Your letter being evidence of your attention to mechanical things, and to

their application to matters of daily interest, I will mention a trifle

in this way, which yet is not without value. I presume, like the rest of

us in the country, you are in the habit of household manufacture, and

that you will not, like too many, abandon it on the return of peace,

to enrich our late enemy, and to nourish foreign agents in our bosom,

whose baneful influence and intrigues cost us so much embarrassment and

dissension. The shirting for our laborers has been an object of some

difficulty. Flax is injurious to our lands, and of so scanty produce

that I have never attempted it. Hemp, on the other hand, is abundantly

productive, and will grow forever on the same spot. But the breaking and

beating it, which has been always done by hand, is so slow, so laborious,

and so much complained of by our laborers, that I had given it up and

purchased and manufactured cotton for their shirting. The advanced

price of this, however, now makes it a serious item of expense; and

in the meantime, a method of removing the difficulty of preparing hemp

occurred to me, so simple and so cheap, that I return to its culture and

manufacture. To a person having a threshing machine, the addition of a

hemp-break will not cost more than twelve or fifteen dollars. You know

that the first mover in that machine is a horizontal horse-wheel with

cogs on its upper face. On these is placed a wallower and shaft, which

give motion to the threshing apparatus. On the opposite side of this

same wheel I place another wallower and shaft, through which, and near

its outer end, I pass a cross-arm of sufficient strength, projecting on

each side fifteen inches in this form: [Illustration] nearly under the

cross-arm is placed a very strong hemp-break, much stronger and heavier

than those for the hand. Its head block particularly is massive, and four

feet high, and near its upper end in front, is fixed a strong pin (which

we may call its horn), by this the cross-arm lifts and lets fall the

break twice in every revolution of the wallower. A man feeds the break

with hemp stalks, and a little person holds under the head block a large

twist of the hemp which has been broken, resembling a twist of tobacco

but larger, where it is more perfectly beaten than I have ever seen done

by hand. If the horse-wheel has one hundred and forty-four cogs, the

wallower eleven rounds, and the horse goes three times round in a minute,

it will give about eighty strokes in a minute. I had fixed a break to be

moved by the gate of my saw-mill, which broke and beat at the rate of

two hundred pounds a day. But the inconveniences of interrupting that,

induced me to try the power of a horse, and I have found it to answer

perfectly. The power being less, so also probably will be the effect,

of which I cannot make a fair trial until I commence on my new crop.

I expect that a single horse will do the breaking and beating of ten

men. Something of this kind has been so long wanted by the cultivators

of hemp, that as soon as I can speak of its effect with certainty, I

shall probably describe it anonymously in the public papers, in order

to forestall the prevention of its use by some interloping patentee. I

shall be happy to learn that an actual experiment of your steam engine

fulfils the expectations we form of it, and I pray you to accept the

assurances of my esteem and respect.

TO M. DUPONT DE NEMOURS.

MONTICELLO, December 31, 1815.

Nothing, my very dear and ancient friend, could have equalled the

mortification I felt on my arrival at home, and receipt of the information

that I had lost the happiness of your visit. The season had so far

advanced, and the weather become so severe, that together with the

information given me by Mr. Correa, so early as September, that your

friends even then were dissuading the journey, I had set it down as

certain it would be postponed to a milder season of the ensuing year.

I had yielded, therefore, with the less reluctance to a detention in

Bedford by a slower progress of my workmen than had been counted on. I

have never more desired anything than a full and free conversation with

you. I have not understood the transactions in France during the years

'14 and '15. From the newspapers we cannot even conjecture the secret

and real history; and I had looked for it to your visit. A pamphlet

(_Le Conciliateur_) received from M. Jullien, had given me some idea

of the obliquities and imbecilities of the Bourbons, during their first

restoration. Some manœuvres of both parties I had learnt from Lafayette,

and more recently from Gallatin. But the note you referred me to at page

360 of your letter to Say, has possessed me more intimately of the views,

the conduct and consequences of the last apparition of Napoleon. Still

much is wanting. I wish to know what were the intrigues which brought

him back, and what those which finally crushed him? What parts were acted

by A, B, C, D., &c, some of whom I know, and some I do not? How did the

body of the nation stand affectioned, comparatively, between the fool

and the tyrant? &c., &c., &c. From the account my family gives me of

your sound health, and of the vivacity and vigor of your mind, I will

still hope we shall meet again, and that the fine temperature of our

early summer, to wit, of May and June, may suggest to you the salutary

effects of exercise, and change of air and scene. _En attendant_, we

will turn to other subjects.

That your opinion of the hostile intentions of Great Britain towards us

is sound, I am satisfied, from her movements north and south of us, as

well as from her temper. She feels the gloriole of her late _golden_

achievements tarnished by our successes against her by sea and land;

and will not be contented until she has wiped it off by triumphs over us

also. I rely, however, on the volcanic state of Europe to present other

objects for her arms and her apprehensions; and am not without hope we

shall be permitted to proceed peaceably in making children, and maturing

and moulding our strength and resources. It is impossible that France

should rest under her present oppressions and humiliations. She will

rise in that gigantic strength which cannot be annihilated, and will

fatten her fields with the blood of her enemies. I only wish she may

exercise patience and forbearance until divisions among them may give

her a choice of sides. To the overwhelming power of England I see but

two chances of limit. The first is her bankruptcy, which will deprive

her of the _golden_ instrument of all her successes. The other in that

ascendency which nature destines for us by immutable laws. But to hasten

this last consummation, we too must exercise patience and forbearance.

For twenty years to come we should consider peace as the _summum bonum_

of our country. At the end of that period we shall be twenty millions in

number, and forty in energy, when encountering the starved and rickety

paupers and dwarfs of English workshops. By that time I hope your grandson

will have become one of our High-admirals, and bear distinguished part

in retorting the wrongs of both his countries on the most implacable

and cruel of their enemies. In this hope, and because I love you, and

all who are dear to you, I wrote to the President in the instant of

reading your letter of the 7th, on the subject of his adoption into

our navy. I did it because I was gratified in doing it, while I knew it

was unnecessary. The sincere respect and high estimation in which the

President holds you, is such that there is no gratification, within the

regular exercise of his functions, which he would withhold from you. Be

assured then that, if within that compass, this business is safe.

Were you any other than whom you are, I should shrink from the task you

have proposed to me, of undertaking to judge of the merit of your own

translation of the excellent letter on education. After having done all

which good sense and eloquence could do on the original, you must not

ambition the double need of English eloquence also. Did you ever know an

instance of one who could write in a foreign language with the elegance

of a native? Cicero wrote Commentaries of his own Consulship in Greek;

they perished unknown, while his native compositions have immortalized

him with themselves. No, my dear friend; you must not risk the success

of your letter on foreignisms of style which may weaken its effect. Some

native pen must give it to our countrymen in a native dress, faithful

to its original. You will find such with the aid of our friend Correa,

who knows everybody, and will readily think of some one who has time and

talent for this work. I have neither. Till noon I am daily engaged in a

correspondence much too extensive and laborious for my age. From noon to

dinner health, habit, and business, require me to be on horseback; and

render the society of my family and friends a necessary relaxation for

the rest of the day. These occupations scarcely leave time for the papers

of the day; and to renounce entirely the sciences and belles-lettres is

impossible. Had not Mr. Gilmer just taken his place in the ranks of the

bar, I think we could have engaged him in this work. But I am persuaded

that Mr. Correa's intimacy with the persons of promise in our country,

will leave you without difficulty in laying this work of instruction

open to our citizens at large.

I have not yet had time to read your Equinoctial republics, nor the

letter of Say; because I am still engrossed by the letters which had

accumulated during my absence. The latter I accept with thankfulness, and

will speedily read and return the former. God bless you, and maintain

you in strength of body, and mind, until your own wishes shall be to

resign both.

