PART III.--CONTINUED.

LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER HIS RETURN TO THE U. S. DOWN TO THE TIME OF HIS

DEATH.

1790-1826.

TO DR. RUSH.

POPLAR FOREST, August 17, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I write to you from a place ninety miles from Monticello,

near the New London of this State, which I visit three or four times a

year, and stay from a fortnight to a month at a time. I have fixed myself

comfortably, keep some books here, bring others occasionally, am in the

solitude of a hermit, and quite at leisure to attend to my absent friends.

I note this to show that I am not in a situation to examine the dates of

our letters, whether I have overgone the annual period of asking how you

do? I know that within that time I have received one or more letters from

you, accompanied by a volume of your introductory lectures, for which

accept my thanks. I have read them with pleasure and edification, for I

acknowledge facts in medicine as far as they go, distrusting only their

extension by theory. Having to conduct my grandson through his course of

mathematics, I have resumed that study with great avidity. It was ever

my favorite one. We have no theories there, no uncertainties remain on

the mind; all is demonstration and satisfaction. I have forgotten much,

and recover it with more difficulty than when in the vigor of my mind

I originally acquired it. It is wonderful to me that old men should not

be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress

of decay. Our old revolutionary friend Clinton, for example, who was a

hero, but never a man of mind, is wonderfully jealous on this head. He

tells eternally the stories of his younger days to prove his memory, as

if memory and reason were the same faculty. Nothing betrays imbecility so

much as the being insensible of it. Had not a conviction of the danger

to which an unlimited occupation of the executive chair would expose

the republican constitution of our government, made it conscientiously

a duty to retire when I did, the fear of becoming a dotard and of being

insensible of it, would of itself have resisted all solicitations to

remain. I have had a long attack of rheumatism, without fever and without

pain while I keep myself still. A total prostration of the muscles of the

back, hips and thighs, deprived me of the power of walking, and leaves it

still in a very impaired state. A pain when I walk, seems to have fixed

itself in the hip, and to threaten permanence. I take moderate rides,

without much fatigue; but my journey to this place, in a hard-going gig,

gave me great sufferings which I expect will be renewed on my return as

soon as I am able. The loss of the power of taking exercise would be a

sore affliction to me. It has been the delight of my retirement to be in

constant bodily activity, looking after my affairs. It was never damped

as the pleasures of reading are, by the question of _cui bono?_ for

what object? I hope your health of body continues firm. Your works show

that of your mind. The habits of exercise which your calling has given

to both, will tend long to preserve them. The sedentary character of my

public occupations sapped a constitution naturally sound and vigorous,

and draws it to an earlier close. But it will still last quite as long

as I wish it. There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not

occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance. We

must continue while here to exchange occasionally our mutual good wishes.

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the

true old man's milk and restorative cordial. God bless you and preserve

you through a long and healthy old age.

TO WM. A. BURWELL, ESQ.

POPLAR FOREST, August 19, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I am here after a long absence, having been confined at home

a month by rheumatism. I thought myself equal to the journey when I set

out, but I have suffered much coming, staying, and shall, returning.

If I am not better after a little rest at home, I shall set out for

the warm springs. The object of this letter is to inform Mrs. Burwell

that a ring, which she left where she washed the morning of leaving

Fludd's, is safe and will be delivered to her order or to herself when

she passes. I have not seen the President since he came home, nor do I

know what has passed with Foster from the fountain head; but through a

channel in which I have confidence, I learn he has delivered a formal

note in the name of his government, declaring that the circumstances

of the war oblige them to take possession of the ocean, and permit no

commerce on it but through their ports. Thus their purpose is at length

avowed. They cannot from their own resources maintain the navy necessary

to retain the dominion of the ocean, and mean that other nations shall

be assessed to maintain their own chains. Should the king die, as is

probable, although the ministry which would come in stand so committed

to repeal the orders of Council, I doubt if the nation will permit it.

For the usurpation of the sea has become a national disease. This state

of things annihilates the culture of tobacco, except of about 15,000

hhds. on the prime lands. Wheat and Flour keep up. Wheat was at 9s. 6d.

at Richmond ten days ago. I have sold mine here at the Richmond price,

abating 2s., but 8s. a bushel has been offered for machined wheat. Present

me respectfully to Mrs. Burwell, and accept assurances of affectionate

respect and esteem.

TO MR. PEALE.

POPLAR FOREST, August 20, 1811.

It is long, my dear Sir, since we have exchanged a letter. Our former

correspondence had always some little matter of business interspersed;

but this being at an end, I shall still be anxious to hear from you

sometimes, and to know that you are well and happy. I know indeed that

your system is that of contentment under any situation. I have heard that

you have retired from the city to a farm, and that you give your whole

time to that. Does not the museum suffer? And is the farm as interesting?

Here, as you know, we are all farmers, but not in a pleasing style. We

have so little labor in proportion to our land that, although perhaps we

make more profit from the same labor, we cannot give to our grounds that

style of beauty which satisfies the eye of the amateur. Our rotations are

corn, wheat, and clover, or corn, wheat, clover and clover, or wheat,

corn, wheat, clover and clover; preceding the clover by a plastering.

But some, instead of clover substitute mere rest, and all are slovenly

enough. We are adding the care of Merino sheep. I have often thought

that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should

have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market

for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me

as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the

garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection,

the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead

of one harvest a continued one through the year. Under a total want of

demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden.

But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.

Your application to whatever you are engaged in I know to be incessant.

But Sundays and rainy days are always days of writing for the farmer.

Think of me sometimes when you have your pen in hand, and give me

information of your health and occupations; and be always assured of my

great esteem and respect.

TO MR. CLAY.

POPLAR FOREST, August 23, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--While here, and much confined to the house by my rheumatism,

I have amused myself with calculating the hour lines of an horizontal

dial for the latitude of this place, which I find to be 37° 22´ 26´´.

The calculations are for every five minutes of time, and are always

exact to within less than half a second of a degree. As I do not know

that any body here has taken this trouble before, I have supposed a copy

would be acceptable to you. It may be a good exercise for Master Cyrus

to make you a dial by them. He will need nothing but a protractor, or a

line of chords and dividers. A dial of size, say of from twelve inches to

two feet square, is the cheapest and most accurate measure of time for

general use, and would I suppose be more common if every one possessed

the proper horary lines for his own latitude. Williamsburg being very

nearly in the parallel of Poplar Forest, the calculations now sent would

serve for all the counties in the line between that place and this, for

your own place, New London, and Lynchburg in this neighborhood. Slate,

as being less affected by the sun, is preferable to wood or metal, and

needs but a saw and plane to prepare it, and a knife point to mark the

lines and figures. If worth the trouble, you will of course use the

paper enclosed; if not, some of your neighbors may wish to do it, and

the effect to be of some use to you will strengthen the assurances of

my great esteem and respect.

TO LEVI LINCOLN, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, August 25, 1811.

It is long, my good friend, since we have exchanged a letter; and yet

I demur to all prescription against it. I cannot relinquish the right

of correspondence with those I have learnt to esteem. If the extension

of common acquaintance in public life be an inconvenience, that with

select worth is more than a counterpoise. Be assured your place is high

among those whose remembrance I have brought with me into retirement,

and cherish with warmth. I was overjoyed when I heard you were appointed

to the supreme bench of national justice, and as much mortified when I

heard you had declined it. You are too young to be entitled to withdraw

your services from your country. You cannot yet number the _quadraginta

stipendia_ of the veteran. Our friends, whom we left behind, have ceased

to be friends among themselves. I am sorry for it, on their account

and on my own, for I have sincere affection for them all. I hope it

will produce no schisms among us, no desertions from our ranks; that no

Essex man will find matter of triumph in it. The secret treasons of his

heart, and open rebellions on his tongue, will still be punished, while

_in fieri_, by the detestation of his country, and by its vengeance in

the overt act. What a pity that history furnishes so many abuses of the

punishment by exile, the most rational of all punishments for meditated

treason. Their great king beyond the water would doubtless receive them as

kindly as his Asiatic prototype did the fugitive aristocracy of Greece.

But let us turn to good-humored things. How do you do? What are you

doing? Does the farm or the study occupy your time, or each by turns? Do

you read law or divinity? And which affords the most curious and cunning

learning? Which is most disinterested? And which was it that crucified

its Saviour? Or were the two professions united among the Jews? In that

case, what must their Caiaphases have been? Answer me these questions,

or any others you like better, but let me hear from you and know that

you are well and happy. That you may long continue so is the prayer of

yours affectionately.

TO MR. JAMES L. EDWARDS.

MONTICELLO, September 5, 1811.

SIR,--Your letter of August 20th has truly surprised me. In this it is

said that, _for certain services performed_ by Mr. James Lyon and Mr.

Samuel Morse, formerly editors of the Savannah Republican, I promised

them the sum of one thousand dollars. This, Sir, is totally unfounded. I

never promised to any printer on earth the sum of one thousand dollars,

nor any other sum, for certain services performed, or for any services

which that expression would imply. I have had no accounts with printers

but for their newspapers, for which I have paid always the ordinary price

and no more. I have occasionally joined in moderate contributions to

printers, as I have done to other descriptions of persons, distressed or

persecuted, not by promise, but the actual payment of what I contributed.

When Mr. Morse went to Savannah, he called on me and told me he meant to

publish a paper there, for which I subscribed, and paid him the year in

advance. I continued to take it from his successors, Everett & McLean,

and Everett & Evans, and paid for it at different epochs up to December

31, 1808, when I withdrew my subscription. You say McLean informed you

"he had some expectation of getting the money, as he had received a

letter from me on the subject." If such a letter exists under my name,

it is a forgery. I never wrote but a single letter to him, that was of

the 28th of January, 1810, and was on the subject of the last payment

made for his newspaper, and on no other subject; and I have two receipts

of his, (the last dated March 9, 1809,) of payments for his paper, both

stating to be _in full of all demands_, and a letter of the 17th of April,

1810, in reply to mine, manifestly showing he had no demand against me

of any other nature. The promise is said to have been made to Morse &

Lyon. Were Mr. Morse living, I should appeal to him with confidence, as

I believe him to have been a very honest man. Mr. Lyon I suppose to be

living, and will, I am sure, acquit me of any such transaction as that

alleged. The truth, then, being that I never made the promise suggested,

nor any one of a like nature to any printer or other person whatever,

every principle of justice and of self-respect requires that I should

not listen to any such demand.

TO MR. JAMES LYON.

MONTICELLO, September 5, 1811.

SIR,--I enclose you the copy of a letter I have received from a James

L. Edwards, of Boston. You will perceive at once its swindling object.

It appeals to two dead men, and one, (yourself,) whom he supposes I

cannot get at. I have written him an answer which may perhaps prevent

his persevering in the attempt, for the whole face of his letter betrays

a consciousness of its guilt. But perhaps he may expect that I would

sacrifice a sum of money rather than be disturbed with encountering a bold

falsehood. In this he is mistaken; and to prepare to meet him, should

he repeat his demand, and considering that he has presumed to implicate

your name in this attempt, I take the liberty of requesting a letter

from you bearing testimony to the truth of my never having made to you,

or within your knowledge or information, any such promise to yourself,

your partner Morse, or any other. My confidence in your character leaves

me without a doubt of your honest aid in repelling this base and bold

attempt to fix on me practices to which no honors or powers in this world

would ever have induced me to stoop. I have solicited none, intrigued

for none. Those which my country has thought proper to confide to me

have been of their own mere motion, unasked by me. Such practices as

this letter-writer imputes to me, would have proved me unworthy of their

confidence.

