of the 16th of June, with the interesting intelligence it contained.
I was entirely in the dark as to the progress of that negotiation, and
concur entirely in the views you have taken of it The difficulty on
which it hangs, is a _sine qua non_ with us. It would be to deceive them
and ourselves, to suppose that an amity can be preserved, while this
right is withheld. Such a supposition would argue, not only an ignorance
of the people to whom this is most interesting, but an ignorance of the
nature of man, or an inattention to it. Those who see but halfway into
our true interest, will think that that concurs with the views of the
other party. But those who see it in all its extent, will be sensible
that our true interest will be best promoted, by making all the just
claims of our fellow-citizens, wherever situated, our own, by urging and
enforcing them with the weight of our whole influence, and by exercising
in this, as in every other instance, a just government in their
concerns, and making common cause, even where our separate interest
would seem opposed to theirs. No other conduct can attach us together;
and on this attachment depends our happiness.
The King of Prussia still lives, and is even said to be better. Europe
is very quiet at present. The only germ of dissension which shows itself
at present, is in the quarter of Turkey. The Emperor, the Empress, and
the Venetians seem all to be picking at the Turks. It is not probable,
however, that either of the two first will do any thing to bring on an
open rupture, while the King of Prussia lives.
You will perceive by the letters I enclose to Mr. Jay, that Lambe, under
the pretext of ill health, declines returning either to Congress, Mr.
Adams, or myself. This circumstance makes me fear some malversation.
The money appropriated to this object being in Holland, and having been
always under the care of Mr. Adams, it was concerted between us that all
the drafts should be on him. I know not, therefore, what sums may have
been advanced to Lambe; I hope, however, nothing great. I am persuaded
that an angel sent on this business, and so much limited in his terms,
could have done nothing. But should Congress propose to try the line of
negotiation again, I think they will perceive that Lambe is not a proper
agent. I have written to Mr. Adams on the subject of a settlement with
Lambe. There is little prospect of accommodation between the Algerines,
and the Portuguese and Neapolitans. A very valuable capture too, lately
made by them on the Empress of Russia, bids fair to draw her on them.
The probability is therefore, that these three nations will be at war
with them, and the possibility is that could we furnish a couple of
frigates, a convention might be formed with those powers, establishing
a perpetual cruise on the coast of Algiers, which would bring them to
reason. Such a convention being left open to all powers willing to come
into it, should have for its object a general peace, to be guarantied
to each, by the whole. Were only two or three to begin a confederacy of
this kind, I think every power in Europe would soon fall into it, except
France, England, and perhaps Spain and Holland. Of these there is only
England who would give any real aid to the Algerines. Morocco, you
perceive, will be at peace with us. Were the honor and advantage of
establishing such a confederacy out of the question, yet the necessity
that the United States should have some marine force, and the happiness
of this, as the ostensible cause for beginning it, would decide on its
propriety. It will be said, there is no money in the treasury. There
never will be money in the treasury till the confederacy shows its
teeth. The States must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some
one of them. I am persuaded, all of them would rejoice to see every
one obliged to furnish its contributions. It is not the difficulty of
furnishing them, which beggars the treasury, but the fear that others
will not furnish as much. Every rational citizen must wish to see an
effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other
element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties,
nor occasion bloodshed: a land force would do both. It is not in the
choice of the States, whether they will pay money to cover their trade
against the Algerines. If they obtain a peace by negotiation, they must
pay a great sum of money for it; if they do nothing, they must pay a
great sum of money, in the form of insurance; and in either way, as
great a one as in the way of force, and probably less effectual.
I look forward with anxiety to the approaching moment of your departure
from Congress. Besides the interest of the confederacy and of the State,
I have a personal interest in it. I know not to whom I may venture
confidential communications, after you are gone. I take the liberty of
placing here my respects to Mrs. Monroe, and assurances of the sincere
esteem with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XXVII.--TO MR. WYTHE, August 13,1786
TO MR. WYTHE.
Paris, August 13,1786.
Dear Sir
Your favors of January the 10th and February the 10th, came to hand
on the 20th and 23rd of May. I availed myself of the first opportunity
which occurred, by a gentleman going to England, of sending to
Mr. Joddrel a copy of the Notes on our country! with a line informing him,
that it was you who had emboldened me to take that liberty. Madison, no
doubt, informed you of the reason why I had sent only a single copy to
Virginia. Being assured by him, that they will not do the harm I had
apprehended, but on the contrary may do some good, I propose to send
thither the copies remaining on hand, which are fewer than I had
intended. But of the numerous corrections they need, there are one or
two so essential, that I must have them made, by printing a few new
leaves, and substituting them for the old. This will be done while
they are engraving a map which I have constructed, of the country from
Albemarle sound to Lake Erie, and which will be inserted in the book. A
bad French translation which is getting out here, will probably oblige
me to publish the original more freely; which it did not deserve,
nor did I intend. Your wishes, which are laws to me, will justify my
destining a copy for you, otherwise, I should as soon have thought
of sending you a horn-book; for there is no truth in it which is not
familiar to you, and its errors I should hardly have proposed to treat
you with.