TO CAPT. A. PARTRIDGE.

MONTICELLO, January 2d, 1816.

SIR,--I am but recently returned from my journey to the neighborhood of

the Peaks of Otter, and find here your favors of November 23d and December

9th. I have therefore to thank you for your meteorological table and the

corrections of Colonel Williams' altitudes of the mountains of Virginia,

which I had not before seen; but especially for the very able extract on

Barometrical measures. The precision of the calculations, and soundness

of the principles on which they are founded, furnish, I am satisfied, a

great approximation towards truth, and raise that method of estimating

heights to a considerable degree of rivalship with the trigonometrical.

The last is not without some sources of inaccuracy, as you have truly

stated. The admeasurement of the base is liable to errors which can be

rendered insensible only by such degrees of care as have been exhibited

by the mathematicians who have been employed in measuring degrees on

the surface of the earth. The measure of the angles by the wonderful

perfection to which the graduation of instruments has been brought by

a Bird, a Ramsden, a Troughton, removes nearly all distrust from that

operation; and we may add that the effect of refraction, rarely worth

notice in short distances, admits of correction by well-established laws;

these sources of error once reduced to be insensible, their geometrical

employment is certainty itself. No two men can differ on a principle of

trigonometry. Not so as to the theories of Barometrical mensuration. On

these have been great differences of opinion, and among characters of

just celebrity.

Dr. Halley reckoned one-tenth inch of Mercury equal to 90 feet altitude

of the atmosphere. Derham thought it equal to something less than 90

feet. Cassini's tables to 24° of the Barometer allowed 676 toises of

altitudes.

Mariole's, to the same 544 toises.

Schruchzer's " 559 "

Nettleton's tables applied to a difference of .5975 of mercury, in a

particular instance gave 512.17 feet of altitude, and Bonguor's and De

Luc's rules, to the same difference gave 579.5 feet. Sir Isaac Newton

had established that at heights in arithmetrical progression the ratio

of rarity in the air would be geometrical, and this being the character

of the natural numbers and their Logarithms, Bonguor adopted the ratio

in his mensuration of the mountains of South America, and stating in

French lignes the height of the mercury of different stations, took their

Logarithms to five places only, including the index, and considered the

resulting difference as expressing that of the altitudes in French toises.

He then applied corrections required by the effect of the temperature

of the moment on the air and mercury. His process, on the whole, agrees

very exactly with that established in your excellent extract. In 1776

I observed the height of the mercury at the base and summit of the

mountain I live on, and by Nettleton's tables, estimated the height at

512.17 feet, and called it about 500 feet in the Notes on Virginia. But

calculating it since on the same observations, according to Bonguor's

method with De Luc's improvements, the result was 579.5 feet; and lately

I measured the same height trigonometrically, with the aid of a base

of 1,175 feet in a vertical plane with the summit, and at the distance

of about 1,500 yards from the axis of the mountain, and made it 599.35

feet. I consider this as testing the advance of the barometrical process

towards truth by the adoption of the Logarithmic ratio of heights and

densities; and continued observations and experiments will continue to

advance it still more. But the first character of a common measure of

things being that of invariability, I can never suppose that a substance

so heterogeneous and variable as the atmospheric fluid, changing daily and

hourly its weight and dimensions to the amount, sometimes, of one-tenth

of the whole, can be applied as a standard of measure to anything, with

as much mathematical exactness, as a trigonometrical process. It is

still, however, a resource of great value for these purposes, because

its use is so easy, in comparison with the other, and especially where

the grounds are unfavorable for a base; and its results are so near the

truth as to answer all the common purposes of information. Indeed, I

should in all cases prefer the use of both, to warn us against gross

error, and to put us, when that is suspected, on a repetition of our

process. When lately measuring trigonometrically the height of the Peaks

of Otter (as my letter of October 12th informed you I was about to do),

I very much wished for a barometer, to try the height of that also. But

it was too far and hazardous to carry my own, and there was not one in

that neighborhood. On the subject of that admeasurement, I must premise

that my object was only to gratify a common curiosity as to the height

of those mountains, which we deem our highest, and to furnish an _à

peu près_, sufficient to satisfy us in a comparison of them with the

other mountains of our own, or of other countries. I therefore neither

provided such instruments, nor aimed at such extraordinary accuracy in

the measures of my base, as abler operators would have employed in the

more important object of measuring a degree, or of ascertaining the

relative position of different places for astronomical or geographical

purposes. My instrument was a theodolite by Ramsden, whose horizontal

and vertical circles were of 3½ inches radius, its graduation subdivided

by noniuses to one-third, admitting however by its intervals, a further

subdivision by the eye to a single minute, with two telescopes, the one

fixed, the other movable, and a Gunter's chain of four poles, accurately

adjusted in its length, and carefully attended on its application to the

base line. The Sharp, or southern peak, was first measured by a base of

2806.32 feet in the vertical plane of the axis of the mountain. A base

then nearly parallel with the two mountains of 6,589 feet was measured,

and observations taken at each end, of the altitudes and horizontal

angles of each apex, and such other auxiliary observations made as to the

stations, inclination of the base, &c., as a good degree of correctness

in the result would require. The ground of our bases was favorable,

being an open plain of close grazed meadow on both sides of the Otter

river, declining so uniformly with the descent of the river as to give no

other trouble than an observation of its angle of inclination, in order

to reduce the base to the plane of the horizon. From the summit of the

Sharp peak I took also the angle of altitude of the flat or northern one

above it, my other observations sufficing to give their distance from

one another. The result was, the mean height of the Sharp peak above

the surface of Otter river

2946.5 inches.

Mean height of the flat peak above the surface of Otter

river 3103.5 inches.

The distance between the two summits 9507.73 inches.

Their rhumb N. 33° 50´ E. the distance of the stations of observation

from the points in the bases of the mountains vertically under their

summits was, the shortest 19002.2 feet, the longest 24523.3 feet. These

mountains are computed to be visible to fifteen counties of the State,

without the advantage of counter-elevations, and to several more with

that advantage. I must add that I have gone over my calculations but

once, and nothing is more possible than the mistake of a figure, now

and then, in calculating so many triangles, which may occasion some

variation in the result. I mean, therefore, when I have leisure, to go

again over the whole. The ridge of mountains of which Monticello is one,

is generally low; there is one in it, however, called Peter's mountain,

considerably higher than the general ridge. This being within a dozen

miles of me, north-eastwardly, I think in the spring of the year to

measure it by both processes, which may serve as another trial of the

Logarithmic theory. Should I do this you shall know the result. In the

meantime accept assurances of my great respect and esteem.

TO COLONEL YANCEY.

MONTICELLO, January 6, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I am favored with yours of December 24th, and perceive you

have many matters before you of great moment. I have no fear but that

the legislature will do on all of them what is wise and just. On the

particular subject of our river, in the navigation of which our county

has so great an interest, I think the power of permitting dams to be

erected across it, ought to be taken from the courts, so far as the

stream has water enough for navigation. The value of our property is

sensibly lessened by the dam which the court of Fluvana authorized not

long since to be erected, but a little above its mouth. This power over

the value and convenience of our lands is of much too high a character

to be placed at the will of a county court, and that of a county, too,

which has not a common interest in the preservation of the navigation

for those above them. As to the existing dams, if any conditions are

proposed more than those to which they were subjected on their original

erection, I think they would be allowed the alternative of opening a

sluice for the passage of navigation, so as to put the river into as

good a condition for navigation as it was before the erection of their

dam, or as it would be if their dam were away. Those interested in the

navigation might then use the sluices or make locks as should be thought

best. Nature and reason, as well as all our constitutions, condemn

retrospective conditions as mere acts of power against right.

I recommend to your patronage our Central College. I look to it as a

germ from which a great tree may spread itself.

