings to their eye. The kind terms
in which you are pleased to notify this honor to me, require mv sincere
thanks. I beg you to accept them, and to be assured of the perfect
esteem, with which I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and
most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER LXI.--TO GENERAL CHASTELLUX, June 7,1785
TO GENERAL CHASTELLUX.
Paris, June 7,1785.
Dear Sir,
I have been honored with the receipt of your letter of the 2nd instant,
and am to thank you, as I do sincerely, for the partiality with which
you receive the copy of the Notes on my country. As I can answer for the
facts therein reported on my own observation, and have admitted none on
the report of others, which were not supported by evidence sufficient to
command my own assent, I am not afraid that you should make any extracts
you please for the Journal de Physique, which come within their plan
of publication. The strictures on slavery and on the constitution of
Virginia, are not of that kind, and they are the parts which I do
not wish to have made public, at least, till I know whether their
publication would do most harm or good. It is possible, that in my
own country, these strictures might produce an irritation, which would
indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view,
that is, the emancipation of their slaves, and the settlement of their
constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis. If I learn from
thence, that they will not produce that effect, I have printed and
reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to every young man at
the College. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not
to the one now in power, for these great reformations. The other copy,
delivered at your hotel, was for Monsieur de Buffon. I meant to ask the
favor of you to have it sent to him, as I was ignorant how to do it. I
have one also for Monsieur Daubenton, but being utterly unknown to him,
I cannot take the liberty of presenting it, till I can do it through
some common acquaintance.
I will beg leave to say here a few words on the general question of the
degeneracy of animals in America. 1. As to the degeneracy of the man of
Europe transplanted to America, it is no part of Monsieur de Buffon’s
system. He goes, indeed, within one step of it, but he stops there. The
Abbe Raynal alone has taken that step. Your knowledge of America enables
you to judge this question; to say, whether the lower class of people
in America, are less informed, and less susceptible of information,
than the lower class in Europe: and whether those in America who have
received such an education as that country can give, are less improved
by it than Europeans of the same degree of education. 2. As to the
aboriginal man of America, I know of no respectable evidence on which
the opinion of his inferiority of genius has been founded, but that of
Don Ulloa. As to Robertson, he never was in America; he relates nothing
on his own knowledge; he is a compiler only of the relations of others,
and a mere translator of the opinions of Monsieur de Buffon. I should
as soon, therefore, add the translators of Robertson to the witnesses of
this fact, as himself. Paw, the beginner of this charge, was a compiler
from the works of others; and of the most unlucky description; for
he seems to have read the writings of travellers, only to collect and
republish their lies. It is really remarkable, that in three volumes
12mo, of small print, it is scarcely possible to find one truth, and
yet, that the author should be able to produce authority for every
fact he states, as he says he can. Don Ulloa’s testimony is of the most
respectable. He wrote of what he saw, but he saw the Indian of South
America only, and that, after he had passed through ten generations of
slavery. It is very unfair, from this sample, to judge of the natural
genius of this race of men; and after supposing that Don Ulloa had not
sufficiently calculated the allowance which should be made for this
circumstance, we do him no injury in considering the picture he draws
of the present Indians of South America, as no picture of what their
ancestors were, three hundred years ago. It is in North America we are
to seek their original character. And I am safe in affirming that the
proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America, place them on
a level with whites in the same uncultivated state. The North of Europe
furnishes subjects enough for comparison with them, and for a proof of
their equality. I have seen some thousands myself, and conversed much
with them, and have found in them a masculine, sound understanding. I
have had much information from men who had lived among them, and whose
veracity and good sense were so far known to me, as to establish a
reliance on their information. They have all agreed in bearing witness
in favor of the genius of this a people. As to their bodily strength,
their manners rendering it disgraceful to labor, those muscles employed
in labor will be weaker with them, than with the European laborer; but
those which are exerted in the chase, and those faculties which
are employed in the tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriving
ambuscades for him, and in carrying them through their execution, are
much stronger than with us, because they are more exercised. I believe
the Indian, then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man. I
have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so; but
it would be hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few
generations, he would not become so. 3. As to the inferiority of the
other animals of America, without more facts, I can add nothing to what
I have said in my Notes.