It is long since I have known anything of your situation or pursuits. I

hope they have been successful, and tender you my best wishes that they

may continue so, and for your own health and happiness.

TO DOCTOR PATTERSON.

MONTICELLO, September 11, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--The enclosed work came to me without a scrip of a pen

other than what you see in the title-page--"A Monsieur le President

de la Société." From this I conclude it intended for the Philosophical

Society, and for them I now enclose it to you. You will find the notes

really of value. They embody and ascertain to us all the scraps of

new discoveries which we have learned in detached articles from less

authentic publications. M. Goudin has generally expressed his measures

according to the old as well as the new standard, which is a convenience

to me, as I do not make a point of retaining the last in my memory.

I confess, indeed, I do not like the new system of French measures,

because not the best, and adapted to a standard accessible to themselves

exclusively, and to be obtained by other nations only from them. For, on

examining the map of the earth, you will find no meridian on it but the

one passing through their country, offering the extent of land on both

sides of the 45th degree, and terminating at both ends in a portion of

the ocean which the conditions of the problem for an universal standard

of measures require. Were all nations to agree therefore to adopt this

standard, they must go to Paris to ask it; and they might as well long

ago have all agreed to adopt the French foot, the standard of which they

could equally have obtained from Paris. Whereas the pendulum is equally

fixed by the laws of nature, is in possession of every nation, may be

verified everywhere and by every person, and at an expense within every

one's means. I am not therefore without a hope that the other nations

of the world will still concur, some day, in making the pendulum the

basis of a common system of measures, weights and coins, which applied

to the present metrical systems of France and of other countries, will

render them all intelligible to one another. England and this country

may give it a beginning, notwithstanding the war they are entering

into. The republic of letters is unaffected by the wars of geographical

divisions of the earth. France, by her power and science, now bears down

everything. But that power has its measure in time by the life of one

man. The day cannot be distant in the history of human revolutions, when

the indignation of mankind will burst forth, and an insurrection of the

universe against the political tyranny of France will overwhelm all her

arrogations. Whatever is most opposite to them will be most popular, and

what is reasonable therefore in itself, cannot fail to be adopted the

sooner from that motive. But why leave this adoption to the tardy will

of governments who are always, in their stock of information, a century

or two behind the intelligent part of mankind, and who have interests

against touching ancient institutions? Why should not the college of the

literary societies of the world adopt the second pendulum as the unit

of measure on the authorities of reason, convenience and common consent?

And why should not our society open the proposition by a circular letter

to the other learned institutions of the earth? If men of science,

in their publications, would express measures always in multiples and

decimals of the pendulum, annexing their value in municipal measures as

botanists add the popular to the botanical names of plants, they would

soon become familiar to all men of instruction, and prepare the way for

legal adoptions. At any rate, it would render the writers of every nation

intelligible to the readers of every other, when expressing the measures

of things. The French, I believe, have given up their Decada Calendar,

but it does not appear that they retire from the centesimal division of

the quadrant. On the contrary, M. Borda has calculated according to that

division, new trigonometrical tables not yet, I believe, printed. In the

excellent tables of Callet, lately published by Didot, in stereotype,

he has given a table of Logarithmic lines and tangents for the hundred

degrees of the quadrant, abridged from Borda's manuscript. But he has

given others for the sexagesimal division, which being for every 10´´

through the whole table, are more convenient than Hutton's, Scherwin's,

or any of their predecessors. It cannot be denied that the centesimal

division would facilitate our arithmetic, and that it might have been

preferable had it been originally adopted, as a numeration by eighths

would have been more convenient than by tens. But the advantages would

not now compensate the embarrassments of a change.

I extremely regret the not being provided with a time-piece equal to the

observations of the approaching eclipse of the sun. Can you tell me what

would be the cost in Philadelphia of a clock, the time-keeping part of

which should be perfect? And what the difference of cost between a wooden

and gridiron pendulum? To be of course without a striking apparatus, as

it would be wanted for astronomical purposes only. Accept assurances of

affectionate esteem and respect.

TO CLEMENT CAINE, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, September 16, 1811.

SIR,--Your favor of April 2d was not received till the 23d of June

last, with the volume accompanying it, for which be pleased to accept

my thanks. I have read it with great satisfaction, and received from

it information, the more acceptable as coming from a source which could

be relied on. The retort on European censors, of their own practices on

the liberties of man, the inculcation on the master of the moral duties

which he owes to the slave, in return for the benefits of his service,

that is to say, of food, clothing, care in sickness, and maintenance

under age and disability, so as to make him in fact as comfortable and

more secure than the laboring man in most parts of the world; and the

idea suggested of substituting free whites in all household occupations

and manual arts, thus lessening the call for the other kind of labor,

while it would increase the public security, give great merit to the

work, and will, I have no doubt, produce wholesome impressions. The

habitual violation of the equal rights of the colonist by the dominant

(for I will not call them the mother) countries of Europe, the invariable

sacrifice of their highest interests to the minor advantages of any

individual trade or calling at home, are as immoral in principle as the

continuance of them is unwise in practice, after the lessons they have

received. What, in short, is the whole system of Europe towards America

but an atrocious and insulting tyranny? One hemisphere of the earth,

separated from the other by wide seas on both sides, having a different

system of interests flowing from different climates, different soils,

different productions, different modes of existence, and its own local

relations and duties is made subservient to all the petty interests of

the other, to _their_ laws, _their_ regulations, _their_ passions and

wars, and interdicted from social intercourse, from the interchange of

mutual duties and comforts with their neighbors, enjoined on all men by

the laws of nature. Happily these abuses of human rights are drawing

to a close on both our continents, and are not likely to survive the

present mad contest of the lions and tigers of the other. Nor does it

seem certain that the insular colonies will not soon have to take care

of themselves, and to enter into the general system of independence

and free intercourse with their neighboring and natural friends. The

acknowledged depreciation of the paper circulation of England, with the

known laws of its rapid progression to bankruptcy, will leave that nation

shortly without revenue, and without the means of supporting the naval

power necessary to maintain dominion over the rights and interests of

different nations. The intention too, which they now formally avow, of

taking possession of the ocean as their exclusive domain, and of suffering

no commerce on it but through their ports, makes it the interest of

all mankind to contribute their efforts to bring such usurpations to an

end. We have hitherto been able to avoid professed war, and to continue

to our industry a more salutary direction. But the determination to

take all our vessels bound to any other than her ports, amounting to

all the war she can make (for we fear no invasion), it would be folly

in us to let that war be all on one side only, and to make no effort

towards indemnification and retaliation by reprisal. That a contest

thus forced on us by a nation a thousand leagues from us both, should

place your country and mine in relations of hostility, who have not a

single motive or interest but of mutual friendship and interchange of

comforts, shows the monstrous character of the system under which we

live. But however, in the event of war, greedy individuals on both sides,

availing themselves of its laws, may commit depredations on each other,

I trust that our quiet inhabitants, conscious that no cause exists but

for neighborly good will, and the furtherance of common interests, will

feel only those brotherly affections which nature has ordained to be

those of our situation.

A letter of thanks for a good book has thus run away from its subject

into fields of speculation into which discretion perhaps should have

forbidden me to enter, and for which an apology is due. I trust that

the reflections I hazard will be considered as no more than what they

really are, those of a private individual, withdrawn from the councils

of his country, uncommunicating with them, and responsible alone for any

errors of fact or opinion expressed; as the reveries, in short, of an

old man, who, looking beyond the present day, looks into times not his

own, and as evidences of confidence in the liberal mind of the person

to whom they are so freely addressed. Permit me, however, to add to them

my best wishes for his personal happiness, and assurances of the highest

consideration and respect.

TO MR. EPPES.

MONTICELLO, September 29, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--The enclosed letter came under cover to me without any

indication from what quarter it came.

Our latest arrival brings information of the death of the king of England.

Its coming from Ireland and not direct from England would make it little

worthy of notice, were not the event so probable. On the 26th of July the

English papers say he was expected hourly to expire. This vessel sailed

from Ireland the 4th of August, and says an express brought notice the

day before to the government that he died on the 1st; but whether on

that day or not, we may be certain he is dead, and entertain, therefore,

a hope that a change of ministers will produce that revocation of the

orders of council for which they stand so committed. In this event we

may still remain at peace, and that probably concluded between the other

powers. I am so far, in that case, from believing that our reputation

will be tarnished by our not having mixed in the mad contests of the rest

of the world that, setting aside the ravings of pepper-pot politicians,

of whom there are enough in every age and country, I believe it will

place us high in the scale of wisdom, to have preserved our country

tranquil and prosperous during a contest which prostrated the honor,

power, independence, laws and property of every country on the other

side of the Atlantic. Which of them have better preserved their honor?

Has Spain, has Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Prussia, Austria,

the other German powers, Sweden, Denmark, or even Russia? And would we

accept of the infamy of France or England in exchange for our honest

reputation, or of the result of their enormities, despotism to the

one, and bankruptcy and prostration to the other, in exchange for the

prosperity, the freedom and independence which we have preserved safely

through the wreck? The bottom of my page warns me it is time to present

my homage to Mrs. Eppes, and to yourself and Francis my affectionate

adieux.

TO MR. PAINE TODD.

MONTICELLO, October 10, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--According to promise I send you our observations of the solar

eclipse of September 17th. We had, you know, a perfect observation of

the passage of the sun over the meridian, and the eclipse began so soon

after as to leave little room for error from the time-piece. Her rate

of going, however, was ascertained by ten days' subsequent observation

and comparison with the sun, and the times, as I now give them to you,

are corrected by these. I have no confidence in the times of the first

and ultimate contacts, because you know we were not early enough on the

watch, deceived by our time-piece which was too slow. The impression on

the sun was too sensible when we first observed it, to be considered

as the moment of commencement, and the largeness of our conjectural

correction (18´´) shows that that part of the observation should be

considered as nothing. The last contact was well enough observed, but

it is on the forming and breaking of the annulus that I rely with entire

confidence. I am certain there was not an error of an instant of time in

either. I would be governed, therefore, solely by them, and not suffer

their result to be affected by the others. I have not yet entered on

the calculation of our longitude from them. They will enable you to do

it as a college exercise. Affectionately yours.

First contact, 0h. 13´ 54´´

Annulus formed, 1h. 53´ 0´´ }central time of }central time of

Annulus broken, 1h. 59´ 25´´}annulus, }the two contacts,

Ultimate contact, 3h. 29´ 2´´ 1h. 56´ 12½´ 1h. 51´ 28´´

Latitude of

Monticello, 38° 8´

TO DOCTOR ROBERT PATTERSON.