There is before the assembly a petition of a Captain Miller which I have

at heart, because I have great esteem for the petitioner as an honest

and useful man. He is about to settle in our county, and to establish

a brewery, in which art I think him as skilful a man as has ever come

to America. I wish to see this beverage become common instead of the

whiskey which kills one-third of our citizens and ruins their families.

He is staying with me until he can fix himself, and I should be thankful

for information from time to time of the progress of his petition.

Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens

are clamoring for more banks, more banks. The American mind is now in

that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history

of other nations. We are under the bank bubble, as England was under

the South Sea bubble, France under the Mississippi bubble, and as every

nation is liable to be, under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may

puff up in moments when off their guard. We are now taught to believe

that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard

labor in the earth. It is vain for common sense to urge that _nothing_

can produce but _nothing_; that it is an idle dream to believe in a

philosopher's stone which is to turn everything into gold, and to redeem

man from the original sentence of his Maker, "in the sweat of his brow

shall he eat his bread." Not Quixot enough, however, to attempt to reason

Bedlam to rights, my anxieties are turned to the most practicable means

of withdrawing us from the ruin into which we have run. Two hundred

millions of paper in the hands of the people, (and less cannot be from the

employment of a banking capital known to exceed one hundred millions,)

is a fearful tax to fall at hap-hazard on their heads. The debt which

purchased our independence was but of eighty millions, of which twenty

years of taxation had in 1809 paid but the one half. And what have we

purchased with this tax of two hundred millions which we are to pay

by wholesale but usury, swindling, and new forms of demoralization.

Revolutionary history has warned us of the probable moment when this

baseless trash is to receive its fiat. Whenever so much of the precious

metals shall have returned into the circulation as that every one can

get some in exchange for his produce, paper, as in the revolutionary

war, will experience at once an universal rejection. When public opinion

changes, it is with the rapidity of thought. Confidence is already on the

totter, and every one now handles this paper as if playing at Robin's

alive. That in the present state of the circulation the banks should

resume payments in specie, would require their vaults to be like the

widow's cruise. The thing to be aimed at is, that the excesses of their

emissions should be withdrawn as gradually, but as speedily, too, as is

practicable, without so much alarm as to bring on the crisis dreaded.

Some banks are said to be calling in their paper. But ought we to let

this depend on their discretion? Is it not the duty of the legislature

to endeavor to avert from their constituents such a catastrophe as the

extinguishment of two hundred millions of paper in their hands? The

difficulty is indeed great; and the greater, because the patient revolts

against all medicine. I am far from presuming to say that any plan can be

relied on with certainty, because the bubble may burst from one moment

to another; but if it fails, we shall be but where we should have been

without any effort to save ourselves. Different persons, doubtless, will

devise different schemes of relief. One would be to suppress instantly

the currency of all paper not issued under the authority of our own

State or of the General Government; to interdict after a few months the

circulation of all bills of five dollars and under; after a few months

more, all of ten dollars and under; after other terms, those of twenty,

fifty, and so on to one hundred dollars, which last, if any must be

left in circulation, should be the lowest denomination. These might be

a convenience in mercantile transactions and transmissions, and would be

excluded by their size from ordinary circulation. But the disease may be

too pressing to await such a remedy. With the legislature I cheerfully

leave it to apply this medicine, or no medicine at all. I am sure their

intentions are faithful; and embarked in the same bottom, I am willing

to swim or sink with my fellow citizens. If the latter is their choice,

I will go down with them without a murmur. But my exhortation would

rather be "not to give up the ship."

I am a great friend to the improvements of roads, canals, and schools.

But I wish I could see some provision for the former as solid as that

of the latter,--something better than fog. The literary fund is a solid

provision, unless lost in the impending bankruptcy. If the legislature

would add to that a perpetual tax of a cent a head on the population of

the State, it would set agoing at once, and forever maintain, a system

of primary or ward schools, and an university where might be taught,

in its highest degree, every branch of science useful in our time and

country; and it would rescue us from the tax of toryism, fanaticism, and

indifferentism to their own State, which we now send our youth to bring

from those of New England. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,

in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at

will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe

deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe

with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man

able to read, all is safe. The frankness of this communication will, I am

sure, suggest to you a discreet use of it. I wish to avoid all collisions

of opinion with all mankind. Show it to Mr. Maury, with expressions of

my great esteem. It pretends to convey no more than the opinions of one

of your thousand constituents, and to claim no more attention than every

other of that thousand.

I will ask you once more to take care of Miller and our College, and to

accept assurances of my esteem and respect.

TO CHARLES THOMPSON.

MONTICELLO, January 9, 1816.

MY DEAR AND ANCIENT FRIEND,--An acquaintance of fifty-two years, for I

think ours dates from 1764, calls for an interchange of notice now and

then, that we remain in existence, the monuments of another age, and

examples of a friendship unaffected by the jarring elements by which

we have been surrounded, of revolutions of government, of party and of

opinion. I am reminded of this duty by the receipt, through our friend

Dr. Patterson, of your synopsis of the four Evangelists. I had procured

it as soon as I saw it advertised, and had become familiar with its

use; but this copy is the more valued as it comes from your hand. This

work bears the stamp of that accuracy which marks everything from you,

and will be useful to those who, not taking things on trust, recur for

themselves to the fountain of pure morals. I, too, have made a wee-little

book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is

a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book,

and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of

time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have

never seen; it is a document in proof that _I_ am a _real Christian_,

that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from

the Platonists, who call _me_ infidel and _themselves_ Christians and

preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas

from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the

heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the

great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to

return on earth, would not recognize one feature. If I had time I would

add to my little book the Greek, Latin and French texts, in columns side

by side. And I wish I could subjoin a translation of Gosindi's Syntagma

of the doctrines of Epicurus, which, notwithstanding the calumnies of the

Stoics and caricatures of Cicero, is the most rational system remaining

of the philosophy of the ancients, as frugal of vicious indulgence, and

fruitful of virtue as the hyperbolical extravagances of his rival sects.

I retain good health, am rather feeble to walk much, but ride with

ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback, and every three

or four months taking in a carriage a journey of ninety miles to a

distant possession, where I pass a good deal of my time. My eyes need

the aid of glasses by night, and with small print in the day also; my

hearing is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no tooth shaking yet,

but shivering and shrinking in body from the cold we now experience,

my thermometer having been as low as 12° this morning. My greatest

oppression is a correspondence afflictingly laborious, the extent of

which I have been long endeavoring to curtail. This keeps me at the

drudgery of the writing-table all the prime hours of the day, leaving

for the gratification of my appetite for reading, only what I can steal

from the hours of sleep. Could I reduce this epistolary corvée within

the limits of my friends and affairs, and give the time redeemed from

it to reading and reflection, to history, ethics, mathematics, my life

would be as happy as the infirmities of age would admit, and I should

look on its consummation with the composure of one "_qui summum nec me

tuit diem nec optat_."

So much as to myself, and I have given you this string of egotisms

in the hope of drawing a similar one from yourself. I have heard from

others that you retain your health, a good degree of activity, and all

the vivacity and cheerfulness of your mind, but I wish to learn it more

minutely from yourself. How has time affected your health and spirits?

What are your amusements, literary and social? Tell me everything about

yourself, because all will be interesting to me who retains for you ever

the same constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

TO BENJAMIN AUSTIN, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, January 9, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of December 21st has been received, and I am first

to thank you for the pamphlet it covered. The same description of persons

which is the subject of that is so much multiplied here too, as to be

almost a grievance, and by their numbers in the public councils, have

wrested from the public hand the direction of the pruning knife. But with

us as a body, they are republican, and mostly moderate in their views;

so far, therefore, less objects of jealousy than with you. Your opinions

on the events which have taken place in France, are entirely just, so

far as these events are yet developed. But they have not reached their

ultimate termination. There is still an awful void between the present

and what is to be the last chapter of that history; and I fear it is

to be filled with abominations as frightful as those which have already

disgraced it. That nation is too high-minded, has too much innate force,

intelligence and elasticity, to remain under its present compression.