Immediately on the receipt of your letter, I wrote to a correspondent at
Florence to inquire after the family of Tagliaferro, as you desired.
I received his answer two days ago, a copy of which I now enclose.
The original shall be sent by some other occasion. I will have the
copper-plate immediately engraved. This may be ready within a few days,
but the probability is, that I shall be long getting an opportunity of
sending it to you, as these rarely occur. You do not mention the size
of the plate, but presuming it is intended for labels for the inside of
books, I shall have it made of a proper size for that. I shall omit the
word _agisos_, according to the license you allow me, because I think
the beauty of a motto is to condense much matter in as few words as
possible. The word omitted will be supplied by every reader.
The European papers have announced, that the Assembly of Virginia were
occupied on the revisal of their code of laws. This, with some other
similar intelligence, has contributed much to convince the people of
Europe, that what the English papers are constantly publishing of our
anarchy, is false; as they are sensible that such a work is that of a
people only, who are in perfect tranquillity. Our act for freedom of
religion is extremely applauded. The ambassadors and ministers of the
several nations of Europe, resident at this court, have asked of me
copies of it, to send to their sovereigns, and it is inserted at full
length in several books now in the press; among others, in the new
_Encyclopédie_. I think it will produce considerable good even in these
countries, where ignorance, superstition, poverty, and oppression of
body and mind, in every form, are so firmly settled on the mass of the
people, that their redemption from them can never be hoped. If all the
sovereigns of Europe were to set themselves to work, to emancipate the
minds of their subjects from their present ignorance and prejudices, and
that, as zealously as they now endeavor the contrary, a thousand years
would not place them on that high ground, on which our common people
are now setting out. Ours could not have been so fairly placed under the
control of the common sense of the people, had they not been separated
from their parent stock, and kept from contamination, either from them,
or the other people of the old world, by the intervention of so wide an
ocean. To know the worth of this, one must see the want of it here. I
think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the
diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can
be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness. If any body
thinks, that kings, nobles, or priests are good conservators of the
public happiness, send him here. It is the best school in the universe
to cure him of that folly. He will see here, with his own eyes, that
these descriptions of men are an abandoned confederacy against the
happiness of the mass of the people. The omnipotence of their effect
cannot be better proved, than in this country particularly, where,
notwithstanding the finest soil upon earth, the finest climate under
heaven, and a people of the most benevolent, the most gay and amiable
character of which the human form is susceptible; where such a people, I
say, surrounded by so many blessings from nature, are loaded with misery
by kings, nobles, and priests, and by them alone. Preach, my dear Sir,
a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating
the common people. Let our countrymen know, that the people alone can
protect us against these evils, and that the tax which will be paid for
this purpose, is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid
to kings, priests, and nobles, who will rise up among us if we leave the
people in ignorance. The people of England, I think, are less oppressed
than here. But it needs but half an eye to see, when among them, that
the foundation is laid in their dispositions for the establishment of
a despotism. Nobility, wealth, and pomp are the objects of their
admiration. They are by no means the free-minded people, we suppose
them in America. Their learned men, too, are few in number, and are less
learned, and infinitely less emancipated from prejudice, than those
of this country. An event, too, seems to be preparing, in the order of
things, which will probably decide the fate of that country. It is no
longer doubtful, that the harbor of Cherbourg will be complete, that
it will be a most excellent one, and capacious enough to hold the whole
navy of France. Nothing has ever been wanting to enable this country
to invade that, but a naval force conveniently stationed to protect the
transports. This change of situation must oblige the English to keep up
a great standing army, and there is no King, who, with sufficient force,
is not always ready to make himself absolute. My paper warns me, it is
time to recommend myself to the friendly recollection of Mrs. Wythe, of
Colonel Taliaferro and his family, and particularly of Mr. R. T. and to
assure you of the affectionate esteem, with which I am,
Dear Sir, your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XXVIII.--TO MRS. COSWAY, October 12, 1786
TO MRS. COSWAY.
Paris, October 12, 1786.
