Paris, September 26,1785.
Sir,
I have received your letter of September the 19th, with your log-book
and other papers. I now wait for the letter from your lawyer, as, till I
know the real nature and state of your process, it is impossible for me
to judge what can be done for you here. As soon as I receive them, you
shall hear from me. In the mean time, I supposed it would be a comfort
to you to know that your papers had come safe to hand, and that I shall
be attentive to do whatever circumstances will admit.
I am, Sir, your very humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXV.--TO R. IZARD, September 26,1783
TO R. IZARD.
Paris, September 26,1783.
Dear Sir,
I received, a few days ago, your favor of the 10th of June, and am
to thank you for the trouble you have given yourself, to procure me
information on the subject of the commerce of your State. I pray you,
also, to take the trouble of expressing my acknowledgments to the
Governor and Chamber of Commerce, as well as to Mr. Hall, for the very
precise details on this subject, with which they have been pleased to
honor me. Your letter of last January, of which you make mention, never
came to my hands. Of course, the papers now received are the first and
only ones which have come safe. The infidelities of the post-offices,
both of England and France, are not unknown to you. The former are the
most rascally, because they retain one’s letters, not choosing to take
the trouble of copying them. The latter, when they have taken copies,
are so civil as to send the originals, re-sealed clumsily with a
composition, on which they had previously taken the impression of the
seal. England shows no dispositions to enter into friendly connections
with us. On the contrary, her detention of our posts, seems to be the
speck which is to produce a storm. I judge that a war with America would
be a popular war in England. Perhaps the situation of Ireland may deter
the ministry from hastening it on. Peace is at length made between the
Emperor and Dutch. The terms are not published, but it is said he gets
ten millions of florins, the navigation of the Scheldt not quite to
Antwerp, and two forts. However, this is not to be absolutely relied on.
The league formed by the King of Prussia against the Emperor is a most
formidable obstacle to his ambitious designs. It certainly has defeated
his views on Bavaria, and will render doubtful the election of his
nephew to be King of the Romans. Matters are not yet settled between him
and the Turk. In truth, he undertakes too much. At home he has made some
good regulations.
Your present pursuit being (the wisest of all) agriculture, I am not in
a situation to be useful to it. You know that France is not the country
most celebrated for this art. I went the other day to see a plough which
was to be worked by a windlass, without horses or oxen. It was a poor
affair. With a very troublesome apparatus, applicable only to a
dead level, four men could do the work of two horses. There seems a
possibility that the great _desideratum_ in the use of the balloon may
be obtained. There are two persons at Javel (opposite to Auteuil) who
are pushing this matter. They are able to rise and fall at will, without
expending their gas, and they can deflect forty-five degrees from the
course of the wind.
I took the liberty of asking you to order me a Charleston newspaper.
The expense of French postage is so enormous that I have been obliged to
desire that my newspapers, from the different States, may be sent to the
office for Foreign Affairs at New York; and I have requested of Mr. Jay
to have them always packed in a box, and sent by the French packets as
merchandise to the care of the American consul at L’Orient, who will
send them on by the periodical wagons. Will you permit me to add this
to the trouble I have before given you, of ordering the printer to send
them under cover to Mr. Jay, by such opportunities by water, as occur
from time to time. This request must go to the acts of your Assembly
also. I shall be on the watch to send you any thing that may appear
here on the subjects of agriculture or the arts, which may be worth your
perusal, I sincerely congratulate Mrs. Izard and yourself on the double
accession to your family by marriage and a new birth. My daughter values
much your remembrance of her, and prays to have her respects presented
to the ladies and yourself. In this I join her, and shall embrace with
pleasure every opportunity of assuring you of the sincere esteem, with
which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir, your most obedient
and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXVI.--TO RICHARD O’BRYAN, September 29, 1785
TO RICHARD O’BRYAN.
Paris, September 29, 1785.
