TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN RUSH.

MONTICELLO, January 16, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I had been considering for some days, whether it was not time

by a letter, to bring myself to your recollection, when I received your

welcome favor of the 2d instant. I had before heard of the heart-rending

calamity you mention, and had sincerely sympathized with your afflictions.

But I had not made it the subject of a letter, because I knew that

condolences were but renewals of grief. Yet I thought, and still think,

this is one of the cases wherein we should "not sorrow, even as others who

have no hope."

* * * * *

You ask if I have read Hartley? I have not. My present course of life

admits less reading than I wish. From breakfast, or noon at latest, to

dinner, I am mostly on horseback, attending to my farm or other concerns,

which I find healthful to my body, mind and affairs; and the few hours I

can pass in my cabinet, are devoured by correspondences; not those with my

intimate friends, with whom I delight to interchange sentiments, but with

others, who, writing to me on concerns of their own in which I have had an

agency, or from motives of mere respect and approbation, are entitled to

be answered with respect and a return of good will. My hope is that this

obstacle to the delights of retirement, will wear away with the oblivion

which follows that, and that I may at length be indulged in those studious

pursuits, from which nothing but revolutionary duties would ever have

called me.

I shall receive your proposed publication and read it with the pleasure

which everything gives me from your pen. Although much of a sceptic in the

practice of medicine, I read with pleasure its ingenious theories.

I receive with sensibility your observations on the discontinuance of

friendly correspondence between Mr. Adams and myself, and the concern you

take in its restoration. This discontinuance has not proceeded from me,

nor from the want of sincere desire and of effort on my part, to renew our

intercourse. You know the perfect coincidence of principle and of action,

in the early part of the Revolution, which produced a high degree of

mutual respect and esteem between Mr. Adams and myself. Certainly no man

was ever truer than he was, in that day, to those principles of rational

republicanism which, after the necessity of throwing off our monarchy,

dictated all our efforts in the establishment of a new government. And

although he swerved, afterwards, towards the principles of the English

constitution, our friendship did not abate on that account. While he

was Vice President, and I Secretary of State, I received a letter from

President Washington, then at Mount Vernon, desiring me to call together

the Heads of departments, and to invite Mr. Adams to join us (which,

by-the-bye, was the only instance of that being done) in order to

determine on some measure which required despatch; and he desired me to

act on it, as decided, without again recurring to him. I invited them to

dine with me, and after dinner, sitting at our wine, having settled our

question, other conversation came on, in which a collision of opinion

arose between Mr. Adams and Colonel Hamilton, on the merits of the

British constitution, Mr. Adams giving it as his opinion, that, if some

of its defects and abuses were corrected, it would be the most perfect

constitution of government ever devised by man. Hamilton, on the contrary,

asserted, that with its existing vices, it was the most perfect model

of government that could be formed; and that the correction of its vices

would render it an impracticable government. And this you may be assured

was the real line of difference between the political principles of these

two gentlemen. Another incident took place on the same occasion, which

will further delineate Mr. Hamilton's political principles. The room being

hung around with a collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among

them were those of Bacon, Newton and Locke, Hamilton asked me who they

were. I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world

had ever produced, naming them. He paused for some time: "the greatest

man," said he, "that ever lived, was Julius Cæsar." Mr. Adams was honest

as a politician, as well as a man; Hamilton honest as a man, but, as a

politician, believing in the necessity of either force or corruption to

govern men.

You remember the machinery which the federalists played off, about that

time, to beat down the friends to the real principles of our constitution,

to silence by terror every expression in their favor, to bring us into

war with France and alliance with England, and finally to homologize our

constitution with that of England. Mr. Adams, you know, was overwhelmed

with feverish addresses, dictated by the fear, and often by the pen, of

the _bloody buoy_, and was seduced by them into some open indications of

his new principles of government, and in fact, was so elated as to mix

with his kindness a little superciliousness towards me. Even Mrs. Adams,

with all her good sense and prudence, was sensibly flushed. And you

recollect the short suspension of our intercourse, and the circumstance

which gave rise to it, which you were so good as to bring to an early

explanation, and have set to rights, to the cordial satisfaction of us

all. The nation at length passed condemnation on the political principles

of the federalists, by refusing to continue Mr. Adams in the Presidency.

On the day on which we learned in Philadelphia the vote of the city of

New York, which it was well known would decide the vote of the State, and

that, again, the vote of the Union, I called on Mr. Adams on some official

business. He was very sensibly affected, and accosted me with these words:

"Well, I understand that you are to beat me in this contest, and I will

only say that I will be as faithful a subject as any you will have."

"Mr. Adams," said I, "this is no personal contest between you and me.

Two systems of principles on the subject of government divide our fellow

citizens into two parties. With one of these you concur, and I with the

other. As we have been longer on the public stage than most of those now

living, our names happen to be more generally known. One of these parties,

therefore, has put your name at its head, the other mine. Were we both

to die to-day, to-morrow two other names would be in the place of ours,

without any change in the motion of the machinery. Its motion is from its

principle, not from you or myself." "I believe you are right," said he,

"that we are but passive instruments, and should not suffer this matter to

affect our personal dispositions." But he did not long retain this just

view of the subject. I have always believed that the thousand calumnies

which the federalists, in bitterness of heart, and mortification at their

ejection, daily invented against me, were carried to him by their busy

intriguers, and made some impression. When the election between Burr and

myself was kept in suspense by the federalists, and they were meditating

to place the President of the Senate at the head of the government, I

called on Mr. Adams with a view to have this desperate measure prevented

by his negative. He grew warm in an instant, and said with a vehemence he

had not used towards me before, "Sir, the event of the election is within

your own power. You have only to say you will do justice to the public

creditors, maintain the navy, and not disturb those holding offices, and

the government will instantly be put into your hands. We know it is the

wish of the people it should be so." "Mr. Adams," said I, "I know not what

part of my conduct, in either public or private life, can have authorized

a doubt of my fidelity to the public engagements. I say, however, I will

not come into the government by capitulation. I will not enter on it,

but in perfect freedom to follow the dictates of my own judgment." I

had before given the same answer to the same intimation from Gouverneur

Morris. "Then," said he, "things must take their course." I turned the

conversation to something else, and soon took my leave. It was the first

time in our lives we had ever parted with anything like dissatisfaction.

And then followed those scenes of midnight appointment, which have been

condemned by all men. The last day of his political power, the last hours,

and even beyond the midnight, were employed in filling all offices, and

especially permanent ones, with the bitterest federalists, and providing

for me the alternative, either to execute the government by my enemies,

whose study it would be to thwart and defeat all my measures, or to

incur the odium of such numerous removals from office, as might bear me

down. A little time and reflection effaced in my mind this temporary

dissatisfaction with Mr. Adams, and restored me to that just estimate

of his virtues and passions, which a long acquaintance had enabled me to

fix. And my first wish became that of making his retirement easy by any

means in my power; for it was understood he was not rich. I suggested

to some republican members of the delegation from his State, the giving

him, either directly or indirectly, an office, the most lucrative in

that State, and then offered to be resigned, if they thought he would

not deem it affrontive. They were of opinion he would take great offence

at the offer; and moreover, that the body of republicans would consider

such a step in the outset as arguing very ill of the course I meant to

pursue. I dropped the idea, therefore, but did not cease to wish for some

opportunity of renewing our friendly understanding.

Two or three years after, having had the misfortune to lose a daughter,

between whom and Mrs. Adams there had been a considerable attachment, she

made it the occasion of writing me a letter, in which, with the tenderest

expressions of concern at this event, she carefully avoided a single one

of friendship towards myself, and even concluded it with the wishes "of

her who _once_ took pleasure in subscribing herself your friend, Abigail

Adams." Unpromising as was the complexion of this letter, I determined

to make an effort towards removing the cloud from between us. This

brought on a correspondence which I now enclose for your perusal, after

which be so good as to return it to me, as I have never communicated it

to any mortal breathing, before. I send it to you, to convince you I

have not been wanting either in the desire, or the endeavor to remove

this misunderstanding. Indeed, I thought it highly disgraceful to us

both, as indicating minds not sufficiently elevated to prevent a public

competition from affecting our personal friendship. I soon found from

the correspondence that conciliation was desperate, and yielding to an

intimation in her last letter, I ceased from further explanation. I have

the same good opinion of Mr. Adams which I ever had. I know him to be an

honest man, an able one with his pen, and he was a powerful advocate on

the floor of Congress. He has been alienated from me, by belief in the

lying suggestions contrived for electioneering purposes, that I perhaps

mixed in the activity and intrigues of the occasion. My most intimate

friends can testify that I was perfectly passive. They would sometimes,

indeed, tell me what was going on; but no man ever heard me take part in

such conversations; and none ever misrepresented Mr. Adams in my presence,

without my asserting his just character. With very confidential persons

I have doubtless disapproved of the principles and practices of his

administration. This was unavoidable. But never with those with whom it

could do him any injury. Decency would have required this conduct from me,

if disposition had not; and I am satisfied Mr. Adams' conduct was equally

honorable towards me. But I think it part of his character to suspect

foul play in those of whom he is jealous, and not easily to relinquish his

suspicions.

I have gone, my dear friend, into these details, that you might know

everything which had passed between us, might be fully possessed of the

state of facts and dispositions, and judge for yourself whether they

admit a revival of that friendly intercourse for which you are so kindly

solicitous. I shall certainly not be wanting in anything on my part which

may second your efforts, which will be the easier with me, inasmuch as I

do not entertain a sentiment of Mr. Adams, the expression of which could

give him reasonable offence. And I submit the whole to yourself, with

the assurance, that whatever be the issue, my friendship and respect for

yourself will remain unaltered and unalterable.

TO MR. JOHN LYNCH.

MONTICELLO, January 21, 1811.

SIR,--You have asked my opinion on the proposition of Mrs. Mifflin, to

take measures for procuring, on the coast of Africa, an establishment to

which the people of color of these States might, from time to time, be

colonized, under the auspices of different governments. Having long ago

made up my mind on this subject, I have no hesitation in saying that I

have ever thought it the most desirable measure which could be adopted,

for gradually drawing off this part of our population, most advantageously

for themselves as well as for us. Going from a country possessing all

the useful arts, they might be the means of transplanting them among the

inhabitants of Africa, and would thus carry back to the country of their

origin, the seeds of civilization which might render their sojournment and

sufferings here a blessing in the end to that country.

I received, in the first year of my coming into the administration of

the General Government, a letter from the Governor of Virginia, (Colonel

Monroe,) consulting me, at the request of the Legislature of the State, on

the means of procuring some such asylum, to which these people might be

occasionally sent. I proposed to him the establishment of Sierra Leone,

to which a private company in England had already colonized a number

of negroes, and particularly the fugitives from these States during the

Revolutionary War; and at the same time suggested, if this could not be

obtained, some of the Portuguese possessions in South America, as next

most desirable. The subsequent Legislature approving these ideas, I wrote,

the ensuing year, 1802, to Mr. King, our Minister in London, to endeavor

to negotiate with the Sierra Leone company a reception of such of these

people as might be colonized thither. He opened a correspondence with Mr.

Wedderburne and Mr. Thornton, secretaries of the company, on the subject,

and in 1803 I received through Mr. King the result, which was that the

colony was going on, but in a languishing condition; that the funds of the

company were likely to fail, as they received no returns of profit to keep

them up; that they were therefore in treaty with their government to take

the establishment off their hands; but that in no event should they be

willing to receive more of these people from the United States, as it was

exactly that portion of their settlers which had gone from hence, which,

by their idleness and turbulence, had kept the settlement in constant

danger of dissolution, which could not have been prevented but for the aid

of the Maroon negroes from the West Indies, who were more industrious and

orderly than the others, and supported the authority of the government

and its laws. I think I learned afterwards that the British Government

had taken the colony into its own hands, and I believe it still exists.