MONTICELLO, November 10, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of September 23d came to hand in due time, and I

thank you for the nautical almanac it covered for the year 1813. I learn

with pleasure that the Philosophical Society has concluded to take into

consideration the subject of a fixed standard of measures, weights and

coins, and you ask my ideas on it; insulated as my situation is, I am

sure I can offer nothing but what will occur to the committee engaged

on it, with the advantage on their part of correction by an interchange

of sentiments and observations among themselves. I will, however, hazard

some general ideas because you desire it, and if a single one be useful,

the labor will not be lost.

The subject to be referred to as a standard, whether it be matter

or motion, should be fixed by nature, invariable and accessible to

all nations, independently of others, and with a convenience not

disproportioned to its utility. What subject in nature fulfils best these

conditions? What system shall we propose on this, embracing measures,

weights and coins? and in what form shall we present it to the world?

These are the questions before the committee.

Some other subjects have, at different times, been proposed as

standards, but two only have divided the opinions of men: first, a

direct admeasurement of a line on the earth's surface, or second, a

measure derived from its motion on its axis. To measure directly such

a portion of the earth as would furnish an element of measure, which

might be found again with certainty in all future times, would be too

far beyond the competence of our means to be taken into consideration.

I am free, at the same time, to say that if these were within our power

in the most ample degree, this element would not meet my preference.

The admeasurement would of course be of a portion of some great circle

of the earth. If of the equator, the countries over which that passes,

their character and remoteness, render the undertaking arduous, and

we may say impracticable for most nations. If of some meridian, the

varying measures of its degrees from the equator to the pole, require

a mean to be sought, of which some aliquot part may furnish what is

desired. For this purpose the 45th degree has been recurred to, and

such a length of line on both sides of it terminating at each end in

the ocean, as may furnish a satisfactory law for a deduction of the

unmeasured part of the quadrant. The portion resorted to by the French

philosophers, (and there is no other on the globe under circumstances

equally satisfactory,) is the meridian passing through their country and

a portion of Spain, from Dunkirk to Barcelona. The objections to such

an admeasurement as an element of measure, are the labor, the time, the

number of highly-qualified agents, and the great expense required. All

this, too, is to be repeated whenever any accident shall have destroyed

the standard derived from it, or impaired its dimensions. This portion

of that particular meridian is accessible of right to no one nation on

earth. France, indeed, availing herself of a moment of peculiar relation

between Spain and herself, has executed such an admeasurement. But how

would it be at this moment, as to either France or Spain? and how is it at

all times as to other nations, in point either of right or of practice?

Must these go through the same operation, or take their measures from

the standard prepared by France? Neither case bears that character of

independence which the problem requires, and which neither the equality

nor convenience of nations can dispense with. How would it now be, were

England the deposit of a standard for the world? At war with all the

world, the standard would be inaccessible to all other nations. Against

this, too, are the inaccuracies of admeasurements over hills and valleys,

mountains and waters, inaccuracies often unobserved by the agent himself,

and always unknown to the world. The various results of the different

measures heretofore attempted, sufficiently prove the inadequacy of

human means to make such an admeasurement with the exactness requisite.

Let us now see under what circumstances the pendulum offers itself as an

element of measure. The motion of the earth on its axis from noon to noon

of a mean solar day, has been divided from time immemorial, and by very

general consent, into 86,400 portions of time called seconds. The length

of a pendulum vibrating in one of these portions, is determined by the

laws of nature, is invariable under the same parallel, and accessible

independently to all men. Like a degree of the meridian, indeed, it

varies in its length from the equator to the pole, and like it, too,

requires to be reduced to a mean. In seeking a mean in the first case,

the 45th degree occurs with unrivalled preferences. It is the mid-way

of the celestial ark from the equator to the pole. It is a mean between

the two extreme degrees of the terrestrial ark, or between any two

equi-distant from it, and it is also a mean value of all its degrees. In

like manner, when seeking a mean for the pendulum, the same 45th degree

offers itself on the same grounds, its increments being governed by the

same laws which determine those of the different degrees of the meridian.

In a pendulum loaded with a Bob, some difficulty occurs in finding

the centre of oscillation; and consequently the distance between that

and the point of suspension. To lessen this, it has been proposed to

substitute for the pendulum, a cylindrical rod of small diameter, in

which the displacement of the centre of oscillation would be lessened.

It has also been proposed to prolong the suspending wire of the pendulum

below the Bob, until their centres of oscillation shall coincide. But

these propositions not appearing to have received general approbation,

we recur to the pendulum, suspended and charged as has been usual. And

the rather as the laws which determine the centre of oscillation leave

no room for error in finding it, other than that minimum in practice to

which all operations are subject in their execution. The other sources of

inaccuracy in the length of the pendulum need not be mentioned, because

easily guarded against. But the great and decisive superiority of the

pendulum, as a standard of measure, is in its accessibility to all men,

at all times and in all places. To obtain the second pendulum for 45°

it is not necessary to go actually to that latitude. Having ascertained

its length in our own parallel, both theory and observation give us

a law for ascertaining the difference between that and the pendulum

of any other. To make a new measure therefore, or verify an old one,

nothing is necessary in any place but a well-regulated time-piece, or a

good meridian, and such a knowledge of the subject as is common in all

civilized nations.

Those indeed who have preferred the other element, do justice to the

certainty, as well as superior facilities of the pendulum, by proposing

to recur to one of the length of their standard, and to ascertain its

number of vibrations in a day. These being once known, if any accident

impair their standard it is to be recovered by means of a pendulum

which shall make the requisite number of vibrations in a day. And among

the several commissions established by the Academy of Sciences for the

execution of the several branches of their work on measures and weights,

that respecting the pendulum was assigned to Messrs. Borda, Coulomb &

Cassini, the result of whose labors, however, I have not learned.

Let our unit of measures then be a pendulum of such length as in the

latitude of 45°, in the level of the ocean, and in a given temperature,

shall perform its vibrations, in small and equal arcs, in one second of

mean time.

What ratio shall we adopt for the parts and multiples of this unit?

The decimal without a doubt. Our arithmetic being founded in a decimal

numeration, the same numeration in a system of measures, weights and

coins, tallies at once with that. On this question, I believe, there

has been no difference of opinion.

In measures of length, then, the pendulum is our unit. It is a little

more than our yard, and less than the ell. Its tenth or dime, will not

be quite 4 inches. Its hundredth, or cent, not quite .4 of an inch; its

thousandth, or mill, not quite .04 of an inch, and so on. The traveller

will count his road by a longer measure. 1,000 units, or a kiliad, will

not be quite two-thirds of our present mile, and more nearly a thousand

paces than that.

For measures of surface, the square unit, equal to about ten square feet,

or one-ninth more than a square yard, will be generally convenient. But

for those of lands a larger measure will be wanted. A kiliad would be

not quite a rood, or quarter of an acre; a myriad not quite 2½ acres.

For measures of capacity, wet and dry,

The cubic Unit = .1 would be about .35 cubic feet, .28 bushels

dry, or ⅞ of a ton liquid.

Dime = .1 would be about 3.5 cubic feet, 2.8 bushels,

or about ⅞ of a barrel liquid.

Cent = .01 about 50 cubic inches, or ⅞ of a quart.

Mill = .001 = .5 of a cubic inch, or ⅔ of a gill.

To incorporate into the same system our weights and coins, we must recur

to some natural substance, to be found everywhere, and of a composition

sufficiently uniform. Water has been considered as the most eligible

substance, and rain-water more nearly uniform than any other kind found

in nature. That circumstance renders it preferable to distilled water,

and its variations in weight may be called insensible.

The cubic unit of this = .1 would weigh about 2,165 lbs. or a ton between

the long and short.

The Dime = .1 a little more than 2. kentals.

Cent = .01 a little more than 20 lb.

Mill = .001 a little more than 2 lb.

Decimmil = .0001 about 3½ oz. avoirdupois.

Centimmil = .00001 a little more than 6 dwt.

Millionth = .000001 about 15 grains.

Decimmillionth = .0000001 about 1½ grains.

Centimmillionth = .00000001 about .14 of a grain.

Billionth = .000000001 about .014 of a grain.

With respect to our coins, the pure silver in a dollar being fixed by

law at 347¼ grains, and all debts and contracts being bottomed on that

value, we can only state the pure silver in the dollar, which would be

very nearly 23 millionths.

I have used loose and round numbers (the exact unit being yet

undetermined) merely to give a general idea of the measures and weights

proposed, when compared with those we now use. And in the names of the

subdivisions I have followed the metrology of the ordinance of Congress

of 1786, which for their series below unit adopted the Roman numerals.

For that above unit the Grecian is convenient, and has been adopted in

the new French system.

We come now to our last question, in what form shall we offer this

metrical system to the world? In some one which shall be altogether

unassuming; which shall not have the appearance of taking the lead among

our sister institutions in making a general proposition. So jealous is

the spirit of equality in the republic of letters, that the smallest

excitement of that would mar our views, however salutary for all.

We are in habits of correspondence with some of these institutions,

and identity of character and of object, authorize our entering into

correspondence with all. Let us then mature our system as far as can be

done at present, by ascertaining the length of the second pendulum of 45°

by forming two tables, one of which shall give the equivalent of every

different denomination of measures, weights and coins in these States,

in the unit of that pendulum, its decimals and multiples; and the other

stating the equivalent of all the decimal parts and multiples of that

pendulum, in the several denominations of measures, weights and coins

of our existing system. This done, we might communicate to one or more

of these institutions in every civilized country a copy of those tables,

stating as our motive, the difficulty we had experienced, and often the

impossibility of ascertaining the value of the measures, weights and

coins of other countries, expressed in any standard which we possess; that

desirous of being relieved from this, and of obtaining information which

could be relied on for the purposes of science, as well as of business,

we had concluded to ask it from the learned societies of other nations,

who are especially qualified to give it with the requisite accuracy; that

in making this request we had thought it our duty first to do ourselves,

and to offer to others, what we meant to ask from them, by stating the

value of our own measures, weights and coins, in some unit of measure

already possessed, or easily obtainable, by all nations; that the pendulum

vibrating seconds of mean time, presents itself as such an unit; its

length being determined by the laws of nature, and easily ascertainable

at all times and places; that we have thought that of 45° would be the

most unexceptionable, as being a mean of all other parallels, and open

to actual trial in both hemispheres. In this, therefore, as an unit,

and in its parts and multiples in the decimal ratio, we have expressed,

in the tables communicated, the value of all the measures, weights and

coins used in the United States, and we ask in return from their body

a table of the weights, measures and coins in use within their country,

expressed in the parts and multiples of the same unit. Having requested

the same favor from the learned societies of other nations, our object is,

with their assistance, to place within the reach of our fellow citizens

at large a perfect knowledge of the measures, weights and coins of the

countries with which they have commercial or friendly intercourse; and

should the societies of other countries interchange their respective

tables, the learned will be in possession of an uniform language in

measures, weights and coins, which may with time become useful to other

descriptions of their citizens, and even to their governments. This,

however, will rest with their pleasure, not presuming, in the present

proposition, to extend our views beyond the limits of our own nation.