Samson will arise in his strength, as of old, and as of old will burst

asunder the withes and the cords, and the webs of the Philistines. But

what are to be the scenes of havoc and horror, and how widely they

may spread between brethren of the same house, our ignorance of the

interior feuds and antipathies of the country places beyond our ken. It

will end, nevertheless, in a representative government, in a government

in which the will of the people will be an effective ingredient. This

important element has taken root in the European mind, and will have

its growth; their despots, sensible of this, are already offering this

modification of their governments, as if of their own accord. Instead

of the parricide treason of Bonaparte, in perverting the means confided

to him as a republican magistrate, to the subversion of that republic

and erection of a military despotism for himself and his family, had he

used it honestly for the establishment and support of a free government

in his own country, France would now have been in freedom and rest; and

her example operating in a contrary direction, every nation in Europe

would have had a government over which the will of the people would

have had some control. His atrocious egotism has checked the salutary

progress of principle, and deluged it with rivers of blood which are

not yet run out. To the vast sum of devastation and of human misery, of

which he has been the guilty cause, much is still to be added. But the

object is fixed in the eye of nations, and they will press on to its

accomplishment and to the general amelioration of the condition of man.

What a germ have we planted, and how faithfully should we cherish the

parent tree at home!

You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependence

on England for manufactures. There was a time when I might have been

so quoted with more candor, but within the thirty years which have

since elapsed, how are circumstances changed! We were then in peace.

Our independent place among nations was acknowledged. A commerce which

offered the raw material in exchange for the same material after receiving

the last touch of industry, was worthy of welcome to all nations. It

was expected that those especially to whom manufacturing industry was

important, would cherish the friendship of such customers by every

favor, by every inducement, and particularly cultivate their peace by

every act of justice and friendship. Under this prospect the question

seemed legitimate, whether, with such an immensity of unimproved land,

courting the hand of husbandry, the industry of agriculture, or that

of manufactures, would add most to the national wealth? And the doubt

was entertained on this consideration chiefly, that to the labor of

the husbandman a vast addition is made by the spontaneous energies of

the earth on which it is employed: for one grain of wheat committed to

the earth, she renders twenty, thirty, and even fifty fold, whereas to

the labor of the manufacturer nothing is added. Pounds of flax, in his

hands, yield, on the contrary, but pennyweights of lace. This exchange,

too, laborious as it might seem, what a field did it promise for the

occupations of the ocean; what a nursery for that class of citizens who

were to exercise and maintain our equal rights on that element? This was

the state of things in 1785, when the "Notes on Virginia" were first

printed; when, the ocean being open to all nations, and their common

right in it acknowledged and exercised under regulations sanctioned by the

assent and usage of all, it was thought that the doubt might claim some

consideration. But who in 1785 could foresee the rapid depravity which

was to render the close of that century the disgrace of the history of

man? Who could have imagined that the two most distinguished in the rank

of nations, for science and civilization, would have suddenly descended

from that honorable eminence, and setting at defiance all those moral laws

established by the Author of nature between nation and nation, as between

man and man, would cover earth and sea with robberies and piracies,

merely because strong enough to do it with temporal impunity; and that

under this disbandment of nations from social order, we should have been

despoiled of a thousand ships, and have thousands of our citizens reduced

to Algerine slavery. Yet all this has taken place. One of these nations

interdicted to our vessels all harbors of the globe without having first

proceeded to some one of hers, there paid a tribute proportioned to the

cargo, and obtained her license to proceed to the port of destination. The

other declared them to be lawful prize if they had touched at the port,

or been visited by a ship of the enemy nation. Thus were we completely

excluded from the ocean. Compare this state of things with that of '85,

and say whether an opinion founded in the circumstances of that day can

be fairly applied to those of the present. We have experienced what we

did not then believe, that there exists both profligacy and power enough

to exclude us from the field of interchange with other nations: that to

be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate them ourselves.

We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist.

The former question is suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. Shall

we make our own comforts, or go without them, at the will of a foreign

nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture, must be

for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be

clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I

am not one of these; experience has taught me that manufactures are now

as necessary to our independence as to our comfort; and if those who

quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with me in purchasing

nothing foreign where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained,

without regard to difference of price, it will not be our fault if we

do not soon have a supply at home equal to our demand, and wrest that

weapon of distress from the hand which has wielded it. If it shall be

proposed to go beyond our own supply, the question of '85 will then

recur, will our _surplus_ labor be then most beneficially employed in the

culture of the earth, or in the fabrications of art? We have time yet for

consideration, before that question will press upon us; and the maxim

to be applied will depend on the circumstances which shall then exist;

for in so complicated a science as political economy, no one axiom can

be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances, and

for their contraries. Inattention to this is what has called for this

explanation, which reflection would have rendered unnecessary with the

candid, while nothing will do it with those who use the former opinion

only as a stalking horse, to cover their disloyal propensities to keep

us in eternal vassalage to a foreign and unfriendly people.

I salute you with assurances of great respect and esteem.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

MONTICELLO, January 11, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Of the last five months I have passed four at my other domicil,

for such it is in a considerable degree. No letters are forwarded to me

there, because the cross post to that place is circuitous and uncertain;

during my absence, therefore, they are accumulating here, and awaiting

acknowledgments. This has been the fate of your favor of November 13th.

I agree with you in all its eulogies on the eighteenth century. It

certainly witnessed the sciences and arts, manners and morals, advanced

to a higher degree than the world had ever before seen. And might we not

go back to the æra of the Borgias, by which time the barbarous ages had

reduced national morality to its lowest point of depravity, and observe

that the arts and sciences, rising from that point, advanced gradually

through all the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, softening

and correcting the manners and morals of man? I think, too, we may add to

the great honor of science and the arts, that their natural effect is,

by illuminating public opinion, to erect it into a censor, before which

the most exalted tremble for their future, as well as present fame. With

some exceptions only, through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

morality occupied an honorable chapter in the political code of nations.

You must have observed while in Europe, as I thought I did, that those

who administered the governments of the greater powers at least, had

a respect to faith, and considered the dignity of their government as

involved in its integrity. A wound indeed was inflicted on this character

of honor in the eighteenth century by the partition of Poland. But this

was the atrocity of a barbarous government chiefly, in conjunction with

a smaller one still scrambling to become great, while one only of those

already great, and having character to lose, descended to the baseness

of an accomplice in the crime. France, England, Spain, shared in it only

inasmuch as they stood aloof and permitted its perpetration.

How then has it happened that these nations, France especially and

England, so great, so dignified, so distinguished by science and the

arts, plunged all at once into all the depths of human enormity, threw

off suddenly and openly all the restraints of morality, all sensation to

character, and unblushingly avowed and acted on the principle that power

was right? Can this sudden apostasy from national rectitude be accounted

for? The treaty of Pilnitz seems to have begun it, suggested perhaps by

the baneful precedent of Poland. Was it from the terror of monarchs,

alarmed at the light returning on them from the west, and kindling a

volcano under their thrones? Was it a combination to extinguish that

light, and to bring back, as their best auxiliaries, those enumerated

by you, the Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index Expurgatorius, and the

knights of Loyola? Whatever it was, the close of the century saw the

moral world thrown back again to the age of the Borgias, to the point from

which it had departed three hundred years before. France, after crushing

and punishing the conspiracy of Pilnitz, went herself deeper and deeper

into the crimes she had been chastising. I say France and not Bonaparte;

for, although he was the head and mouth, the nation furnished the hands

which executed his enormities. England, although in opposition, kept

full pace with France, not indeed by the manly force of her own arms,

but by oppressing the weak and bribing the strong. At length the whole

choir joined and divided the weaker nations among them. Your prophecies

to Dr. Price proved truer than mine; and yet fell short of the fact, for

instead of a million, the destruction of eight or ten millions of human

beings has probably been the effect of these convulsions. I did not,

in '89, believe they would have lasted so long, nor have cost so much

blood. But although your prophecy has proved true so far, I hope it does

not preclude a better final result. That same light from our west seems

to have spread and illuminated the very engines employed to extinguish

it. It has given them a glimmering of their rights and their power. The

idea of representative government has taken root and growth among them.