Sir,
I have received your letter, and shall exert myself for you. Be assured
of hearing from me soon: but say nothing to any body, except what may be
necessary to comfort your companions. I add no more, because the fate of
this letter is uncertain. I am, Sir,
your very humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXVII.--TO MR. BELLINI, September 30,1785
TO MR. BELLINI.
Paris, September 30,1785.
Dear Sir,
Your estimable favor, covering a letter to Mr. Mazzei, came to hand on
the 26th instant. The letter to Mr. Mazzei was put into his hands in the
same moment, as he happened to be present. I leave to him to convey to
you all his complaints, as it will be more agreeable to me to express
to you the satisfaction I received, on being informed of your perfect
health. Though I could not receive the same pleasing news of Mrs.
Bellini, yet the philosophy, with which I am told she bears the loss of
health, is a testimony the more, how much she deserved the esteem I
bear her. Behold me at length on the vaunted scene of Europe! It is
not necessary for your information, that I should enter into details
concerning it. But you are, perhaps, curious to know how this new scene
has struck a savage of the mountains of America. Not advantageously, I
assure you. I find the general fate of humanity here most deplorable.
The truth of Voltaire’s observation offers itself perpetually, that
every man here must be either the hammer or the anvil. It is a true
picture of that country to which they say we shall pass hereafter, and
where we are to see God and his angels in splendor, and crowds of the
damned trampled under their feet. While the great mass of the people are
thus suffering under physical and moral oppression, I have endeavored to
examine more nearly the condition of the great, to appreciate the true
value of the circumstances in their situation which dazzle the bulk of
spectators, and, especially, to compare it with that degree of happiness
which is enjoyed in America by every class of people. Intrigues of love
occupy the younger, and those of ambition the elder part of the great.
Conjugal love having no existence among them, domestic happiness,
of which that is the basis, is utterly unknown. In lieu of this, are
substituted pursuits which nourish and invigorate all our bad passions,
and which offer only moments of ecstacy, amidst days and months of
restlessness and torment. Much, very much inferior, this, to the
tranquil, permanent felicity, with which domestic society in America
blesses most of its inhabitants; leaving them to follow steadily those
pursuits which health and reason approve, and rendering truly delicious
the intervals of those pursuits.
In science, the mass of the people is two centuries behind ours; their
literati, half a dozen years before us. Books, really good, acquire just
reputation in that time, and so become known to us, and communicate to
us all their advances in knowledge. Is not this delay compensated,
by our being placed out of the reach of that swarm of nonsensical
publications, which issues daily from a thousand presses, and perishes
almost in issuing? With respect to what are termed polite manners,
without sacrificing too much the sincerity of language, I would wish my
countrymen to adopt just so much of European politeness, as to be
ready to make all those little sacrifices of self, which really render
European manners amiable, and relieve society from the disagreeable
scenes to which rudeness often subjects it. Here, it seems that a
man might pass a life without encountering a single rudeness. In the
pleasures of the table they are far before us, because with good taste
they unite temperance. They do not terminate the most sociable meals by
transforming themselves into brutes. I have never yet seen a man drunk
in France, even among the lowest of the people. Were I to proceed to
tell you how much I enjoy their architecture, sculpture, painting,
music, I should want words. It is in these arts they shine. The last of
them, particularly, is an enjoyment, the deprivation of which with us
cannot be calculated. I am almost ready to say, it is the only thing
which from my heart I envy them, and which, in spite of all the
authority of the Decalogue, I do covet. But I am running on in an
estimate of things infinitely better known to you than to me, and which
will only serve to convince you, that I have brought with me all the
prejudices of country, habit, and age. But whatever I may allow to
be charged to me as prejudice, in every other instance, I have one
sentiment at least founded on reality: it is that of the perfect esteem
which your merit and that of Mrs. Bellini have produced, and which will
for ever enable me to assure you of the sincere regard with which I am,
Dear Sir,
your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXVIII.--JAMES MADISON, October 2, 1785
JAMES MADISON, of William and Mary College.
Paris, October 2, 1785.