The effort which I made with Portugal, to obtain an establishment for them

within their claims in South America, proved also abortive.

You inquire further, whether I would use my endeavors to procure for

such an establishment security against violence from other powers, and

particularly from France? Certainly, I shall be willing to do anything I

can to give it effect and safety. But I am but a private individual, and

could only use endeavors with private individuals; whereas, the National

Government can address themselves at once to those of Europe to obtain

the desired security, and will unquestionably be ready to exert its

influence with those nations for an object so benevolent in itself, and

so important to a great portion of its constituents. Indeed, nothing is

more to be wished than that the United States would themselves undertake

to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa. Exclusive of motives

of humanity, the commercial advantages to be derived from it might repay

all its expenses. But for this, the national mind is not yet prepared.

It may perhaps be doubted whether many of these people would voluntarily

consent to such an exchange of situation, and very certain that few of

those advanced to a certain age in habits of slavery, would be capable

of self-government. This should not, however, discourage the experiment,

nor the early trial of it; and the proposition should be made with all

the prudent cautions and attentions requisite to reconcile it to the

interests, the safety and the prejudices of all parties.

Accept the assurances of my respect and esteem.

TO M. DESTUTT TRACY.

MONTICELLO, January 26, 1811.

SIR,--The length of time your favor of June the 12th, 1809 was on its

way to me, and my absence from home the greater part of the autumn,

delayed very much the pleasure which awaited me of reading the packet

which accompanied it. I cannot express to you the satisfaction which I

received from its perusal. I had, with the world, deemed Montesquieu's

work of much merit; but saw in it, with every thinking man, so much of

paradox, of false principle and misapplied fact, as to render its value

equivocal on the whole. Williams and others had nibbled only at its

errors. A radical correction of them, therefore, was a great desideratum.

This want is now supplied, and with a depth of thought, precision of

idea, of language and of logic, which will force conviction into every

mind. I declare to you, Sir, in the spirit of truth and sincerity, that

I consider it the most precious gift the present age has received. But

what would it have been, had the author, or would the author, take up the

whole scheme of Montesquieu's work, and following the correct analysis he

has here developed, fill up all its parts according to his sound views

of them? Montesquieu's celebrity would be but a small portion of that

which would immortalize the author. And with whom? With the rational and

high-minded spirits of the present and all future ages. With those whose

approbation is both incitement and reward to virtue and ambition. Is then

the hope desperate? To what object can the occupation of his future life

be devoted so usefully to the world, so splendidly to himself? But I must

leave to others who have higher claims on his attention, to press these

considerations.

My situation, far in the interior of the country, was not favorable to

the object of getting this work translated and printed. Philadelphia is

the least distant of the great towns of our States, where there exists

any enterprise in this way; and it was not till the spring following

the receipt of your letter, that I obtained an arrangement for its

execution. The translation is just now completed. The sheets came to me

by post, from time to time, for revisal; but not being accompanied by the

original, I could not judge of verbal accuracies. I think, however, it

is substantially correct, without being an adequate representation of the

excellences of the original; as indeed no translation can be. I found it

impossible to give it the appearance of an original composition in our

language. I therefore think it best to divert inquiries after the author

towards a quarter where he will not be found; and with this view, propose

to prefix the prefatory epistle now enclosed. As soon as a copy of the

work can be had, I will send it to you by duplicate. The secret of the

author will be faithfully preserved during his and my joint lives; and

those into whose hands my papers will fall at my death, will be equally

worthy of confidence. When the death of the author, or his living consent

shall permit the world to know their benefactor, both his and my papers

will furnish the evidence. In the meantime, the many important truths the

work so solidly establishes, will, I hope, make it the political rudiment

of the young, and manual of our older citizens.

One of its doctrines, indeed, the preference of a plural over a singular

executive, will probably not be assented to here. When our present

government was first established, we had many doubts on this question,

and many leanings towards a supreme executive counsel. It happened that

at that time the experiment of such an one was commenced in France,

while the single executive was under trial here. We watched the motions

and effects of these two rival plans, with an interest and anxiety

proportioned to the importance of a choice between them. The experiment

in France failed after a short course, and not from any circumstance

peculiar to the times or nation, but from those internal jealousies and

dissensions in the Directory, which will ever arise among men equal in

power, without a principal to decide and control their differences. We

had tried a similar experiment in 1784, by establishing a committee of

the States, composed of a member from every State, then thirteen, to

exercise the executive functions during the recess of Congress. They

fell immediately into schisms and dissensions, which became at length

so inveterate as to render all co-operation among them impracticable,

they dissolved themselves, abandoning the helm of government, and it

continued without a head, until Congress met the ensuing winter. This

was then imputed to the temper of two or three individuals; but the wise

ascribed it to the nature of man. The failure of the French Directory,

and from the same cause, seems to have authorized a belief that the form

of a plurality, however promising in theory, is impracticable with men

constituted with the ordinary passions. While the tranquil and steady

tenor of our single executive, during a course of twenty-two years of the

most tempestuous times the history of the world has ever presented, gives

a rational hope that this important problem is at length solved. Aided by

the counsels of a cabinet of heads of departments, originally four, but

now five, with whom the President consults, either singly or altogether,

he has the benefit of their wisdom and information, brings their views

to one centre, and produces an unity of action and direction in all the

branches of the government. The excellence of this construction of the

executive power has already manifested itself here under very opposite

circumstances. During the administration of our first President, his

cabinet of four members was equally divided by as marked an opposition of

principle as monarchism and republicanism could bring into conflict. Had

that cabinet been a directory, like positive and negative quantities in

algebra, the opposing wills would have balanced each other and produced

a state of absolute inaction. But the President heard with calmness the

opinions and reasons of each, decided the course to be pursued, and kept

the government steadily in it, unaffected by the agitation. The public

knew well the dissensions of the cabinet, but never had an uneasy thought

on their account, because they knew also they had provided a regulating

power which would keep the machine in steady movement. I speak with

an intimate knowledge of these scenes, _quorum pars fui_; as I may of

others of a character entirely opposite. The third administration, which

was of eight years, presented an example of harmony in a cabinet of six

persons, to which perhaps history has furnished no parallel. There never

arose, during the whole time, an instance of an unpleasant thought or

word between the members. We sometimes met under differences of opinion,

but scarcely ever failed, by conversing and reasoning, so to modify each

other's ideas, as to produce an unanimous result. Yet, able and amicable

as these members were, I am not certain this would have been the case,

had each possessed equal and independent powers. Ill-defined limits of

their respective departments, jealousies, trifling at first, but nourished

and strengthened by repetition of occasions, intrigues without doors of

designing persons to build an importance to themselves on the divisions

of others, might, from small beginnings, have produced persevering

oppositions. But the power of decision in the President left no object for

internal dissension, and external intrigue was stifled in embryo by the

knowledge which incendiaries possessed, that no division they could foment

would change the course of the executive power. I am not conscious that

my participations in executive authority have produced any bias in favor

of the single executive; because the parts I have acted have been in the

subordinate, as well as superior stations, and because, if I know myself,

what I have felt, and what I have wished, I know that I have never been so

well pleased, as when I could shift power from my own, on the shoulders of

others; nor have I ever been able to conceive how any rational being could

propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

I am still, however, sensible of the solidity of your principle, that,

to insure the safety of the public liberty, its depository should be

subject to be changed with the greatest ease possible, and without

suspending or disturbing for a moment the movements of the machine of

government. You apprehend that a single executive, with eminence of

talent, and destitution of principle, equal to the object, might, by

usurpation, render his powers hereditary. Yet I think history furnishes

as many examples of a single usurper arising out of a government by a

plurality, as of temporary trusts of power in a single hand rendered

permanent by usurpation. I do not believe, therefore, that this danger

is lessened in the hands of a plural executive. Perhaps it is greatly

increased, by the state of inefficiency to which they are liable from

feuds and divisions among themselves. The conservative body you propose

might be so constituted, as, while it would be an admirable sedative in a

variety of smaller cases, might also be a valuable sentinel and check on

the liberticide views of an ambitious individual. I am friendly to this

idea. But the true barriers of our liberty in this country are our State

governments; and the wisest conservative power ever contrived by man, is

that of which our Revolution and present government found us possessed.

Seventeen distinct States, amalgamated into one as to their foreign

concerns, but single and independent as to their internal administration,

regularly organized with a legislature and governor resting on the choice

of the people, and enlightened by a free press, can never be so fascinated

by the arts of one man, as to submit voluntarily to his usurpation. Nor

can they be constrained to it by any force he can possess. While that may

paralyze the single State in which it happens to be encamped, sixteen

others, spread over a country of two thousand miles diameter, rise up

on every side, ready organized for deliberation by a constitutional

legislature, and for action by their governor, constitutionally the

commander of the militia of the State, that is to say, of every man in it

able to bear arms; and that militia, too, regularly formed into regiments

and battalions, into infantry, cavalry and artillery, trained under

officers general and subordinate, legally appointed, always in readiness,

and to whom they are already in habits of obedience. The republican

government of France was lost without a struggle, because the party of

"_un et indivisible_" had prevailed; no provincial organizations existed

to which the people might rally under authority of the laws, the seats

of the directory were virtually vacant, and a small force sufficed to

turn the legislature out of their chamber, and to salute its leader chief

of the nation. But with us, sixteen out of seventeen States rising in

mass, under regular organization, and legal commanders, united in object

and action by their Congress, or, if that be in _duresse_, by a special

convention, present such obstacles to an usurper as forever to stifle

ambition in the first conception of that object.

Dangers of another kind might more reasonably be apprehended from this

perfect and distinct organization, civil and military, of the States;

to wit, that certain States from local and occasional discontents, might

attempt to secede from the Union. This is certainly possible; and would

be befriended by this regular organization. But it is not probable that

local discontents can spread to such an extent, as to be able to face

the sound parts of so extensive an Union; and if ever they should reach

the majority, they would then become the regular government, acquire the

ascendency in Congress, and be able to redress their own grievances by

laws peaceably and constitutionally passed. And even the States in which

local discontents might engender a commencement of fermentation, would be

paralyzed and self-checked by that very division into parties into which

we have fallen, into which all States must fall wherein men are at liberty

to think, speak, and act freely, according to the diversities of their

individual conformations, and which are, perhaps, essential to preserve

the purity of the government, by the censorship which these parties

habitually exercise over each other.

You will read, I am sure, with indulgence, the explanations of the grounds

on which I have ventured to form an opinion differing from yours. They

prove my respect for your judgment, and diffidence in my own, which have

forbidden me to retain, without examination, an opinion questioned by

you. Permit me now to render my portion of the general debt of gratitude,

by acknowledgments in advance for the singular benefaction which is the

subject of this letter, to tender my wishes for the continuance of a life

so usefully employed, and to add the assurances of my perfect esteem and

respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, March 8, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--On my return from a journey of five weeks to Bedford I found

here the two letters now enclosed, which though directed to me, belong, in

their matter, to you. I never before heard of either writer, and therefore

leave them to stand on their own grounds.

I congratulate you on the close of your campaign. Although it has not

conquered your difficulties, it leaves you more at leisure to consider

and provide against them. Our only chance as to England is the accession

of the Prince of Wales to the throne. If only to the regency, himself and

his ministers may be less bold and strong to make a thorough change of

system. It will leave them, too, a pretext for doing less than right, if

so disposed. He has much more understanding and good humor than principle

or application. But it seems difficult to understand what Bonaparte means

towards us. I have been in hopes the consultations with closed doors were

for taking possession of East Florida. It would give no more offence

anywhere than taking the Western province, and I am much afraid the

Percival ministry may have given orders for taking possession of it before

they were put out of power.