Their masters feel it, and are saving themselves by timely offers of

this modification of their powers. Belgium, Prussia, Poland, Lombardy,

&c., are now offered a representative organization; illusive probably at

first, but it will grow into power in the end. Opinion is power, and that

opinion will come. Even France will yet attain representative government.

You observe it makes the basis of every constitution which has been

demanded or offered,--of that demanded by their Senate; of that offered by

Bonaparte; and of that granted by Louis XVIII. The idea then is rooted,

and will be established, although rivers of blood may yet flow between

them and their object. The allied armies now couching upon them are first

to be destroyed, and destroyed they will surely be. A nation united can

never be conquered. We have seen what the ignorant, bigoted and unarmed

Spaniards could do against the disciplined veterans of their invaders.

What then may we not expect from the power and character of the French

nation? The oppressors may cut off heads after heads, but like those of

the Hydra they multiply at every stroke. The recruits within a nation's

own limits are prompt and without number; while those of their invaders

from a distance are slow, limited, and must come to an end. I think, too,

we perceive that all these allies do not see the same interest in the

annihilation of the power of France. There are certainly some symptoms

of foresight in Alexander that France might produce a salutary diversion

of force were Austria and Prussia to become her enemies. France, too,

is the neutral ally of the Turk, as having no interfering interests,

and might be useful in neutralizing and perhaps turning that power on

Austria. That a re-acting jealousy, too, exists with Austria and Prussia,

I think their late strict alliance indicates; and I should not wonder

if Spain should discover a sympathy with them. Italy is so divided as

to be nothing. Here then we see new coalitions in embryo, which, after

France shall in turn have suffered a just punishment for her crimes,

will not only raise her from the earth on which she is prostrate, but

give her an opportunity to establish a government of as much liberty

as she can bear--enough to ensure her happiness and prosperity. When

insurrection begins, be it where it will, all the partitioned countries

will rush to arms, and Europe again become an arena of gladiators. And

what is the definite object they will propose? A restoration certainly

of the _status quo prius_, of the state of possession of '89. I see no

other principle on which Europe can ever again settle down in lasting

peace. I hope your prophecies will go thus far, as my wishes do, and that

they, like the former, will prove to have been the sober dictates of a

superior understanding, and a sound calculation of effects from causes

well understood. Some future Morgan will then have an opportunity of doing

you justice, and of counterbalancing the breach of confidence of which you

so justly complain, and in which no one has had more frequent occasion

of fellow-feeling than myself. Permit me to place here my affectionate

respects to Mrs. Adams, and to add for yourself the assurances of cordial

friendship and esteem.

TO DABNEY CARR.

MONTICELLO, January 19, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--At the date of your letter of December the 1st, I was in

Bedford, and since my return, so many letters, accumulated during my

absence, have been pressing for answers, that this is the first moment

I have been able to attend to the subject of yours. While Mr. Girardin

was in this neighborhood writing his continuation of Burke's history,

I had suggested to him a proper notice of the establishment of the

committee of correspondence here in 1773, and of Mr. Carr, your father,

who introduced it. He has doubtless done this, and his work is now in

the press. My books, journals of the times, &c., being all gone, I have

nothing now but an impaired memory to resort to for the more particular

statement you wish. But I give it with the more confidence, as I find

that I remember old things better than new. The transaction took place

in the session of Assembly of March 1773. Patrick Henry, Richard Henry

Lee, Frank Lee, your father and myself, met by agreement, one evening,

about the close of the session, at the Raleigh Tavern, to consult on

the measures which the circumstances of the times seemed to call for.

We agreed, in result, that concert in the operations of the several

colonies was indispensable; and that to produce this, some channel of

correspondence between them must be opened; that therefore, we would

propose to our House the appointment of a committee of correspondence,

which should be authorized and instructed to write to the Speakers of

the House of Representatives of the several Colonies, recommending the

appointment of similar committees on their part, who, by a communication

of sentiment on the transactions threatening us all, might promote a

harmony of action salutary to all. This was the substance, not pretending

to remember the words. We proposed the resolution, and your father was

agreed on to make the motion. He did it the next day, March the 12th,

with great ability, reconciling all to it, not only by the reasonings,

but by the temper and moderation with which it was developed. It was

adopted by a very general vote. Peyton Randolph, some of us who proposed

it, and who else I do not remember, were appointed of the committee.

We immediately despatched letters by expresses to the Speakers of all

the other Assemblies. I remember that Mr. Carr and myself, returning

home together, and conversing on the subject by the way, concurred in

the conclusion that that measure must inevitably beget the meeting of a

Congress of Deputies from all the colonies, for the purpose of uniting

all in the same principles and measures for the maintenance of our

rights. My memory cannot deceive me, when I affirm that we did it in

consequence of no such proposition from any other colony. No doubt the

resolution itself and the journals of the day will show that ours was

original, and not merely responsive to one from any other quarter. Yet,

I am certain I remember also, that a similar proposition, and nearly

cotemporary, was made by Massachusetts, and that our northern messenger

passed theirs on the road. This, too, may be settled by recurrence to the

records of Massachusetts. The proposition was generally acceded to by the

other colonies, and the first effect, as expected, was the meeting of a

Congress at New York the ensuing year. The committee of correspondence

appointed by Massachusetts, as quoted by you from Marshall, under

the date of 1770, must have been for a special purpose, and _functus

officio_ before the date of 1773, or Massachusetts herself would not

then have proposed another. Records should be examined to settle this

accurately. I well remember the pleasure expressed in the countenance

and conversation of the members generally, on this _debut_ of Mr. Carr,

and the hopes they conceived as well from the talents as the patriotism

it manifested. But he died within two months after, and in him we lost a

powerful fellow-laborer. His character was of a high order. A spotless

integrity, sound judgment, handsome imagination, enriched by education

and reading, quick and clear in his conceptions, of correct and ready

elocution, impressing every hearer with the sincerity of the heart from

which it flowed. His firmness was inflexible in whatever he thought was

right; but when no moral principle stood in the way, never had man more

of the milk of human kindness, of indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry

of conversation and conduct. The number of his friends, and the warmth

of their affection, were proofs of his worth, and of their estimate of

it. To give to those now living, an idea of the affliction produced by

his death in the minds of all who knew him, I liken it to that lately

felt by themselves on the death of his eldest son, Peter Carr, so like

him in all his endowments and moral qualities, and whose recollection

can never recur without a deep-drawn sigh from the bosom of any one who

knew him. You mention that I showed you an inscription I had proposed

for the tomb stone of your father. Did I leave it in your hands to be

copied? I ask the question, not that I have any such recollection, but

that I find it no longer in the place of its deposit, and think I never

took it out but on that occasion. Ever and affectionately yours.

TO DR. PETER WILSON, PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGES, COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK.

MONTICELLO, January 20, 1816.

SIR,--Of the last five months, I have been absent four from home, which

must apologize for so very late an acknowledgment of your favor of

November 22d, and I wish the delay could be compensated by the matter

of the answer. But an unfortunate accident puts that out of my power.

During the course of my public life, and from a very early period of

it, I omitted no opportunity of procuring vocabularies of the Indian

languages, and for that purpose formed a model expressing such objects

in nature as must be familiar to every people, savage or civilized.