Dear Sir,
I have duly received your favor of April the 10th, by Mr. Mazzei. You
therein speak of a new method of raising water by steam, which you
suppose will come into general use. I know of no new method of that
kind, and suppose (as you say that the account you have received of it
is very imperfect) that some person has represented to you, as new, a
fire-engine erected at Paris, and which supplies the greater part of the
town with water. But this is nothing more than the fire-engine you
have seen described in the books of hydraulics, and particularly in the
Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, published in 8vo, by Owen, the idea of
which was first taken from Papin’s Digester. It would have been better
called the steam-engine. The force of the steam of water, you know, is
immense. In this-engine it is made to exert itself towards the working
of pumps. That of Paris is, I believe, the largest known, raising four
hundred thousand cubic feet (French) of water, in twenty-four hours; or
rather I should have said, those of Paris, for there are two under one
roof, each raising that quantity.
The Abbe Rochon not living at Paris, I have not had an opportunity of
seeing him, and of asking him the questions you desire, relative to
the crystal of which I wrote you. I shall avail myself of the earliest
opportunity I can, of doing it. I shall cheerfully execute your commands
as to the _Encyclopédie_, when I receive them. The price will be only
thirty guineas. About half the work is out. The volumes of your Buffon,
which are spoiled, can be replaced here.
I expect that this letter will be carried by the Mr. Fitzhughs, in
a ship from Havre to Portsmouth. I have therefore sent to Havre some
books, which I expected would be acceptable to you. These are the
_Bibliothèque Physico-oeconomique_, which will give you most of the
late improvements in the arts; the _Connoissance des Terns_ for 1786 and
1787, which is as late as they are published; and some pieces on air and
fire, wherein you will find all the discoveries hitherto made on these
subjects. These books are made into a packet, with your address on
them, and are put into a trunk wherein is a small packet for Mr. Wythe,
another for Mr. Page, and a parcel of books, without direction, for
Peter Carr. I have taken the liberty of directing the trunk to you, as
the surest means of its getting safe. I pay the freight of it here, so
that there will be no new demands, but for the transportation from the
ship’s side to Williamsburg, which I will pray you to pay; and as much
the greatest part is for my nephew, I will take care to repay it to you.
In the last volume of the _Connoissance des Terns_, you will find the
tables for the planet Herschel. It is a curious circumstance, that this
planet was seen thirty years ago by Mayer, and supposed by him to be a
fixed star. He accordingly determined a place for it, in his catalogue
of the zodiacal stars, making it the 964th of that catalogue. Bode,
of Berlin, observed in 1781, that this star was missing. Subsequent
calculations of the motion of the planet Herschel show, that it must
have been, at the time of Mayer’s observation, where he had placed his
964th star.
Herschel has pushed his discoveries of double stars, now, to upwards
of nine hundred, being twice the number of those communicated in the
Philosophical Transactions. You have probably seen, that a Mr. Pigott
had discovered periodical variations of light in the star Algol. He
has observed the same in the _n_ of Antinous, and makes the period of
variation seven days, four hours, and thirty minutes, the duration of
the increase sixty-three hours, and of the decrease thirty-six hours.
What are we to conclude from this? That there are suns which have their
orbits of revolution too? But this would suppose a wonderful harmony
in their planets, and present a new scene, where the attracting powers
should be without, and not within the orbit. The motion of our sun would
be a miniature of this. But this must be left to you astronomers.
I went some time ago to see a machine, which offers something new. A man
had applied to a light boat, a very large screw, the thread of which was
a thin plate, two feet broad, applied by its edge spirally round a small
axis. It somewhat resembled a bottle-brush, if you will suppose the
hairs of the bottle-brush joining together, and forming a spiral plane.
This, turned on its axis in the air, carried the vessel across the
Seine. It is, in fact, a screw which takes hold of the air and draws
itself along by it: losing, indeed, much of its effort by the yielding
nature of the body it lays hold of, to pull itself on by. I think it
may be applied in the water with much greater effect, and to very useful
purposes Perhaps it may be used also for the balloon.
