PARIS, November 13, 1787.
DEAR SIR,--I am now to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of
October the 4th, 8th, and 26th. In the last, you apologize for your
letters of introduction to Americans coming here. It is so far from
needing apology on your part, that it calls for thanks on mine. I
endeavor to show civilities to all the Americans who come here, and who
will give me opportunities of doing it; and it is a matter of comfort
to know, from a good quarter, what they are, and how far I may go in my
attentions to them.
Can you send me Woodmason's bills for the two copying presses for the
Marquis de La Fayette and the Marquis de Chastellux? The latter makes
one article in a considerable account, of old standing, and which I
cannot present for want of this article. I do not know whether it is to
yourself or Mr. Adams, I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new
constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will
yet be three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are
very good articles in it, and very bad. I do not know which
preponderate. What we have lately read, in the history of Holland, in
the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a
chief magistrate, eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been
disposed towards one; and what we have always read of the elections of
Polish Kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable
for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying.
The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat, and
model into every form, lies about our being in anarchy, that the world
has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the
ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more
wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy
exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of
Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so
honorably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in
ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be twenty years
without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well
informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion
to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet
under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to
the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven
years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a
century and a half, for each State. What country before, ever existed a
century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve
its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that
this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The
remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What
signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must
be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure. Our convention has been too much impressed by
the insurrection of Massachusetts; and on the spur of the moment, they
are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in God,
this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.
You ask me if anything transpires here on the subject of South America?
Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that
they wait the torch only. But this country probably will join the
extinguishers. The want of facts worth communicating to you, has
occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be
contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.
Present my respects to Mrs. Smith, and be assured of the sincere esteem
of, dear Sir, your friend and servant.