Lord Napier noted first the parts, or elements of a triangle, to wit,

the sides and angles; and expunging from these the right-angle, as if

it were a non-existence, he considered the other five parts, to wit,

the three sides, and two oblique angles, as arranged in a circle, and

therefore called them the circular parts; but chose, (for simplifying the

result,) instead of the hypothenuse and two oblique angles, themselves,

to substitute their complements. So that his five circular parts are

the two legs themselves, and the complements of the hypothenuse and

of the two oblique angles. If the three of these, given and required,

were all adjacent, he called it the case of conjunct parts, the middle

element the MIDDLE PART, and the two others the EXTREMES disjunct from

the middle or EXTREMES DISJUNCT. He then laid down his catholic rule,

to wit:

"The rectangle of the radius, and sine of the middle part, is equal to

the rectangle of the _tangents_ of the two EXTREMES CONJUNCT, and to

that of the _cosines_ of the two EXTREMES DISJUNCT."

And to aid our recollection in which case the tangents, and in which

the cosines are to be used, preserving the original designations of the

inventor, we may observe that the _tangent_ belongs to the _conjunct_

case, terms of sufficient affinity to be associated in the memory; and

the sine _complement_ remains of course for the _disjunct case_; and

further, if you please, that the initials of radius and sine, which are

to be used together, are alphabetical consecutives.

Lord Napier's rule may also be used for the solution of oblique spherical

triangles. For this purpose a perpendicular must be let fall from an

angle of the given triangle internally on the base, forming it into two

right-angled triangles, one of which may contain two of the data. Or, if

this cannot be done, then letting it fall externally on the prolongation

of the base, so as to form a right-angled triangle comprehending the

oblique one, wherein two of the data will be common to both. To secure

two of the data from mutilation, this perpendicular must always be let

fall from the end of a given side, and opposite to a given angle.

But there will remain yet two cases wherein Lord Napier's rule cannot

be used, to wit, where all the sides, or all the angles alone are given.

To meet these two cases, Lord Buchan and Dr. Minto devised an analogous

rule. They considered the sides themselves, and the supplements of the

angles as circular parts in these cases; and, dropping a perpendicular

from any angle from which it would fall internally on the opposite side,

they assumed that angle, or that side, as the MIDDLE part, and the other

angles, or other sides, as the OPPOSITE or EXTREME parts, disjunct in

both cases. Then "the rectangle under the tangents of half the sum, and

half the difference of the segments of the MIDDLE part, is equal to the

rectangle under the tangents of half the sums, and half the difference

of the OPPOSITE PARTS."

And, since every plane triangle may be considered as described on the

surface of a sphere of an infinite radius, these two rules may be applied

to plane right-angled triangles, and through them to the oblique. But

as Lord Napier's rule gives a direct solution only in the case of two

sides, and an uncomprised angle, one, two, or three operations, with

this combination of parts, may be necessary to get at that required.

[Illustration: Triangular rule]

You likewise requested for the use of your school, an explanation of a

method of platting the courses of a survey, which I mentioned to you as

of my own practice. This is so obvious and simple, that as it occurred

to myself, so I presume it has to others, although I have not seen

it stated in any of the books. For drawing parallel lines, I use the

triangular rule, the hypothenusal side of which being applied to the

side of a common straight rule, the triangle slides on that, as thus,

always parallel to itself. Instead of drawing meridians on his paper,

let the pupil draw a parallel of latitude, or east and west line, and

note in that a point for his first station, then applying to it his

protractor, lay off the first course and distance in the usual way to

ascertain his second station. For the second course, lay the triangular

rule to the east and west line, or first parallel, holding the straight

or guide rule firmly against its hypothenusal side. Then slide up the

triangle (for a northerly course) to the point of his second station,

and pressing it firmly there, lay the protractor to that, and mark off

the second course, and distance as before, for the third station. Then

lay the triangle to the first parallel again, and sliding it as before

to the point of the third station, there apply to it the protractor for

the third course and distance, which gives the fourth station; and so

on. Where a course is southwardly, lay the protractor, as before, to

the northern edge of the triangle, but prick its reversed course, which

reversed again in drawing, gives the true course. When the station has

got so far from the first parallel, as to be out of the reach of the

parallel rule sliding on its hypothenuse, another parallel must be drawn

by laying the edge, or longer leg of the triangle to the first parallel

as before, applying the guide-rule to the end, or short leg, (instead

of the hypothenuse,) as in the margin, and sliding the triangle up to

the point for the new parallel. I have found this, in practice, the

quickest and most correct method of platting which I have ever tried,

and the neatest also, because it disfigures the paper with the fewest

unnecessary lines.

[Illustration: Angle]

If these mathematical trifles can give any facilities to your pupils,

they may in their hands become matters of use, as in mine they have been

of amusement only.

Ever and respectfully yours.

TO M. DUFIEF.

MONTICELLO, April 19, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 6th instant is just received, and I shall

with equal willingness and truth, state the degree of agency you had,

respecting the copy of M. de Becourt's book, which came to my hands.

That gentleman informed me, by letter, that he was about to publish a

volume in French, "Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation

Primitive," which, its title promised to be, either a geological or

astronomical work. I subscribed; and, when published, he sent me a copy;

and as you were my correspondent in the book line in Philadelphia, I

took the liberty of desiring him to call on you for the price, which, he

afterwards informed me, you were so kind as to pay him for me, being,

I believe, two dollars. But the sole copy which came to me was from

himself directly, and, as far as I know, was never seen by you.

I am really mortified to be told that, _in the United States of America_,

a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal

inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the

sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then

our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur

shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus

to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be

the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to

be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his

reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe?

It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational

beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand

the test of truth and reason. If M. de Becourt's book be false in its

facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for

God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose. I know little

of its contents, having barely glanced over here and there a passage,

and over the table of contents. From this, the Newtonian philosophy

seemed the chief object of attack, the issue of which might be trusted

to the strength of the two combatants; Newton certainly not needing the

auxiliary arm of the government, and still less the holy author of our

religion, as to what in it concerns him. I thought the work would be

very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man;

not likely to be much read if let alone, but, if persecuted, it will

be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty

to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy, and to read what he

pleases. I have been just reading the new constitution of Spain. One of

its fundamental basis is expressed in these words: "The _Roman Catholic_

religion, the only true one, is, and always shall be, that of the Spanish

nation. The government protects it by wise and just laws, and prohibits

the exercise of any other whatever." Now I wish this presented to those

who question what you may sell, or we may buy, with a request to strike

out the words, "Roman Catholic," and to insert the denomination of their

own religion. This would ascertain the code of dogmas which each wishes

should domineer over the opinions of all others, and be taken, like the

Spanish religion, under the "protection of wise and just laws." It would

shew to what they wish to reduce the liberty for which one generation has

sacrificed life and happiness. It would present our boasted freedom of

religion as a thing of theory only, and not of practice, as what would

be a poor exchange for the theoretic thraldom, but practical freedom of

Europe. But it is impossible that the laws of Pennsylvania, which set

us the first example of the wholesome and happy effects of religious

freedom, can permit the inquisitorial functions to be proposed to their

courts. Under them you are surely safe.

At the date of yours of the 6th, you had not received mine of the 3d

inst., asking a copy of an edition of Newton's Principia, which I had

seen advertised. When the cost of that shall be known, it shall be added

to the balance of $4.93, and incorporated with a larger remittance I

have to make to Philadelphia. Accept the assurance of my great esteem

and respect.

TO LE CHEVALIER DE ONIS.

MONTICELLO, April 28, 1814.

I thank you, Sir, for the copy of the new constitution of Spain which

you have been so kind as to send me; and I sincerely congratulate

yourself and the Spanish nation on this great stride towards political

happiness. The invasion of Spain has been the most unprecedented and

unprincipled of the transactions of modern times. The crimes of its

enemies, the licentiousness of its associates in defence, the exertions

and sufferings of its inhabitants under slaughter and famine, and its

consequent depopulation, will mark indelibly the baneful ascendancy of

the tyrants of the sea and continent, and characterize with blood and

wretchedness the age in which they have lived. Yet these sufferings of

Spain will be remunerated, her population restored and increased, under

the auspices and protection of this new constitution; and the miseries

of the present generation will be the price, and even the cheap price

of the prosperity of endless generations to come.

There are parts of this constitution, however, in which you would expect

of course that we should not concur. One of these is the intolerance

of all but the Catholic religion; and no security provided against the

re-establishment of an Inquisition, the exclusive judge of Catholic

opinions, and authorized to proscribe and punish those it shall deem

anti-Catholic. Secondly, the aristocracy, _quater sublimata_, of her

legislators; for the ultimate electors of these will themselves have been

three times sifted from the mass of the people, and may choose from the

nation at large persons never named by any of the electoral bodies. But

there is one provision which will immortalize its inventors. It is that

which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read

and write. This is new, and is the fruitful germ of the improvement of

everything good, and the correction of everything imperfect in the present

constitution. This will give you an enlightened people, and an energetic

public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of

the government. On the whole I hail your country as now likely to resume

and surpass its ancient splendor among nations. This might perhaps have

been better secured by a just confidence in the self-sufficient strength

of the peninsula itself; everything without its limits being its weakness

not its force. If the mother country has not the magnanimity to part

with the colonies in friendship, thereby making them, what they would

certainly be, her natural and firmest allies, these will emancipate

themselves, after exhausting her strength and resources in ineffectual

efforts to hold them in subjection. They will be rendered enemies of the

mother country, as England has rendered us by an unremitting course of

insulting injuries and silly provocations. I do not say this from the

impulse of national interest, for I do not know that the United States

would find an interest in the independence of neighbor nations, whose

produce and commerce would rivalize ours. It could only be that kind of

interest which every human being has in the happiness and prosperity of

every other. But putting right and reason out of the question, I have

no doubt that on calculations of interest alone, it is that of Spain to

anticipate voluntarily, and as a matter of grace, the independence of

her colonies, which otherwise necessity will enforce.

* * * * *

TO MR. DELAPLAINE.

MONTICELLO, May 3, 1814.

SIR,--Your favors of April 16 and 19, on the subject of the portraits

of Columbus and Americus Vespucius were received on the 30th. While I

resided at Paris, knowing that these portraits and those of some other of

the early American worthies were in the gallery of Medicis at Florence,

I took measures for engaging a good artist to take and send me copies of

them. I considered it as even of some public concern that our country

should not be without the portraits of its first discoverers. These

copies have already run the risks of transportations from Florence to

Paris, to Philadelphia, to Washington, and lastly to this place, where

they are at length safely deposited. You request me "to forward them

to you at Philadelphia for the purpose of having engravings taken from

them for a work you propose to publish, and you pledge your honor that

they shall be restored to me in perfect safety." I have no doubt of

the sincerity of your intentions in this pledge; and that it would be

complied with as far as it would be in your power. But the injuries and

accidents of their transportation to Philadelphia and back again are

not within your control. Besides the rubbing through a land carriage of

six hundred miles, a carriage may overset in a river or creek, or be

crashed with everything in it. The frequency of such accidents to the

stages renders all insurance against them impossible. And were they to

escape the perils of this journey I should be liable to the same calls,

and they to the same or greater hazards from all those in other parts of

the continent who should propose to publish any work in which they might

wish to employ engravings of the same characters. From public, therefore,

as well as private considerations, I think that these portraits ought

not to be hazarded from their present deposit. Like public records, I

make them free to be copied, but, being as originals in this country,

they should not be exposed to the accidents or injuries of travelling

post. While I regret, therefore, the necessity of declining to comply

with your request, I freely and with pleasure offer to receive as a

guest any artist whom you shall think proper to engage, and will make

them welcome to take copies at their leisure for your use. I wish them

to be multiplied for safe preservation, and consider them as worthy a

place in every collection. Indeed I do not know how it happened that Mr.