This being made the standard to which all were brought, would exhibit

readily whatever affinities of language there be between the several

tribes. It was my intention, on retiring from public business, to have

digested these into some order, so as to show not only what relations of

language existed among our own aborigines, but by a collation with the

great Russian vocabulary of the languages of Europe and Asia, whether

there were any between them and the other nations of the continent. On my

removal from Washington, the package in which this collection was coming

by water, was stolen and destroyed. It consisted of between thirty and

forty vocabularies, of which I can, from memory, say nothing particular;

but that I am certain more than half of them differed as radically,

each from every other, as the Greek, the Latin, and Islandic. And even

of those which seemed to be derived from the same radix, the departure

was such that the tribes speaking them could not probably understand

one another. Single words, or two or three together, might perhaps be

understood, but not a whole sentence of any extent or construction. I

think, therefore, the pious missionaries who shall go to the several

tribes to instruct them in the Christian religion, will have to learn

a language for every tribe they go to; nay, more, that they will have

to create a new language for every one, that is to say, to add to

theirs new words for the new ideas they will have to communicate. Law,

medicine, chemistry, mathematics, every science has a language of its

own, and divinity not less than others. Their barren vocabularies cannot

be vehicles for ideas of the fall of man, his redemption, the triune

composition of the Godhead, and other mystical doctrines considered

by most Christians of the present date as essential elements of faith.

The enterprise is therefore arduous, but the more inviting perhaps to

missionary zeal, in proportion as the merit of surmounting it will be

greater. Again repeating my regrets that I am able to give so little

satisfaction on the subject of your inquiry, I pray you to accept the

assurance of my great consideration and esteem.

TO MR. AMOS J. COOK, PRECEPTOR OF FRYEBURG ACADEMY IN THE DISTRICT OF

MAINE.

MONTICELLO, January 21, 1816.

SIR,--Your favor of December 18th was exactly a month on its way to

this place; and I have to thank you for the elegant and philosophical

lines communicated by the Nestor of our Revolution. Whether the style

or sentiment be considered, they were well worthy the trouble of being

copied and communicated by his pen. Nor am I less thankful for the happy

translation of them. It adds another to the rare instances of a rival

to its original: superior indeed in one respect, as the same outline

of sentiment is brought within a compass of better proportion. For if

the original be liable to any criticism, it is that of giving too great

extension to the same general idea. Yet it has a great authority to

support it, that of a wiser man than all of us. "I sought in my heart

to give myself unto wine; I made me great works; I builded me houses;

I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens, and orchards, and pools to

water them; I got me servants and maidens, and great possessions of

cattle; I gathered me also silver and gold, and men singers and women

singers, and the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments

of all sorts; and whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them;

I withheld not my heart from any joy. Then I looked on all the works

that my hands had wrought, and behold! all was vanity and vexation of

spirit! I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth

darkness." The Preacher, whom I abridge, has indulged in a much larger

amplification of his subject. I am not so happy as my friend and ancient

colleague, Mr. Adams, in possessing anything original, _inedited_, and

worthy of comparison with the epigraph of the Spanish monk. I can offer

but humble prose, from the hand indeed of the father of eloquence and

philosophy; a moral morsel, which our young friends under your tuition

should keep ever in their eye, as the ultimate term of your instructions,

and of their labors. "Hic, quisquis est, qui moderatione et constantia

quietus animo est, sibique ipse placatus; ut nec tabescat molestiis,

nec frangatur timore, nec sitienter quid expectens ardeat desiderio, nec

alacritate futili gestiens deliquescat; is est sapiens, quem quaerimus;

is est beatus; cui nihil humanarum rerum aut intolerabile ad dimittendum

animum, aut nimis lactabile ad efferendum, videri potest." Or if a

poetical dress will be more acceptable to the fancy of the juvenile

student:

"Quisnam igitur liber? Sapiens, sibique imperiosus:

Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent:

Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores

Fortis, et in scipso totus teres, atque rotundus;

Externi ne quid valeat per laeve morari:

In quem manea ruit semper Fortuna."

And if the Wise be the happy man, as these sages say, he must be virtuous

too; for, without virtue, happiness cannot be. This then is the true

scope of all academical emulation.

You request something in the handwriting of General Washington. I enclose

you a letter which I received from him while in Paris, covering a copy

of the new Constitution; it is offered merely as what you ask, a specimen

of his handwriting.

On the subject of your Museum, I fear I cannot flatter myself with being

useful to it. Were the obstacle of distance out of the way, age and

retirement have withdrawn me from the opportunities of procuring objects

in that line. With every wish for the prosperity of your institution,

accept the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO MR. THOMAS RITCHIE.

MONTICELLO, January 21, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--In answering the letter of a northern correspondent lately,

I indulged in a tirade against a pamphlet recently published in this

quarter. On revising my letter, however, I thought it unsafe to commit

myself so far to a stranger. I struck out the passage therefore, yet I

think the pamphlet of such a character as not to be unknown, or unnoticed

by the people of the United States. It is the most bold and impudent

stride New England has ever made in arrogating an ascendency over the

rest of the Union. The first form of the pamphlet was an address from

the Reverend Lyman Beecher, chairman of the Connecticut Society for the

education of _pious_ young men for the ministry. Its matter was then

adopted and published in a sermon by Reverend Mr. Pearson of Andover in

Massachusetts, where they have a _theological_ college; and where the

address "with circumstantial variations to adopt it to more general use"

is reprinted on a sheet and a half of paper, in so cheap a form as to

be distributed, I imagine, gratis, for it has a final note indicating

six thousand copies of the first edition printed. So far as it respects

Virginia, the extract of my letter gives the outline. I therefore send

it to you to publish or burn, abridge or alter, as you think best.

You understand the public palate better than I do. Only give it such

a title as may lead to no suspicion from whom you receive it. I am the

more induced to offer it to you because it is possible mine may be the

only copy in the State, and because, too, it may be _à propos_ for the

petition for the establishment of _a theological society_ now before the

legislature, and to which they have shown the unusual respect of hearing

an advocate for it at their bar. From what quarter this theological

society comes forward I know not; perhaps from our own tramontaine clergy,

of New England religion and politics; perhaps it is the entering wedge

from its _theological_ sister in Andover, for the body of "qualified

religious instructors" proposed by their pious brethren of the East "to

evangelize and catechize," to edify our daughters by weekly lectures, and

our wives by "family visits" from these pious young monks from Harvard

and Yale. However, do with this what you please, and be assured of my

friendship and respect.

TO NATHANIEL MACON.

MONTICELLO, January 22, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 7th, after being a fortnight on the road,

reached this the last night. On the subject of the statue of General

Washington, which the legislature of North Carolina has ordered to be

procured, and set up in their capitol, I shall willingly give you my

best information and opinions.

1. Your first inquiry is whether one worthy the character it is to

represent, and the State which erects it, can be made in the United

States? Certainly it cannot. I do not know that there is a single marble

statuary in the United States, but I am sure there cannot be one who would

offer himself as qualified to undertake this monument of gratitude and

taste. Besides, no quarry of statuary marble has yet, I believe, been

opened in the United States, that is to say, of a marble pure white,

and in blocks of sufficient size, without vein or flaw. The quarry of

Carara, in Italy, is the only one in the accessible parts of Europe which

furnishes such blocks. It was from thence we brought to Paris that for

the statue of General Washington, made there on account of this State;

and it is from there that all the southern and maritime parts of Europe

are supplied with that character of marble.

2. Who should make it? There can be but one answer to this. Old Canova,

of Rome. No artist in Europe would place himself in a line with him;

and for thirty years, within my own knowledge, he has been considered

by all Europe as without a rival. He draws his blocks from Carara, and

delivers the statue complete, and packed for transportation, at Rome;

from thence it descends the Tiber, but whether it must go to Leghorn,

or some other shipping port, I do not know.