We have had a wretched winter for the farmer. Great consumption of food by

the cattle, and little weather for preparing the ensuing crop. During my

stay in Bedford we had seven snows, that of February 22, which was of 15

inches about Richmond, was of 6 inches here, and only 3½ in Bedford. Ever

affectionately yours.

TO GENERAL WILKINSON.

MONTICELLO, March 10, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of January 21st has been received, and with it the

2d volume of your Memoirs, with the appendices to the 1st, 2d and 4th

volumes, for which accept my thanks. I shall read them with pleasure.

The expression respecting myself, stated in your letter to have been

imputed to you by your calumniators, had either never been heard by me,

or, if heard, had been unheeded and forgotten. I have been too much the

butt of such falsehoods myself to do others the injustice of permitting

them to make the least impression on me. My consciousness that no man

on earth has me under his thumb is evidence enough that you never used

the expression. Daniel Clarke's book I have never seen, nor should I put

Tacitus or Thucydides out of my hand to take that up. I am even leaving

off the newspapers, desirous to disengage myself from the contentions of

the world, and consign to entire tranquillity and to the kinder passions

what remains to me of life. I look back with commiseration on those still

buffeting the storm, and sincerely wish your argosy may ride out, unhurt,

that in which it is engaged. My belief is that it will, and I found that

belief on my own knowledge of Burr's transactions, on my view of your

conduct in encountering them, and on the candor of your judges. I salute

you with my best wishes and entire respect.

TO MR. JOHN MELISH.

MONTICELLO, March 10, 1811.

SIR,--I thank you for your letter of February 16th, and the communication

of that you had forwarded to the President. In his hands it may be

turned to public account; in mine it is only evidence of your zeal for

the general good. My occupations are now in quite a different line, more

suited to my age, my interests and inclinations. Having served my tour of

duty, I leave public cares to younger and more vigorous minds, and repose

my personal well-being under their guardianship, in perfect confidence

of its safety. Our ship is sound, the crew alert at their posts, and our

ablest steersman at its helm. That she will make a safe port I have no

doubt; and that she may, I offer to heaven my daily prayers, the proper

function of age, and add to yourself the assurance of my respect.

TO COLONEL WILLIAM DUANE.

MONTICELLO, March 28, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I learn with sincere concern, from yours of the 15th received

by our last mail, the difficulties into which you are brought by the

retirement of particular friends from the accommodations they had been

in the habit of yielding you. That one of those you name should have

separated from the censor of John Randolph, is consonant with the change

of disposition which took place in him at Washington. That the other,

far above that bias, should have done so, was not expected. I have ever

looked to Mr. Lieper as one of the truest republicans of our country,

whose mind, unaffected by personal incidents, pursues its course with a

steadiness of which we have rare examples. Looking about for a motive, I

have supposed it was to be found in the late arraignments of Mr. Gallatin

in your papers. However he might differ from you on that subject, as I do

myself, the indulgences in difference of opinion which we all owe to one

another, and every one needs for himself, would, I thought, in a mind like

his, have prevented such a manifestation of it. I believe Mr. Gallatin

to be of a pure integrity, and as zealously devoted to the liberties and

interests of our country as its most affectionate native citizen. Of this

his courage in Congress in the days of terror, gave proofs which nothing

can obliterate from the recollection of those who were witnesses of it.

These are probably the opinions of Mr. Lieper, as I believe they are of

every man intimately acquainted with Mr. Gallatin. An intercourse, almost

daily, of eight years with him, has given me opportunities of knowing

his character more thoroughly than perhaps any other man living; and I

have ascribed the erroneous estimate you have formed of it to the want of

that intimate knowledge of him which I possessed. Every one, certainly,

must form his judgment on the evidence accessible to himself; and I

have no more doubt of the integrity of your convictions than I have of

my own. They are drawn from different materials and different sources

of information, more or less perfect, according to our opportunities.

The zeal, the disinterestedness, and the abilities with which you have

supported the great principles of our revolution, the persecutions you

have suffered, and the firmness and independence with which you have

suffered them, constitute too strong a claim on the good wishes of

every friend of elective government, to be effaced by a solitary ease of

difference in opinion. Thus I think, and thus I believed my much-esteemed

friend Lieper would have thought; and I am the more concerned he does not,

as it is so much more in his power to be useful to you than in mine. His

residence, and his standing at the great seat of the monied institutions,

command a credit with them, which no inhabitant of the country, and

of agricultural pursuits only, can have. The two or three banks in our

uncommercial State are too distant to have any relations with the farmers

of Albemarle. We are persuaded you have not overrated the dispositions

of this State to support yourself and your paper. They have felt its

services too often to be indifferent in the hour of trial. They are well

aware that the days of danger are not yet over. And I am sensible that if

there were any means of bringing into concert the good will of the friends

of the "Aurora" scattered over this State, they would not deceive your

expectations. One month sooner might have found such an opportunity in

the assemblage of our legislature in Richmond. But that is now dispersed

not to meet again under a twelvemonth. We, here, are but one of a hundred

counties, and on consultation with friends of the neighborhood, it is

their opinion that if we can find an endorser resident in Richmond,

(for that is indispensable,) ten or twelve persons of this county would

readily engage, as you suggest, for their $100 each, and some of them

for more. It is believed that the republicans in that city can and will

do a great deal more; and perhaps their central position may enable them

to communicate with other counties. We have written to a distinguished

friend to the cause of liberty there to take the lead in the business, as

far as concerns that place; and for our own, we are taking measures for

obtaining the aid of the bank of the same place. In all this I am nearly

a cypher. Forty years of almost constant absence from the State have made

me a stranger in it, have left me a solitary tree, from around which the

axe of time has felled all the companions of its youth and growth. I have,

however, engaged some active and zealous friends to do what I could not.

Their personal acquaintance and influence with those now in active life

can give effect to their efforts. But our support can be but partial, and

far short, both in time and measure, of your difficulties. They will be

little more than evidences of our friendship. The truth is that farmers,

as we all are, have no command of money. Our necessaries are all supplied,

either from our farms, or a neighboring store. Our produce, at the end

of the year, is delivered to the merchant, and thus the business of the

year is done by barter, without the intervention of scarcely a dollar;

and thus also we live with a plenty of everything except money. To raise

that negociations and time are requisite. I sincerely wish that greater

and prompter effects could have flowed from our good will. On my part, no

endeavors or sacrifices shall be withheld. But we are bound down by the

laws of our situation.

I do not know whether I am able at present to form a just idea of the

situation of our country. If I am, it is such as, during the _bellum

omnium in omnia_ of Europe, will require the union of all its friends to

resist its enemies within and without. If we schismatize on either men

or measures, if we do not act in phalanx, as when we rescued it from the

satellites of monarchism, I will not say our _party_, the term is false

and degrading, but our _nation_ will be undone. For the republicans are

the _nation_. Their opponents are but a faction, weak in numbers, but

powerful and profuse in the command of money, and backed by a nation,

powerful also and profuse in the use of the same means; and the more

profuse, in both cases, as the money they thus employ is not their own but

their creditors, to be paid off by a bankruptcy, which whether it pays a

dollar or a shilling in the pound is of little concern with them. The last

hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. We ought, for so dear a

state, to sacrifice every attachment and every enmity. Leave the President

free to chose his own coadjutors, to pursue his own measures, and support

him and them, even if we think we are wiser than they, honester than they

are, or possessing more enlarged information of the state of things. If

we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object;

but if we break into squads, every one pursuing the path he thinks most

direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in

check. I repeat again, that we ought not to schismatize on either men or

measures. Principles alone can justify that. If we find our government

in all its branches rushing headlong, like our predecessors, into the

arms of monarchy, if we find them violating our dearest rights, the

trial by jury, the freedom of the press, the freedom of opinion, civil or

religious, or opening on our peace of mind or personal safety the sluices

of terrorism, if we see them raising standing armies, when the absence of

all other danger points to these as the sole objects on which they are to

be employed, then indeed let us withdraw and call the nation to its tents.

But while our functionaries are wise, and honest, and vigilant, let us

move compactly under their guidance, and we have nothing to fear. Things

may here and there go a little wrong. It is not in their power to prevent

it. But all will be right in the end, though not perhaps by the shortest

means.

You know, my dear Sir, that this union of republicans has been the

constant theme of my exhortations, that I have ever refused to know any

subdivisions among them, to take part in any personal differences; and

therefore you will not give to the present observations any other than

general application. I may sometimes differ in opinion from some of my

friends, from those whose views are as pure and sound as my own. I censure

none, but do homage to every one's right of opinion. If I have indulged

my pen, therefore, a little further than the occasion called for, you will

ascribe it to a sermonizing habit, to the anxieties of age, perhaps to its

garrulity, or to any other motive rather than the want of the esteem and

confidence of which I pray you to accept sincere assurances.

P. S. Absorbed in a subject more nearly interesting, I had forgotten

our book on the heresies of Montesquieu. I sincerely hope the removal of

all embarrassment will enable you to go on with it, or so to dispose of

it as that our country may have the benefit of the corrections it will

administer to public opinion.

TO MR. LATROBE.

MONTICELLO, April 14, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I feel much concern that suggestions stated in your letter

of the 5th instant, should at this distance of time be the subject of

uneasiness to you, and I regret it the more as they make appeals to

memory, a faculty never strong in me, and now too sensibly impaired

to be relied on. It retains no trace of the particular conversations

alluded to, nor enables me to say that they are or are not correct. The

only safe appeal for me is to the general impressions received at the

time, and still retained with sufficient distinctness. These were that

you discharged the duties of your appointment with ability, diligence

and zeal, but that in the article of expense you were not sufficiently

guarded. You must remember my frequent cautions to you on this head, the

measures I took, by calling for frequent accounts of expenditures and

contracts, to mark to you, as well as to myself, when they were getting

beyond the limits of the appropriations, and the afflicting embarrassments

of a particular occasion where these limits had been unguardedly and

greatly transcended. These sentiments I communicated to you freely at the

time, as it was my duty to do. Another principle of conduct with me was

to admit no innovations on the established plans, but on the strongest

grounds. When, therefore, I thought first of placing the floor of the

Representative chamber on the level of the basement of the building, and

of throwing into its height the cavity of the dome, in the manner of the

Halle aux Bleds at Paris, I deemed it due to Dr. Thornton, author of the

plan of the Capitol, to consult him on the change. He not only consented,

but appeared heartily to approve of the alteration. For the same reason,

as well as on motives of economy, I was anxious, in converting the Senate

chamber into a Judiciary room, to preserve its original form, and to leave

the same arches and columns standing. On your representation, however,

that the columns were decayed and incompetent to support the incumbent

weight, I acquiesced in the change you proposed, only striking out the

addition which would have made part of the middle building, and would

involve a radical change in that which had not been sanctioned. I have

no reason to doubt but that in the execution of the Senate and Court

rooms, you have adhered to the plan communicated to me and approved;

but never having seen them since their completion, I am not able to say

so expressly. On the whole, I do not believe any one has ever done more

justice to your professional abilities than myself. Besides constant

commendations of your taste in architecture, and science in execution,

I declared on many and all occasions that I considered you as the only

person in the United States who could have executed the Representative

chamber, or who could execute the middle buildings on any of the plans

proposed. There have been too many witnesses of these declarations to

leave any doubt as to my opinion on this subject. Of the value I set on

your society, our intercourse before as well as during my office, can have

left no doubt with you; and I should be happy in giving further proofs

to you personally at Monticello, of which you have sometimes flattered me

with the hope of an opportunity.

I have thus, Sir, stated general truths without going into the detail of

particular facts or expressions, to which my memory does not enable me

to say yea or nay. But a consciousness of my consistency in private as

well as public, supports me in affirming that nothing ever passed from me

contradictory to these general truths, and that I have been misapprehended

if it has ever been so supposed. I return you the plans received with

your letter, and pray you to accept assurances of my continued esteem and

respect.