I offer this sketch merely as the outline of the kind of communication

which I should hope would excite no jealousy or repugnance.

Peculiar circumstances, however, would require letters of a more special

character to the Institute of France, and the Royal Society of England.

The magnificent work which France has executed in the admeasurement of

so large a portion of the meridian, has a claim to great respect in our

reference to it. We should only ask a communication of their metrical

system, expressed in equivalent values of the second pendulum of 45° as

ascertained by Messrs. Borda, Coulomb and Cassini, adding, perhaps, the

request of an actual rod of the length of that pendulum.

With England, our explanations will be much more delicate. They are

the older country, the mother country, more advanced in the arts and

sciences, possessing more wealth and leisure for their improvement,

and animated by a pride more than laudable.[1] It is their measures,

too, which we undertake to ascertain and communicate to themselves. The

subject should therefore be opened to them with infinite tenderness and

respect, and in some way which might give them due place in its agency.

The parallel of 45° being within our latitude and not within theirs, the

actual experiments under that would be of course assignable to us. But

as a corrective, I would propose that they should ascertain the length

of the pendulum vibrating seconds in the city of London, or at the

observatory of Greenwich, while we should do the same in an equidistant

parallel to the south of 45°, suppose in 38° 29´. We might ask of them,

too, as they are in possession of the standards of Guildhall, of which

we can have but an unauthentic account, to make the actual application

of those standards to the pendulum when ascertained. The operation we

should undertake under the 45th parallel, (about Passamaquoddy,) would

give us a happy occasion, too, of engaging our sister society of Boston in

our views, by referring to them the execution of that part of the work.

For that of 38° 29´ we should be at a loss. It crosses the tide waters

of the Potomac, about Dumfries, and I do not know what our resources

there would be unless we borrow them from Washington, where there are

competent persons.

Although I have not mentioned Philadelphia in these operations, I by no

means propose to relinquish the benefit of observations to be made there.

Her science and perfection in the arts would be a valuable corrective

to the less perfect state of them in the other places of observation.

Indeed, it is to be wished that Philadelphia could be made the point of

observation south of 45°, and that the Royal Society would undertake

the counterpoint on the north, which would be somewhere between the

Lizard and Falmouth. The actual pendulums from both of our points of

observation, and not merely the measures of them, should be delivered to

the Philosophical Society, to be measured under their eye and direction.

As this is really a work of common and equal interest to England and

the United States, perhaps it would be still more respectful to make our

proposition to her Royal Society in the outset, and to agree with them

on a partition of the work. In this case, any commencement of actual

experiments on our part should be provisional only, and preparatory to

the ultimate results. We might, in the meantime, provisionally also, form

a table adapted to the length of the pendulum of 45°, according to the

most approved estimates, including those of the French commissioners. This

would serve to introduce the subject to the foreign societies, in the

way before proposed, reserving to ourselves the charge of communicating

to them a more perfect one, when that shall have been completed.

We may even go a step further, and make a general table of the measures,

weights and coins of all nations, taking their value hypothetically

for the present, from the tables in the commercial dictionary of the

encyclopedia methodique, which are very extensive, and have the appearance

of being made with great labor and exactness. To these I expect we must

in the end recur, as a supplement for the measures which we may fail

to obtain from other countries directly. Their reference is to the foot

or inch of Paris, as a standard, which we may convert into parts of the

second pendulum of 45°.

I have thus, my dear sir, committed to writing my general ideas on this

subject, the more freely as they are intended merely as suggestions for

consideration. It is not probable they offer anything which would not

have occurred to the committee itself. My apology on offering them must

be found in your request. My confidence in the committee, of which I

take for granted you are one, is too entire to have intruded a single

idea but on that ground.

Be assured of my affectionate and high esteem and respect.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] We are all occupied in industrious pursuits. They abound

with persons living on the industry of their fathers, or on the

earnings of their fellow citizens, given away by their rulers

in sinecures and pensions. Some of these, desirous of laudable

distinction, devote their time and means to the pursuits of

science, and become profitable members of society by an industry

of a higher order.

TO DOCTOR ROBERT PATTERSON.

MONTICELLO, November 10, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I write this letter separate, because you may perhaps think

something in the other of the same date, worth communicating to the

committee.

I accept, willingly, Mr. Voigt's offer to make me a time-piece, and with

the kind of pendulum he proposes. I wish it to be as good as hands can

make it, in everything useful, but no unnecessary labor to be spent on

mere ornament. A plain but neat mahogany case will be preferred.

I have a curiosity to try the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds

here, and would wish Mr. Voigt to prepare one which could be substituted

for that of the clock occasionally, without requiring anything more than

unhanging the one and hanging the other in its place. The bob should be

spherical, of lead, and its radius, I presume, about one inch. As I should

not have the convenience of a room of uniform temperature, the suspending

rod should be such as not to be affected by heat or cold, nor yet so heavy

as to effect too sensibly the centre of oscillation. Would not a rod of

wood not larger than a large wire, answer this double view? I remember

Mr. Rittenhouse told me he had made experiments on some occasion, on the

expansibility of wood lengthwise by heat, which satisfied him it was as

good as the gridiron for a suspender of the bob. By the experiments on

the strength of wood and iron in supporting weights appended to them,

iron has been found but about six times as strong as wood, while its

specific gravity is eight times as great. Consequently, a rod of it of

equal strength, will weigh but three-fourths of one of iron, and disturb

the centre of oscillation less in proportion. A rod of wood of white oak,

e. g. not larger than a seine twine, would probably support a spherical

bob of lead of one inch radius. It might be worked down to that size

I suppose, by the cabinet-makers, who are in the practice of preparing

smaller threads of wood for inlaying. The difficulty would be in making

it fast to the bob at one end, and scapement at the other, so as to

regulate the length with ease and accuracy. This Mr. Voigt's ingenuity

can supply, and in all things I would submit the whole matter to your

direction to him, and be thankful to you to give it. Yours affectionately.

TO MR. H. A. S. DEARBORNE.

MONTICELLO, November 15, 1811.

SIR,--Your favor of October 14 was duly received, and with it Mr.

Bowditch's observations on the comet, for which I pray you to accept my

thanks, and be so good as to present them to Mr. Bowditch also. I am much

pleased to find that we have so able a person engaged in observing the

path of this great phenomenon; and hope that from his observations and

those of others of our philosophical citizens, on its orbit, we shall

have ascertained, on this side of the Atlantic, whether it be one of

those which have heretofore visited us. On the other side of the water

they have great advantages in their well-established observatories, the

magnificent instruments provided for them, and the leisure and information

of their scientific men. The acquirements of Mr. Bowditch in solitude

and unaided by these advantages, do him great honor.

With respect to the eclipse of September 17. I know of no observations

made in this State but my own, although I had no doubt that others had

observed it. I used myself an equatorial telescope, and was aided by a

friend who happened to be with me, and observed through an achromatic

telescope of Dollard's. Two others attended the time-pieces. I had a

perfect observation of the passage of the sun over the meridian, and the

eclipse commencing but a few minutes after, left little room for error

in our time. This little was corrected by the known rate of going of the

clock. But we as good as lost the first appulse by a want of sufficiently

early attention to be at our places, and composed. I have no confidence,

therefore, by several seconds, in the time noted. The last oscillation

of the two luminaries was better observed. Yet even there was a certain

term of uncertainty as to the precise moment at which the indenture on

the limb of the sun entirely vanished. It is therefore the forming of

the annulus, and its breaking, which alone possess my entire and complete

confidence. I am certain there was not an error of an instant of time in

the observation of either of them. Their result therefore should not be

suffered to be affected by either of the others. The four observations

were as follows:

The 1st. appulse, 0h. 13´ 54´´

Annulus formed, 1h. 53´ 0´´} central time of } central time of the

Annulus broken, 1h. 59´25´´} annulus } two contacts

Last oscillation, 3h. 29´ 2´´ 1h. 56´12½´´ 1h. 51´28´´

Latitude of Monticello, 38° 8´

I have thus given you, Sir, my observations, with a candid statement of

their imperfections. If they can be of any use to Mr. Bowditch, it will

be more than was in view when they were made; and should I hear of any

other observations made in this State, I shall not fail to procure and

send him a copy of them. Be so good as to present me affectionately to

your much-esteemed father, and to accept the tender of my respect.

TO MELATIAH NASH.

MONTICELLO, November 15, 1811.

SIR,--I duly received your letter of October 24 on the publication of

an Ephemeris. I have long thought it desirable that something of that

kind should be published in the United States, holding a middle station

between the nautical and the common popular almanacs. It would certainly

be acceptable to a numerous and respectable description of our fellow

citizens, who, without undertaking the higher astronomical operations,

for which the former is calculated, yet occasionally wish for information

beyond the scope of the common almanacs. What you propose to insert in

your Ephemeris is very well so far. But I think you might give it more

of the character desired by the addition of some other articles, which

would not enlarge it more than a leaf or two. For instance, the equation

of time is essential to the regulation of our clocks and watches, and

would only add a narrow column to your 2d page. The sun's declination

is often desirable, and would add but another narrow column to the same

page. This last would be the more useful as an element for obtaining the

rising and setting of the sun, in every part of the United States; for

your Ephemeris will, I suppose, give it only for a particular parallel,

as of New York, which would in a great measure restrain its circulation

to that parallel. But the sun's declination would enable every one to

calculate sunrise for himself, with scarcely more trouble than taking it

from an Almanac. If you would add at the end of the work a formula for

that calculation, as, for example, that for Delalande, § 1026, a little

altered. Thus, to the Logarithmic tangent of the latitude (a constant

number) add the Log. tangent of the sun's declination; taking 10 from

the Index, the remainder is the line of an arch which, turned into time

and added to 6 hours, gives sunrise for the winter half and sunset for

the summer half of the year, to which may be added 3 lines only from

the table of refractions, § 1028, or, to save even this trouble, and

give the calculation ready made for every parallel, print a table of

semi-diurnal arches, ranging the latitudes from 35° to 45° in a line

at top and the degrees of declination in a vertical line on the left,

and stating, in the line of the declination, the semi-diurnal arch for

each degree of latitude, so that every one knowing the latitude of his

place and the declination of the day, would find his sunrise or his

sunset where their horizontal and vertical lines meet. This table is

to be found in many astronomical books, as, for instance, in Wakeley's

Mariner's Compass Rectified, and more accurately in the Connoissance des

tems, for 1788. It would not occupy more than two pages at the end of

the work, and would render it an almanac for every part of the United

States.

To give novelty, and increase the appetite for continuing to buy your

Ephemeris annually, you might every year select some one or two useful

tables which many would wish to possess and preserve. These are to be

found in the requisite tables, the Connoissance des tems for different

years, and many in Pike's arithmetic.

I have given these hints because you requested my opinion. They may extend

the plan of your Ephemeris beyond your view, which will be sufficient

reason for not regarding them. In any event I shall willingly become a

subscriber to it, if you should have any place of deposit for them in

Virginia where the price can be paid. Accept the tender of my respects.

TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN RUSH.

POPLAR FOREST, December 5, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--While at Monticello I am so much engrossed by business or

society, that I can only write on matters of strong urgency. Here I have

leisure, as I have everywhere the disposition to think of my friends.

I recur, therefore, to the subject of your kind letters relating to Mr.

Adams and myself, which a late occurrence has again presented to me. I

communicated to you the correspondence which had parted Mrs. Adams and

myself, in proof that I could not give friendship in exchange for such

sentiments as she had recently taken up towards myself, and avowed and

maintained in her letters to me. Nothing but a total renunciation of

these could admit a reconciliation, and that could be cordial only in

proportion as the return to ancient opinions was believed sincere. In

these jaundiced sentiments of hers I had associated Mr. Adams, knowing

the weight which her opinions had with him, and notwithstanding she

declared in her letters that they were not communicated to him. A late

incident has satisfied me that I wronged him as well as her, in not

yielding entire confidence to this assurance on her part. Two of the Mr.

* * * * *, my neighbors and friends, took a tour to the northward during

the last summer. In Boston they fell into company with Mr. Adams, and

by his invitation passed a day with him at Braintree. He spoke out to

them everything which came uppermost, and as it occurred to his mind,

without any reserve; and seemed most disposed to dwell on those things

which happened during his own administration. He spoke of his _masters_,

as he called his Heads of departments, as acting above his control,

and often against his opinions. Among many other topics, he adverted to

the unprincipled licentiousness of the press against myself, adding, "I

always loved Jefferson, and still love him."

This is enough for me. I only needed this knowledge to revive towards him

all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives. Changing a

single word only in Dr. Franklin's character of him, I knew him to be

always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes incorrect and

precipitate in his judgments; and it is known to those who have ever

heard me speak of Mr. Adams, that I have ever done him justice myself,

and defended him when assailed by others, with the single exception as

to political opinions. But with a man possessing so many other estimable

qualities, why should we be dissocialized by mere differences of opinion

in politics, in religion, in philosophy, or anything else. His opinions

are as honestly formed as my own. Our different views of the same subject

are the result of a difference in our organization and experience. I

never withdrew from the society of any man on this account, although

many have done it from me; much less should I do it from one with whom

I had gone through, with hand and heart, so many trying scenes. I wish,

therefore, but for an apposite occasion to express to Mr. Adams my

unchanged affections for him. There is an awkwardness which hangs over

the resuming a correspondence so long discontinued, unless something

could arise which should call for a letter. Time and chance may perhaps

generate such an occasion, of which I shall not be wanting in promptitude

to avail myself. From this fusion of mutual affections, Mrs. Adams is

of course separated. It will only be necessary that I never name her.

In your letters to Mr. Adams, you can, perhaps, suggest my continued

cordiality towards him, and knowing this, should an occasion of writing

first present itself to him, he will perhaps avail himself of it, as I

certainly will, should it first occur to me. No ground for jealousy now

existing, he will certainly give fair play to the natural warmth of his

heart. Perhaps I may open the way in some letter to my old friend Gerry,

who I know is in habits of the greatest intimacy with him.

I have thus, my friend, laid open my heart to you, because you were so

kind as to take an interest in healing again revolutionary affections,

which have ceased in expression only, but not in their existence. God

ever bless you, and preserve you in life and health.

TO DOCTOR CRAWFORD.

MONTICELLO, January 2, 1812.

SIR,--Your favor of December 17th, has been duly received, and with

it the pamphlet on the cause, seat and cure of diseases, for which be

pleased to accept my thanks. The commencement which you propose by the

natural history of the diseases of the human body, is a very interesting

one, and will certainly be the best foundation for whatever relates to

their cure. While surgery is seated in the temple of the exact sciences,

medicine has scarcely entered its threshold. Her theories have passed in

such rapid succession as to prove the insufficiency of all, and their

fatal errors are recorded in the necrology of man. For some forms of

disease, well known and well defined, she has found substances which will

restore order to the human system, and it is to be hoped that observation

and experience will add to their number. But a great mass of diseases

remain undistinguished and unknown, exposed to the random shot of the

theory of the day. If on this chaos you can throw such a beam of light

as your celebrated brother has done on the sources of animal heat, you

will, like him, render great service to mankind.

The fate of England, I think with you, is nearly decided, and the

present form of her existence is drawing to a close. The ground, the

houses, the men will remain; but in what new form they will revive and

stand among nations, is beyond the reach of human foresight. We hope

it may be one of which the predatory principle may not be the essential

characteristic. If her transformation shall replace her under the laws

of moral order, it is for the general interest that she should still be

a sensible and independent weight in the scale of nations, and be able

to contribute, when a favorable moment presents itself, to reduce under

the same order, her great rival in flagitiousness. We especially ought to

pray that the powers of Europe may be so poised and counterpoised among

themselves, that their own safety may require the presence of all their

force at home, leaving the other quarters of the globe in undisturbed

tranquillity. When our strength will permit us to give the law of our

hemisphere, it should be that the meridian of the mid-Atlantic should

be the line of demarkation between war and peace, on this side of which

no act of hostility should be committed, and the lion and the lamb lie

down in peace together.

I am particularly thankful for the kind expressions of your letter towards

myself, and tender you in return my best wishes and the assurances of

my great respect and esteem.

TO MR. THOMAS PULLY.

MONTICELLO, January 8, 1812.

SIR,--I have duly received your favor of December 22d, informing me

that the society of artists of the United States had made me an honorary

member of their society. I am very justly sensible of the honor they have

done me, and I pray you to return them my thanks for this mark of their

distinction. I fear that I can be but a very useless associate. Time,

which withers the fancy, as the other faculties of the mind and body,

presses on me with a heavy hand, and distance intercepts all personal

intercourse. I can offer, therefore, but my zealous good wishes for the

success of the institution, and that, embellishing with taste a country

already overflowing with the useful productions, it may be able to give an

innocent and pleasing direction to accumulations of wealth, which would

otherwise be employed in the nourishment of coarse and vicious habits.

With these I tender to the society and to yourself the assurances of my

high respect and consideration.

TO COLONEL MONROE.

MONTICELLO, January 11, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for your letter of the 6th. It is a proof of your

friendship, and of the sincere interest you take in whatever concerns

me. Of this I have never had a moment's doubt, and have ever valued it

as a precious treasure. The question indeed whether I knew or approved

of General Wilkinson's endeavors to prevent the restoration of the

right of deposit at New Orleans, could never require a second of time

to answer. But it requires some time for the mind to recover from the

astonishment excited by the boldness of the suggestion. Indeed, it is

with difficulty I can believe he has really made such an appeal; and

the rather as the expression in your letter is that you have "casually

heard it," without stating the degree of reliance which you have in the

source of information. I think his understanding is above an expedient

so momentary and so finally overwhelming. Were Dearborne and myself dead,

it might find credit with some. But the world at large, even then, would

weigh for themselves the dilemma, whether it was more probable that, in

the situation I then was, clothed with the confidence and power of my

country, I should descend to so unmeaning an act of treason, or that he,

in the wreck now threatening him, should wildly lay hold of any plank.

They would weigh his motives and views against those of Dearborne and

myself, the tenor of his life against that of ours, his Spanish mysteries

against my open cherishment of the Western interests; and, living as we

are, and ready to purge ourselves by any ordeal, they must now weigh, in

addition, our testimony against his. All this makes me believe he will

never seek this refuge. I have ever and carefully restrained myself from

the expression of any opinion respecting General Wilkinson, except in

the case of Burr's conspiracy, wherein, after he had got over his first

agitations, we believed his decision firm, and his conduct zealous for

the defeat of the conspiracy, and although injudicious, yet meriting,

from sound intentions, the support of the nation. As to the rest of his

life, I have left it to his friends and his enemies, to whom it furnishes

matter enough for disputation. I classed myself with neither, and least

of all in this time of his distresses, should I be disposed to add to

their pressure. I hope, therefore, he has not been so imprudent as to

write our names in the pannel of his witnesses.

Accept the assurances of my constant affections.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, January 21, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you before hand (for they are not yet arrived) for

the specimens of homespun you have been so kind as to forward me by

post. I doubt not their excellence, knowing how far you are advanced in

these things in your quarter. Here we do little in the fine way, but in

coarse and middling goods a great deal. Every family in the country is

a manufactory within itself, and is very generally able to make within

itself all the stouter and middling stuffs for its own clothing and

household use. We consider a sheep for every person in the family as

sufficient to clothe it, in addition to the cotton, hemp and flax which

we raise ourselves. For fine stuff we shall depend on your northern

manufactories. Of these, that is to say, of company establishments, we

have none. We use little machinery. The spinning jenny, and loom with the

flying shuttle, can be managed in a family; but nothing more complicated.

The economy and thriftiness resulting from our household manufactures are

such that they will never again be laid aside; and nothing more salutary

for us has ever happened than the British obstructions to our demands

for their manufactures. Restore free intercourse when they will, their

commerce with us will have totally changed its form, and the articles

we shall in future want from them will not exceed their own consumption

of our produce.

A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries

me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were

fellow-laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable

to man, his right of self-government. Laboring always at the same oar,

with some wave ever ahead, threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing

harmless under our bark, we knew not how we rode through the storm

with heart and hand, and made a happy port. Still we did not expect

to be without rubs and difficulties; and we have had them. First, the

detention of the western posts, then the coalition of Pilnitz, outlawing

our commerce with France, and the British enforcement of the outlawry.

In your day, French depredations; in mine, English, and the Berlin and

Milan decrees; now, the English orders of council, and the piracies they

authorize. When these shall be over, it will be the impressment of our

seamen or something else; and so we have gone on, and so we shall go

on, puzzled and prospering beyond example in the history of man. And I

do believe we shall continue to growl, to multiply and prosper until we

exhibit an association, powerful, wise and happy, beyond what has yet

been seen by men. As for France and England, with all their preëminence

in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates.

And if science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine

and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country

to be ignorant, honest and estimable, as our neighboring savages are.

But whither is senile garrulity leading me? Into politics, of which

I have taken final leave. I think little of them and say less. I have

given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton

and Euclid, and I find myself much the happier. Sometimes, indeed,

I look back to former occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends

and fellow-laborers, who have fallen before us. Of the signers of the

Declaration of Independence, I see now living not more than half a dozen

on your side of the Potomac, and on this side, myself alone. You and I

have been wonderfully spared, and myself with remarkable health, and a

considerable activity of body and mind. I am on horseback three or four

hours of every day; visit three or four times a year a possession I

have ninety miles distant, performing the winter journey on horseback.

I walk little, however, a single mile being too much for me, and I live

in the midst of my grand children, one of whom has lately promoted me

to be a great grandfather. I have heard with pleasure that you also

retain good health, and a greater power of exercise in walking than I

do. But I would rather have heard this from yourself, and that, writing

a letter like mine, full of egotisms, and of details of your health,

your habits, occupations and enjoyments, I should have the pleasure

of knowing that in the race of life, you do not keep, in its physical

decline, the same distance ahead of me which you have done in political

honors and achievements. No circumstances have lessened the interest I

feel in these particulars respecting yourself; none have suspended for

one moment my sincere esteem for you, and I now salute you with unchanged

affection and respect.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR BARBOUR.