My Dear Madam,
Having performed the last sad office of handing you into your carriage,
at the pavillion de St. Denis, and seen the wheels get actually into
motion, I turned on my heel and walked, more dead than alive, to the
opposite door, where my own was awaiting me. Mr. Danquerville was
missing. He was sought for, found, and dragged down stairs. We were
crammed into the carriage, like recruits for the Bastille, and not
having soul enough to give orders to the coachman, he presumed Paris our
destination, and drove off. After a considerable interval, silence was
broke, with a ‘_Je suis vraiment affligé du depart de ces bons
gens._’ This was a signal for mutual confession of distress. We began
immediately to talk of Mr. and Mrs. Cosway, of their goodness, their
talents, their amiability; and though we spoke of nothing else, we
seemed hardly to have entered into the matter, when the coachman
announced the rue St. Denis, and that we were opposite Mr.
Danquerville’s. He insisted on descending there, and traversing a short
passage to his lodgings. I was carried home. Seated by my fire-side,
solitary and sad, the following dialogue took place between my Head and
my Heart.
Head. Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.
Heart. I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Overwhelmed
with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers
to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no
more to feel, or to fear.
Head. These are the eternal consequences of your warmth and
precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever
leading us. You confess your follies, indeed; but still you hug and
cherish them; and no reformation can be hoped, where there is no
repentance.
Heart. Oh, my friend! this is no moment to upbraid my foibles. I am rent
into fragments by the force of my grief! If you have any balm, pour it
into my wounds; if none, do not harrow them by new torments. Spare me
in this awful moment! At any other, I will attend with patience to your
admonitions.
Head. On the contrary, I never found that the moment of triumph, with
you, was the moment of attention to my admonitions. While suffering
under your follies, you may perhaps be made sensible of them; but, the
paroxysm over, you fancy it can never return. Harsh, therefore, as the
medicine may be, it is my office to administer it. You will be pleased
to remember, that when our friend Trumbull used to be telling us of the
merits and talents of these good people, I never ceased whispering to
you that we had no occasion for new acquaintances; that the greater
their merit and talents, the more dangerous their friendship to our
tranquillity, because the regret at parting would be greater.
Heart. Accordingly, Sir, this acquaintance was not the consequence of my
doings. It was one of your projects, which threw us in the way of it.
It was you, remember, and not I, who desired the meeting at Legrand and
Motinos. I never trouble myself with domes nor arches. The _Halle aux
bleds_ might have rotted down, before I should have gone to see it. But
you, forsooth, who are eternally getting us to sleep with your diagrams
and crotchets, must go and examine this wonderful piece of architecture;
and when you had seen it, oh! it was the most superb thing on earth!
What you had seen there was worth all you had yet seen in Paris! I
thought so too. But I meant it of the lady and gentleman to whom we had
been presented; and not of a parcel of sticks and chips put together
in pens. You then, Sir, and not I, have been the cause of the present
distress.
Head. It would have been happy for you, if my diagrams and crotchets
had gotten you to sleep on that day, as you are pleased to say they
eternally do. My visit to Legrand and Motinos, had public utility for
its object. A market is to be built in Richmond. What a commodious plan
is that of Legrand and Motinos; especially, if we put on it the noble
dome of the _Halle aux bleds_. If such a bridge as they showed us, can
be thrown across the Schuylkill, at Philadelphia, the floating bridges
taken up, and the navigation of that river opened, what a copious
resource will be added of wood and provisions, to warm and feed the poor
of that city? While I was occupied with these objects, you were dilating
with your new acquaintances, and contriving how to prevent a separation
from them. Every soul of you had an engagement for the day. Yet all
these were to be sacrificed, that you might dine together. Lying
messengers were to be despatched into every quarter of the city, with
apologies for your breach of engagement. You, particularly, had the
effrontery to send word to the Duchess Danville, that on the moment
we were setting out to dine with her, despatches came to hand, which
required immediate attention. You wanted me to invent a more ingenious
excuse; but I knew you were getting into a scrape, and I would have
nothing to do with it. Well; after dinner to St. Cloud, from St. Cloud
to Ruggieri’s, from Ruggieri’s to Krumfoltz; and if the day had been as
long as a Lapland summer day, you would still have contrived means among
you to have filled it.
Heart. Oh! my dear friend, how you have revived me, by recalling to mind
the transactions of that day! How well I remember them all, and that
when I came home at night, and looked back to the morning, it seemed to
have been a month agone. Go on, then, like a kind comforter, and paint
to me the day we went to St. Germains. How beautiful was every object!
the _Port de Reuilly_, the hills along the Seine, the rainbows of the
machine of Marly, the terras of St. Germains, the chateaux, the gardens,
the statues of Marly, the pavillion of Lucienne. Recollect, too, Madrid,
Bagatelle, the King’s garden, the Desert. How grand the idea excited by
the remains of such a column. The spiral staircase, too, was beautiful.