TO BARON HUMBOLDT.

MONTICELLO, April 14, 1811.

MY DEAR BARON,--The interruption of our intercourse with France for some

time past, has prevented my writing to you. A conveyance now occurs,

by Mr. Barlow or Mr. Warden, both of them going in a public capacity.

It is the first safe opportunity offered of acknowledging your favor of

September 23d, and the receipt at different times of the IIId part of your

valuable work, 2d, 3d, 4th and 5th livraisons, and the IVth part, 2d, 3d,

and 4th livraisons, with the _Tableaux de la nature_, and an interesting

map of New Spain. For these magnificent and much esteemed favors, accept

my sincere thanks. They give us a knowledge of that country more accurate

than I believe we possess of Europe, the seat of the science of a thousand

years. It comes out, too, at a moment when those countries are beginning

to be interesting to the whole world. They are now becoming the scenes

of political revolution, to take their stations as integral members of

the great family of nations. All are now in insurrection. In several, the

Independents are already triumphant, and they will undoubtedly be so in

all. What kind of government will they establish? How much liberty can

they bear without intoxication? Are their chiefs sufficiently enlightened

to form a well-guarded government, and their people to watch their

chiefs? Have they mind enough to place their domesticated Indians on a

footing with the whites? All these questions you can answer better than

any other. I imagine they will copy our outlines of confederation and

elective government, abolish distinction of ranks, bow the neck to their

priests, and persevere in intolerantism. Their greatest difficulty will be

in the construction of their executive. I suspect that, regardless of the

experiment of France, and of that of the United States in 1784, they will

begin with a directory, and when the unavoidable schisms in that kind of

executive shall drive them to something else, their great question will

come on whether to substitute an executive elective for years, for life,

or an hereditary one. But unless instruction can be spread among them more

rapidly than experience promises, despotism may come upon them before they

are qualified to save the ground they will have gained. Could Napoleon

obtain, at the close of the present war, the independence of all the West

India islands, and their establishment in a separate confederacy, our

quarter of the globe would exhibit an enrapturing prospect into futurity.

You will live to see much of this. I shall follow, however, cheerfully

my fellow laborers, contented with having borne a part in beginning this

beatific reformation.

I fear, from some expressions in your letter, that your personal interests

have not been duly protected, while you were devoting your time, talents

and labor for the information of mankind. I should sincerely regret it for

the honor of the governing powers, as well as from affectionate attachment

to yourself and the sincerest wishes for your felicity, fortunes and fame.

In sending you a copy of my Notes on Virginia, I do but obey the desire

you have expressed. They must appear chetif enough to the author of the

great work on South America. But from the widow her mite was welcome, and

you will add to this indulgence the acceptance of my sincere assurances of

constant friendship and respect.

TO M. PAGANEL.

MONTICELLO, April 15, 1811.

SIR,--I received, through Mr. Warden, the copy of your valuable work on

the French revolution, for which I pray you to accept my thanks. That

its sale should have been suppressed is no matter of wonder with me. The

friend of liberty is too feelingly manifested, not to give umbrage to its

enemies. We read in it, and weep over, the fatal errors which have lost to

nations the present hope of liberty, and to reason the fairest prospect of

its final triumph over all imposture, civil and religious. The testimony

of one who himself was an actor in the scenes he notes, and who knew the

true mean between rational liberty and the frenzies of demagogy, are a

tribute to truth of inestimable value. The perusal of this work has given

me new views of the causes of failure in a revolution of which I was a

witness in its early part, and then augured well of it. I had no means,

afterwards, of observing its progress but the public papers, and their

information came through channels too hostile to claim confidence. An

acquaintance with many of the principal characters, and with their fate,

furnished me grounds for conjectures, some of which you have confirmed,

and some corrected. Shall we ever see as free and faithful a tableau

of subsequent acts of this deplorable tragedy? Is reason to be forever

amused with the _hochets_ of physical sciences, in which she is indulged

merely to divert her from solid speculations on the rights of man, and

wrongs of his oppressors? it is impossible. The day of deliverance will

come, although I shall not live to see it. The art of printing secures us

against the retrogradation of reason and information, the examples of its

safe and wholesome guidance in government, which will be exhibited through

the wide-spread regions of the American continent, will obliterate, in

time, the impressions left by the abortive experiment of France. With my

prayers for the hastening of that auspicious day, and for the due effect

of the lessons of your work to those who ought to profit by them, accept

the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

MONTICELLO, April 15, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letters of January

20 and September 14, 1810, and, with the latter, your observations on the

subject of taxes. They bear the stamps of logic and eloquence which mark

everything coming from you, and place the doctrines of the Economists

in their strongest points of view. My present retirement and unmeddling

disposition make of this _une question viseuse pour moi_. But after

reading the observations with great pleasure, I forwarded them to the

President and Mr. Gallatin, in whose hands they may be useful. Yet I do

not believe the change of our system of taxation will be forced on us so

early as you expect, if war be avoided. It is true we are going greatly

into manufactures; but the mass of them are household manufactures of

the coarse articles worn by the laborers and farmers of the family.

These I verily believe we shall succeed in making to the whole extent

of our necessities. But the attempts at fine goods will probably be

abortive. They are undertaken by company establishments, and chiefly in

the towns; will have little success and short continuance in a country

where the charms of agriculture attract every being who can engage in it.

Our revenue will be less than it would be were we to continue to import

instead of manufacturing our coarse goods. But the increase of population

and production will keep pace with that of manufactures, and maintain the

quantum of exports at the present level at least; and the imports need be

equivalent to them, and consequently the revenue on them be undiminished.

I keep up my hopes that if war be avoided, Mr. Madison will be able to

complete the payment of the national debt within his term, after which

one-third of the present revenue would support the government. Your

information that a commencement of excise had been again made, is entirely

unfounded. I hope the death blow to that most vexatious and unproductive

of all taxes was given at the commencement of my administration, and

believe its revival would give the death blow to any administration

whatever. In most of the middle and southern States some land tax is now

paid into the State treasury, and for this purpose the lands have been

classed and valued, and the tax assessed according to that valuation.

In these an excise is most odious. In the eastern States land taxes are

odious, excises less unpopular. We are all the more reconciled to the

tax on importations, because it falls exclusively on the rich, and with

the equal partition of intestate's estates, constitute the best agrarian

law. In fact, the poor man in this country who uses nothing but what is

made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not

a farthing of tax to the general government, but on his salt; and should

we go into that manufacture as we ought to do, we will pay not one cent.

Our revenues once liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and

its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, &c., and the farmer will

see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his

country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without

his being called on to spare a cent from his earnings. The path we are now

pursuing leads directly to this end, which we cannot fail to attain unless

our administration should fall into unwise hands.

Another great field of political experiment is opening in our

neighborhood, in Spanish America. I fear the degrading ignorance into

which their priests and kings have sunk them, has disqualified them from

the maintenance or even knowledge of their rights, and that much blood may

be shed for little improvement in their condition. Should their new rulers

honestly lay their shoulders to remove the great obstacles of ignorance,

and press the remedies of education and information, they will still be

in jeopardy until another generation comes into place, and what may happen

in the interval cannot be predicted, nor shall you or I live to see it. In

these cases I console myself with the reflection that those who will come

after us will be as wise as we are, and as able to take care of themselves

as we have been. I hope you continue to preserve your health, and that

you may long continue to do so in happiness, is the prayer of yours

affectionately.

TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO.

MONTICELLO, April 13, 1811.

MY DEAR GENERAL AND FRIEND,--My last letter to you was of the 26th of

February of the last year. Knowing of no particular conveyance, I confided

it to the department of State, to be put under the cover of their public

despatches to General Armstrong or Mr. Warden. Not having been able to

learn whether it ever got to hand, I now enclose a duplicate.

Knowing your affections to this country, and the interest you take in

whatever concerns it, I therein gave you a tableau of its state when

I retired from the administration. The difficulties and embarrassments

still continued in our way by the two great belligerent powers, you are

acquainted with. In other times, when there was some profession of regard

for right, some respect to reason, when a gross violation of these marked

a deliberate design of pointed injury, these would have been causes of

war. But when we see two antagonists contending _ad internecionem_, so

eager for mutual destruction as to disregard all means, to deal their

blows in every direction regardless on whom they may fall, prudent

bystanders, whom some of them may wound, instead of thinking it cause to

join in the maniac contest, get out of the way as well as they can, and

leave the cannibals to mutual ravin. It would have been perfect Quixotism

in us to have encountered these Bedlamites, to have undertaken the redress

of all wrongs against a world avowedly rejecting all regard to right.

We have, therefore, remained in peace, suffering frequent injuries, but,

on the whole, multiplying, improving, prospering beyond all example. It

is evident to all, that in spite of great losses much greater gains have

ensued. When these gladiators shall have worried each other into ruin or

reason, instead of lying among the dead on the bloody arena, we shall have

acquired a growth and strength which will place us _hors d'insulte_. Peace

then has been our principle, peace is our interest, and peace has saved to

the world this only plant of free and rational government now existing in

it. If it can still be preserved, we shall soon see the final extinction

of our national debt, and liberation of our revenues for the defence and

improvement of our country. These revenues will be levied entirely on

the rich, the business of household manufacture being now so established

that the farmer and laborer clothes himself entirely. The rich alone

use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the general

government are levied. The poor man who uses nothing but what is made in

his own farm or family, or within his own country, pays not a farthing

of tax to the general government, but on his salt; and should we go into

that manufacture also, as is probable, he will pay nothing. Our revenues

liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to

canals, roads, schools, &c., the farmer will see his government supported,

his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the

contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a

cent from his earnings. However, therefore, we may have been reproached

for pursuing our Quaker system, time will affix the stamp of wisdom on it,

and the happiness and prosperity of our citizens will attest its merit.

And this, I believe, is the only legitimate object of government, and the

first duty of governors, and not the slaughter of men and devastation

of the countries placed under their care, in pursuit of a fantastic

honor, unallied to virtue or happiness; or in gratification of the angry

passions, or the pride of administrators, excited by personal incidents,

in which their citizens have no concern. Some merit will be ascribed

to the converting such times of destruction into times of growth and

strength for us. And behold! another example of man rising in his might

and bursting the chains of his oppressor, and in the same hemisphere.

Spanish America is all in revolt. The insurgents are triumphant in many of

the States, and will be so in all. But there the danger is that the cruel

arts of their oppressors have enchained their minds, have kept them in the

ignorance of children, and as incapable of self-government as children. If

the obstacles of bigotry and priest-craft can be surmounted, we may hope

that common-sense will suffice to do everything else. God send them a safe

deliverance. As to the private matter explained in my letter of February

26, the time I shall have occasion for your indulgence will not be longer

than there stated, and may be shortened if either your convenience or will

should require it. God bless you, and give you many years of health and

happiness, and that you may live to see more of the liberty you love than

present appearances promise.

P. S. Mr. Barnes is now looking out for bills for your usual annual

remittance.

TO MR. BARLOW.

MONTICELLO, April 16, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I felicitate you sincerely on your destination to Paris,

because I believe it will contribute both to your happiness and the public

good. Yet it is not unmixed with regret. What is to become of our past

revolutionary history? Of the antidotes of truth to the misrepresentations

of Marshall? This example proves the wisdom of the maxim, never to put off

to to-morrow what can be done to-day. But, putting aside vain regrets,

I shall be happy to hear from you in your new situation. I cannot offer

you in exchange the minutiæ of the Cabinet, the workings in Congress,

or under-workings of those around them. General views are all which we

at a distance can have, but general views are sometimes better taken at

a distance than nearer. The working of the whole machine is sometimes

better seen elsewhere than at its centre. In return you can give me the

true state of things in Europe, what is its real public mind at present,

its disposition towards the existing authority, its secret purposes and

future prospects, seasoned with the literary news. I do not propose this

as an equal barter, because it is really asking you to give a dollar for

a shilling. I must leave the difference to be made up from other motives.