It is impossible but you must have heard long ago of the machine for
copying letters at a single stroke, as we had received it in America
before I left there. I have written a long letter to my nephew, in whose
education I feel myself extremely interested. I shall rely much on your
friendship for conducting him in the plan I mark out for him, and for
guarding him against those shoals, on which youth sometimes shipwreck. I
trouble you to present to Mr. Wythe my affectionate remembrance of him,
and am with very great esteem, Dear Sir,
your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXIX.--TO DR. FRANKLIN, October 5,1785
TO DR. FRANKLIN.
Paris, October 5,1785.
Dear Sir,
A vessel sailing from Havre to Philadelphia, furnishes the Messrs.
Fitzhughs with a passage to that place. To them, therefore, I confide a
number of letters and packets which I have received for you from sundry
quarters, and which, I doubt not, they will deliver safe. Among these is
one from M. Du Plessis. On receipt of your letter, in answer to the
one I had written you, on the subject of his memorial, I sent to M. La
Motte, M. Chaumont, and wherever else I thought there was a probability
of finding out Du Plessis’ address. But all in vain. I meant to examine
his memoir, as you desired, and to have it copied. Lately, he came and
brought it with him, copied by himself. He desired me to read it, and
enclose it to you, which I have done.
We have no public news worth communicating to you, but the signing of
preliminaries between the Emperor and Dutch. The question is, then, with
whom the Emperor will pick the next quarrel. Our treaty with Prussia
goes by this conveyance. But it is not to be spoken of till a convenient
time is allowed for exchanging ratifications.
Science offers nothing new since your departure, nor any new publication
worth your notice. All your friends here are well. Those in England
have carried you captive to Algiers. They have published a letter, as
if written by Truxen, the 20th of August, from Algiers, stating
the circumstances of the capture, and that you bore your slavery to
admiration. I happened to receive a letter from Algiers, dated August
the 24th, informing me that two vessels were then there, taken from us,
and naming the vessels and captains. This was a satisfactory proof to
us, that you were not there. The fact being so, we would have gladly
dispensed with the proof, as the situation of our countrymen there was
described as very distressing.
Were I to mention all those who make inquiries after you, there would be
no end to my letter. I cannot, however, pass over those of the good old
Countess d’Hoditot, with whom I dined on Saturday, at Sanois. They were
very affectionate. I hope you have had a good passage. Your essay in
crossing the channel gave us great hopes you would experience little
inconvenience on the rest of the voyage. My wishes place you in the
bosom of your friends, in good health, and with a well grounded prospect
of preserving it long, for your own sake, for theirs, and that of the
world.
I am, with the sincerest attachment and respect, Dear Sir,
your most obedient
and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXX.--TO SAMUEL OSGOOD, October 5, 1785
TO SAMUEL OSGOOD.
Paris, October 5, 1785.
Dear Sir,
It was with very sincere pleasure I heard of your appointment to
the board of treasury, as well from the hope that it might not
be disagreeable to yourself, as from the confidence that your
administration would be wise. I heartily wish the States may, by their
contributions, enable you to re-establish a credit, which cannot be
lower than at present, to exist at all. This is partly owing to their
real deficiencies, and partly to the lies propagated by the London
papers, which are probably paid for by the minister, to reconcile the
people to the loss of us. Unluckily, it indisposes them, at the same
time, to form rational connections with us. Should this produce the
amendment of our federal constitution, of which your papers give us
hopes, we shall receive a permanent indemnification for a temporary
loss.
All things here promise an arrangement between the Emperor and Dutch.
Their ministers have signed preliminary articles, some of which,
however, leave room for further cavil. The Dutch pay ten millions of
florins, yield some forts and territory, and the navigation of the
Scheldt to Saftingen. Till our treaty with England be fully executed,
it is desirable to us, that all the world should be in peace. That done,
their wars would do us little harm.