Peale did not think of copying them while they were in Philadelphia;

and I think it not impossible that either the father or the son might

now undertake the journey for the use of their museum. On the ground of

our personal esteem for them, they would be at home in my family.

When I received these portraits at Paris, Mr. Daniel Parker of

Massachusetts happened to be there, and determined to procure for himself

copies from the same originals at Florence; and I think he did obtain

them, and that I have heard of their being in the hands of some one

in Boston. If so, it might perhaps be easier to get some artist there

to take and send you copies. But be this as it may, you are perfectly

welcome to the benefit of mine in the way I have mentioned.

The two original portraits of myself taken by Mr. Stewart, after which

you enquire, are both in his possession at Boston. One of them only is

my property. The President has a copy from that which Stewart considered

as the best of the two; but I believe it is at his seat in his State.

I thank you for the print of Dr. Rush. He was one of my early and

intimate friends, and among the best of men. The engraving is excellent

as is everything from the hand of Mr. Edwin. Accept the assurance of my

respect, and good wishes for the success of your work.

TO MR. JOHN F. WATSON.

MONTICELLO, May 17, 1814.

SIR,--I have long been a subscriber to the edition of the Edinburgh

Review first published by Mr. Sargeant, and latterly by Eastburn, Kirk

& Co., and already possess from No. 30 to 42 inclusive; except that Nos.

31 and 37 never came to hand. These two and No. 29, I should be glad to

receive, with all subsequently published, through the channel of Messrs.

Fitzwhylson & Potter of Richmond, with whom I originally subscribed,

and to whom it is more convenient to make payment by a standing order

on my correspondent at Richmond. I willingly also subscribe for the

republication of the first twenty-eight numbers to be furnished me through

the same channel, for the convenience of payment. This work is certainly

unrivalled in merit, and if continued by the same talents, information

and principles which distinguish it in every department of science

which it reviews, it will become a real Encyclopedia, justly taking its

station in our libraries with the most valuable depositories of human

knowledge. Of the Quarterly Review I have not seen many numbers. As the

antagonist of the other it appears to me a pigmy against a giant. The

precept "audi alteram partem," on which it is republished here, should be

sacred with the judge who is to decide between the contending claims of

individual and individual. It is well enough for the young who have yet

opinions to make up in questions of principle in ethics or politics. But

to those who have gone through this process with industry, reflection,

and singleness of heart, who have formed their conclusions and acted

on them through life, to be reading over and over again what they have

already read, considered and condemned, is an idle waste of time. It

is not in the history of modern England or among the advocates of the

principles or practices of her government, that the friend of freedom,

or of political morality, is to seek instruction. There has indeed been

a period, during which both were to be found, not in her government, but

in the band of worthies who so boldly and ably reclaimed the rights of

the people, and wrested from their government theoretic acknowledgments

of them. This period began with the Stuarts, and continued but one reign

after them. Since that, the vital principle of the English constitution

is _corruption_, its practices the natural results of that principle, and

their consequences a pampered aristocracy, annihilation of the substantial

middle class, a degraded populace, oppressive taxes, general pauperism,

and national bankruptcy. Those who long for these blessings here will

find their generating principles well developed and advocated by the

antagonist of the Edinburgh Review. Still those who doubt should read

them; every man's reason being his own rightful umpire. This principle,

with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority will preserve us

free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed. Accept the

assurances of my respect.

TO MR. ABRAHAM SMALL.

MONTICELLO, May 20, 1814.

SIR,--I thank you for the copy of the American Speaker which you have

been so kind as to send me. It is a judicious selection of what has been

excellently spoken on both sides of the Atlantic; and according to your

request, I willingly add some suggestions, should another edition be

called for. To the speeches of Lord Chatham might be added his reply to

Horace Walpole, on the Seamen's bill, in the House of Commons, in 1740,

one of the severest which history has recorded. Indeed, the subsequent

speeches in order, to which that reply gave rise being few, short and

pithy, well merit insertion in such a collection as this. They are in

the twelfth volume of Chandler's Debates of the House of Commons. But

the finest thing, in my opinion, which the English language has produced,

is the defence of Eugene Aram, spoken by himself at the bar of the York

assizes, in 1759, on a charge of murder, and to be found in the Annual

Register of that date, or a little after. It had been upwards of fifty

years since I had read it, when the receipt of your letter induced me

to look up a MS. copy I had preserved, and on re-perusal at this age

and distance of time, it loses nothing of its high station in my mind

for classical style, close logic, and strong representation. I send you

this copy which was taken for me by a school-boy, replete with errors

of punctuation, of orthography, and sometimes substitutions of one word

for another. It would be better to recur to the Annual Register itself

for correctness, where also I think are stated the circumstances and

issue of the case. To these I would add the short, the nervous, the

unanswerable speech of Carnot, in 1803, on the proposition to declare

Bonaparte consul for life. This creed of republicanism should be well

translated, and placed in the hands and heart of every friend to the

rights of self-government. I consider these speeches of Aram and Carnot,

and that of Logan, inserted in your collection, as worthily standing in

a line with those of Scipio and Hannibal in Livy, and of Cato and Cæsar

in Sallust. On examining the Indian speeches in my possession, I find

none which are not already in your collection, except that my copy of

the corn-planter's has much in it which yours has not. But observing

that the omissions relate to special subjects only, I presume they are

made purposely and indeed properly.

I must add more particular thanks for the kind expressions of your letter

towards myself. These testimonies of approbation from my fellow-citizens,

offered too when the lapse of time may have cooled and matured their

opinions, are an ample reward for such services as I have been able to

render them, and are peculiarly gratifying in a state of retirement and

reflection. I pray you to accept the assurance of my respect.

TO THOMAS LAW, ESQ.

POPLAR FOREST, June 13, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--The copy of your Second Thoughts on Instinctive Impulses,

with the letter accompanying it, was received just as I was setting out

on a journey to this place, two or three days' distant from Monticello.

I brought it with me and read it with great satisfaction, and with the

more as it contained exactly my own creed on the foundation of morality

in man. It is really curious that on a question so fundamental, such

a variety of opinions should have prevailed among men, and those, too,

of the most exemplary virtue and first order of understanding. It shows

how necessary was the care of the Creator in making the moral principle

so much a part of our constitution as that no errors of reasoning or

of speculation might lead us astray from its observance in practice. Of

all the theories on this question, the most whimsical seems to have been

that of Wollaston, who considers _truth_ as the foundation of morality.

The thief who steals your guinea does wrong only inasmuch as he acts

a lie in using your guinea as if it were his own. Truth is certainly a

branch of morality, and a very important one to society. But presented

as its foundation, it is as if a tree taken up by the roots, had its

stem reversed in the air, and one of its branches planted in the ground.

Some have made the _love of God_ the foundation of morality. This,

too, is but a branch of our moral duties, which are generally divided

into duties to God and duties to man. If we did a good act merely from

the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises

the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no

such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of

those we act on, to-wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings

in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in

protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of

the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism.

Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among

the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other

foundation than the love of God.

The Το καλον of others is founded in a different faculty, that of taste,

which is not even a branch of morality. We have indeed an innate sense

of what we call beautiful, but that is exercised chiefly on subjects

addressed to the fancy, whether through the eye in visible forms, as

landscape, animal figure, dress, drapery, architecture, the composition

of colors, &c., or to the imagination directly, as imagery, style, or

measure in prose or poetry, or whatever else constitutes the domain

of criticism or taste, a faculty entirely distinct from the moral one.

Self-interest, or rather self-love, or _egoism_, has been more plausibly

substituted as the basis of morality. But I consider our relations with

others as constituting the boundaries of morality. With ourselves we

stand on the ground of identity, not of relation, which last, requiring

two subjects, excludes self-love confined to a single one. To ourselves,

in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also

two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed it is

exactly its counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us

constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our

moral duties to others. Accordingly, it is against this enemy that are

erected the batteries of moralists and religionists, as the only obstacle

to the practice of morality. Take from man his selfish propensities,

and he can have nothing to seduce him from the practice of virtue. Or

subdue those propensities by education, instruction or restraint, and

virtue remains without a competitor. Egoism, in a broader sense, has

been thus presented as the source of moral action. It has been said

that we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bind up the wounds of the

man beaten by thieves, pour oil and wine into them, set him on our own

beast and bring him to the inn, because we receive ourselves pleasure

from these acts. So Helvetius, one of the best men on earth, and the

most ingenious advocate of this principle, after defining "interest"

to mean not merely that which is pecuniary, but whatever may procure us

pleasure or withdraw us from pain, [_de l'esprit_ 2, 1,] says, [ib. 2, 2,]

"the humane man is he to whom the sight of misfortune is insupportable,

and who to rescue himself from this spectacle, is forced to succor the

unfortunate object." This indeed is true. But it is one step short of

the ultimate question. These good acts give us pleasure, but how happens

it that they give us pleasure? Because nature hath implanted in our

breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct,

in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their

distresses, and protests against the language of Helvetius, [ib. 2, 5,]

"what other motive than self-interest could determine a man to generous

actions? It is as impossible for him to love what is good for the sake

of good, as to love evil for the sake of evil." The Creator would indeed

have been a bungling artist, had he intended man for a social animal,

without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not

planted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; but

it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule.

Some men are born without the organs of sight, or of hearing, or without

hands. Yet it would be wrong to say that man is born without these

faculties, and sight, hearing, and hands may with truth enter into the

general definition of man. The want or imperfection of the moral sense

in some men, like the want or imperfection of the senses of sight and

hearing in others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic of

the species. When it is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by

education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the

being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew

evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or rejection of those among whom

he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even

existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes

interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties established by the

laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for

the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives

which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of

the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course

of correct action all those whose disparity is not too profound to be

eradicated. Some have argued against the existence of a moral sense,

by saying that if nature had given us such a sense, impelling us to

virtuous actions, and warning us against those which are vicious, then

nature would also have designated, by some particular ear-marks, the

two sets of actions which are, in themselves, the one virtuous and the

other vicious. Whereas, we find, in fact, that the same actions are

deemed virtuous in one country and vicious in another. The answer is

that nature has constituted _utility_ to man the standard and best of

virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances,

different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same

act, therefore, may be useful, and consequently virtuous in one country

which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced. I

sincerely, then, believe with you in the general existence of a moral

instinct. I think it the brightest gem with which the human character is

studded, and the want of it as more degrading than the most hideous of

the bodily deformities. I am happy in reviewing the roll of associates in

this principle which you present in your second letter, some of which I

had not before met with. To these might be added Lord Kaims, one of the

ablest of our advocates, who goes so far as to say, in his Principles

of Natural Religion, that a man owes no duty to which he is not urged by

some impulsive feeling. This is correct, if referred to the standard of

general feeling in the given case, and not to the feeling of a single

individual. Perhaps I may misquote him, it being fifty years since I

read his book.