3. Price, time, size, and style? It will probably take a couple of years

to be ready. I am not able to be exact as to the price. We gave Houdon,

at Paris, one thousand guineas for the one he made for this State; but

he solemnly and feelingly protested against the inadequacy of the price,

and evidently undertook it on motives of reputation alone. He was the

first artist in France, and being willing to come over to take the model

of the General, which we could not have got Canova to have done, that

circumstance decided on his employment. We paid him additionally for

coming over about five hundred guineas; and when the statue was done,

we paid the expenses of one of his under workmen to come over and set

it up, which might, perhaps, be one hundred guineas more. I suppose,

therefore, it cost us, in the whole, eight thousand dollars. But this

was only of the size of life. Yours should be something larger. The

difference it makes in the impression can scarcely be conceived. As to

the style or costume, I am sure the artist, and every person of taste in

Europe, would be for the Roman, the effect of which is undoubtedly of

a different order. Our boots and regimentals have a very puny effect.

Works of this kind are about one-third cheaper at Rome than Paris; but

Canova's eminence will be a sensible ingredient in price. I think that for

such a statue, with a plain pedestal, you would have a good bargain from

Canova at seven or eight thousand dollars, and should not be surprised

were he to require ten thousand dollars, to which you would have to add

the charges of bringing over and setting up. The one-half of the price

would probably have to be advanced, and the other half paid on delivery.

4. From what model? Ciracchi made the bust of General Washington in

plaster. It was the finest which came from his hand, and my own opinion

of Ciracchi was, that he was second to no sculptor living except Canova;

and, if he had lived, would have rivalled him. His style had been

formed on the fine models of antiquity in Italy, and he had caught their

ineffable majesty of expression. On his return to Rome, he made the bust

of the General in marble, from that in plaster; it was sent over here,

was universally considered as the best effigy of him ever executed, was

bought by the Spanish Minister for the king of Spain, and sent to Madrid.

After the death of Ciracchi, Mr. Appleton, our Consul at Leghorn, a man

of worth and taste, purchased of his widow the original plaster, with

a view to profit by copies of marble and plaster from it. He still has

it at Leghorn; and it is the only original from which the statue can be

formed. But the exterior of the figure will also be wanting, that is

to say, the outward lineaments of the body and members, to enable the

artist to give to them also their true forms and proportions. There are,

I believe, in Philadelphia, whole length paintings of General Washington,

from which, I presume, old Mr. Peale or his son would sketch on canvas

the mere outlines at no great charge. This sketch, with Ciracchi's bust,

will suffice.

5. Through whose agency? None so ready or so competent as Mr. Appleton

himself; he has had relations with Canova, is a judge of price, convenient

to engage the work, to attend to its progress, to receive and forward

it to North Carolina. Besides the accommodation of the original bust to

be asked from him, he will probably have to go to Rome himself, to make

the contract, and will incur a great deal of trouble besides, from that

time to the delivery in North Carolina; and it should therefore be made

a matter of interest with him to act in it, as his time and trouble is

his support. I imagine his agency from beginning to end would not be

worth less than from one to two hundred guineas. I particularize all

these things, that you may not be surprised with after-claps of expense,

not counted on beforehand. Mr. Appleton has two nephews at Baltimore,

both in the mercantile line, and in correspondence with him. Should the

Governor adopt this channel of execution, he will have no other trouble

than that of sending to them his communications for Mr. Appleton, and

making the remittances agreed on as shall be convenient to himself. A

letter from the Secretary of State to Mr. Appleton, informing him that

any service he can render the State of North Carolina in this business,

would be gratifying to his government, would not be without effect.

Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL.

MONTICELLO, January 24, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 16th experienced great delay on the road,

and to avoid that of another mail, I must answer very briefly.

My letter to Peter Carr contains all I ever wrote on the subject of the

College, a plan for the institution being the only thing the trustees

asked or expected from me. Were it to go into execution, I should

certainly interest myself further and strongly in procuring proper

professors.

The establishment of a Proctor is taken from the practice of Europe,

where an equivalent officer is made a part, and is a very essential

one, of every such institution; and as the nature of his functions

requires that he should always be a man of discretion, understanding,

and integrity above the common level, it was thought that he would never

be less worthy of being trusted with the powers of a justice, within

the limits of institution here, than the neighboring justices generally

are; and the vesting him with the conservation of the peace within

that limit, was intended, while it should equally secure its object, to

shield the young and unguarded student from the disgrace of the common

prison, except where the case was an aggravated one. A confinement to

his own room was meant as an act of tenderness to him, his parents and

friends; in fine, it was to give them a complete police of their own,

tempered by the paternal attentions of their tutors. And, certainly,

in no country is such a provision more called for than in this, as has

been proved from times of old, from the regular annual riots and battles

between the students of William and Mary with the town boys, before the

revolution, _quorum pars fui_, and the many and more serious affrays of

later times. Observe, too, that our bill proposes no exclusion of the

ordinary magistrate, if the one attached to the institution is thought

to execute his power either partially or remissly.

The transfer of the power to give commencement to the Ward or Elementary

Schools from the court and aldermen to the visitors, was proposed because

the experience of twenty years has proved that no court will ever begin

it. The reason is obvious. The members of the courts are the wealthy

members of the counties; and as the expenses of the schools are to be

defrayed by a contribution proportioned to the aggregate of other taxes

which every one pays, they consider it as a plan to educate the poor at

the expense of the rich. It proceeded, too, from a hope that the example

and good effects being exhibited in one county, they would spread from

county to county and become general. The modification of the law, by

authorizing the alderman to require the expense of tutorage from such

parents as are able, would render trifling, if not wholly prevent, any

call on the county for pecuniary aid. You know that nothing better than a

log-house is required for these schools, and there is not a neighborhood

which would not meet and build this themselves for the sake of having

a school near them.

I know of no peculiar advantage which Charlottesville offers for Mr.

Braidwood's school of deaf and dumb. On the contrary, I should think

the vicinity of the seat of government most favorable to it. I should

not like to have it made a member of our College. The objects of the two

institutions are fundamentally distinct. The one is science, the other

mere charity. It would be gratuitously taking a boat in tow which may

impede, but cannot aid the motion of the principal institution.

Ever and affectionately yours.

TO REV. MR. WORCESTER.

MONTICELLO, January 29, 1816.

SIR,--Your letter bearing date October 18th, 1815, came only to hand the

day before yesterday, which is mentioned to explain the date of mine. I

have to thank you for the pamphlets accompanying it, to wit, the Solemn

Review, the Friend of Peace or Special Interview, and the Friend of

Peace, No. 2; the first of these I had received through another channel

some months ago. I have not read the two last steadily through, because

where one assents to propositions as soon as announced it is loss of

time to read the arguments in support of them. These numbers discuss the

first branch of the causes of war, that is to say, wars undertaken for

the _point of honor_, which you aptly analogize with the act of duelling

between individuals, and reason with justice from the one to the other.

Undoubtedly this class of wars is, in the general, what you state them to

be, "needless, unjust and inhuman, as well as anti-Christian." The second

branch of this subject, to wit, wars undertaken on account of _wrong

done_, and which may be likened to the act of robbery in private life, I

presume will be treated of in your future numbers. I observe this class

mentioned in the Solemn Review, p. 10, and the question asked, "Is it

common for a nation to obtain a _redress_ of wrongs by war?" The answer

to this question you will of course draw from history. In the meantime,

reason will answer it on grounds of probability, that where the wrong has

been done by a weaker nation, the stronger one has generally been able

to enforce redress; but where by a stronger nation, redress by war has

been neither obtained nor expected by the weaker. On the contrary, the

loss has been increased by the expenses of the war in blood and treasure.

Yet it may have obtained another object equally securing itself from

future wrong. It may have retaliated on the aggressor losses of blood

and treasure far beyond the value to him of the wrong he had committed,

and thus have made the advantage of that too dear a purchase to leave

him in a disposition to renew the wrong in future. In this way the loss

by the war may have secured the weaker nation from loss by future wrong.

