PARIS, Feb. 12, 1788.
SIR,--I have duly received your favor of the 5th inst. enclosing that
for Mr. Jay. The packet was gone, as I presume, but I have another
occasion of forwarding it securely. Your attentions to the Leyden
gazette are, in my opinion, very useful. The paper is much read and
respected. It is the only one I know in Europe which merits respect.
Your publications in it will tend to re-establish that credit which the
solidity of our affairs deserve. With respect to the sale of lands, we
know that two sales of five millions and two millions of acres have
been made. Another was begun for four millions, which, in the course of
the negotiation, may have been reduced to three millions, as you
mention. I have not heard that this sale is absolutely concluded, but
there is reason to presume it. Stating these sales at two-thirds of a
dollar the acre, and allowing for 3 or 400,000 acres sold at public
sale, and a very high price, we may say they have absorbed seven
millions of dollars of the domestic federal debt. The States, by
taxation and otherwise, have absorbed eleven millions more: so that
debt stands now at about ten millions of dollars, and will probably be
all absorbed in the course of the next year. There will remain then our
foreign debt, between ten and twelve millions, including interest. The
sale of lands will then go on for the payment of this. But, as this
payment must be in cash, not in public effects, the lands must be sold
cheaper. The demand will probably be less brisk. So we may suppose this
will be longer paying off than the domestic debt. With respect to the
new Government, nine or ten States will probably have accepted by the
end of this month. The others may oppose it. Virginia, I think, will be
of this number. Besides other objections of less moment, she will
insist on annexing a bill of rights to the new Constitution, _i. e._ a
bill wherein the Government shall declare that, 1. Religion shall be
free; 2. Printing presses free; 3. Trials by jury preserved in all
cases; 4. No monopolies in commerce; 5. No standing army. Upon
receiving this bill of rights, she will probably depart from her other
objections; and this bill is so much to the interest of all the States,
that I presume they will offer it, and thus our Constitution be
amended, and our Union closed by the end of the present year. In this
way, there will have been opposition enough to do good, and not enough
to do harm. I have such reliance on the good sense of the body of the
people, and the honesty of their leaders, that I am not afraid of their
letting things go wrong to any length in any cause. Wishing you better
health, and much happiness, I have the honor to be, with sentiments of
the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most
humble servant.