The leisure and solitude of my situation here has led me to the

indiscretion of taxing you with a long letter on a subject whereon

nothing new can be offered you. I will indulge myself no farther than

to repeat the assurances of my continued esteem and respect.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, July 5, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Since mine of January the 24th, yours of March the 14th has

been received. It was not acknowledged in the short one of May the 18th,

by Mr. Rives, the only object of that having been to enable one of our

most promising young men to have the advantage of making his bow to you.

I learned with great regret the serious illness mentioned in your letter;

and I hope Mr. Rives will be able to tell me you are entirely restored.

But our machines have now been running seventy or eighty years, and we

must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now

a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way; and however we may tinker

them up for awhile, all will at length surcease motion. Our watches, with

works of brass and steel, wear out within that period. Shall you and I

last to see the course the seven-fold wonders of the times will take?

The Attila of the age dethroned, the ruthless destroyer of ten millions

of the human race, whose thirst for blood appeared unquenchable, the

great oppressor of the rights and liberties of the world, shut up within

the circle of a little island of the Mediterranean, and dwindled to the

condition of an humble and degraded pensioner on the bounty of those he

had most injured. How miserably, how meanly, has he closed his inflated

career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present! He should

have perished on the swords of his enemies, under the walls of Paris.

"Leon piagato a morte

Sente mancar la vita,

Guarda la sua ferita,

Ne s'avilisce ancor.

Cosi fra l'ire estrema

Rugge, minaccia, e freme,

Che fa tremar morendo

Tal volta il cacciator."--Metast. Adriano.

But Bonaparte was a lion in the field only. In civil life, a cold-blooded,

calculating, unprincipled usurper, without a virtue; no statesman,

knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and

supplying ignorance by bold presumption. I had supposed him a great man

until his entrance into the Assembly _des cinq cens_, eighteen Brumaire

(an. 8.) From that date, however, I set him down as a great scoundrel

only. To the wonders of his rise and fall, we may add that of a Czar of

Muscovy, dictating, _in Paris_, laws and limits to all the successors of

the Cæsars, and holding even the balance in which the fortunes of this

new world are suspended. I own, that while I rejoice, for the good of

mankind, in the deliverance of Europe from the havoc which would never

have ceased while Bonaparte should have lived in power, I see with anxiety

the tyrant of the ocean remaining in vigor, and even participating in the

merit of crushing his brother tyrant. While the world is thus turned up

side down, on which of its sides are we? All the strong reasons, indeed,

place us on the side of peace; the interests of the continent, their

friendly dispositions, and even the interests of England. Her passions

alone are opposed to it. Peace would seem now to be an easy work, the

causes of the war being removed. Her orders of council will no doubt be

taken care of by the allied powers, and, war ceasing, her impressment

of our seamen ceases of course. But I fear there is foundation for the

design intimated in the public papers, of demanding a cession of our

right in the fisheries. What will Massachusetts say to this? I mean her

majority, which must be considered as speaking through the organs it has

appointed itself, as the index of its will. She chooses to sacrifice the

liberties of our seafaring citizens, in which we were all interested,

and with them her obligations to the co-States, rather than war with

England. Will she now sacrifice the fisheries to the same partialities?

This question is interesting to her alone; for to the middle, the

southern and western States, they are of no direct concern; of no more

than the culture of tobacco, rice and cotton, to Massachusetts. I am

really at a loss to conjecture what our refractory sister will say on

this occasion. I know what, as a citizen of the Union, I would say to

her. "Take this question _ad referendum_. It concerns you alone. If you

would rather give up the fisheries than war with England, we give them

up. If you had rather fight for them, we will defend your interests to

the last drop of our blood, choosing rather to set a good example than

follow a bad one." And I hope she will determine to fight for them. With

this, however, you and I shall have nothing to do; ours being truly the

case wherein "_non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis tempus eget_."

Quitting this subject, therefore I will turn over another leaf.

I am just returned from one of my long absences, having been at my other

home for five weeks past. Having more leisure there than here for reading,

I amused myself with reading seriously Plato's Republic. I am wrong,

however, in calling it amusement, for it was the heaviest task-work I

ever went through. I had occasionally before taken up some of his other

works, but scarcely ever had patience to go through a whole dialogue.

While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible

jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have

been, that the world should have so long consented to give reputation

to such nonsense as this? How the _soi-disant_ Christian world, indeed,

should have done it, is a piece of historical curiosity. But how could

the Roman good sense do it? And particularly, how could Cicero bestow

such eulogies on Plato? Although Cicero did not wield the dense logic

of Demosthenes, yet he was able, learned, laborious, practised in the

business of the world, and honest. He could not be the dupe of mere style,

of which he was himself the first master in the world. With the moderns,

I think, it is rather a matter of fashion and authority. Education is

chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their profession, have an

interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato. They give the tone

while at school, and few in their after years have occasion to revise

their college opinions. But fashion and authority apart, and bringing

Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities

and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? In truth, he is one of the

race of genuine sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren,

first, by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly, by the adoption and

incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity.

His foggy mind is forever presenting the semblances of objects which,

half seen through a mist, can be defined neither in form nor dimensions.

Yet this, which should have consigned him to early oblivion, really

procured him immortality of fame and reverence. The Christian priesthood,

finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too

plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticism of Plato materials with

which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its

indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their

order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines

which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension

of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms

engrafted on them; and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never

be explained. Their purposes, however, are answered. Plato is canonized;

and it is now deemed as impious to question his merits as those of an

Apostle of Jesus. He is peculiarly appealed to as an advocate of the

immortality of the soul; and yet I will venture to say, that were there

no better arguments than his in proof of it, not a man in the world

would believe it. It is fortunate for us, that Platonic republicanism

has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should

now have been all living, men, women and children, pell mell together,

like beasts of the field or forest. Yet "Plato is a great philosopher,"

said La Fontaine. But, says Fontenelle, "do you find his ideas very

clear?" "Oh no! he is of an obscurity impenetrable." "Do you not find

him full of contradictions?" "Certainly," replied La Fontaine, "he is

but a sophist." Yet immediately after, he exclaims again, "Oh, Plato was

a great philosopher." Socrates had reason, indeed, to complain of the

misrepresentations of Plato; for in truth, his dialogues are libels on

Socrates.

But why am I dosing you with these antediluvian topics? Because I am glad

to have some one to whom they are familiar, and who will not receive them

as if dropped from the moon. Our post-revolutionary youth are born under

happier stars than you and I were. They acquire all learning in their

mother's womb, and bring it into the world ready made. The information of

books is no longer necessary; and all knowledge which is not innate, is

in contempt, or neglect at least. Every folly must run its round; and so,

I suppose, must that of self-learning and self-sufficiency; of rejecting

the knowledge acquired in past ages, and starting on the new ground of

intuition. When sobered by experience, I hope our successors will turn

their attention to the advantages of education. I mean of education on

the broad scale, and not that of the petty _academies_, as they call

themselves, which are starting up in every neighborhood, and where one

or two men, possessing Latin and sometimes Greek, a knowledge of the

globes, and the first six books of Euclid, imagine and communicate this

as the sum of science. They commit their pupils to the theatre of the

world, with just taste enough of learning to be alienated from industrious

pursuits, and not enough to do service in the ranks of science. We have

some exceptions, indeed. I presented one to you lately, and we have some

others. But the terms I use are general truths. I hope the necessity

will, at length, be seen of establishing institutions here, as in Europe,

where every branch of science, useful at this day, may be taught in its

highest degree. Have you ever turned your thoughts to the plan of such

an institution? I mean to a specification of the particular sciences of

real use in human affairs, and how they might be so grouped as to require

so many professors only as might bring them within the views of a just

but enlightened economy? I should be happy in a communication of your

ideas on this problem, either loose or digested. But to avoid my being

run away with by another subject, and adding to the length and ennui of

the present letter, I will here present to Mrs. Adams and yourself, the

assurance of my constant and sincere friendship and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, July 16, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I received this morning your favor of the 5th, and as I can

never let a sheet of yours rest, I sit down immediately to acknowledge

it.

Whenever Mr. Reeves, of whom I have heard nothing, shall arrive, he

shall receive all the cordial civilities in my power.

I am sometimes afraid that my "machine" will not "surcease motion" soon

enough; for I dread nothing so much as "dying at top," and expiring

like Dean Swift, "a driveler and a show;" or like Sam Adams, a grief and

distress to his family, a weeping helpless object of compassion for years.

I am bold to say, that neither you nor I will live to see the course which

the "wonders of the times" will take. Many years, and perhaps centuries

must pass, before the current will acquire a settled direction. If the

Christian religion, as I understand it, or as you understand it, should

maintain its ground, as I believe it will, yet Platonic, Pythagonic,

Hindoo, Cabalistical Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and

which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound of

which the monster must finally die; yet so strong is his constitution,

that he may endure for centuries before he expires.

Government has never been much studied by mankind, but their attention

has been drawn to it in the latter part of the last century, and the

beginning of this, more than at any former period; and the vast variety of

experiments that have been made of constitutions in America, in France, in

Holland, in Geneva, in Switzerland, and even in Spain and South America,

can never be forgotten. They will be catastrophes noted. The result, in

time, will be improvements; and I have no doubt that the honors we have

experienced for the last forty years, will ultimately terminate in the

advancement of civil and religious liberty, and ameliorations in the

condition of mankind; for I am a believer in the probable improvability

and improvement, the ameliorability and amelioration in human affairs;

though I never could understand the doctrine of the perfectability of

the human mind. This has always appeared to me like the philosophy, or

theology of the Gentoos, viz., that a Brachman, by certain studies, for

a certain time pursued, and by certain ceremonies, a certain number of

times repeated, becomes omniscient and almighty.

Our hopes, however, of sudden tranquillity, ought not to be too sanguine.

Fanaticism and superstition will still be selfish, subtle, intriguing,

and at times furious. Despotism will still struggle for domination;

monarchy will still study to rival nobility in popularity; aristocracy

will continue to envy all above it, and despise and oppress all below it;

democracy will envy all, contend with all, endeavor to pull down all; and

when by chance it happens to get the upper hand for a short time, it will

be revengeful, bloody, and cruel. These, and other elements of fanaticism

and anarchy, will yet, for a long time, continue a fermentation, which

will excite alarms and require vigilance.

Napoleon is a military fanatic like Achilles, Alexander, Cæsar, Mahomet,

Zingis, Kouli, Charles XII., &c. The maxim and principle of all of them

was the same: "Jura negat sibi lata, nihil non arrogat armis."

But is it strict to call him an usurper? Was not his elevation to the

empire of France as legitimate and authentic a national act as that of

William the III., or the House of Hanover to the throne of the three

kingdoms? or as the election of Washington to the command of our army,

or to the chair of the States?

Human nature, in no form of it, ever could bear prosperity. That peculiar

tribe of men called conquerors, more remarkably than any other, have

been swelled with vanity by any series of victories.

Napoleon won so many mighty battles in such quick succession, and

for so long a time, that it was no wonder his brain became completely

intoxicated, and his enterprises rash, extravagant, and mad.