I have been long waiting for a safe opportunity to write to some friends

and correspondents in France. I troubled Mr. Warden with some letters,

and he kindly offered to take all I could get ready before his departure.

But his departure seems not yet definitely settled, and should he no go

with you, what is in your hands will be less liable to violation than in

his. I therefore take the liberty of asking your care of the letters now

enclosed, and their delivery through confidential hands. Most of them are

of a complexion not proper for the eye of the police, and might do injury

to those to whom they are addressed. Wishing to yourself and Mrs. Barlow a

happy voyage, and that the execution of the duties of your mission may be

attended with all agreeable circumstances, I salute you with assurance of

my perfect esteem and respect.

TO MR. GALLATIN.

MONTICELLO, April 24, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--A book confided to me by a friend for translation and

publication has for a twelvemonth past kept me in correspondence with

Colonel Duane. We undertook to have it translated and published. The

last sheets had been revised, and in a late letter to him, I pressed

the printing. I soon afterwards received one from him informing me that

it would be much retarded by embarrassments recently brought on him by

his friends withdrawing their aid who had been in the habit of lending

their names for his accommodation in the banks. He painted his situation

as truly distressing, and intimated the way in which relief would be

acceptable. The course I pursued on the occasion will be explained to you

in a letter which I have written to the President, and asked the favor of

him to communicate to you.

A difference of quite another character gives me more uneasiness. No

one feels more painfully than I do, the separation of friends, and

especially when their sensibilities are to be daily harrowed up by

cannibal newspapers. In these cases, however, I claim from all parties the

privilege of neutrality, and to be permitted to esteem all as I ever did.

The harmony which made me happy while at Washington, is as dear to me now

as then, and I should be equally afflicted, were it, by any circumstance,

to be impaired as to myself. I have so much confidence in the candor and

good sense of both parties, as to trust that the misunderstanding will

lead to no sinister effects, and my constant prayer will be for blessings

on you all.

TO ROBERT SMITH, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, April 30, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I have learnt, with sincere concern, the circumstances

which have taken place at Washington. Some intimations had been quoted

from federal papers, which I had supposed false, as usual. Their first

confirmation to me was from the National Intelligencer. Still my hopes and

confidence were that your retirement was purely a matter of choice on your

part. A letter I have received from Mr. Hollins makes me suppose there was

a more serious misunderstanding than I had apprehended. The newspapers

indeed had said so, but I yield little faith to them. No one feels

more painfully than I do the separation of friends, and especially when

their sensibilities are to be daily harrowed up by cannibal newspapers.

Suffering myself under whatever inflicts sufferance on them, I condole

with them mutually, and ask the mutual permission to esteem all, as I

ever did; not to know their differences nor ask the causes of them. The

harmony which made me happy at Washington, is as dear to me now as it

was then, and I should be equally afflicted were it by any circumstance

to be impaired as to myself. I have so much confidence in the candor and

liberality of both parties, as to trust that the misunderstanding will not

be permitted to lead to any sinister effects, and my constant prayer will

be for blessings on you all.

TO COLONEL WILLIAM DUANE.

MONTICELLO, April 30, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--When I wrote you my letter of March 28, I had great confidence

that as much at least could have been done for you as I therein supposed.

The friend to whom I confided the business here, and who was and is

zealous, had found such readiness in those to whom he spoke, as left no

other difficulty than to find the bank responsible. But the Auroras which

came on while this was in transaction, changed the prospect altogether,

and produced a general revulsion of sentiment. The President's popularity

is high through this State, and nowhere higher than here. They considered

these papers as a denunciation of war against him, and instantly withdrew

their offers. I cannot give you a better account of the effect of the

same papers in Richmond than by quoting the letter of a friend who there

undertook the same office, and with great cordiality. In a letter to me of

April 17, he says, "yours of the 15th, in reply to mine of the 10th inst.,

has been brought to me from the office this instant. On showing it to ----

the effect of it was to dispose him to lend $500, and I wrote my letter

of the 10th to you in a persuasion produced by that incident, as well as

by its effect on my own feelings, that something important might be done

for D. in spite of the adverse spirit, or at least distrust, which the

equivocal character of his paper has lately excited, equivocal in relation

to Mr. Madison. But D.'s three or four last papers contain such paragraphs

in relation to Mr. Madison, that even your letter cannot now serve him.

The paper is now regarded as an opposition one, and the republicans

here have no sympathy with any one who carries opposition colors. Every

gentleman who mentions this subject in my hearing, speaks with the warmest

resentment against D. Believe me, Sir, it is impossible to do anything

for him here now; and any further attempts would only disable me from

rendering any service to the cause hereafter. I am persuaded that you

will see this subject in its true light, and be assured that it is the

impracticability of serving him, produced by himself, as well as the

violation which I feel it would be of my sentiments for Mr. Madison, that

prevents me from proceeding." The firm, yet modest character of the writer

of this letter gives great weight to what he says, and I have thought it

best to state it in his own terms, because it will be better evidence to

you than any general description I could give of the impression made by

your late papers. Indeed I could give none, for going little from home,

I cannot personally estimate the public sentiment. The few I see are very

unanimous in support of their Executive and legislative functionaries. I

have thought it well, too, that you should know exactly the feelings here,

because if you get similar information from other respectable portions of

the union, it will naturally beget some suspicion in your own mind that

finding such a mass of opinion variant from your own, you may be under

erroneous impressions, meriting re-examination and consideration. I think

an Editor should be independent, that is, of personal influence, and not

be moved from his opinions on the mere authority of any individual. But,

with respect to the general opinion of the political section with which he

habitually accords, his duty seems very like that of a member of Congress.

Some of these indeed think that independence requires them to follow

always their own opinion, without respect for that of others. This has

never been my opinion, nor my practice, when I have been of that or any

other body. Differing, on a particular question, from those whom I knew to

be of the same political principles with myself, and with whom I generally

thought and acted, a consciousness of the fallibility of the human mind,

and of my own in particular, with a respect for the accumulated judgment

of my friends, has induced me to suspect erroneous impressions in myself,

to suppose my own opinion wrong, and to act with them on theirs. The want

of this spirit of compromise, or of self-distrust, proudly, but falsely

called independence, is what gives the federalists victories which they

could never obtain, if these brethren could learn to respect the opinions

of their friends more than of their enemies, and prevents many able and

honest men from doing all the good they otherwise might do. I state these

considerations because they have often quieted my own conscience in voting

and acting on the judgment of others against my own; and because they

may suggest doubts to yourself in the present case. Our Executive and

legislative authorities are the choice of the nation, and possess the

nation's confidence. They are chosen because they possess it, and the

recent elections prove it has not been abated by the attacks which have

for some time been kept up against them. If the measures which have been

pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to

acquiesce and conform. It is true indeed that dissentients have a right

to go over to the minority, and to act with them. But I do not believe

your mind has contemplated that course, that it has deliberately viewed

the strange company into which it may be led, step by step, unintended

and unperceived by itself. The example of John Randolph is a caution to

all honest and prudent men, to sacrifice a little of self-confidence,

and to go with their friends, although they may sometimes think they are

going wrong. After so long a course of steady adherence to the general

sentiments of the republicans, it would afflict me sincerely to see you

separate from the body, become auxiliary to the enemies of our government,

who have to you been the bitterest enemies, who are now chuckling at the

prospect of division among us, and, as I am told, are subscribing for your

paper. The best indication of error which my experience has tested, is

the approbation of the federalists. Their conclusions necessarily follow

the false bias of their principles. I claim, however, no right of guiding

the conduct of others; but have indulged myself in these observations from

the sincere feelings of my heart. Retired from all political interferences

I have been induced into this one by a desire, first of being useful to

you personally, and next of maintaining the republican ascendency. Be its

effect what it may, I am done with it, and shall look on as an inactive,

though not an unfeeling, spectator of what is to ensue. As far as my good

will may go, for I can no longer act, I shall adhere to my government

executive and legislative, and, as long as they are republican, I shall go

with their measures, whether I think them right or wrong; because I know

they are honest, and are wiser and better informed than I am. In doing

this, however, I shall not give up the friendship of those who differ from

me, and who have equal right with myself to shape their own course. In

this disposition be assured of my continued esteem and respect.

P. S. Be so good as to consider the extract from my friend's letter as

confidential, because I have not his permission to make this use of it.

TO MR. WIRT.

MONTICELLO, May 3, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--The interest you were so kind as to take, at my request, in

the case of Duane, and the communication to you of my first letter to

him, entitles you to a communication of the 2d, which will probably be

the last. I have ventured to quote your letter in it, without giving

your name, and even softening some of its expressions respecting him.

It is possible Duane may be reclaimed as to Mr. Madison. But as to Mr.

Gallatin, I despair of it. That enmity took its rise from a suspicion

that Mr. Gallatin interested himself in the election of their governor

against the views of Duane and his friends. I do not believe Mr. Gallatin

meddled in it. I was in conversation with him nearly every day during

the contest, and never heard him express any bias in the case. The

ostensible grounds of the attack on Mr. Gallatin are all either false or

futile. 1st. They urge his conversations with John Randolph. But who has

revealed these conversations? What evidence have we of them? merely some

oracular sentences from J. R., uttered in the heat of declamation, and

never stated with all their circumstances. For instance, that a cabinet

member informed him there was no cabinet. But Duane himself has always

denied there could be a legal one. Besides, the fact was true at that

moment, to-wit: early in the session of Congress. I had been absent from

Washington from the middle of July to within three weeks of their meeting.

During the separation of the members there could be no consultation, and

between our return to Washington and the meeting of Congress, there really

had arisen nothing requiring general consultation, nothing which could

not be done in the ordinary way by consultation between the President

and the head of the department to which the matter belonged, which is the

way everything is transacted which is not difficult as well as important.

Mr. Gallatin might therefore have said this as innocently as truly, and

a malignant perversion of it was perfectly within the character of John

Randolph. But the story of the two millions. Mr. Gallatin satisfied us

that this affirmation of J. R. was as unauthorized as the fact itself

was false. It resolves itself, therefore, into his inexplicit letter to a

committee of Congress. As to this, my own surmise was that Mr. Gallatin

might have used some hypothetical expression in conversing on that

subject, which J. R. made a positive one, and he being a duellist, and

Mr. Gallatin with a wife and children depending on him for their daily

subsistence, the latter might wish to avoid collision and insult from such

a man. But they say he was hostile to me. This is false. I was indebted

to nobody for more cordial aid than to Mr. Gallatin, nor could any man

more solicitously interest himself in behalf of another than he did of

myself. His conversations with Erskine are objected as meddling out of

his department. Why, then, do they not object Mr. Smith's with Rose? the

whole, nearly, of that negotiation, as far as it was transacted verbally,

was by Mr. Smith. The business was in this way explained informally,

and on understandings thus obtained, Mr. Madison and myself shaped our

formal proceedings. In fact, the harmony among us was so perfect, that

whatever instrument appeared most likely to effect the object, was always

used without jealousy. Mr. Smith happened to catch Mr. Rose's favor

and confidence at once. We perceived that Rose would open himself more

frankly to him than to Mr. Madison, and we therefore made him the medium

of obtaining an understanding of Mr. Rose. Mr. Gallatin's support of the

bank has, I believe, been disapproved by many. He was not in Congress

when that was established, and therefore had never committed himself,

publicly, on the constitutionality of that institution, nor do I recollect

ever to have heard him declare himself on it. I know he derived immense

convenience from it, because they gave the effect of ubiquity to his money

wherever deposited. Money in New Orleans or Maine was at his command,

and by their agency transformed in an instant into money in London, in

Paris, Amsterdam or Canton. He was, therefore, cordial to the bank. I

often pressed him to divide the public deposits among all the respectable

banks, being indignant myself at the open hostility of that institution to

a government on whose treasuries they were fattening. But his repugnance

to it prevented my persisting. And if he was in favor of the bank, what is

the amount of that crime or error in which he had a majority save one in

each House of Congress as participators? yet on these facts, endeavors are

made to drive from the administration the ablest man except the President,

who ever was in it, and to beat down the President himself, because he is

unwilling to part with so able a counseller. I believe Duane to be a very

honest man and sincerely republican; but his passions are stronger than

his prudence, and his personal as well as general antipathies render him

very intolerant. These traits lead him astray, and require his readers,

even those who value him for his steady support of the republican cause,

to be on their guard against his occasional aberrations. He is eager for

war against England, hence his abuse of the two last Congresses. But the

people wish for peace. The re-elections of the same men prove it. And

indeed, war against bedlam would be just as rational as against Europe in

its present condition of total demoralization. When peace becomes more

losing than war, we may prefer the latter on principles of pecuniary

calculation. But for us to attempt, by war, to reform all Europe, and

bring them back to principles of morality and a respect for the equal

rights of nations, would show us to be only maniacs of another character.