Every moment was filled with something agreeable. The wheels of time
moved on with a rapidity, of which those of our carriage gave but a
faint idea. And yet, in the evening, when one took a retrospect of the
day, what a mass of happiness had we travelled over! Retrace all those
scenes to me, my good companion, and I will forgive the unkindness with
which you were chiding me. The day we went to St. Germains was a little
too warm, I think; was it not?
Head. Thou art the most incorrigible of all the beings that ever sinned!
I reminded you of the follies of the first day, intending to deduce from
thence some useful lessons for you, but instead of listening to them,
you kindle at the recollection, you retrace the whole series with a
fondness, which shows you want nothing but the opportunity, to act
it over again. I often told you, during its course, that you were
imprudently engaging your affections, under circumstances that must cost
you a great deal of pain; that the persons, indeed, were of the greatest
merit, possessing good sense, good humor, honest hearts, honest manners,
and eminence in a lovely art; that the lady had, moreover, qualities and
accomplishments belonging to her sex, which might form a chapter
apart for her; such as music, modesty, beauty, and that softness of
disposition, which is the ornament of her sex, and charm of ours: but
that all these considerations would increase the pang of separation,
that their stay here was to be short; that you rack our whole system
when you are parted from those you love, complaining that such a
separation is worse than death, inasmuch as this ends our sufferings,
whereas that only begins them; and that the separation would, in this
instance, be the more severe, as you, would probably never see them
again.
Heart. But they told me, they would come back again the next year.
Head. But in the mean time, see what you surfer: and their return, too,
depends on so many circumstances, that, if you had a grain of prudence,
you would not count upon it. Upon the whole, it is improbable, and
therefore you should abandon the idea of ever seeing them again.
Heart. May Heaven abandon me, if I do!
Head. Very well. Suppose, then, they come back. They are to stay two
months, and when these are expired, what is to follow? Perhaps you
flatter yourself they may come to America?
Heart. God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing impossible in
that supposition: and I see things wonderfully contrived sometimes to
make us happy. Where could they find such objects as in America, for
the exercise of their enchanting art; especially the lady, who paints
landscapes so inimitably? She wants only subjects worthy of immortality,
to render her pencil immortal. The Falling Spring, the Cascade of
Niagara, the Passage of the Potomac through the Blue Mountains, the
Natural Bridge; it is worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see these
objects; much more to paint, and make them, and thereby ourselves, known
to all ages. And our own dear Monticello; where has nature spread so
rich a mantle under the eye?--mountains, forests rocks, rivers. With
what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look
down into the workhouse of nature to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain,
thunder, all fabricated at our feet! and the glorious sun when rising as
if out of a distant water, lust gilding the tops of the mountains, and
giving life to all nature! 1 hope in God, no circumstance may ever make
either seek an asylum from grief! With what sincere sympathy I would
open every cell of my composition, to receive the effusion of their
woes!
I would pour my tears into their wounds; and if a drop of balm could be
found on the top of the Cordilleras, or at the remotest sources of the
Missouri, I would go thither myself to seek and to bring it. Deeply
practised in the school of affliction, the human heart knows no joy
which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not drank! Fortune can
present no grief of unknown form to me! Who, then, can so softly bind
up the wound of another, as he who has felt the same wound himself? But
Heaven forbid, they should ever know a sorrow! Let us turn over another
leaf, for this has distracted me.
Head. Well. Let us put this possibility to trial, then, on another
point. When you consider the character which is given of our country
by the lying newspapers of London, and their credulous copyers in other
countries; when you reflect, that all Europe is made to believe we are a
lawless banditti, in a state of absolute anarchy, cutting one another’s
throats, and plundering without distinction, how could you expect, that
any reasonable creature would venture among us?
Heart. But you and I know, that all this is false: that there is not a
country on earth, where there is greater tranquillity; where the laws
are milder, or better obeyed; where every one is more attentive to his
own business, or meddles less with that of others; where strangers
are better received, more hospitably treated, and with a more sacred
respect.
Head. True, you and I know this, but your friends do not know it.
Heart. But they are sensible people, who think for themselves. They will
ask of impartial foreigners, who have been among us, whether they saw or
heard on the spot any instance of anarchy. They will judge, too, that a
people occupied, as we are, in opening rivers, digging navigable canals,
making roads, building public schools, establishing academies, erecting
busts and statues to our great men, protecting religious freedom,
abolishing sanguinary punishments, reforming and improving our laws in
general; they will judge, I say, for themselves, whether these are not
the occupations of a people at their ease; whether this is not better
evidence of our true state, than a London newspaper, hired to lie, and
from which no truth can ever be extracted, but by reversing every thing
it says.