Though France is humbled, Britain is not. Though Bonaparte is banished,

a greater tyrant and miser usurper still domineers. John Bull is quite

as unfeeling, as unprincipled, more powerful, has shed more blood, than

Bonaparte. John, by his money, his intrigues, and arms, by exciting

coalition after coalition against him, made him what he was, and, at

last, what he is. How shall the tyrant of tyrants be brought low? Aye!

there's the rub! I still think Bonaparte great, at least as any of

the conquerors. The wonders "of his rise and fall," may be seen in the

life of king Theodore, or Pascal Paoli, or Mazionetti, or Jack Cade, or

Wat Tyler, or Rienzi, or Dionicus. The only difference is that between

miniatures and full-length pictures. The schoolmaster at Corinth was

a greater _man_ than the tyrant of Syracuse, upon the principle that

he who conquers himself is greater than he who takes a city. Though

the ferocious roar of the wounded lion may terrify the hunter with the

possibility of another dangerous leap, Bonaparte was shot dead at once

by France. He could no longer roar or struggle, growl or paw; he could

only gasp the death. I wish that France may not still regret him. But

these are speculations in the clouds. I agree with you that the milk

of human kindness in the Bourbons, is safer for mankind than the fierce

ambition of Napoleon.

The Autocrator appears in an imposing light. Fifty years ago, English

writers held up terrible consequences from "thawing out the monstrous

northern snake." If Cossacks, and Tartars, and Goths, and Vandals, and

Huns, and Riparians, should get a taste of European sweets, what may

happen? Could Wellingtons or Bonapartes resist them?

The greatest trait of sagacity that Alexander has yet exhibited to

the world, is his courtship of the United States. But whether this is

a mature, well-digested policy, or only a transient gleam of thought,

still remains to be explained and proved by time.

The refractory siston will not give up the fisheries. Not a man here

dares to hint at so base a thought.

I am very glad you have seriously read Plato; and still more rejoiced to

find that your reflections upon him so perfectly harmonize with mine. Some

thirty years ago I took upon me the severe task of going through all his

works. With the help of two Latin translations, and one English and one

French translation, and comparing some of the most remarkable passages

with the Greek, I labored through the tedious toil. My disappointment

was very great, my astonishment was greater, and my disgust shocking. Two

things only did I learn from him. 1. That Franklin's ideas of exempting

husbandmen, and mariners, &c., from the depredations of war, was borrowed

from him. 2. That sneezing is a cure for the hickups. Accordingly, I

have cured myself, and all my friends, of that provoking disorder, for

thirty years, with a pinch of snuff.

Some parts of some of his dialogues are entertaining like the writings

of Rousseau, but his laws and his republic, from which I expected most,

disappointed me most.

I could scarcely exclude the suspicion that he intended the latter as

a bitter satire upon all republican government, as Xenophon undoubtedly

designed, by his essay on democracy, to ridicule that species of republic.

In a letter to the learned and ingenious Mr. Taylor, of Haslewood,

I suggested to him the project of writing a novel, in which the hero

should be sent upon his travels through Plato's republic, and all his

adventures, with his observations on the principles and opinions, the

arts and sciences, the manners, customs, and habits of the citizens,

should be recorded. Nothing can be conceived more destructive of human

happiness; more infallibly contrived to transform men and women into

brutes, Yahoos, or demons, than a community of wives and property. Yet

in what are the writings of Rousseau and Helvetius, wiser than those

of Plato? The man who first fenced a tobacco yard, and said this is

mine, ought instantly to have been put to death, says Rousseau. The

man who first pronounced the barbarous word _Dieu_, ought to have been

immediately destroyed, says Diderot. In short, philosophers, ancient and

modern, appear to me as mad as Hindoos, Mahometans, and Christians. No

doubt they would all think me mad, and, for anything I know, this globe

may be the bedlam, _Le Bicêtre_ of the universe. After all, as long as

property exists, it will accumulate in individuals and families. As long

as marriage exists, knowledge, property, and influence will accumulate

in families. Your and our equal partition of intestate estates, instead

of preventing, will, in time, augment the evil, if it is one.

The French revolutionists saw this, and were so far consistent. When

they burned pedigrees and genealogical trees, they annihilated, as far

as they could, marriages, knowing that marriage, among a thousand other

things, was an infallible source of aristocracy. I repeat it, so sure

as the idea and existence of _property_ is admitted and established in

society, accumulations of it will be made; the snow-ball will grow as

it rolls.

Cicero was educated in the Groves of Academus, where the name and memory

of Plato were idolized to such a degree, that if he had wholly renounced

the prejudices of his education, his reputation would have been lessened,

if not injured and ruined. In his two volumes of Discourses on Government,

we may presume that he fully examined Plato's laws and republic, as well

as Aristotle's writings on government. But these have been carefully

destroyed, not improbably with the general consent of philosophers,

politicians and priests. The loss is as much to be regretted as that of

any production of antiquity.

Nothing seizes the attention of the staring animal so surely as paradox,

riddle, mystery, invention, discovery, wonder, temerity. Plato and

his disciples, from the fourth-century Christians to Rousseau and Tom

Paine, have been fully sensible of this weakness in mankind, and have

too successfully grounded upon it their pretensions to fame.

I might, indeed, have mentioned Bolingbroke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire,

Turgot, Helvetius, Diderot, Condorcet, Buffon, and fifty others, all a

little cracked. Be to their faults a little blind, to their virtues ever

kind.

Education! Oh Education! The greatest grief of my heart, and the greatest

affliction of my life! To my mortification I must confess that I have

never closely thought, or very deliberately reflected upon the subject

which never occurs to me now without producing a deep sigh, a heavy

groan, and sometimes tears.

My cruel destiny separated me from my children, almost continually

from their birth to their manhood. I was compelled to leave them to

the ordinary routine of reading, writing and Latin school, academy and

college. John, alone, was much with me, and he but occasionally. If I

venture to give you any thoughts at all, they must be very crude. I have

turned over Locke, Milton, Condilac, Rousseau, and even Miss Edgeworth,

as a bird flies through the air. The Preceptor I have thought a good book.

Grammar, rhetoric, logic, ethics, mathematics, cannot be neglected.

Classics, in spite of our friend Rush, I must think indispensable.

Natural history, mechanics and experimental philosophy, chemistry, &c.,

at least their rudiments, cannot be forgotten. Geography, astronomy,

and even history and chronology, (although I am myself afflicted with

a kind of Pyrrhonism in the two latter,) I presume cannot be omitted.

Theology I would leave to Ray, Derham, Nicuentent, and Paley, rather

than to Luther, Zinzindorf, Swedenborg, Wesley or Whitefield, or Thomas

Aquinas or Wollebius. Metaphysics I would leave in the clouds with the

materialists and spiritualists, with Leibnitz, Berkley, Priestley and

Edwards, and I might add Hume and Reed, or if permitted to be read, it

should be with romances and novels. What shall I say of music, drawing,

fencing, dancing and gymnastic exercises? What of languages, oriental

and occidental? Of French, Italian, German or Russian? of Sanscrit or

Chinese?

The task you have prescribed to me of grouping these sciences or arts

under professors, within the views of an enlightened economy, is far

beyond my forces. Loose indeed, and indigested, must be all the hints

I can note. Might grammar, rhetoric, logic, and ethics, be under one

professor? Might mathematics, mechanics, natural philosophy, be under

another? Geography and astronomy under a third? Laws and government,

history and chronology, under a fourth? Classics might require a fifth.

Condilac's Course of Study has excellent parts. Among many systems of

mathematics, English, French and American, there is none preferable to

Besout's Course. La Harpe's Course of Literature is very valuable.

But I am ashamed to add any more to the broken innuendos, except

assurances of my continued friendship.

TO THE BARON DE MOLL, PRIVY COUNSELLOR OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING

OF BAVARIA, SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES FOR THE CLASS OF

MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES, AND OF THE AGRONOMIC SOCIETY OF

BAVARIA, AT MUNICH.

MONTICELLO, July 31, 1814.

SIR,--Within a few days only, I have received the letter which you did

me the honor to write on the 22d of July, 1812; a delay which I presume

must be ascribed to the interruption of the intercourse of the world by

the wars which have lately desolated it by sea and land. Still involved

ourselves with a nation possessing almost exclusively the ocean which

separates us, I fear the one I have now the honor of addressing you may

experience equal delay. I receive with much gratification the diploma

of the Agronomic Society of Bavaria, conferring on me the distinction

of being honorary member of their society. For this mark of their good

will, I pray you to be the channel of communicating to them my respectful

thanks. Age and distance will add their obstacles to the services I

shall ardently wish to render the society. Yet sincerely devoted to

this art, the basis of the subsistence, the comforts and the happiness

of man, and sensible of the general interest which all nations have

in communicating freely to each other discoveries of new and useful

processes and implements in it, I shall with zeal at all times meet the

wishes of the society, and especially rejoice in every opportunity which

their commands may present of being useful to them. With the homage of

my respects to them, be pleased to accept for yourself the assurances

of my particular and high consideration.

TO MR. WIRT.

MONTICELLO, August 14, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I have been laying under contribution my memory, my private

papers, the printed records, gazettes and pamphlets in my possession,

to answer the inquiries of your letter of July 27, and I will give you

the result as correctly as I can. I kept no copy of the paper I sent

you on a former occasion on the same subject, nor do I retain an exact

recollection of its contents. But if in that I stated the question on

the loan office to have been in 1762, I did it with too slight attention

to the date, although not to the fact. I have examined the journals of

the House of Burgesses, of 1760-1-2, in my possession, and find no trace

of the proceeding in them. By those of 1764, I find that the famous

address to the king, and memorials to the Houses of Lords and Commons,

on the proposal of the Stamp Act, were of that date; and I know that Mr.

Henry was not a member of the legislature when they were passed. I know

also, because I was present, that Robinson, (who died in May, 1766,) was

in the chair on the question of the loan office. Mr. Henry, then, must

have come in between these two epochs, and consequently in 1765. Of this

year I have no journals to refresh my memory. The first session was in

May, and his first remarkable exhibition there was on the motion for

the establishment of an office for lending money on mortgages of real

property. I find in Royle's Virginia Gazette, of the 17th of that month

this proposition for the loan office brought forward, its advantages

detailed, and the plan explained; and it seems to have been done by a

borrowing member, from the feeling with which the motives are expressed;

and to have been preparatory to the intended motion. This was probably

made immediately after that date, and certainly before the 30th, which

was the date of Mr. Henry's famous resolutions. I had been intimate

with Mr. Henry since the winter of 1759-60, and felt an interest in what

concerned him, and I can never forget a particular exclamation of his in

the debate in which he electrified his hearers. It had been urged that

from certain unhappy circumstances of the colony, men of substantial

property had contracted debts, which, if exacted suddenly, must ruin them

and their families, but, with a little indulgence of time, might be paid

with ease. "What, Sir!" exclaimed Mr. Henry, in animadverting on this,

"is it proposed then to reclaim the spendthrift from his dissipation

and extravagance, by filling his pockets with money." These expressions

are indelibly impressed on my memory. He laid open with so much energy

the spirit of favoritism on which the proposition was founded, and the

abuses to which it would lead, that it was crushed in its birth. Abortive

motions are not always entered on the journals, or rather, they are

rarely entered. It is the modern introduction of yeas and nays which has

given the means of placing a rejected motion on the journals; and it is

likely that the speaker, who, as treasurer, was to be the loan officer,

and had the direction of the journals, would choose to omit an entry of

the motion in this case. This accounts sufficiently for the absence of

any trace of the motion in the journals. There was no suspicion then,

(as far, at least, as I know,) that Robinson had used the public money

in private loans to his friends, and that the secret object of this

scheme was to transfer those debtors to the public, and thus clear his

accounts. I have diligently examined the names of the members on the

journals of 1764, to see if any were still living to whose memory we

might recur on this subject, but I find not a single one now remaining

in life.