MONTICELLO, January 22, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 14th has been duly received, and I sincerely

congratulate you, or rather my country, on the just testimony of

confidence which it has lately manifested to you. In your hands I know

that its affairs will be ably and honestly administered.

In answer to your inquiry whether, in the early times of our government,

where the council was divided, the practice was for the Governor to give

the deciding vote? I must observe that, correctly speaking, the Governor

not being a counsellor, his vote could make no part of an advice of

council. That would be to place an advice on their journals which they

did not give, and could not give because of their equal division. But

he did what was equivalent in effect. While I was in the administration,

no doubt was ever suggested that where the council, divided in opinion,

could give no advice, the Governor was free and bound to act on his

own opinion and his own responsibility. Had this been a change of the

practice of my predecessor, Mr. Henry, the first governor, it would have

produced some discussion, which it never did. Hence, I conclude it was

the opinion and practice from the first institution of the government.

During Arnold's and Cornwallis' invasion, the council dispersed to their

several homes, to take care of their families. Before their separation,

I obtained from them a capitulary of standing advices for my government

in such cases as ordinarily occur: such as the appointment of militia

officers, justices, inspectors, &c., on the recommendations of the

courts; but in the numerous and extraordinary occurrences of an invasion,

which could not be foreseen, I had to act on my own judgment and my

own responsibility. The vote of general approbation, at the session

of the succeeding winter, manifested the opinion of the Legislature,

that my proceedings had been correct. General Nelson, my successor,

staid mostly, I think, with the army; and I do not believe his council

followed the camp, although my memory does not enable me to affirm the

fact. Some petitions against him for impressment of property without

authority of law, brought his proceedings before the next Legislature;

the questions necessarily involved were whether necessity, without

express law, could justify the impressment, and if it could, whether he

could order it without the advice of council. The approbation of the

Legislature amounted to a decision of both questions. I remember this

case the more especially, because I was then a member of the Legislature,

and was one of those who supported the Governor's proceedings, and I

think there was no division of the House on the question. I believe the

doubt was first suggested in Governor Harrison's time, by some member of

the council, on an equal division. Harrison, in his dry way, observed

that instead of one governor and eight counsellors, there would then

be eight governors and one counsellor, and continued, as I understood,

the practice of his predecessors. Indeed, it is difficult to suppose it

could be the intention of those who framed the constitution, that when

the council should be divided the government should stand still; and

the more difficult as to a constitution formed during a war, and for

the purpose of carrying on that war, that so high an officer as their

Governor should be created and salaried, merely to act as the clerk and

authenticator of the votes of the council. No doubt it was intended that

the advice of the council should control the governor. But the action of

the controlling power being withdrawn, his would be left free to proceed

on its own responsibility. Where from division, absence, sickness or

other obstacle, no advice could be given, they could not mean that their

Governor, the person of their peculiar choice and confidence, should stand

by, an inactive spectator, and let their government tumble to pieces for

want of a will to direct it. In executive cases, where promptitude and

decision are all important, an adherence to the letter of a law against

its probable intentions, (for every law must intend that itself shall be

executed,) would be fraught with incalculable danger. Judges may await

further legislative explanations, but a delay of executive action might

produce irretrievable ruin. The State is invaded, militia to be called

out, an army marched, arms and provisions to be issued from the public

magazines, the Legislature to be convened, and the council is divided.

Can it be believed to have been the intention of the framers of the

constitution, that the constitution itself and their constituents with

it should be destroyed for want of a will to direct the resources they

had provided for its preservation? Before such possible consequences

all verbal scruples must vanish; construction must be made _secundum

arbitrium boni viri_, and the constitution be rendered a practicable

thing. That exposition of it must be vicious, which would leave the

nation under the most dangerous emergencies without a directing will.

The cautious maxims of the bench, to seek the will of the legislator and

his words only, are proper and safer for judicial government. They act

ever on an individual case only, the evil of which is partial, and gives

time for correction. But an instant of delay in executive proceedings

may be fatal to the whole nation. They must not, therefore, be laced up

in the rules of the judiciary department. They must seek the intention

of the legislator in all the circumstances which may indicate it in the

history of the day, in the public discussions, in the general opinion and

understanding, in reason and in practice. The three great departments

having distinct functions to perform, must have distinct rules adapted

to them. Each must act under its own rules, those of no one having

any obligation on either of the others. When the opinion first begun

that a governor could not act when his council could not or would not

advise, I am uninformed. Probably not till after the war; for, had it

prevailed then, no militia could have been opposed to Cornwallis, nor

necessaries furnished to the opposing army of Lafayette. These, Sir, are

my recollections and thoughts on the subject of your inquiry, to which

I will only add the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO BENJAMIN GALLOWAY, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 2, 1812.

SIR,--I duly received your favor of the 1st inst., together with the

volume accompanying it, for which I pray you to accept my thanks, and

to be so kind as to convey them to Mrs. Debutts also, to whose obliging

care I am indebted for its transmission. But especially my thanks are

due to the author himself for the honorable mention he has made of me.

With the exception of two or three characters of greater eminence in the

revolution, we formed a group of fellow laborers in the common cause,

animated by a common zeal, and claiming no distinction of one over

another.

The spirit of freedom, breathed through the whole of Mr. Northmore's

composition, is really worthy of the purest times of Greece and Rome. It

would have been received in England, in the days of Hampden and Sidney,

with more favor than at this time. It marks a high and independent mind

in the author, one capable of rising above the partialities of country,

to have seen in the adversary cause that of justice and freedom, and to

have estimated fairly the motives and actions of those engaged in its

support. I hope and firmly believe that the whole world will, sooner

later, feel benefit from the issue of our assertion of the rights of man.

Although the horrors of the French revolution have damped for awhile the

ardor of the patriots in every country, yet it is not extinguished--it

will never die. The sense of right has been excited in every breast, and

the spark will be rekindled by the very oppressions of that detestable

tyranny employed to quench it. The errors of the honest patriots of

France, and the crimes of her Dantons and Robespierres, will be forgotten

in the more encouraging contemplation of our sober example, and steady

march to our object. Hope will strengthen the presumption that what has

been done once may be done again. As you have been the channel of my

receiving this mark of attention from Mr. Northmore, I must pray you

to be that of conveying to him my thanks, and an assurance of the high

sense I have of the merit of his work, and of its tendency to cherish

the noblest virtues of the human character.

On the political events of the day I have nothing to communicate. I have

retired from them, and given up newspapers for more classical reading.

I add, therefore, only the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO MR. EZRA SARGEANT.

MONTICELLO, February 3, 1812.

SIR,--Observing that you edit the Edinburgh Review, reprinted in New

York, and presuming that your occupations in that line are not confined

to that single work, I take the liberty of addressing the present letter

to you. If I am mistaken, the obviousness of the inference will be my

apology. Mr. Edward Livingston brought an action against me for having

removed his intrusion on the beach of the river Mississippi opposite

to New Orleans. At the request of my counsel I made a statement of the

facts of the case, and of the law applicable to them, so as to form a

full argument of justification. The case has been dismissed from court

for want of jurisdiction, and the public remain uninformed whether I

had really abused the powers entrusted to me, as he alleged. I wish

to convey to them this information by publishing the justification.

The questions arising in the case are mostly under the civil law, the

laws of Spain and of France, which are of course couched in French, in

Spanish, in Latin, and some in Greek; and the books being in few hands

in this country, I was obliged to make very long extracts from them. The

correctness with which your edition of the Edinburgh Review is printed,

and of the passages quoted in those languages, induces me to propose to

you the publication of the case I speak of. It will fill about 65 or 70

pages of the type and size of paper of the Edinburgh Review. The MS. is

in the handwriting of this letter, entirely fair and correct. It will

take between four and five sheets of paper, of sixteen pages each. I

should want 250 copies struck off for myself, intended principally for

the members of Congress, and the printer would be at liberty to print

as many more as he pleased for sale, but without any copyright, which

I should not propose to have taken out. It is right that I should add,

that the work is not at all for popular reading. It is merely a law

argument, and a very dry one; having been intended merely for the eye of

my counsel. It may be in some demand perhaps with lawyers, and persons

engaged in the public affairs, but very little beyond that. Will you

be so good as to inform me if you will undertake to edit this, and what

would be the terms on which you can furnish me with 250 copies? I should

want it to be done with as little delay as possible, so that Congress

might receive it before they separate; and I should add as a condition,

that not a copy should be sold until I could receive my number, and have

time to lay them on the desks of the members. This would require a month

from the time they should leave New York by the stage. In hopes of an

early answer I tender you the assurances of my respect.

MONTICELLO, February 14, 1812.

Thomas Jefferson presents his compliments to Dr. Wheaton, and his thanks

for the address he was so kind as to enclose him on the advancement in

Medicine. Having little confidence in the theories of that art, which

change in their fashion with the ladies' caps and gowns, he has much in

the facts it has established by observation. The experience of physicians

has proved that in certain forms of disease, certain substances will

restore order to the human system; and he doubts not that continued

observation will enlarge the catalogue, and give relief to our posterity

in cases wherein we are without it. The extirpation of the small pox

by vaccination, is an encouraging proof that the condition of man is

susceptible of amelioration, although we are not able to fix its extent.

He salutes Dr. Wheaton with esteem and respect.

TO MR. CHARLES CHRISTIAN.

MONTICELLO, March 21, 1812.

SIR,--I have duly received your favor of the 10th inst. proposing to

me to join in a contribution for the support of the family of the late

Mr. Cheetham of New York. Private charities, as well as contributions

to public purposes in proportion to every one's circumstances, are

certainly among the duties we owe to society, and I have never felt a

wish to withdraw from my portion of them. The general relation in which

I, some time since, stood to the citizens of all our States, drew on me

such multitudes of these applications as exceeded all resource. Nor have

they much abated since my retirement to the limited duties of a private

citizen, and the more limited resources of a private fortune. They have

obliged me to lay down as a law of conduct for myself, to restrain my

contributions for public institutions to the circle of my own State,

and for private charities to that which is under my own observation;

and these calls I find more than sufficient for everything I can spare.

Nor was there anything in the case of the late Mr. Cheetham, which could

claim with me to be taken out of a general rule. On these considerations

I must decline the contribution you propose, not doubting that the

efforts of the family, aided by those who stand in the relation to them

of neighbors and friends, in so great a mart for industry as they are

placed in, will save them from all danger of want or suffering. With

this apology for returning the paper sent me, unsubscribed, be pleased

to accept the tender of my respect.

TO MR. VANDER KEMP.

MONTICELLO, March 22, 1812.

SIR,--I am indebted to you for the communication of the prospectus of

a work embracing the history of civilized man, political and moral,

from the great change produced in his condition by the extension of

the feudal system over Europe through all the successive effects of the

revival of letters, the invention of printing, that of the compass, the

enlargement of science, and the revolutionary spirit, religious and civil,

generated by that. It presents a vast anatomy of fact and reflection,

which if duly filled up would offer to the human mind a wonderful mass

for contemplation.