We should, indeed, have the merit of the good intentions as well as of

the folly of the hero of La Mancha. But I am getting beyond the object of

my letter, and will therefore here close it with assurances of my great

esteem and respect.

TO MR. WIRT.

I have rejoiced to see Ritchie declare himself in favor of the President

on the late attack against him, and wish he may do the same as to Mr.

Gallatin. I am sure he would if his information was full. I have not an

intimacy with him which might justify my writing to him directly, but the

enclosed letter to you is put into such a form as might be shown to him,

if you think proper to do so. Perhaps the facts stated in it, probably

unknown to him, may have some effect. But do in this as you think best.

Be so good as to return the letter to Duane, being my only copy, and to be

assured of my affectionate esteem and respect.

MONTICELLO, May 3, 1811.

TO JOHN HOLLINS, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, May 5, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of April 17th came duly to hand. Nobody has

regretted more sincerely than myself, the incidents which have happened

at Washington. The early intimations which I saw quoted from federal

papers were disregarded by me, because falsehood is their element. The

first confirmation was from the National Intelligencer, soon followed

by the exultations of other papers whose havoc is on the feelings of the

virtuous. Sincerely the friend of all the parties, I ask of none why they

have fallen out by the way, and would gladly infuse the oil and wine of

the Samaritan into all their wounds. I hope that time, the assuager of

all evils, will heal these also; and I pray from them all a continuance of

their affection, and to be permitted to bear to all the same unqualified

esteem. Of one thing I am certain, that they will not suffer personal

dissatisfactions to endanger the republican cause. Their principles, I

know, are far above all private considerations. And when we reflect that

the eyes of the virtuous all over the earth are turned with anxiety on

us, as the only depositories of the sacred fire of liberty, and that our

falling into anarchy would decide forever the destinies of mankind, and

seal the political heresy that man is incapable of self-government, the

only contest between divided friends should be who will dare farthest into

the ranks of the common enemy. With respect to Mr. Foster's mission, it

cannot issue but as Rose's and Jackson's did. It can no longer be doubted

that Great Britain means to claim the ocean as her conquest, and to suffer

not even a cock-boat, as they express it, to traverse it but on paying

them a transit duty to support the very fleet which is to keep the nations

under tribute, and to rivet the yoke around their necks. Although their

government has never openly avowed this, yet their orders of council, in

their original form, were founded on this principle, and I have observed

for years past, that however ill success may at times have induced them

to amuse by negotiation, they have never on any occasion dropped a word

disclaiming this pretension, nor one which they would have to retract when

they shall judge the times ripe for openly asserting it. Protraction is

therefore the sole object of Foster's mission. They do not wish war with

us, but will meet it rather than relinquish their purpose.

With earnest prayers to all my friends to cherish mutual good will, to

promote harmony and conciliation, and above all things to let the love of

our country soar above all minor passions, I tender you the assurance of

my affectionate esteem and respect.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

MONTICELLO, May 5, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor on your departure from Richmond, came to hand in due

time. Although I may not have been among the first, I am certainly with

the sincerest, who congratulate you on your entrance into the national

councils. Your value there has never been unduly estimated by those

whom personal feelings did not misguide. The late misunderstandings at

Washington have been a subject of real concern to me. I know that the

dissolutions of personal friendship are among the most painful occurrences

in human life. I have sincere esteem for all who have been affected by

them, having passed with them eight years of great harmony and affection.

These incidents are rendered more distressing in our country than

elsewhere, because our printers ravin on the agonies of their victims,

as wolves do on the blood of the lamb. But the printers and the public

are very different personages. The former may lead the latter a little

out of their track, while the deviation is insensible; but the moment

they usurp their direction and that of their government, they will be

reduced to their true places. The two last Congresses have been the theme

of the most licentious reprobation for printers thirsting after war, some

against France and some against England. But the people wish for peace

with both. They feel no incumbency on them to become the reformers of

the other hemisphere, and to inculcate, with fire and sword, a return

to moral order. When, indeed, peace shall become more losing than war,

they may owe to their interests what these Quixotes are clamoring for on

false estimates of honor. The public are unmoved by these clamors, as

the re-election of their legislators shows, and they are firm to their

executive on the subject of the more recent clamors.

We are suffering here, both in the gathered and the growing crop. The

lowness of the river, and great quantity of produce brought to Milton this

year, render it almost impossible to get our crops to market. This is the

case of mine as well yours, and the Hessian fly appears alarmingly in our

growing crops. Everything is in distress for the want of rain.

Present me respectfully to Mrs. Monroe, and accept yourself assurances of

my constant and affectionate esteem.

TO M. JOHN SEVERIN VATER, PROFESSOR AT KONIGSBERG.

MONTICELLO, May 11, 1811.

SIR,--Your favor of November 4, 1809, did not get to my hands till

a twelvemonth after its date. Be pleased to accept my thanks for the

publication your were pleased to send me. That for Dr. Barton I forwarded

to him. His researches into the Indian languages of our continent being

continued, I hope it will be in his power to make to you communications

useful to the object you are pursuing. This will lessen to me the regret

that my retirement into an interior part of the country, as well as

my age and little intercourse with the world, will scarcely afford me

opportunities of contributing to your information. It is extremely to be

desired that your researches should receive every aid and encouragement.

I have long considered the filiation of languages as the best proof

we can ever obtain of the filiation of nations. With my best wishes

for the success of your undertaking, accept the assurances of my high

consideration and respect.

TO COUNT POTOCKI.

MONTICELLO, May 12, 1811.

SIR,--I have received your letter of August 19th, and with it the volume

of chronology you were so kind as to send me, for which be pleased

to accept my thanks. It presents a happy combination of sparse and

unconnected facts, which, brought together and fitted to each other,

forms a whole of symmetry as well as of system. It is as a gleam of

light flashed over the dark abyss of times past. Nothing would be more

flattering to me than to give aid to your inquiries as to this continent,

and to weave its ancient history into the web of the old world; and with

this view, to accept the invitation to a correspondence with you on the

subject. But time tells me I am nearly done with the history of the world;

that I am now far advanced in the last chapter of my own, and that its

last verse will be read out ere a few letters could pass between St.

Petersburg and Monticello. I shall serve you therefore more permanently,

by bequeathing to you another correspondent, more able, more industrious,

and more likely to continue in life than myself. Dr. Benjamin S. Barton,

one of the Professors of the college of Philadelphia, is learned in the

antiquities of this country, has employed much time and attention on

researches into them, is active and punctual, and will, I think, better

fulfil your wishes than any other person in the United States. If you will

have the goodness to address a letter to him on the subject, with the

inquiries you wish to make, he will, I am sure, set a just value on the

correspondence proposed, for which I shall take care to prepare him, and

in committing to better hands an honor which in earlier life I should have

taken a pleasure in endeavoring to merit, I make a sacrifice of my own

self-love, which is the strongest proof I can give you of the high respect

and consideration of which I now tender you the assurance.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, July 3d, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I have seen with very great concern the late address of Mr.

Smith to the public. He has been very ill-advised, both personally and

publicly. As far as I can judge from what I hear, the impression made is

entirely unfavorable to him. Every man's own understanding readily answers

all the facts and insinuations, one only excepted, and for that they

look for explanations without any doubt that they will be satisfactory.

What is Irving's case? I have answered the inquiries of several on this

head, telling them at the same time what was really the truth, that

the failure of my memory enabled me to give them rather conjectures

than recollections. For in truth, I have but indistinct recollections

of the case. I know that what was done was on a joint consultation

between us, and I have no fear that what we did will not have been

correct and cautious. What I retain of the case, on being reminded of

some particulars, will reinstate the whole firmly in my remembrance, and

enable me to state them to inquirers with correctness, which is the more

important from the part I bore in them. I must therefore ask the favor

of you to give me a short outline of the facts, which may correct as well

as supply my own recollections. But who is to give an explanation to the

public? not yourself, certainly. The Chief Magistrate cannot enter the

arena of the newspapers. At least the occasion should be of a much higher

order. I imagine there is some pen at Washington competent to it. Perhaps

the best form would be that of some one personating the friend of Irving,

some one apparently from the North. Nothing labored is requisite. A short

and simple statement of the case will, I am sure, satisfy the public. We

are in the midst of a so-so harvest, probably one-third short of the last.

We had a very fine rain on Saturday last. Ever affectionately yours.

TO MR. BARLOW.

MONTICELLO, July 22, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I had not supposed a letter would still find you at Washington.

Yours by late post tells me otherwise. Those of May 2d and 15th had been

received in due time. With respect to my books, lodged at the President's

house, if you should see Mr. Coles, the President's Secretary, and be

so good as to mention it, he will be so kind as to have them put on

board some vessel bound to Richmond, addressed to the care of Gibson

& Jefferson there, whom he knows. Your doubts whether any good can

be effected with the emperor of France are too well grounded. He has

understanding enough, but it is confined to particular lines. Of the

principles and advantages of commerce he appears to be ignorant, and

his domineering temper deafens him moreover to the dictates of interest,

of honor and of morality. A nation like ours, recognizing no arrogance

of language or conduct, can never enjoy the favor of such a character.

The impression, too, which our public has been made to receive from the

different styles of correspondence used by two of our foreign agents, has

increased the difficulties of steering between the bristling pride of the

two parties. It seems to point out the Quaker style of plain reason, void

of offence:--the suppression of all passion, and chaste language of good

sense. Heaven prosper your endeavors for our good, and preserve you in

health and happiness.

TO COLONEL DUANE.

MONTICELLO, July 25, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 5th, with the volume of Montesquieu

accompanying it, came to hand in due time; the latter indeed in lucky

time, as, enclosing it by the return of post, I was enabled to get it into

Mr. Warden's hands before his departure, for a friend abroad to whom it

will be a most acceptable offering. Of the residue of the copies I asked,

I would wish to receive one well bound for my own library, the others in

boards as that before sent. One of these in boards may come to me by post,

for use until the others are received, which I would prefer having sent

by water, as vessels depart almost daily from Philadelphia for Richmond.

Messrs. Gibson & Jefferson of that place will receive and forward the

packet to me. Add to it, if you please, a copy of Franklin's works, bound,

and send me by post a note of the amount of the whole, and of my newspaper

account, which has been suffered to run in arrear by the difficulty of

remitting small and fractional sums to a distance, from a canton having

only its local money, and little commercial intercourse beyond its own

limits.

I learnt with sincere regret that my former letters had given you pain.