Of the parson's cause I remember nothing remarkable. I was at school

with Mr. Maury during the years 1758 and 1759, and often heard them

inveigh against the iniquity of the act of 1758, called the two-penny

act. In 1763, when that cause was decided in Hanover, I was a law-student

in Williamsburg, and remember only that it was a subject of much

conversation, and of great paper-controversy, in which Camm, and Colonel

Bland, were the principal champions.

The disputed election in which Mr. Henry made himself remarkable, must

have been that of Dandridge and Littlepage, in 1764, of which, however, I

recollect no particulars, although I was still a student in Williamsburg,

and paid attention to what was passing in the legislature.

I proceed now to the resolution of 1765. The copies you enclose me, and

that inserted by Judge Marshall in his history, and copied verbatim by

Burke, are really embarrassing by their differences. 1. That of the four

resolutions taken from the records of the House, is the genuine copy

of what they passed, _as amended_ by themselves, cannot be doubted. 2.

That the copy which Mr. Henry left sealed up, is a true copy of these

four resolutions, _as reported_ by the committee, there is no reason to

doubt. 3. That Judge Marshall's version of three of these resolutions,

(for he has omitted one altogether,) is from an unauthentic source

is sufficiently proved by their great variation from the record in

diction, although equivalent in sentiment. But what are we to say of

Mr. Henry's fifth, and Mr. Marshall's two last, which we may call the

sixth and seventh resolutions? The fifth has clearly nothing to justify

the debate and proceedings which one of them produced. But the sixth is

of that character, and perfectly tallies with the idea impressed on my

mind, of that which was expunged. Judge Marshall tells us that two were

disagreed to by the House, which may be true. I do not indeed recollect

it, but I have no recollection to the contrary. My hypothesis, then, is

this, that the two disagreed to were the fifth and seventh. The fifth,

because merely tautologous of the third and fourth, and the seventh,

because leading to individual persecution, for which no mind was then

prepared. And that the sixth was the one passed by the House, by a

majority of a single vote, and expunged from the journals the next day.

I was standing at the door of communication between the house and lobby

during the debates and vote, and well remember, that after the numbers

on the division were told, and declared from the chair, Peyton Randolph

(then Attorney General) came out at the door where I was standing,

and exclaimed, "By God, I would have given one hundred guineas for a

single vote." For one vote would have divided the house, and Robinson

was in the chair, who he knew would have negatived the resolution. Mr.

Henry left town that evening, or the next morning; and Colonel Peter

Randolph, then a member of the Council, came to the House of Burgesses

about 10 o'clock of the forenoon, and sat at the clerk's table till

the House-bell rang, thumbing over the volumes of Journals to find a

precedent of expunging a vote of the House, which he said had taken place

while he was a member or clerk of the House, I do not recollect which.

I stood by him at the end of the table a considerable part of the time,

looking on as he turned over the leaves, but I do not recollect whether

he found the erasure. In the meantime, some of the timid members, who

had voted for the strongest resolution, had become alarmed, and as soon

as the House met, a motion was made, and carried, to expunge it from

the journals. And here I will observe, that Burke's statement with his

opponents, is entirely erroneous. I suppose the original journal was

among those destroyed by the British, or its obliterated face might be

appealed to. It is a pity this investigation was not made a few years

sooner, when some of the members of the day were still living. I think

inquiry should be made of Judge Marshall for the source from which

he derived his copy of the resolutions. This might throw light on the

sixth and seventh, which I verily believe, and especially the sixth, to

be genuine in substance. On the whole, I suppose the four resolutions

which are on the record, were passed and retained by the House; that

the sixth is that which was passed by a single vote and expunged, and

the fifth and seventh, the two which Judge Marshall says were disagreed

to. That Mr. Henry's copy, then, should not have stated all this, is

the remaining difficulty. This copy he probably sealed up long after

the transaction, for it was long afterwards that these resolutions,

instead of the address and memorials of the preceding year, were looked

back to as the commencement of legislative opposition. His own judgment

may, at a later date, have approved of the rejection of the sixth and

seventh, although not of the fifth, and he may have left and sealed up

a copy, in his own handwriting, as approved by his ultimate judgment.

This, to be sure, is conjecture, and may rightfully be rejected by any

one to whom a more plausible solution may occur; and there I must leave

it. The address of 1764 was drawn by Peyton Randolph. Who drew the

memorial to the Lords I do not recollect, but Mr. Wythe drew that to

the Commons. It was done with so much freedom, that, as he has told me

himself, his colleagues of the committee shrank from it as bearing the

aspect of treason, and smoothed its features to its present form. He

was, indeed, one of the very few, (for I can barely speak of them in the

plural number,) of either character, who, from the commencement of the

contest, hung our connection with Great Britain on its true hook, that

of a common king. His unassuming character, however, made him appear as

a follower, while his sound judgment kept him in a line with the freest

spirit. By these resolutions, Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands

of those who had heretofore guided the proceedings of the House, that

is to say, of Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Randolph, Nicholas. These were

honest and able men, had begun the opposition on the same grounds, but

with a moderation more adapted to their age and experience. Subsequent

events favored the bolder spirits of Henry, the Lees, Pages, Mason, &c.,

with whom I went in all points. Sensible, however, of the importance

of unanimity among our constituents, although we often wished to have

gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues

might keep up with us; and they, on their part, differing nothing from

us in principle, quickened their gait somewhat beyond that which their

prudence might of itself have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx

which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with

the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in undivided mass, and

with fewer examples of separation than, perhaps, existed in any other

part of the Union.

I do not remember the topics of Mr. Henry's argument, but those of his

opposers were that the same sentiments had been expressed in the address

and memorials of the preceding session, to which an answer was expected

and not yet received. I well remember the cry of treason, the pause of

Mr. Henry at the name of George the III., and the presence of mind with

which he closed his sentence, and baffled the charge vociferated. I

do not think he took the position in the middle of the floor which you

mention. On the contrary, I think I recollect him standing in the very

place which he continued afterwards habitually to occupy in the house.

The censure of Mr. E. Randolph on Mr. Henry in the case of Philips,

was without foundation. I remember the case, and took my part in it.

Philips was a mere robber, who availing himself of the troubles of the

times, collected a banditti, retired to the Dismal Swamp, and from thence

sallied forth, plundering and maltreating the neighboring inhabitants, and

covering himself, without authority, under the name of a British subject.

Mr. Henry, then Governor, communicated the case to me. We both thought

the best proceeding would be by bill of attainder, unless he delivered

himself up for trial within a given time. Philips was afterwards taken;

and Mr. Randolph being Attorney General, and apprehending he would plead

that he was a British subject, taken in arms, in support of his lawful

sovereign, and as a prisoner of war entitled to the protection of the law

of nations, he thought the safest proceeding would be to indict him at

common law as a felon and robber. Against this I believe Philips urged

the same plea: he was overruled and found guilty.

I recollect nothing of a doubt on the re-eligibility of Mr. Henry to the

government when his term expired in 1779, nor can I conceive on what

ground such a doubt could have been entertained, unless perhaps that

his first election in June, 1776, having been before we were nationally

declared independent, some might suppose it should not be reckoned as

one of the three constitutional elections.

Of the projects for appointing a Dictator there are said to have been two.

I know nothing of either but by hearsay. The first was in Williamsburg

in December, 1776. The Assembly had the month before appointed Mr.

Wythe, Mr. Pendleton, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee, and myself, to revise

the whole body of laws, and adapt them to our new form of government.

I left the House early in December to prepare to join the Committee at

Fredericksburg, the place of our first meeting. What passed, therefore,

in the House in December, I know not, and have not the journals of that

session to look into. The second proposition was in June, 1781, at the

Staunton session of the legislature. No trace of this last motion is

entered on the journals of that date, which I have examined. This is a

further proof that the silence of the journals is no evidence against the

fact of an abortive motion. Among the names of the members found on the

journal of the Staunton session, are John Taylor of Caroline, General

Andrew Moore, and General Edward Stevens of Culpeper, now living. It

would be well to ask information from each of them, that their errors

of memory, or of feeling, may be corrected by collation.

You ask if I would have any objection to be quoted as to the fact of

rescinding the last of Mr. Henry's resolutions. None at all as to that

fact, or its having been passed by a majority of one vote only; the scene

being as present to my mind as that in which I am now writing. But I do

not affirm, although I believe it was the sixth resolution.

It is truly unfortunate that those engaged in public affairs so rarely

make notes of transactions passing within their knowledge. Hence history

becomes fable instead of fact. The great outlines may be true, but the

incidents and coloring are according to the faith or fancy of the writer.

Had Judge Marshall taken half your pains in sifting and scrutinizing

facts, he would not have given to the world, as true history, a false

copy of a record under his eye. Burke again has copied him, and being a

second writer on the spot, doubles the credit of the copy. When writers

are so indifferent as to the correctness of facts, the verification

of which lies at their elbow, by what measure shall we estimate

their relation of things distant, or of those given to us through the

obliquities of their own vision? Our records, it is true, in the case

under contemplation, were destroyed by the malice and Vandalism of the

British military, perhaps of their government, under whose orders they

committed so much useless mischief. But printed copies remained, as your

examination has proved. Those which were apocryphal, then, ought not to

have been hazarded without examination. Should you be able to ascertain

the genuineness of the sixth and seventh resolutions, I would ask a line

of information, to rectify or to confirm my own impressions respecting

them. Ever affectionately yours.

TO THOMAS COOPER.

MONTICELLO, August 25, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--In my letter of January 16th, I mentioned to you that it

had long been in contemplation to get an University established in this

State, in which all the branches of science useful _to us_, and _at this

day_, should be taught in their highest degree, and that this institution

should be incorporated with the College and funds of William and Mary.

But what are the sciences useful to us, and at this day thought useful to

anybody? A glance over Bacon's _arbor scientiæ_ will show the foundation

for this question, and how many of his ramifications of science are now

lopt off as nugatory. To be prepared for this new establishment, I have

taken some pains to ascertain those branches which men of sense, as well

as of science, deem worthy of cultivation. To the statements which I

have obtained from other sources, I should highly value an addition of

one from yourself. You know our country, its pursuits, its faculties,

its relations with others, its means of establishing and maintaining an

institution of general science, and the spirit of economy with which

it requires that these should be administered. Will you then so far

contribute to our views as to consider this subject, to make a statement

of the branches of science which you think worthy of being taught, as I

have before said, at this day, and in this country? But to accommodate

them to our economy, it will be necessary further to distribute them

into groups, each group comprehending as many branches as one industrious

Professor may competently teach, and, as much as may be, a duly associated

family, or class, of kindred sciences. The object of this is to bring

the whole circle of useful science under the direction of the smallest

number of professors possible, and that our means may be so frugally

employed as to effect the greatest possible good. We are about to make

an effort for the introduction of this institution.