Your letter does not ascertain whether this work is already executed,

or only meditated; but it excites a great desire to see it completed,

and a confidence that the author of the analysis is best able to develop

the profound views there only sketched. It would be a library in itself,

and to our country particularly desirable and valuable, if executed in

the genuine republican principles of our constitution. The only orthodox

object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest

degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated

under it. The events which this work proposes to embrace will establish

the fact that unless the mass retains sufficient control over those

intrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted

to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in

the individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our

constitution has hit on the exact degree of control necessary, is yet

under experiment; and it is a most encouraging reflection that distance

and other difficulties securing us against the brigand governments of

Europe, in the safe enjoyment of our farms and firesides, the experiment

stands a better chance of being satisfactorily made here than on any

occasion yet presented by history. To promote, therefore, unanimity and

perseverance in this great enterprise, to disdain despair, encourage

trial, and nourish hope, are the worthiest objects of every political

and philanthropic work; and that this would be the necessary result

of that which you have delineated, the facts it will review, and the

just reflections arising out of them, will sufficiently answer. I hope,

therefore, that it is not _in petto_ merely, but already completed; and

that my fellow citizens, warned in it of the rocks and shoals on which

other political associations have been wrecked, will be able to direct

theirs with a better knowledge of the dangers in its way.

The enlargement of your observations on the subjects of natural history,

alluded to in your letter, cannot fail to add to our lights respecting

them, and will therefore ever be a welcome present to every friend of

science. Accept, I pray you, the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO THE HONORABLE MR. NELSON.

MONTICELLO, April 2d, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--Your letter of March 22d has been duly received. By this time

a printed copy of my MS. respecting the Batture has I hope been laid

on your desk, by which you will perceive that the MS. itself has been

received long enough to have been sent to New York, printed and returned

to Washington.

On the subject of the omission of the officers of the Virginia State

line, in the provisions and reservations of the cession of Congress,

my memory enables me to say nothing more than that it was not through

inattention, as I believe, but the result of compromise. But of this

the President, who was in Congress when the arrangement was settled, can

give the best account. I had nothing to do but execute a deed according

to that arrangement, made previous to my being a member. Colonel Monroe

being a member with me, is more likely to remember what passed at that

time; but the best resource for explanation of everything we did, is in

our weekly correspondence with the Governor of Virginia, which I suppose

is still among the Executive records. We made it a point to write a

letter to him every week, either jointly, or individually by turns.

You request me to state the public sentiment of our part of the country

as to war and the taxes. You know I do not go out much. My own house

and our court yard are the only places where I see my fellow citizens.

As far as I can judge in this limited sphere, I think all regret that

there is cause for war, but all consider it as now necessary, and would,

I think, disapprove of a much longer delay of the declaration of it.

As to the taxes, they expect to meet them, would be unwilling to have

them postponed, and are only dissatisfied with some of the subjects of

taxation; that is to say the stamp tax and excise. To the former I have

not seen a man who is not totally irreconcilable. If the latter could be

collected from those who buy to sell again, so as to prevent domiciliary

visits by the officers, I think it would be acceptable, and I am sure a

wholesome tax. I am persuaded the Secretary of the Treasury is mistaken

in supposing so immense a deduction from the duties on imports. We shall

make little less to sell than we do now, for no one will let his hands

be idle; and consequently we shall export not much less, and expect

returns. Some part will be taken on the export and some on the import.

But taking into account the advance of prices, that revenue will not

fall so far short as he thinks; and I have no doubt might be counted

on to make good the entire suppression of the stamp tax. Yet, although

a very disgusting pill, I think there can be no question the people

will swallow it, if their representatives determine on it. I get their

sentiments mostly from those who are most in the habit of intercourse

with the people than I am myself. Accept the assurance of my great esteem

and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, April 17, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--The enclosed papers will explain themselves. Their coming to

me is the only thing not sufficiently explained.

Your favor of the 3d came duly to hand. Although something of the kind

had been apprehended, the embargo found the farmers and planters only

getting their produce to market, and selling as fast as they could get it

there. I think it caught them in this part of the State with one-third of

their flour or wheat and three-quarters of their tobacco undisposed of.

If we may suppose the rest of the middle country in the same situation,

and that the upper and lower country may be judged by that as a mean,

these will perhaps be the proportions of produce remaining in the hands

of the producers. Supposing the objects of the government were merely to

keep our vessels and men out of harm's way, and that there is no idea

that the want of our flour will starve Great Britain, the sale of the

remaining produce will be rather desirable, and what would be desired

even in war, and even to our enemies. For I am favorable to the opinion

which has been urged by others, sometimes acted on, and now partly so by

France and Great Britain, that commerce, under certain restrictions and

licenses, may be indulged between enemies mutually advantageous to the

individuals, and not to their injury as belligerents. The capitulation

of Amelia Island, if confirmed, might favor this object, and at any rate

get off our produce now on hand. I think a people would go through a

war with much less impatience if they could dispose of their produce,

and that unless a vent can be provided for them, they will soon become

querulous and clamor for peace. They appear at present to receive the

embargo with perfect acquiescence and without a murmur, seeing the

necessity of taking care of our vessels and seamen. Yet they would be

glad to dispose of their produce in any way not endangering them, as by

letting it go from a neutral place in British vessels. In this way we

lose the carriage only; but better that than both carriage and cargo.

The rising of the price of flour, since the first panic is passed away,

indicates some prospects in the merchants of disposing of it. Our wheat

had greatly suffered by the winter, but is as remarkably recovered by

the favorable weather of the spring. Ever affectionately yours.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, April 20, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--I have it now in my power to send you a piece of homespun in

return for that I received from you. Not of the fine texture, or delicate

character of yours, or, to drop our metaphor, not filled as that was

with that display of imagination which constitutes excellence in Belles

Lettres, but a mere sober, dry and formal piece of logic. _Ornari res

ipsa negat._ Yet you may have enough left of your old taste for law

reading, to cast an eye over some of the questions it discusses. At any

rate, accept it as the offering of esteem and friendship.

You wish to know something of the Richmond and Wabash prophets. Of Nimrod

Hews I never heard before. Christopher Macpherson I have known for twenty

years. He is a man of color, brought up as a book-keeper by a merchant,

his master, and afterwards enfranchized. He had understanding enough to

post up his ledger from his journal, but not enough to bear up against

hypochondriac affections, and the gloomy forebodings they inspire. He

became crazy, foggy, his head always in the clouds, and rhapsodizing

what neither himself nor any one else could understand. I think he told

me he had visited you personally while you were in the administration,

and wrote you letters, which you have probably forgotten in the mass

of the correspondences of that crazy class, of whose complaints, and

terrors, and mysticisms, the several Presidents have been the regular

depositories. Macpherson was too honest to be molested by anybody, and

too inoffensive to be a subject for the mad-house; although, I believe,

we are told in the old book, that "every man that is mad, and maketh

himself a prophet, thou shouldst put him in prison and in the stocks."

The Wabash prophet is a very different character, more rogue than fool,

if to be a rogue is not the greatest of all follies. He arose to notice

while I was in the administration, and became, of course, a proper subject

of inquiry for me. The inquiry was made with diligence. His declared

object was the reformation of his red brethren, and their return to their

pristine manner of living. He pretended to be in constant communication

with the Great Spirit; that he was instructed by him to make known to

the Indians that they were created by him distinct from the whites, of

different natures, for different purposes, and placed under different

circumstances, adapted to their nature and destinies; that they must

return from all the ways of the whites to the habits and opinions of

their forefathers; they must not eat the flesh of hogs, of bullocks,

of sheep, &c., the deer and buffalo having been created for their food;

they must not make bread of wheat but of Indian corn; they must not wear

linen nor woollen, but dress like their fathers in the skins and furs

of animals; they must not drink ardent spirits, and I do not remember

whether he extended his inhibitions to the gun and gunpowder, in favor of

the bow and arrow. I concluded from all this, that he was a visionary,

enveloped in the clouds of their antiquities, and vainly endeavoring to

lead back his brethren to the fancied beatitudes of their golden age. I

thought there was little danger of his making many proselytes from the

habits and comfort they had learned from the whites, to the hardships

and privations of savagism, and no great harm if he did. We let him go

on, therefore, unmolested. But his followers increased till the English

thought him worth corruption and found him corruptible. I suppose his

views were then changed; but his proceedings in consequence of them were

after I left the administration, and are, therefore, unknown to me; nor

have I ever been informed what were the particular acts on his part,

which produced an actual commencement of hostilities on ours. I have

no doubt, however, that his subsequent proceedings are but a chapter

apart, like that of Henry and Lord Liverpool, in the book of the kings

of England.

Of this mission of Henry, your son had got wind in the time of the

embargo, and communicated it to me. But he had learned nothing of the

particular agent, although, of his workings, the information he had

obtained appears now to have been correct. He stated a particular which

Henry has not distinctly brought forward, which was that the Eastern

States were not to be required to make a formal act of separation from

the Union, and to take a part in the war against it; a measure deemed

much too strong for their people; but to declare themselves in a state of

neutrality, in consideration of which they were to have peace and free

commerce, the lure most likely to insure popular acquiescence. Having

no indications of Henry as the intermediate in this negotiation of the

Essex junto, suspicions fell on Pickering, and his nephew Williams, in

London. If he was wronged in this, the ground of the suspicion is to

be found in his known practices and avowed opinions, as that of his

accomplices in the sameness of sentiment and of language with Henry,

and subsequently by the fluttering of the wounded pigeons.

This letter, with what it encloses, has given you enough, I presume, of

law and the prophets. I will only add to it, therefore, the homage of my

respects to Mrs. Adams, and to yourself the assurances of affectionate

esteem and respect.

TO JAMES MAURY.

MONTICELLO, April 25, 1812.

MY DEAR AND ANCIENT FRIEND AND CLASSMATE,--Often has my heart smote me

for delaying acknowledgments to you, receiving, as I do, such frequent

proofs of your kind recollection in the transmission of papers to me. But

instead of acting on the good old maxim of not putting off to to-morrow

what we can do to-day, we are too apt to reverse it, and not to do to-day

what we can put off to-morrow. But this duty can be no longer put off.

To-day we are at peace; to-morrow, war. The curtain of separation is

drawing between us, and probably will not be withdrawn till one, if not

both of us, will be at rest with our fathers. Let me now, then, while

I may, renew to you the declarations of my warm attachment, which in no

period of life has ever been weakened, and seems to become stronger as

the remaining objects of our youthful affections are fewer.