Nothing could be further from their intention. What I had said and done

was from the most friendly dispositions towards yourself, and from a

zeal for maintaining the republican ascendency. Federalism, stripped

as it now nearly is, of its landed and laboring support, is monarchism

and Anglicism, and whenever our own dissensions shall let these in upon

us, the last ray of free government closes on the horizon of the world.

I have been lately reading Komarzewski's coup d'œil on the history of

Poland. Though without any charms of style or composition, it gives a

lesson which all our countrymen should study; the example of a country

erased from the map of the world by the dissensions of its own citizens.

The papers of every day read them the counter lesson of the impossibility

of subduing a people acting with an undivided will. Spain, under all her

disadvantages, physical and mental, is an encouraging example of this. She

proves too, another truth not less valuable, that a people having no king

to sell them for a mess of pottage for himself, no shackles to restrain

their powers of self-defence, find resources within themselves equal to

every trial. This we did during the revolutionary war, and this we can do

again, let who will attack us, if we act heartily with one another. This

is my creed. To the principles of union I sacrifice all minor differences

of opinion. These, like differences of face, are a law of our nature,

and should be viewed with the same tolerance. The clouds which have

appeared for some time to be gathering around us, have given me anxiety

lest an enemy, always on the watch, always prompt and firm, and acting in

well-disciplined phalanx, should find an opening to dissipate hopes, with

the loss of which I would wish that of life itself. To myself personally

the sufferings would be short. The powers of life have declined with me

more in the last six months than in as many preceding years. A rheumatic

indisposition, under which your letter found me, has caused this delay

in acknowledging its receipt, and in the expressions of regret that I

had inadvertently said or done anything which had given you uneasiness.

I pray you to be assured that no unkind motive directed me, and that my

sentiments of friendship and respect continue the same.

TO MR. OGILVIE.

MONTICELLO, August 4, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of May 24th was very long on its passage to me.

It gave us all pleasure to learn from yourself the progress of your

peregrination, and your prospect of approaching rest for awhile, among

our Western brethren--of "rest for the body some, none for the mind."

So that action is said to be all its joy; and we have no more remarkable

proof of it than in yourself. The newspapers have kept us informed of the

splendid course you have run, and of the flattering impressions made on

the public mind, and which must have been so grateful to yourself. The new

intellectual feast you are preparing for them in your Western retirement,

will excite new appetites, and will be hailed like the returning sun,

when he re-appears in the East. Your peripatetic enterprise, when first

made known to us, alarmed our apprehensions for you, lest the taste of

the times, and of our country, should not be up to the revival of this

classical experiment. Much to their credit, however, unshackled by the

prejudices which chain down the minds of the common mass of Europe,

the experiment has proved that, where thought is free in its range, we

need never fear to hazard what is good in itself. This sample of the

American mind is an additional item for the flattering picture your letter

presents of our situation, and our prospects. I firmly believe in them

all; and that human nature has never looked forward, under circumstances

so auspicious, either for the sum of happiness, or the spread of surface

provided to receive it. Very contrary opinions are inculcated in Europe,

and in England especially, where I much doubt if you would be tolerated in

presenting the views you propose. The English have been a wise, a virtuous

and truly estimable people. But commerce and a corrupt government have

rotted them to the core. Every generous, nay, every just sentiment, is

absorbed in the thirst for gold. I speak of their cities, which we may

certainly pronounce to be ripe for despotism, and fitted for no other

government. Whether the leaven of the agricultural body is sufficient to

regenerate the residuary mass, and maintain it in a sound state, under any

reformation of government, may well be doubted. Nations, like individuals,

wish to enjoy a fair reputation. It is therefore desirable for us that the

slanders on our country, disseminated by hired or prejudiced travellers,

should be corrected; but politics, like religion, hold up the torches of

martyrdom to the reformers of error. Nor is it in the theatre of Ephesus

alone that tumults have been excited when the crafts were in danger. You

must be cautious, therefore, in telling unacceptable truths beyond the

water. You wish me to suggest any subject which occurs to myself as fit

for the rostrum. But your own selection has proved you would have been

aided by no counsel, and that you can best judge of the topics which open

to your own mind a field for development, and promise to your hearers

instruction better adapted to the useful purposes of society, than the

weekly disquisitions of their hired instructors. All the efforts of these

people are directed to the maintenance of the artificial structure of

their craft, viewing but as a subordinate concern the inculcation of

morality. If we will be but Christians, according to their schemes of

Christianity, they will compound good-naturedly with our immoralities.

Cannot your circuit be so shaped as to lead you through our neighborhood

on your return? It would give us all great pleasure to see you, if it be

only _en passant_, for after such a survey of varied country, we cannot

flatter ourselves that ours would be the selected residence. But whether

you can visit us or not, I shall always be happy to hear from you, and

to know that you succeed in whatever you undertake. With these assurances

accept those of great esteem and respect from myself and all the members

of my family.

P. S. Since writing the above, an interesting subject occurs. What would

you think of a discourse on the benefit of the union and miseries which

would follow a separation of the States, to be exemplified in the eternal

and wasting wars of Europe, in the pillage and profligacy to which these

lead, and the abject oppression and degradation to which they reduce

its inhabitants? Painted by your vivid pencil, what could make deeper

impressions, and what impressions could come more home to our concerns, or

kindle a livelier sense of our present blessings?

TO JUDGE STEWART.

MONTICELLO, August 8, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I ask the favor of you to purchase for me as much fresh timothy

seed as the enclosed bill will pay for, pack and forward, and that you

will have the goodness to direct it to be lodged at Mr. Leitch's store

in Charlottesville by the waggoner who brings it. You see how bold your

indulgencies make me in intruding on your kindness.

I do not know that the government means to make known what has passed

between them and Foster before the meeting of Congress; but in the

meantime individuals, who are in the way, think they have a right to fish

it out, and in this way the sum of it has become known. Great Britain

has certainly come forward and declared to our government by an official

paper, that the conduct of France towards her during this war has obliged

her to take possession of the ocean, and to determine that no commerce

shall be carried on with the nations connected with France; that, however,

she is disposed to relax in this determination so far as to permit the

commerce which may be carried on through the British ports. I have, for

three or four years, been confident that, knowing that her own resources

were not adequate to the maintenance of her present navy, she meant with

it to claim the conquest of the ocean, and to permit no nation to navigate

it, but on payment of a tribute for the maintenance of the fleet necessary

to secure that dominion. A thousand circumstances brought together left

me without a doubt that that policy directed all her conduct, although

not avowed. This is the first time she has thrown off the mask. The answer

and conduct of the government have been what they ought to have been, and

Congress is called a little earlier, to be ready to act on the receipt of

the reply, for which time has been given.

God bless you. From yours affectionately.

TO GENERAL DEARBORNE.

POPLAR FOREST, August 14, 1811.

DEAR GENERAL AND FRIEND,-- * * * * *

I am happy to learn that your own health is good, and I hope it will

long continue so. The friends we left behind us have fallen out by the

way. I sincerely lament it, because I sincerely esteem them all, and

because it multiplies schisms where harmony is safety. As far as I have

been able to judge, however, it has made no sensible impression against

the government. Those who were murmuring before are a little louder now;

but the mass of our citizens is firm and unshaken. It furnishes, as an

incident, another proof that they are perfectly equal to the purposes of

self-government, and that we have nothing to fear for its stability. The

spirit, indeed, which manifests itself among the tories of your quarter,

although I believe there is a majority there sufficient to keep it down

in peaceable times, leaves me not without some disquietude. Should the

determination of England, now formally expressed, to take possession of

the ocean, and to suffer no commerce on it but through her ports, force a

war upon us, I foresee a possibility of a separate treaty between her and

your Essex men, on the principles of neutrality and commerce. Pickering

here, and his nephew Williams there, can easily negotiate this. Such a

lure to the quietists in our ranks with you, might recruit theirs to a

majority. Yet, excluded as they would be from intercourse with the rest

of the Union and of Europe, I scarcely see the gain they would propose to

themselves, even for the moment. The defection would certainly disconcert

the other States, but it could not ultimately endanger their safety. They

are adequate, in all points, to a defensive war. However, I hope your

majority, with the aid it is entitled to, will save us from this trial,

to which I think it possible we are advancing. The death of George may

come to our relief; but I fear the dominion of the sea is the insanity of

the nation itself also. Perhaps, if some stroke of fortune were to rid us

at the same time from the Mammoth of the land as well as the Leviathan

of the ocean, the people of England might lose their fears, and recover

their sober senses again. Tell my old friend, Governor Gerry, that I gave

him glory for the rasping with which he rubbed down his herd of traitors.

Let them have justice and protection against personal violence, but no

favor. Powers and preëminences conferred on them are daggers put into the

hands of assassins, to be plunged into our own bosoms in the moment the

thrust can go home to the heart. Moderation can never reclaim them. They

deem it timidity, and despise without fearing the tameness from which

it flows. Backed by England, they never lose the hope that their day is

to come, when the terrorism of their earlier power is to be merged in

the more gratifying system of deportation and the guillotine. Being now

_hors de combat_ myself, I resign to others these cares. A long attack

of rheumatism has greatly enfeebled me, and warns me that they will not

very long be within my ken. But you may have to meet the trial, and in

the focus of its fury. God send you a safe deliverance, a happy issue out

of all afflictions, personal and public, with long life, long health, and

friends as sincerely attached as yours affectionately.

INDEX TO VOL. V.

ADAMS, JOHN--His relations with Jefferson, 559, 560.

Difference between his political opinions and Hamilton's, 559.

AGRICULTURE--The science of, 224.

Implement of, 226.

Products of, adapted to U. S., 314.

ALEXANDER, EMPEROR--Bust of, presented to Jefferson, 6.

His character, 7, 526.

His intervention in favor of neutral rights, 8.

ARMS--When loaned by Government, 168, 238, 240.

ASTRONOMY--Its application to navigation, 374.

BANKS--Excess of, 516.

BANK OF UNITED STATES--Question of its constitutionality, 412.

BARLOW, JOEL--His Columbiad, 238.

His History of U. S., 496.

His departure for Paris, 587.

BASTROP'S CASE--231.

BLOODWORTH--His bankruptcy, 49.

BONAPARTE--His great victories, 173.

His plans of conquest, 512.

His character, 601.

BOTTA, M.--His history of revolution, 527.

BRAZIL, EMPEROR OF--285.

BURR, AARON--His conspiracy, 24, 26, 28, 38, 40.

His accomplices, 34, 45, 60, 99, 305.

Efforts in Ohio to suppress conspiracy, 37.

His arrest and trial, 55, 57, 65, 66, 81, 84, 86, 95, 96, 98, 174.

His views and objects, 64, 128, 129, 130.

Federalists come to his rescue, 64, 65, 66, 67.

Proofs and witnesses against, 72, 78, 81, 95, 96, 109, 112, 190.

His forgeries, 86.

His acquittal, 187, 199.

CABINET, EXECUTIVE--Mode of transacting business in, 94.

Of Washington and Jefferson, 568, 569.

CHESAPEAKE, THE--Capture of, 113, 114.

Executive action relative to, 116, 118, 120, 122, 123, 126, 131.

Preparations for war, 120, 122, 123, 126, 127, 132, 146.

CHESAPEAKE BAY--Defence of mouth of, 180.

CHINA--Chinese mandarin relieved from Embargo, 325.

CLAIBORNE, GOV.--Wounded in duel, 137.

CLAY, HENRY--His opposition to Jefferson, 183.

CLIMATE--Changes of, in U. S., 487.

COLLEGES--How should be arranged, 521.

COLONIZATION--Of negroes, 564.

COMMERCE--Impulse to, by Embargo, 441.

Coasting and carrying trade, 505.

CONTRACTS--Should not be given to members of legislature, 50.

CUBA--Acquisition of, 444.