On the subject of patent rights, on which something has passed between

us before, you may have noted that the patent board, while it existed,

had proposed to reduce their decisions to a system of rules as fast

as the cases presented should furnish materials. They had done but

little when the business was turned over to the courts of justice, on

whom the same duty has now devolved. A rule has occurred to me, which

I think would reach many of our cases, and go far towards securing the

citizen against the vexation of frivolous patents. It is to consider the

invention of any new mechanical power, or of any new combination of the

mechanical powers already known, as entitled to an exclusive grant; but

that the purchaser of the right to use the invention should be free to

apply it to every purpose of which it is susceptible. For instance, the

combination of machinery for threshing wheat, should be applicable to

the threshing of rye, oats, beans, &c. The spinning machine to everything

of which it may be found capable; the chain of buckets, of which we have

been possessed thousands of years, we should be free to use for raising

water, ore, grains, meals, or anything else we can make it raise. These

rights appear sufficiently distinct, and the distinction sound enough,

to be adopted by the judges, to whom it could not be better suggested

than through the medium of the Emporium, should any future paper of that

furnish place for the hint.

Since the change of government in France, I am in hopes the author of

the Review of Montesquieu will consent to be named, and perhaps may

publish there his original work; not that their press is free, but that

the present government will be restrained by public opinion, whereas

the late military despotism respected that of the army only. I salute

you with friendship and respect.

TO MR. DELAPLAINE.

MONTICELLO, August 28, 1814.

SIR,--Your letter of the 17th is received. I have not the book of

Munoz containing the print of Columbus. That work came out after I left

Europe, and we have not the same facility of acquiring new continental

publications here as there. I have no doubt that entire credit is to be

given to the account of the print rendered by him in the extract from his

work which you have sent me; and as you say that several have attempted

translations of it, each differing from the other, and none satisfactory

to yourself, I will add to your stock my understanding of it, that by a

collation of the several translations, the author's meaning may be the

better elicited.

Translation. "This first volume presents at the beginning the portrait

of the discoverer, designed and engraved with care. Among many paintings

and prints which are falsely sold as his likenesses, I have seen one

only which can be such, and it is that which is preserved in the house of

the most excellent Duke of Berwick and Lina, a descendant of our hero; a

figure of the natural size, painted, as would seem, in the last century,

by an indifferent copyist, in which, nevertheless, appear some catches

from the hand of Antonio del Rincon, a celebrated painter of the Catholic

kings. The description given by Fernando Colon, of the countenance of

his father, has served to render the likeness more resembling, and to

correct the faults which are observable in some of the features either

imperfectly seized by the artist, or disfigured by the injuries of time."

Paraphrase explanatory of the above. Columbus was employed by Ferdinand

and Isabella, on his voyage of discovery in 1492. Debry tells us that

"before his departure, his portrait was taken by order of the king and

queen," and most probably by Rincon, their first painter. Rincon died in

1500, and Columbus in 1506. Fernando, his son, an ecclesiastic, wrote

the life of his father in 1530, and describes in that his father's

countenance. An indifferent hand in the 17th century, copied Rincon's

painting, which copy is preserved in the house of the Duke of Berwick. In

1793, when a print of Columbus was wanting for the history of Munoz, the

artist from this copy, injured as it was by time, but still exhibiting

some catches of Rincon's style, and from the verbal description of the

countenance of Columbus in the history by his son, has been enabled to

correct the faults of the copy, whether those of the copyist or proceeding

from the injuries of time, and thus to furnish the best likeness.

The Spanish text admits this construction, and well-known dates and

historical facts verify it.

I have taken from the second volume of Debry a rough model of the leaf on

which is the print he has given of Columbus and his preface. It gives the

exact size and outline of the print which, with a part of the preface,

is on the first page of the leaf, and the rest on the second. I have

extracted from it what related to the print, which you will perceive

could not be cut out without a great mutilation of the book. This would

not be regarded as to its cost, which was twelve guineas for the three

volumes in Amsterdam, but that it seems to be the only copy of the work

in the United States, and I know from experience the difficulty, if

not impossibility, of getting another. I had orders lodged with several

eminent booksellers in the principal book-marts of Europe, to-wit: London,

Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Madrid, several years before this copy was

obtained at the accidental sale of an old library in Amsterdam, on the

death of its proprietor.

We have, then, three likenesses of Columbus, from which a choice is to

be made.

1. The print in Munoz' work, from a copy of Rincon's original, taken in

the 17th century by an indifferent hand, with conjectural alterations

suggested by the verbal description of the younger Columbus of the

countenance of his father.

2. The miniature of Debry, from a copy taken in the sixteenth century

from the portrait made by order of the king and queen, probably that of

Rincon.

3. The copy in my possession of the size of life, taken for me from the

original, which is in the gallery of Florence. I say from an original,

because it is well known that in collections of any note, and that of

Florence is the first in the world, _no copy_ is ever admitted; and

an original existing in Genoa would readily be obtained for a royal

collection in Florence. Vasari, in his lives of the painters, names this

portrait in his catalogue of the paintings in that gallery, but does

not say by whom it was made. It has the aspect of a man of thirty-five,

still smooth-faced and in the vigor of life, which would place its date

about 1477, fifteen years earlier than that of Rincon. Accordingly, in

the miniature of Debry, the face appears more furrowed by time. On the

whole, I should have no hesitation at giving this the preference over

the conjectural one of Munoz, and the miniature of Debry.

The book from which I cut the print of Vespucius which I sent you, has

the following title and date: "Elogio d'Amerigo Vespucci che ha riportato

il premio dalla nobile accademia Etrusca de Cortona nel dè 15 d'Ottobre

dell' Anno 1788, del P. Stanislao Canovai della scuole prie publico

professore di fisica. Matematica in Firenze 1788, nella stamp di Pietro

Allegrini." This print is unquestionably from the same original in the

gallery of Florence from which my copy was also taken. The portrait is

named in the catalogue of Vasari, and mentioned also by Bandini, in his

life of Americus Vespucius; but neither gives its history. Both tell us

there was a portrait of Vespucius taken by Domenico, and a fine head of

him by Da Vinci, which, however, are lost, so that it would seem that

this of Florence is the only one existing.

With this offering of what occurs to me on the subject of these prints,

accept the assurance of my respect.

TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, September 10, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I regret much that I was so late in consulting you on the

subject of the academy we wish to establish here. The progress of that

business has obliged me to prepare an address to the President of the

Board of Trustees,--a plan for its organization. I send you a copy of

it with a broad margin, that, if your answer to mine of August 25th be

not on the way, you may be so good as to write your suggestions either

in the margin or on a separate paper. We shall still be able to avail

ourselves of them by way of amendments.

Your letter of August 17th is received. Mr. Ogilvie left us four days

ago, on a tour of health, which is to terminate at New York, from whence

he will take his passage to Britain to receive livery and seisin of his

new dignities and fortunes. I am in the daily hope of seeing M. Corrica,

and the more anxious as I must in two or three weeks commence a journey

of long absence from home.

A comparison of the conditions of Great Britain and the United States,

which is the subject of your letter of August 17th, would be an

interesting theme indeed. To discuss it minutely and demonstratively

would be far beyond the limits of a letter. I will give you, therefore,

in brief only, the result of my reflections on the subject. I agree

with you in your facts, and in many of your reflections. My conclusion

is without doubt, as I am sure yours will be, when the appeal to

your sound judgment is seriously made. The population of England is

composed of three descriptions of persons, (for those of minor note

are too inconsiderable to affect a general estimate.) These are, 1. The

aristocracy, comprehending the nobility, the wealthy commoners, the high

grades of priesthood, and the officers of government. 2. The laboring

class. 3. The eleemosynary class, or paupers, who are about one-fifth of

the whole. The aristocracy, which has the laws and government in their

hands, have so managed them as to reduce the third description below

the means of supporting life, even by labor; and to force the second,

whether employed in agriculture or the arts, to the maximum of labor

which the construction of the human body can endure, and to the minimum

of food, and of the meanest kind, which will preserve it in life, and in

strength sufficient to perform its functions. To obtain food enough, and

clothing, not only their whole strength must be unremittingly exerted,

but the utmost dexterity also which they can acquire; and those of

great dexterity only can keep their ground, while those of less must

sink into the class of paupers. Nor is it manual dexterity alone, but

the acutest resources of the mind also which are impressed into this

struggle for life; and such as have means a little above the rest, as the

master-workmen, for instance, must strengthen themselves by acquiring as

much of the philosophy of their trade as will enable them to compete with

their rivals, and keep themselves above ground. Hence the industry and

manual dexterity of their journeymen and day-laborers, and the science

of their master-workmen, keep them in the foremost ranks of competition

with those of other nations; and the less dexterous individuals,

falling into the eleemosynary ranks, furnish materials for armies and

navies to defend their country, exercise piracy on the ocean, and carry

conflagration, plunder and devastation, on the shores of all those who

endeavor to withstand their aggressions. A society thus constituted

possesses certainly the means of defence. But what does it defend? The

pauperism of the lowest class, the abject oppression of the laboring, and

the luxury, the riot, the domination and the vicious happiness of the

aristocracy. In their hands, the paupers are used as tools to maintain

their own wretchedness, and to keep down the laboring portion by shooting

them whenever the desperation produced by the cravings of their stomachs

drives them into riots. Such is the happiness of scientific England;

now let us see the American side of the medal.

And, first, we have no paupers, the old and crippled among us, who possess

nothing and have no families to take care of them, being too few to merit

notice as a separate section of society, or to affect a general estimate.

The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live

without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate

wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own

lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled

to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to

be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and

raise their families. They are not driven to the ultimate resources of

dexterity and skill, because their wares will sell although not quite

so nice as those of England. The wealthy, on the other hand, and those

at their ease, know nothing of what the Europeans call luxury. They have

only somewhat more of the comforts and decencies of life than those who

furnish them. Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?

Nor in the class of laborers do I mean to withhold from the comparison

that portion whose color has condemned them, in certain parts of our

Union, to a subjection to the will of others. Even these are better fed

in these States, warmer clothed, and labor less than the journeymen or

day-laborers of England. They have the comfort, too, of numerous families,

in the midst of whom they live without want, or fear of it; a solace which

few of the laborers of England possess. They are subject, it is true,

to bodily coercion; but are not the hundreds of thousands of British

soldiers and seamen subject to the same, without seeing, at the end of

their career, when age and accident shall have rendered them unequal

to labor, the certainty, which the other has, that he will never want?