Our two countries are to be at war, but not you and I. And why should

our two countries be at war, when by peace we can be so much more useful

to one another? Surely the world will acquit our government from having

sought it. Never before has there been an instance of a nation's bearing

so much as we have borne. Two items alone in our catalogue of wrongs

will forever acquit us of being the aggressors: the impressment of our

seamen, and the excluding us from the ocean. The first foundations of

the social compact would be broken up, were we definitively to refuse

to its members the protection of their persons and property, while in

their lawful pursuits. I think the war will not be short, because the

object of England, long obvious, is to claim the ocean as her domain,

and to exact transit duties from every vessel traversing it. This is

the sum of her orders of council, which were only a step in this bold

experiment, never meant to be retracted if it could be permanently

maintained. And this object must continue her in war with all the world.

To this I see no termination, until her exaggerated efforts, so much

beyond her natural strength and resources, shall have exhausted her

to bankruptcy. The approach of this crisis is, I think, visible in the

departure of her precious metals, and depreciation of her paper medium.

We, who have gone through that operation, know its symptoms, its course,

and consequences. In England they will be more serious than elsewhere,

because half the wealth of her people is now in that medium, the private

revenue of her money-holders, or rather of her paper-holders, being,

I believe, greater than that of her land-holders. Such a proportion of

property, imaginary and baseless as it is, cannot be reduced to vapor

but with great explosion. She will rise out of its ruins, however,

because her lands, her houses, her arts will remain, and the greater

part of her men. And these will give her again that place among nations

which is proportioned to her natural means, and which we all wish her

to hold. We believe that the just standing of all nations is the health

and security of all. We consider the overwhelming power of England on

the ocean, and of France on the land, as destructive of the prosperity

and happiness of the world, and wish both to be reduced only to the

necessity of observing moral duties. We believe no more in Bonaparte's

fighting merely for the liberty of the seas, than in Great Britain's

fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object of both is the same,

to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other

nations. We resist the enterprises of England first, because they first

come vitally home to us. And our feelings repel the logic of bearing the

lash of George the III. for fear of that of Bonaparte at some future

day. When the wrongs of France shall reach us with equal effect, we

shall resist them also. But one at a time is enough; and having offered

a choice to the champions, England first takes up the gauntlet.

The English newspapers suppose me the personal enemy of their nation. I

am not so. I am an enemy to its injuries, as I am to those of France.

If I could permit myself to have national partialities, and if the

conduct of England would have permitted them to be directed towards

her, they would have been so. I thought that in the administration of

Mr. Addington, I discovered some dispositions toward justice, and even

friendship and respect for us, and began to pave the way for cherishing

these dispositions, and improving them into ties of mutual good will.

But we had then a federal minister there, whose dispositions to believe

himself, and to inspire others with a belief in our sincerity, his

subsequent conduct has brought into doubt; and poor Merry, the English

minister here, had learned nothing of diplomacy but its suspicions,

without head enough to distinguish when they were misplaced. Mr. Addington

and Mr. Fox passed away too soon to avail the two countries of their

dispositions. Had I been personally hostile to England, and biased in

favor of either the character or views of her great antagonist, the

affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand. I had only to open it

and let havoc loose. But if ever I was gratified with the possession of

power, and of the confidence of those who had entrusted me with it, it

was on that occasion when I was enabled to use both for the prevention

of war, towards which the torrent of passion here was directed almost

irresistibly, and when not another person in the United States, less

supported by authority and favor, could have resisted it. And now that a

definitive adherence to her impressments and orders of council renders

war no longer avoidable, my earnest prayer is that our government may

enter into no compact of common cause with the other belligerent, but

keep us free to make a separate peace, whenever England will separately

give us peace and future security. But Lord Liverpool is our witness

that this can never be but by her removal from our neighborhood.

I have thus, for a moment, taken a range into the field of politics,

to possess you with the view we take of things here. But in the scenes

which are to ensue, I am to be but a spectator. I have withdrawn myself

from all political intermeddlings, to indulge the evening of my life

with what have been the passions of every portion of it, books, science,

my farms, my family and friends. To these every hour of the day is now

devoted. I retain a good activity of mind, not quite as much of body,

but uninterrupted health. Still the hand of age is upon me. All my old

friends are nearly gone. Of those in my neighborhood, Mr. Divers and Mr.

Lindsay alone remain. If you could make it a partie quarrée, it would

be a comfort indeed. We would beguile our lingering hours with talking

over our youthful exploits, our hunts on Peter's mountain, with a long

train of _et cetera_, in addition, and feel, by recollection at least, a

momentary flash of youth. Reviewing the course of a long and sufficiently

successful life, I find in no portion of it happier moments than those

were. I think the old hulk in which you are, is near her wreck, and that

like a prudent rat, you should escape in time. However, here, there, and

everywhere, in peace or in war, you will have my sincere affections and

prayers for your life, health and happiness.

TO MR. RODMAN.

MONTICELLO, April 25, 1812.

Thomas Jefferson presents his complements to Mr. Rodman, and his thanks

for the translation of Montgalliard's work which he has been so kind

as to send him. It certainly presents some new and true views of the

situation of England. It is a subject of deep regret to see a great

nation reduced from an unexampled height of prosperity to an abyss of

ruin, by the long-continued rule of a single chief. All we ought to wish

as to both belligerent parties is to see them forced to disgorge what

their ravenous appetites have taken from others, and reduced to the

necessity of observing moral duties in future. If we read with regret

what concerns England, the fulsome adulation of the author towards his

own chief excites nausea and disgust at the state of degradation to

which the mind of man is reduced by subjection to the inordinate power

of another. He salutes Mr. Rodman with great respect.

TO MR. JOHN JACOB ASTOR.

MONTICELLO, May 24, 1812.

SIR,--Your letter of March 14th lingered much on the road, and a long

journey before I could answer it, has delayed its acknowledgment till

now. I am sorry your enterprise for establishing a factory on the

Columbia river, and a commerce through the line of that river and the

Missouri, should meet with the difficulties stated in your letter.

I remember well having invited your proposition on that subject, and

encouraged it with the assurance of every facility and protection which

the government could properly afford. I considered as a great public

acquisition the commencement of a settlement on that point of the Western

coast of America, and looked forward with gratification to the time

when its descendants should have spread themselves through the whole

length of that coast, covering it with free and independent Americans,

unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest, and employing

like us the rights of self-government. I hope the obstacles you state

are not insurmountable; that they will not endanger, or even delay the

accomplishment of so great a public purpose. In the present state of

affairs between Great Britain and us, the government is justly jealous of

contraventions of those commercial restrictions which have been deemed

necessary to exclude the use of British manufactures in these States,

and to promote the establishment of similar ones among ourselves. The

interests too of the revenue require particular watchfulness. But in

the non-importation of British manufactures, and the revenue raised on

foreign goods, the legislature could only have in view the consumption

of our own citizens, and the revenue to be levied on that. We certainly

did not mean to interfere with the consumption of nations foreign to us,

as the Indians of the Columbia and Missouri are, or to assume a right

of levying an impost on that consumption; and if the words of the laws

take in their supplies in either view, it was probably unintentional, and

because their case not being under the contemplation of the legislature,

has been inadvertently embraced by it. The question with them would be

not what manufactures these nations should use, or what taxes they should

pay us on them, but whether we should give a transit for them through

our country. We have a right to say we will not let the British exercise

that transit. But it is our interest as well as a neighborly duty to

allow it when exercised by our own citizens only. To guard against any

surreptitious introduction of British influence among those nations,

we may justifiably require that no Englishman be permitted to go with

the trading parties, and necessary precautions should also be taken to

prevent this covering the contravention of our own laws and views. But

these once securely guarded, our interest would permit the transit free

of duty. And I do presume that if the subject were fully presented to

the legislature, they would provide that the laws intended to guard our

own concerns only, should not assume the regulation of those of foreign

and independent nations; still less that they should stand in the way

of so interesting an object as that of planting the germ of an American

population on the shores of the Pacific. From meddling however with

these subjects it is my duty as well as my inclination to abstain. They

are in hands perfectly qualified to direct them, and who knowing better

the present state of things, are better able to decide what is right;

and whatever they decide on a full view of the case, I shall implicitly

confide has been rightly decided. Accept my best wishes for your success,

and the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT.

MONTICELLO, May 30, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--Another _communication_ is enclosed, and the letter of the

applicant is the only information I have of his qualifications. I barely

remember such a person as the secretary of Mr. Adams, and messenger to

the Senate while I was of that body. It enlarges the sphere of choice by

adding to it a strong federalist. The triangular war must be the idea

of the Anglomen and malcontents, in other words, the federalists and

quids. Yet it would reconcile neither. It would only change the topic of

abuse with the former, and not cure the mental disease of the latter.

It would prevent our eastern capitalists and seamen from employment in

privateering, take away the only chance of conciliating them, and keep

them at home, idle, to swell the discontents; it would completely disarm

us of the most powerful weapon we can employ against Great Britain,

by shutting every port to our prizes, and yet would not add a single

vessel to their number; it would shut every market to our agricultural

productions, and engender impatience and discontent with that class which,

in fact, composes the nation; it would insulate us in general negotiations

for peace, making all the parties our opposers, and very indifferent

about peace with us, if they have it with the rest of the world, and

would exhibit a solecism worthy of Don Quixotte only, that of a choice

to fight two enemies at a time, rather than to take them by succession.

And the only motive for all this is a sublimated impartiality, at which

the world will laugh, and our own people will turn upon us in mass as

soon as it is explained to them, as it will be by the very persons who

are now laying that snare. These are the hasty views of one who rarely

thinks on these subjects. Your own will be better, and I pray to them

every success, and to yourself every felicity.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, June 6, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--I have taken the liberty of drawing the attention of the

Secretary at War to a small depôt of military stores at New London, and

leave the letter open for your perusal. Be so good as to seal it before

delivery. I really thought that General Dearborne had removed them to

Lynchburg, undoubtedly a safer and more convenient deposit.

Our county is the only one I have heard of which has required a draught;

this proceeded from a mistake of the colonel, who thought he could not

receive individual offers, but that the whole quota, 241, must present

themselves at once. Every one, however, manifests the utmost alacrity; of

the 241 there having been but ten absentees at the first muster called. A

further proof is that Captain Carr's company of volunteer cavalry being

specifically called for by the Governor, though consisting of but 28

when called on, has got up to 50 by new engagements since their call was

known. The only inquiry they make is whether they are to go to Canada or

Florida? Not a man, as far as I have learned, entertains any of those

doubts which puzzle the lawyers of Congress and astonish common sense,

whether it is lawful for them to pursue a retreating enemy across the

boundary line of the Union?

I hope Barlow's correspondence has satisfied all our Quixottes who thought

we should undertake nothing less than to fight all Europe at once. I

enclose you a letter from Dr. Bruff, a mighty good and very ingenious

man. His method of manufacturing bullets and shot, has the merit of

increasing their specific gravity greatly, (being made by composition,)

and rendering them as much heavier and better than the common leaden

bullet, as that is than an iron one. It is a pity he should not have

the benefit of furnishing the public when it would be equally to their

benefit also. God bless you.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, June 11, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--By our post preceding that which brought your letter of May

21st, I had received one from Mr. Malcolm on the same subject with

yours, and by the return of the post had stated to the President my

recollections of him. But both your letters were probably too late; as

the appointment had been already made, if we may credit the newspapers.