DEARBORNE, GEN.--Urged by Mr. Jefferson to continue in office, 295.

DEBT--Evils of National debt, 477.

DECIUS--His false statements, 20.

DELAWARE RIVER--Defense of, against English, 244.

DESERTERS--Should not be enlisted, 173.

DICKINSON, JOHN--His death, 249.

DRAWBACKS--426.

DUANE, WILLIAM--His opposition to Madison's administration, 590.

His embarrassments, 574, 590.

EDITORS--Their duties, 591.

EDUCATION--225.

Plan of popular education, 525.

EMBARGO, THE--227, 252, 299.

War preferable to continuance of, 258.

Our citizens allowed to withdraw property from foreign countries, 259.

Draft of law by Gallatin, 267.

Measures to enforce, 271, 272, 297, 336, 341, 343, 352, 359.

Its operation, 275.

Cases arising under, 277.

When to be suspended, 279.

Evasions of, 286, 287, 290, 297, 317, 334, 335, 336, 340, 413.

Construction of, 287, 290, 292, 307, 317, 324, 327, 344, 346, 355, 398.

Resistance to, in Massachusetts, 341, 343, 347, 384, 424.

Cases arising under, 292, 307, 317, 324, 327, 344, 346, 355, 363, 368,

369, 370, 375, 382, 386, 387, 396, 399, 405, 418.

Its unpopularity in the east, 293, 384.

Its popularity elsewhere, 296, 384.

Bonaparte's position relative to, 370.

War the only alternative, 384, 387.

Views in Congress relative to, 404.

A temporary measure, 410.

Action of Congress relative to, 419, 421, 424.

Repeal of, 433, 529.

ENGLAND--Treaty with, objectionable, 52.

Its ratification suspended, 54.

Hostilities commenced by, 113, 117, 118, 123, 131, 134, 139.

Hull retires from Hampton Roads, 135.

Probability of war with, 134, 135, 139, 189, 197, 211, 215, 266.

Relative to certain captives, 142.

The conduct of the English in our waters, 143, 145, 195, 196.

Relations with, during this quasi state of war, 151, 155, 167, 170, 174,

191, 202.

Notice to our merchant vessels of danger of war, 184, 185, 186, 194.

Her violations of maritime law, 200, 468, 501, 511, 551.

Her orders in council, 442.

Repeal of, 443.

Relations of peace restored, 455.

Domination on the Ocean, 530.

Condition of, 552, 557.

Relations with, 556.

War with, inevitable, 464.

Character of Kings of, 514.

ENLISTMENTS--When binding on infants, 282, 372.

EUROPE--Not to be permitted to interfere in American affairs, 381.

Condition of, 511.

Insignificancy of Kings of, 514.

EXECUTIVE--Question between a single and plural executive, 449, 567, 581.

Executives should be removable, 569.

FEDERALISTS--Their disorganization as a party, 101.

Their conduct in reference to Embargo, 304.

Their bitterness of feeling, 608.

FLORIDAS, THE--Necessity of their acquisition, 18.

FRANCE--Views of her revolution, 133, 582.

Our relations with, 266.

War with England, 214.

Berlin and Milan decrees, 444.

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN--His last autobiography, 540.

GALLATIN, ALBERT--His character, 574.

Jefferson dissuades him from leaving Madison's cabinet, 477.

False imputations against, 593, 594.

His views on U. S. Bank, 595.

GOVERNMENT--Best works on, 91.

GUN-BOATS--As means of defence, 41, 42, 202, 228, 234, 316.

Improvements in, 189.

HAMILTON, ALEXANDER--Difference between his political principles and J.

Adams', 559.

HARPER'S FERRY--The scenery there, 446.

HISTORY, NATURAL--Fossil remains, 46, 219, 220, 261, 310, 467.

HOLLAND, KING OF--Congratulations on his accession to the throne, 47.

HUMBOLDT, BARON DE--His work on Spain, 435.

HUNDREDS--Division of counties into, 525.

IMPRESSMENT--Efforts to suppress by treaty, 55, 63.

Refusal to sign treaty not providing for suppression of, 56, 63.

INCORPORATION--The power of, not granted by constitution, 412.

INDIANS--Improvement of, 212, 278, 302.

Their languages, 6, 469, 599.

Best articles of trade with, 44.

Relations with, 162, 184, 330, 348, 350.

Danger of war with, 175.

Policy towards, in a war with England, 176, 276, 348.

Trade with, 269.

General policy towards, 348, 350.

How to proceed in case of murders by, 354.

Settlement of boundaries with Kickapoos, 400.

Efforts to prevent the use of spirituous liquors by, 407.

Best mode of civilizing, 440.

Efforts to civilize, 484.

IRVING'S CASE--600.

JEFFERSON, THOMAS--Efforts to alienate his cabinet from him, 23.

His retirement at end of second term, 62, 88.

Calumnies against, 80, 264, 503, 504.

Resigns Presidency of American Philosophical Society, 392.

Is re-elected, 40, 494.

Refuses all presents while President, 392.

Resolution to retire at end of second term, 407.

Reception of, by people, on his retirement, 431.

His pleasure at retiring, 432.

Letter to people of Albemarle at end of Presidential term, 439.

All prosecutions for libels against him dismissed, 452.

Franking privilege allowed him, 453.

His writings, 465.

Relations with Hamilton, 496.

His habits, 508, 558.

Made member of Royal Institute of Amsterdam, 517.

Relations with Adams, 559, 560.

JUDICIARY--Always federal, 549.

LATROBE, MR.--Relations with Jefferson, 578.

LANDS, PUBLIC--Intrusions on, 382.

LAWS--Rules for construing, by executive, 158.

Degeneracy of law, 524.

Some cases above law, 542.

Law of New England not common law, 550.

LAWYERS--Of New England not good common law lawyers, 547.

LEWIS, GOV.--His papers, 480.

LIBRARIES, PUBLIC--Benefit of, 448.

LOGWOOD, THOMAS--Pardon of, 385.

LOUIS XVI.--His character, 423.

LOUISIANA--Boundaries of, 110, 178.

MADISON, JAMES--Divisions in his cabinet, 509, 589, 596, 598, 600, 607.

MAIL--Robberies of, 406.

MANUFACTURES--Impulse to from embargo, 415, 456.

How far should be protected, 415, 417, 440.

Condition of, in U. S., 583.

MARSHALL, JOHN--His life of Washington, 476.

Notes on, by Jefferson, 476.

MARQUE, LETTERS OF--Their character, 273.

MEDICINE--Views of science of, 105.

METEORIC STONES--245.

MILITIA--Organization of, 16, 76.

Called out to defend Norfolk and Hampton, 118, 138.

Disbanded, 143.

Militia of Ohio, 206.

When to be called out, 409.

MINES--Rent of Indiana lead mines, 207, 210.

Silver mines of La Platte, 246.

MINTS--Appointment of assistant engraver to, 61.

MIRANDA'S EXPEDITION--Not countenanced by our government, 476.

MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY--British claims in, 274.

MONROE, JAMES--His relations to Madison's administration, 247, 482.

Offered government of Orleans or Louisiana, 11.

Explanations in relation to English treaty, 254.

MONTESQUIEU'S SPIRIT OF LAWS--Commentary on, 525, 539, 566.

MOOSE ISLAND--Within jurisdiction of U. States, 317.

MUSEUM--Foundation of one at Williamsburg, 79.

NEGROES--Their capacity relative to white races, 429, 475.

NEUTRALITY--No breach of, to assist vessels in distress, 35.

Invasions of, by France and England, 217.

Frauds on our flag, 223, 250.

We determine to side with the party which shall respect our neutrality, 258.

What the rights of neutral vessels, 425, 426.

Wisdom of our neutral policy, 585.

NICHOLAS, WILSON C.--Sent on special mission to France, 3.

Declines it, 5.

Mr. Jefferson wishes him to take leadership of House of Representatives, 48.

OFFICES--Should not be given to relations, 90, 498.

Principles on which conferred, 136.

ORLEANS, NEW--Claim to public common, 26.

Scheme for defence of, 36, 46.

Public property there, 251.

Canal at, 288, 306, 318, 321.

Title to Batture, 291, 319, 518, 519, 536, 545, 546, 548.

Conspiracies against U. States, 378.

ORLEANS, TERRITORY OF--Discontents in, 29, 32.

PATENTS--Interpretation of patent law, 75.

What should be duration of, 75, 76.

PLOUGHS--Improved model of, 313.

POLAND--Partition of, 603.

POLYGRAPH, THE--Its value, 17.

PRESIDENT--Presidential tour objectionable, 102.

Not bound to obey subpœna duces tecum, 103, 191.

Cannot present memorial to Congress from State legislature, 203.

Candidates for Presidency in 1808, 247, 321.

PRINTING--Extension of, in U. States, 475.

PRESS--Liberty of, 43.

Its falsehoods, 92.

Its license, 362.

QUAKERS--Their English affinities, 492, 494.

QUARANTINE--Views on, 193.

RANDOLPH, JOHN--Turns against Jefferson's administration, 9.

RANDOLPH, T. J.--Letter of advice to, 388.

RELIGION--President no right to prescribe day for prayer and fasting, 237.

Views on, 416, 471, 492.

REPUBLICAN PARTY--Split in, 9, 121, 204.

Massachusetts Republicanised, 14.

Increase of, 450.

Importance of union in, 577.

RICE--Upland, 393.

RITCHIE, THOMAS--Relations to Madison's administration, 596.

RIVERS--Rights of all nations inhabiting its banks to free navigation, 115.

RUSSIA--Emperor of, his character, and policy, 140.

Mission to, 329, 358, 360.

Negatived by Senate, 435.

SEAMEN--Employment of foreigners in Navy, 69, 70.

SECESSION--Not to be apprehended, 571.

SHEEP--Introduction of Merino breed, 479, 522.

SOUTH AMERICAN STATES--Revolt of, against Spain, 530, 584, 586.

SPAIN--Our relations with, 27, 164, 181, 211, 337, 367.

Questions of navigation and boundary with, 278, 294.

Plan to seize our territory in possession of, 337, 339.

Conquest of, by Spain, 442.

Defense against French, 603.

STATES--Sovereignty of, a high conservative feature in our government, 560.

TARIFF--On wines, 76.

TAXES--Of United States how imposed, 586.

TOMBIGBEE--Memorial from, 140.

TORPEDOES--Invented by Fulton, 165, 516.

TRUXTON, COMMODORE--Medal for, 300.

UNITED STATES--Condition of parties in Senate and House of Representatives, 5.

Relations with England, 12.

Political revolution of 1800, 256.

Conduct of, in relations with European powers, 472.

Prosperity of, 604.

VETERINARY COLLEGE--Policy of, 402.

VINCENNES--Loyalty of French inhabitants of, 240, 243.

VIRGINIA--Collection of laws of, 31.

Defence of seaboard and against English in 1807, 113, 117, 123, 131, 134,

139, 150, 166.

Her exertions in Revolutionary war, 461.

Revision of her Code, 459.

VOLUNTEERS--33, 51, 153, 158, 179, 423.

Construction of law relative to, 159.

Offers of, 408, 414, 423.

WAR--Prospect of, 214, 215, 437.

Preparations for, 58, 280, 283, 506.

Feeling of eastern States relative to, 488, 607.

Jefferson opposed to, 598.

(See France and England.)

WASHINGTON, GEN.--Mode of doing business in his cabinet, 510.

WASHINGTON CITY--Improvement of, 50.

Sale of certain city lots, 395.

WATERHOUSE, DR.--His appointment to Marine Hospital, 222.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES--Improvements proposed, 235, 377.

WEST POINT--Complaint of Cadets of, 332.

WESTERN ROAD--The route of, 332, 333.

WIRT, WILLIAM--Urged by Mr. Jefferson to accept seat in Congress, 233.