As to the theory of Monsieur de Buffon, that heat is friendly, and
moisture adverse to the production of large animals, I am lately
furnished with a fact by Dr. Franklin, which proves the air of London
and of Paris to be more humid than that of Philadelphia, and so creates
a suspicion that the opinion of the superior humidity of America,
may, perhaps, have been too hastily adopted. And supposing that fact
admitted, I think the physical reasonings urged to show, that in a moist
country animals must be small, and that in a hot one they must be large,
are not built on the basis of experiment. These questions, however,
cannot be decided ultimately, at this day. More facts must be collected,
and more time flow off, before the world will be ripe for decision. In
the mean time, doubt is wisdom.
I have been fully sensible of the anxieties of your situation, and that
your attentions were wholly consecrated, where alone they were wholly
due, to the succor of friendship and worth. However much I prize your
society, I wait with patience the moment when I can have it without
taking what is due to another. In the mean time, I am solaced with the
hope of possessing your friendship, and that it is not ungrateful to
you to receive the assurances of that with which I have the honor to be,
Dear Sir,
your most obedient
and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER LXII.--TO JOHN ADAMS, June 15, 1785
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Passy, June 15, 1785.
Sir,
Among the instructions given to the ministers of the United States for
treating with foreign powers, was one of the 11th of May, 1784, relative
to an individual of the name of John Baptist Picquet. It contains an
acknowledgement, on the part of Congress, of his merits and sufferings
by friendly services rendered to great numbers of American seamen
carried prisoners into Lisbon, and refers to us the delivering him
these acknowledgements in honorable terms, and the making him such
gratification, as may indemnify his losses, and properly reward his
zeal. This person is now is Paris, and asks whatever return is intended
for him. Being in immediate want of money, he has been furnished with
ten guineas. He expressed, desires of some appointment either for
himself or son at Lisbon, but has been told that none such are in our
gift, and that nothing more could be done for him in that line, than to
mention to Congress that his services will merit their recollection, if
they should make any appointment there analogous to his talents. He says
his expenses in the relief of our prisoners have been upwards of fifty
moidores. Supposing that, as he is poor, a pecuniary gratification will
be most useful to him, we propose, in addition to what he has received,
to give him a hundred and fifty guineas, or perhaps four thousand
livres, and to write a joint letter to him expressing the sense Congress
entertain of his services. We pray you to give us your sentiments on
this subject by return of the first post, as he is waiting here, and we
wish the aid of your counsels therein.
We are to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of June 3rd, informing
us of your reception at the court of London.
I am, with sentiments of great respect and esteem, Dear Sir,
your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER LXIII.--TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA, June 16, 1785
TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.
Paris,
June 16, 1785.
Sir,
I had the honor of receiving, the day before yesterday, the resolution
of Council, of March the 10th, and your letter of March the 30th, and
shall, with great pleasure, unite my endeavors with those of the Marquis
de la Fayette and Mr. Barclay, for the purpose of procuring the arms
desired. Nothing can be more wise than this determination to arm our
people, as it is impossible to say when our neighbors may think proper
to give them exercise. I suppose that the establishing a manufacture
of arms, to go hand in hand with the purchase of them from hence, is at
present opposed by good reasons. This alone would make us independent
for an article essential to our preservation; and workmen could probably
be either got here, or drawn from England, to be embarked hence.
In a letter of January the 12th, to Governor Harrison, I informed him of
the necessity that the statuary should see General Washington; that we
should accordingly send him over unless the Executive disapproved of it,
in which case I prayed to receive their pleasure. Mr. Houdon being new
re-established in his health, and no countermand received, I hope this
measure met the approbation of the Executive: Mr. Houdon will therefore
go over with Dr. Franklin, some time in the next month.
I have the honor of enclosing you the substance of propositions which
have been made from London to the Farmers General of this country,
to furnish them with the tobacco of Virginia and Maryland, which
propositions were procured for me by the Marquis de la Fayette. I take
the liberty of troubling you with them, on a supposition that it may be
possible to have this article furnished from those two States to this
country, immediately, without its passing through the _entrepot_
of London, and the returns for it being made, of course, in London
merchandise. Twenty thousand hogsheads of tobacco a year, delivered here
in exchange for the produce and manufactures of this country, many
of which are as good, some better, and most of them cheaper than in
England, would establish a rivalship for our commerce, which would have
happy effects in all the three countries. Whether this end will be best
effected by giving out these propositions to our merchants, and exciting
them to become candidates with the Farmers General for this contract, or
by any other means, your Excellency will best judge on the spot.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of due respect, your
Excellency’s most obedient
and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
P.S. I have written on the last subject to the Governor of Maryland
also.
LETTER LXIV.--TO COLONEL MONROE, June 17, 1785
TO COLONEL MONROE.
Paris, June 17, 1785.
Dear Sir,