I find myself under difficulties here, which I will take the liberty of
explaining to you as a friend. Mr. Carmichael lately drew a bill on
Mr. Grand for four thousand livres, I suppose for his salary. Mr.
Grand said, he was not used to accept drafts but by the desire of Dr.
Franklin, and rested it on me to say, whether this bill should be paid
or not. I thought it improper, that the credit of so confidential
a person, as Mr. Carmichael, should be affected by a refusal, and
therefore advised payment. Mr. Dumas has drawn on me for twenty-seven
hundred livres, his half year’s salary, informing me he always drew on
Dr. Franklin. I shall advise the payment. I have had loan-office bills,
drawn on the commissioners of the United States, presented to me. My
answer has been, ‘These are very old bills. Had they been presented
while those gentlemen were in Europe, they would have been paid. You
have kept them up till Dr. Franklin, the last of them, has returned to
America; you must therefore send them there, and they will be paid. I am
not the drawee described in the bill.’ It is impossible for me to meddle
with these bills. The gentlemen who had been familiar with them, from
the beginning, who kept books of them, and knew well the form of these
books, often paid bills twice. But how can I interfere with them,
who have not a scrip of a pen on their subject, who never saw a book
relating to them, and who, if I had the books, should much oftener be
bewildered in the labyrinth, than the gentlemen who have kept them? I
think it, therefore, most advisable, that what bills remain out, should
be sent back to America for payment, and therefore advise Mr. Barclay to
return thither all the books and papers relative to them. There, is the
proper and ultimate deposite of all records of this nature. All
these articles are very foreign to my talents, and foreign also, as I
conceive, to the nature of my duties. Dr. Franklin was obliged to meddle
with them, from the circumstances which existed. But, these having
ceased, I suppose it practicable for your board to direct the
administration of your monies here, in every circumstance. It is only
necessary for me to draw my own allowances, and to order payment for
services done by others, by my direction, and within the immediate line
of my office; such as paying couriers, postage, and other extraordinary
services, which must rest on my discretion, and at my risk, if
disapproved by Congress. I will thank you for your advice on this
subject, and if you think a resolution of your board necessary, I will
pray you to send me such a one, and that it may relieve me from all
concerns with the money of the United States, other than those I have
just spoken of. I do not mean by this to testify a disposition to render
no service but what is rigorously within my duty. I am the farthest in
the world from this; it is a question I shall never ask myself; nothing
making me more happy than to render any service in my power of whatever
description. But I wish only to be excused from intermeddling in
business, in which I have no skill, and should do more harm than good.
Congress were pleased to order me an advance of two quarters’ salary. At
that time, I supposed that I might refund it, or spare so much from my
expenses, by the time the third quarter became due. Probably, they might
expect the same. But it has been impossible. The expense of my outfit,
though I have taken it up on a scale as small as could be admitted, has
been very far beyond what I had conceived. I have, therefore, not only
been unable to refund the advance ordered, but been obliged to go beyond
it. I wished to have avoided so much, as was occasioned by the purchase
of furniture. But those who hire furniture, asked me forty per cent,
a year for the use of it. It was better to buy, therefore; and this
article, clothes, carriage, &c. have amounted to considerably more than
the advance ordered. Perhaps it may be thought reasonable to allow me an
outfit. The usage of every other nation has established this, and reason
really pleads for it. I do not wish to make a shilling; but only my
expenses to be defrayed, and in a moderate style. On the most moderate,
which the reputation or interest of those I serve would admit, it will
take me several years to liquidate the advances for my outfit. I mention
this, to enable you to understand the necessities which have obliged me
to call for more money than was probably expected, and, understanding
them, to explain them to others. Being perfectly disposed to conform
myself decisively to what shall be thought proper, you cannot oblige me
more, than by communicating to me your sentiments hereon, which I shall
receive as those of a friend, and govern myself accordingly.
I am, with the most perfect esteem, Dear Sir,
your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXXI.--TO JOHN JAY, October 6, 1785
TO JOHN JAY.
Paris, October 6, 1785.
Sir,