And has not the British seaman, as much as the African, been reduced to

this bondage by force, in flagrant violation of his own consent, and of

his natural right in his own person? and with the laborers of England

generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as

despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does

the soldier, the seaman, or the slave? But do not mistake me. I am not

advocating slavery. I am not justifying the wrongs we have committed

on a foreign people, by the example of another nation committing equal

wrongs on their own subjects. On the contrary, there is nothing I would

not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this

moral and political depravity. But I am at present comparing the condition

and degree of suffering to which oppression has reduced the man of one

color, with the condition and degree of suffering to which oppression

has reduced the man of another color; equally condemning both. Now let

us compute by numbers the sum of happiness of the two countries. In

England, happiness is the lot of the aristocracy only; and the proportion

they bear to the laborers and paupers, you know better than I do. Were

I to guess that they are four in every hundred, then the happiness of

the nation would be to its misery as one in twenty-five. In the United

States it is as eight millions to zero, or as all to none. But it is

said they possess the means of defence, and that we do not. How so? Are

we not men? Yes; but our men are so happy at home that they will not

hire themselves to be shot at for a shilling a day. Hence we can have

no standing armies for defence, because we have no paupers to furnish

the materials. The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they

defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the

spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers

no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to

make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of

his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and

the same remedy will make us so. In the beginning of our government we

were willing to introduce the least coercion possible on the will of the

citizen. Hence a system of military duty was established too indulgent to

his indolence. This is the first opportunity we have had of trying it,

and it has completely failed; an issue foreseen by many, and for which

remedies have been proposed. That of classing the militia according to

age, and allotting each age to the particular kind of service to which

it was competent, was proposed to Congress in 1805, and subsequently;

and, on the last trial, was lost, I believe, by a single vote only. Had

it prevailed, what has now happened would not have happened. Instead

of burning our Capitol, we should have possessed theirs in Montreal and

Quebec. We must now adopt it, and all will be safe. We had in the United

States in 1805, in round numbers of free, able-bodied men,

120,000 of the ages of 18 to 21 inclusive.

200,000 " " 22 " 26 "

200,000 " " 27 " 35 "

200,000 " " 35 " 45 "

-------

In all, 720,000 " " 18 " 45 "

With this force properly classed, organized, trained, armed and subject

to tours of a year of military duty, we have no more to fear for the

defence of our country than those who have the resources of despotism

and pauperism.

But, you will say, we have been devastated in the meantime. True, some

of our public buildings have been burnt, and some scores of individuals

on the tide-water have lost their movable property and their houses.

I pity them, and execrate the barbarians who delight in unavailing

mischief. But these individuals have their lands and their hands left.

They are not paupers, they have still better means of subsistence

than 24/25 of the people of England. Again, the English have burnt our

Capitol and President's house by means of their force. We can burn their

St. James' and St. Paul's by means of our money, offered to their own

incendiaries, of whom there are thousands in London who would do it

rather than starve. But it is against the laws of civilized warfare to

employ secret incendiaries. Is it not equally so to destroy the works

of art by armed incendiaries? Bonaparte, possessed at times of almost

every capital of Europe, with all his despotism and power, injured no

monument of art. If a nation, breaking through all the restraints of

civilized character, uses its means of destruction (power, for example)

without distinction of objects, may we not use our means (_our_ money and

_their_ pauperism) to retaliate their barbarous ravages? Are we obliged

to use for resistance exactly the weapons chosen by them for aggression?

When they destroyed Copenhagen by superior force, against all the laws

of God and man, would it have been unjustifiable for the Danes to have

destroyed their ships by torpedoes? Clearly not; and they and we should

now be justifiable in the conflagration of St. James' and St. Paul's.

And if we do not carry it into execution, it is because we think it more

moral and more honorable to set a good example, than follow a bad one.

So much for the happiness of the people of England, and the morality of

their government, in comparison with the happiness and the morality of

America. Let us pass to another subject.

The crisis, then, of the abuses of banking is arrived. The banks have

pronounced their own sentence of death. Between two and three hundred

millions of dollars of their promissory notes are in the hands of the

people, for solid produce and property sold, and they formally declare

they will not pay them. This is an act of bankruptcy of course, and

will be so pronounced by any court before which it shall be brought.

But _cui bono_? The law can only uncover their insolvency, by opening to

its suitors their empty vaults. Thus by the dupery of our citizens, and

tame acquiescence of our legislators, the nation is plundered of two or

three hundred millions of dollars, treble the amount of debt contracted

in the revolutionary war, and which, instead of redeeming our liberty,

has been expended on sumptuous houses, carriages, and dinners. A fearful

tax! if equalized on all; but overwhelming and convulsive by its partial

fall. The crush will be tremendous; very different from that brought on

by our paper money. That rose and fell so gradually that it kept all on

their guard, and affected severely only early or long-winded contracts.

Here the contract of yesterday crushes in an instant the one or the

other party. The banks stopping payment suddenly, all their mercantile

and city debtors do the same; and all, in short, except those in the

country, who, possessing property, will be good in the end. But this

resource will not enable them to pay a cent on the dollar. From the

establishment of the United States Bank, to this day, I have preached

against this system, but have been sensible no cure could be hoped but in

the catastrophe now happening. The remedy was to let banks drop gradation

at the expiration of their charters, and for the State governments to

relinquish the power of establishing others. This would not, as it should

not, have given the power of establishing them to Congress. But Congress

could then have issued treasury notes payable within a fixed period,

and founded on a specific tax, the proceeds of which, as they came in,

should be exchangeable for the notes of that particular emission only.

This depended, it is true, on the will of the State legislatures, and

would have brought on us the phalanx of paper interest. But that interest

is now defunct. Their gossamer castles are dissolved, and they can no

longer impede and overawe the salutary measures of the government. Their

paper was received on a belief that it was cash on demand. Themselves

have declared it was nothing, and such scenes are now to take place as

will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself, to the dangers of

a paper medium abandoned to the discretion of avarice and of swindlers.

It is impossible not to deplore our past follies, and their present

consequences, but let them at least be warnings against like follies in

future. The banks have discontinued themselves. We are now without any

medium; and necessity, as well as patriotism and confidence, will make

us all eager to receive treasury notes, if founded on specific taxes.

Congress may now borrow of the public, and without interest, all the

money they may want, to the amount of a competent circulation, by merely

issuing their own promissory notes, of proper denominations for the

larger purposes of circulation, but not for the small. Leave that door

open for the entrance of metallic money. And, to give readier credit

to their bills, without obliging themselves to give cash for them on

demand, let their collectors be instructed to do so, when they have cash;

thus, in some measure, performing the functions of a bank, as to their

own notes. Providence seems, indeed, by a special dispensation, to have

put down for us, without a struggle, that very paper enemy which the

interest of our citizens long since required ourselves to put down, at

whatever risk. The work is done. The moment is pregnant with futurity,

and if not seized at once by Congress, I know not on what shoal our bark

is next to be stranded. The State legislatures should be immediately

urged to relinquish the right of establishing banks of discount. Most

of them will comply, on patriotic principles, under the convictions of

the moment; and the non-complying may be crowded into concurrence by

legitimate devices. _Vale, et me, ut amaris, ama._

TO SAMUEL H. SMITH, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, September 21, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I learn from the newspapers that the Vandalism of our enemy

has triumphed at Washington over science as well as the arts, by the

destruction of the public library with the noble edifice in which it was

deposited. Of this transaction, as of that of Copenhagen, the world will

entertain but one sentiment. They will see a nation suddenly withdrawn

from a great war, full armed and full handed, taking advantage of

another whom they had recently forced into it, unarmed, and unprepared,

to indulge themselves in acts of barbarism which do not belong to a

civilized age. When Van Ghent destroyed their shipping at Chatham, and

De Ruyter rode triumphantly up the Thames, he might in like manner, by

the acknowledgment of their own historians, have forced all their ships

up to London bridge, and there have burnt them, the tower, and city,

had these examples been then set. London, when thus menaced, was near

a thousand years old, Washington is but in its teens.

I presume it will be among the early objects of Congress to re-commence

their collection. This will be difficult while the war continues, and

intercourse with Europe is attended with so much risk. You know my

collection, its condition and extent. I have been fifty years making

it, and have spared no pains, opportunity or expense, to make it what it

is. While residing in Paris, I devoted every afternoon I was disengaged,

for a summer or two, in examining all the principal bookstores, turning

over every book with my own hand, and putting by everything which

related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every

science. Besides this, I had standing orders during the whole time I

was in Europe, on its principal book-marts, particularly Amsterdam,

Frankfort, Madrid and London, for such works relating to America as could

not be found in Paris. So that in that department particularly, such a

collection was made as probably can never again be effected, because it

is hardly probable that the same opportunities, the same time, industry,

perseverance and expense, with some knowledge of the bibliography of

the subject, would again happen to be in concurrence. During the same

period, and after my return to America, I was led to procure, also,

whatever related to the duties of those in the high concerns of the

nation. So that the collection, which I suppose is of between nine and

ten thousand volumes, while it includes what is chiefly valuable in

science and literature generally, extends more particularly to whatever

belongs to the American statesman. In the diplomatic and parliamentary

branches, it is particularly full. It is long since I have been sensible

it ought not to continue private property, and had provided that at my

death, Congress should have the refusal of it at their own price. But

the loss they have now incurred, makes the present the proper moment

for their accommodation, without regard to the small remnant of time and

the barren use of my enjoying it. I ask of your friendship, therefore,

to make for me the tender of it to the library committee of Congress,

not knowing myself of whom the committee consists. I enclose you the

catalogue, which will enable them to judge of its contents. Nearly the

whole are well bound, abundance of them elegantly, and of the choicest

editions existing. They may be valued by persons named by themselves,

and the payment made convenient to the public. It may be, for instance,

in such annual instalments as the law of Congress has left at their

disposal, or in stock of any of their late loans, or of any loan they

may institute at this session, so as to spare the present calls of our

country, and await its days of peace and prosperity. They may enter,

nevertheless, into immediate use of it, as eighteen or twenty wagons

would place it in Washington in a single trip of a fortnight. I should be

willing indeed, to retain a few of the books, to amuse the time I have

yet to pass, which might be valued with the rest, but not included in

the sum of valuation until they should be restored at my death, which I

would carefully provide for, so that the whole library as it stands in the

catalogue at this moment should be theirs without any garbling. Those I

should like to retain would be chiefly classical and mathematical. Some

few in other branches, and particularly one of the five encyclopedias

in the catalogue. But this, if not acceptable, would not be urged. I

must add, that I have not revised the library since I came home to live,

so that it is probable some of the books may be missing, except in the

chapters of Law and Divinity, which have been revised and stand exactly as

in the catalogue. The return of the catalogue will of course be needed,

whether the tender be accepted or not. I do not know that it contains

any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their

collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress

may not have occasion to refer. But such a wish would not correspond

with my views of preventing its dismemberment. My desire is either to

place it in their hands entire, or to preserve it so here. I am engaged

in making an alphabetical index of the author's names, to be annexed

to the catalogue, which I will forward to you as soon as completed. Any

agreement you shall be so good as to take the trouble of entering into

with the committee, I hereby confirm. Accept the assurance of my great

esteem and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MONTICELLO, September 24, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--It is very long since I troubled you with a letter, which

has proceeded from discretion and not want of inclination, because I

have really had nothing to write which ought to have occupied your time.

But in the late events at Washington I have felt so much for you that

I cannot withhold the expression of my sympathies. For although every

reasonable man must be sensible that all you can do is to order that

execution must depend on others, and failures be imputed to them alone,

yet I know that when such failures happen, they afflict even those who

have done everything they could to prevent them. Had General Washington

himself been now at the head of our affairs, the same event would

probably have happened. We all remember the disgraces which befell us

in his time in a trifling war with one or two petty tribes of Indians,

in which two armies were cut off by not half their numbers. Every one

knew, and I personally knew, because I was then of his council, that no

blame was imputable to him, and that his officers alone were the cause

of the disasters. They must now do the same justice. I am happy to turn

to a countervailing event, and to congratulate you on the destruction

of a second hostile fleet on the lakes by McDonough; of which, however,

we have not the details. While our enemies cannot but feel shame for

their barbarous achievements at Washington, they will be stung to the

soul by these repeated victories over them on that element on which they

wish the world to think them invincible. We have dissipated that error.

They must now feel a conviction themselves that we can beat them gun

to gun, ship to ship and fleet to fleet, and that their early successes

on the land have been either purchased from traitors, or obtained from

raw men entrusted of necessity with commands for which no experience

had qualified them, and that every day is adding that experience to

unquestioned bravery.

I am afraid the failure of our banks will occasion embarrassment for

awhile, although it restores to us a fund which ought never to have been

surrendered by the nation, and which now, prudently used, will carry us

through all the fiscal difficulties of the war. At the request of Mr.

Eppes, who was chairman of the committee of finance at the preceding

session, I had written him some long letters on this subject. Colonel

Monroe asked the reading of them some time ago, and I now send him

another, written to a member of our legislature, who requested my ideas on

the recent bank events. They are too long for your reading, but Colonel

Monroe can, in a few sentences, state to you their outline.

Learning by the papers the loss of the library of Congress, I have

sent my catalogue to S. H. Smith, to make to their library committee

the offer of my collection, now of about nine or ten thousand volumes,

which may be delivered to them instantly, on a valuation by persons

of their own naming, and be paid for in any way, and at any term they

please; in stock, for example, of any loan they have unissued, or of any

one they may institute at this session; or in such annual instalments

as are at the disposal of the committee. I believe you are acquainted

with the condition of the books, should they wish to be ascertained of

this. I have long been sensible that my library would be an interesting

possession for the public, and the loss Congress has recently sustained,

and the difficulty of replacing it, while our intercourse with Europe is

so obstructed, renders this the proper moment for placing it at their

service. Accept assurances of my constant and affectionate friendship

and respect.

TO MR. MILES KING.

MONTICELLO, September 26, 1814.

SIR,--I duly received your letter of August 20th, and I thank you for

it, because I believe it was written with kind intentions, and a personal

concern for my future happiness. Whether the particular revelation which

you suppose to have been made to yourself were real or imaginary, your

reason alone is the competent judge. For dispute as long as we will on

religious tenets, our reason at last must ultimately decide, as it is

the only oracle which God has given us to determine between what really

comes from him and the phantasms of a disordered or deluded imagination.

When he means to make a personal revelation, he carries conviction of

its authenticity to the reason he has bestowed as the umpire of truth.

You believe you have been favored with such a special communication.

Your reason, not mine, is to judge of this; and if it shall be his

pleasure to favor me with a like admonition, I shall obey it with the

same fidelity with which I would obey his known will in all cases.

Hitherto I have been under the guidance of that portion of reason which

he has thought proper to deal out to me. I have followed it faithfully

in all important cases, to such a degree at least as leaves me without

uneasiness; and if on minor occasions I have erred from its dictates,

I have trust in him who made us what we are, and know it was not his

plan to make us always unerring. He has formed us moral agents. Not

that, in the perfection of his state, he can feel pain or pleasure in

anything we may do; he is far above our power; but that we may promote

the happiness of those with whom he has placed us in society, by acting

honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way,

respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing

especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own. I must ever

believe that religion substantially good which produces an honest life,

and we have been authorized by one whom you and I equally respect, to

judge of the tree by its fruit. Our particular principles of religion

are a subject of accountability to our God alone. I inquire after no

man's, and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life

to know whether yours or mine, our friends or our foes, are exactly

the right. Nay, we have heard it said that there is not a Quaker or a

Baptist, a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian, a Catholic or a Protestant

in heaven; that, on entering that gate, we leave those badges of schism

behind, and find ourselves united in those principles only in which God

has united us all. Let us not be uneasy then about the different roads

we may pursue, as believing them the shortest, to that our last abode;

but, following the guidance of a good conscience, let us be happy in

the hope that by these different paths we shall all meet in the end.

And that you and I may there meet and embrace, is my earnest prayer.

And with this assurance I salute you with brotherly esteem and respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, September 30, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--In my letter of the 23d, an important fact escaped me which,

lest it should not occur to you, I will mention. The monies arising from

the sales of the glebe lands in the several counties, have generally,

I believe, and under the sanction of the legislature, been deposited

in some of the banks. So also the funds of the literary society. These

debts, although parcelled among the counties, yet the counties constitute

the State, and their representatives the legislature, united into one

whole. It is right then that owing $300,000 to the banks, they should

stay so much of that sum in their own hands as will secure what the banks

owe to their constituents as divided into counties. Perhaps the loss of

these funds would be the most lasting of the evils proceeding from the

insolvency of the banks. Ever yours with great esteem and respect.

TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, October 7, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--Your several favors of September 15th, 21st, 22d, came all

together by our last mail. I have given to that of the 15th a single

reading only, because the hand writing (not your own) is microscopic

and difficult, and because I shall have an opportunity of studying it

in the Portfolio in print. According to your request I return it for

that publication, where it will do a great deal of good. It will give

our young men some idea of what constitutes a well-educated man; that

Cæsar and Virgil, and a few books of Euclid, do not really contain the

sum of all human knowledge, nor give to a man figure in the ranks of

science. Your letter will be a valuable source of consultation for us

in our Collegiate courses, when, and if ever, we advance to that stage

of our establishment.

I agree with yours of the 22d, that a professorship of Theology should

have no place in our institution. But we cannot always do what is

absolutely best. Those with whom we act, entertaining different views,

have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. Truth

advances, and error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men

the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we

can not, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment

for helping them to another step. Perhaps I should concur with you also

in excluding the _theory_ (not the _practice_) of medicine. This is the

charlatanerie of the body, as the other is of the mind. For classical

learning I have ever been a zealous advocate; and in this, as in his

theory of bleeding and mercury, I was ever opposed to my friend Rush,

whom I greatly loved; but who has done much harm, in the sincerest

persuasion that he was preserving life and happiness to all around him.

I have not, however, carried so far as you do my ideas of the importance

of a hypercritical knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages. I have

believed it sufficient to possess a substantial understanding of their

authors.

In the exclusion of Anatomy and Botany from the eleventh grade of

education, which is that of the man of independent fortune, we separate

in opinion. In my view, no knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man

than that of his own frame, its parts, their functions and actions.

And Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences, whether we consider

its subjects as furnishing the principal subsistence of life to man

and beast, delicious varieties for our tables, refreshments from our

orchards, the adornments of our flower-borders, shade and perfume of our

groves, materials for our buildings, or medicaments for our bodies. To

the gentlemen it is certainly more interesting than mineralogy (which I

by no means, however, undervalue), and is more at hand for his amusement;

and to a country family it constitutes a great portion of their social

entertainment. No country gentleman should be without what amuses every

step he takes into his fields.

I am sorry to learn the fate of your Emporium. It was adding fast to

our useful knowledge. Our artists particularly, and our statesmen,

will have cause to regret it. But my hope is that its suspension will

be temporary only; and that as soon as we get over the crisis of our

disordered circulation, your publishers will resume it among their first

enterprises. Accept my thanks for the benefit of your ideas to our scheme

of education, and the assurance of my constant esteem and respect.

To ----[12].

MONTICELLO, October 15, 1814.

DEAR SIR,--I thank you for the information of your letter of the 10th.

It gives, at length, a fixed character to our prospects. The war,

undertaken, on both sides, to settle the questions of impressment,

and the orders of council, now that these are done away by events, is

declared by Great Britain to have changed its object, and to have become

a war of conquest, to be waged until she conquers from us our fisheries,

the province of Maine, the lakes, States and territories north of the

Ohio, and the navigation of the Mississippi; in other words, till she

reduces us to unconditional submission. On our part, then, we ought to

propose, as a counterchange of object, the establishment of the meridian

of the mouth of the Sorel northwardly, as the western boundary of all

her possessions. Two measures will enable us to effect it, and without

these, we cannot even defend ourselves. 1. To organize the militia into

classes, assigning to each class the duties for which it is fitted,

(which, had it been done when proposed, years ago, would have prevented

all our misfortunes,) abolishing by a declaratory law the doubts which

abstract scruples in some, and cowardice and treachery in others,

have conjured up about passing imaginary lines, and limiting, at the

same time, their services to the _contiguous_ provinces of the enemy.

The 2d is the ways and means. You have seen my ideas on this subject,

and I shall add nothing but a rectification of what either I have ill

expressed, or you have misapprehended. If I have used any expression

restraining the emissions of treasury notes to a _sufficient_ medium,

as your letter seems to imply, I have done it inadvertently, and under

the impression then possessing me, that the war would be very short. A

_sufficient_ medium would not, on the principles of any writer, exceed

thirty millions of dollars, and on those of some not ten millions. Our

experience has proved it may be run up to two or three hundred millions,

without more than doubling what would be the prices of things under

a _sufficient_ medium, or say a metallic one, which would always keep

itself at the _sufficient_ point; and, if they rise to this term, and the

descent from it be gradual, it would not produce sensible revolutions in

private fortunes. I shall be able to explain my views more definitely by

the use of numbers. Suppose we require, to carry on the war, an annual

loan of twenty millions, then I propose that, in the first year, you

shall lay a tax of two millions, and emit twenty millions of treasury

notes, of a size proper for circulation, and bearing no interest, to

the redemption of which the proceeds of that tax shall be inviolably

pledged and applied, by recalling annually their amount of the identical

bills funded on them. The second year lay another tax of two millions,

and emit twenty millions more. The third year the same, and so on,

until you have reached the maximum of taxes which ought to be imposed.

Let me suppose this maximum to be one dollar a head, or ten millions

of dollars, merely as an exemplification more familiar than would be

the algebraical symbols _x_ or _y_. You would reach this in five years.

The sixth year, then, still emit twenty millions of treasury notes,

and continue all the taxes two years longer. The seventh year twenty

millions more, and continue the whole taxes another two years; and so

on. Observe, that although you emit ten millions of dollars a year, you

call in ten millions, and, consequently, add but ten millions annually

to the circulation. It would be in thirty years, then, _primâ facie_,

that you would reach the present circulation of three hundred millions,

or the ultimate term to which we might adventure. But observe, also,

that in that time we shall have become thirty millions of people to

whom three hundred millions of dollars would be no more than one hundred

millions to us now; which sum would probably not have raised prices more

than fifty per cent. on what may be deemed the standard, or metallic

prices. This increased population and consumption, while it would be

increasing the proceeds of the redemption tax, and lessening the balance

annually thrown into circulation, would also absorb, without saturation,

more of the surplus medium, and enable us to push the same process to a

much higher term, to one which we might safely call indefinite, because

extending so far beyond the limits, either in time or expense, of any

supportable war. All we should have to do would be, when the war should

be ended, to leave the gradual extinction of these notes to the operation

of the taxes pledged for their redemption; not to suffer a dollar of

paper to be emitted either by public or private authority, but let the

metallic medium flow back into the channels of circulation, and occupy

them until another war should oblige us to recur, for its support, to

the same resource, and the same process, on the circulating medium.