The case you state of two boxers both of whom get a "terrible bruising,"

is opposite to this. He of the two who committed the aggression on the

other, although victor in the scuffle, yet probably finds his aggression

not worth the bruising it has cost him. To explain this by numbers,

it is alleged that Great Britain took from us before the late war near

one thousand vessels, and that during the war we took from her fourteen

hundred. That before the war she seized and made slaves of six thousand

of our citizens, and that in the war we killed more than six thousand

of her subjects, and caused her to expend such a sum as amounted to four

or five thousand guineas a head for every slave she made. She might have

purchased the vessels she took for less than the value of those she lost,

and have used the six thousand of her men killed for the purposes to

which she applied ours, have saved the four or five thousand guineas a

head, and obtained a character of justice which is valuable to a nation

as to an individual. These considerations, therefore, leave her without

inducement to plunder property and take men in future on such dear

terms. I neither affirm nor deny the truth of these allegations, nor is

their truth material to the question. They are possible, and therefore

present a case which will claim your consideration in a discussion of

the general question whether any degree of injury can render a recourse

to war expedient? Still less do I propose to draw to myself any part in

this discussion. Age and its effects both on body and mind, has weaned

my attentions from public subjects, and left me unequal to the labors

of correspondence beyond the limits of my personal concerns. I retire,

therefore, from the question, with a sincere wish that your writings

may have effect in lessening this greatest of human evils, and that

you may retain life and health to enjoy the contemplation of this happy

spectacle; and pray you to be assured of my great respect.

TO JOSEPH C. CABELL, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 2d, 1816

DEAR SIR,--Your favors of the 23d and 24th ult., were a week coming

to us. I instantly enclosed to you the deeds of Capt. Miller, but I

understand that the Post Master, having locked his mail before they got

to the office, would not unlock it to give them a passage.

Having been prevented from retaining my collection of the acts and

journals of our legislature by the lumping manner in which the Committee

of Congress chose to take my library, it may be useful to our public

bodies to know what acts and journals I had, and where they can now

have access to them. I therefore enclose you a copy of my catalogue,

which I pray you to deposit in the council office for public use. It

is in the eighteenth and twenty-fourth chapters they will find what is

interesting to them. The form of the catalogue has been much injured

in the publication; for although they have preserved my division into

chapters, they have reduced the books in each chapter to alphabetical

order, instead of the chronological or analytical arrangements I had

given them. You will see sketches of what were my arrangements at the

heads of some of the chapters.

The bill on the obstructions in our navigable waters appears to me

proper; as do also the amendments proposed. I think the State should

reserve a right to the use of the waters for navigation, and that

where an individual landholder impedes that use, he shall remove that

impediment, and leave the subject in as good a state as nature formed

it. This I hold to be the true principle; and to this Colonel Green's

amendments go. All I ask in my own case is, that the legislature will

not take from me _my own works_. I am ready to cut my dam in any place,

and at any moment requisite, so as to remove that impediment, if it be

thought one, and to leave those interested to make the most of the natural

circumstances of the place. But I hope they will never take from me my

canal, made through the body of my own lands, at an expense of twenty

thousand dollars, and which is no impediment to the navigation of the

river. I have permitted the riparian proprietors above (and they not

more than a dozen or twenty) to use it gratis, and shall not withdraw the

permission unless they so use it as to obstruct too much the operations

of my mills, of which there is some likelihood.

Doctor Smith, you say, asks what is the best elementary book on the

principles of government? None in the world equal to the Review of

Montesquieu, printed at Philadelphia a few years ago. It has the

advantage, too, of being equally sound and corrective of the principles of

political economy; and all within the compass of a thin 8vo. Chipman's and

Priestley's Principles of Government, and the Federalists, are excellent

in many respects, but for fundamental principles not comparable to the

Review. I have no objections to the printing my letter to Mr. Carr, if

it will promote the interests of science; although it was not written

with a view to its publication.

My letter of the 24th ult. conveyed to you the grounds of the two

articles objected to in the College bill. Your last presents one of them

in a new point of view, that of the commencement of the ward schools

as likely to render the law unpopular to the country. It must be a very

inconsiderate and rough process of execution that would do this. My idea

of the mode of carrying it into execution would be this: Declare the

county _ipso facto_ divided into wards for the present, by the boundaries

of the militia captaincies; somebody attend the ordinary muster of each

company, having first desired the captain to call together a full one.

There explain the object of the law to the people of the company, put

to their vote whether they will have a school established, and the most

central and convenient place for it; get them to meet and build a log

school-house; have a roll taken of the children who would attend it,

and of those of them able to pay. These would probably be sufficient to

support a common teacher, instructing gratis the few unable to pay. If

there should be a deficiency, it would require too trifling a contribution

from the county to be complained of; and especially as the whole county

would participate, where necessary, in the same resource. Should the

company, by its vote, decide that it would have no school, let them

remain without one. The advantages of this proceeding would be that it

would become the duty of the alderman elected by the county, to take

an active part in pressing the introduction of schools, and to look out

for tutors. If, however, it is intended that the State government shall

take this business into its own hands, and provide schools for every

county, then by all means strike out this provision of our bill. I would

never wish that it should be placed on a worse footing than the rest of

the State. But if it is believed that these elementary schools will be

better managed by the governor and council, the commissioners of the

literary fund, or any other general authority of the government, than

by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.

Try the principle one step further, and amend the bill so as to commit

to the governor and council the management of all our farms, our mills,

and merchants' stores. No, my friend, the way to have good and safe

government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the

many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent

to. Let the national government be entrusted with the defence of the

nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with

the civil rights, laws, police, and administration of what concerns the

State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties,

and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and

subdividing these republics from the great national one down through

all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every

man's farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may

superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed

liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed

under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers

into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France,

or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate. And I do believe that if

the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free, (and it is

a blasphemy to believe it,) that the secret will be found to be in the

making himself the depository of the powers respecting himself, so far as

he is competent to them, and delegating only what is beyond his competence

by a synthetical process, to higher and higher orders of functionaries, so

as to trust fewer and fewer powers in proportion as the trustees become

more and more oligarchical. The elementary republics of the wards, the

county republics, the State republics, and the republic of the Union,

would form a gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of

law, holding every one its delegated share of powers, and constituting

truly a system of fundamental balances and checks for the government.

Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or

of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the

government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year,

but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who will not

be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let

the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from

him by a Cæsar or a Bonaparte. How powerfully did we feel the energy of

this organization in the case of embargo? I felt the foundations of the

government shaken under my feet by the New England townships. There was

not an individual in their States whose body was not thrown with all

its momentum into action; and although the whole of the other States

were known to be in favor of the measure, yet the organization of this

little selfish minority enabled it to overrule the Union. What would

the unwieldy counties of the middle, the south, and the west do? Call a

county meeting, and the drunken loungers at and about the court houses

would have collected, the distances being too great for the good people

and the industrious generally to attend. The character of those who

really met would have been the measure of the weight they would have had

in the scale of public opinion. As Cato, then, concluded every speech

with the words, "_Carthago delenda est_," so do I every opinion, with

the injunction, "divide the counties into wards." Begin them only for

a single purpose; they will soon show for what others they are the best

instruments. God bless you, and all our rulers, and give them the wisdom,

as I am sure they have the will, to fortify us against the degeneracy

of one government, and the concentration of all its powers in the hands

of the one, the few, the well-born or the many.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, February 2, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I know not what to think of your letter of the 11th of January,

but that it is one of the most consolatory I ever received.

To trace the commencement of the Reformation, I suspect we must go

farther back than Borgia, or even Huss or Wickliff, and I want the _Acta

Sanctorum_ to assist me in this research. That stupendous monument of

human hypocrisy and fanaticism, the church of St. Peter at Rome, which

was a century and a half in building, excited the ambition of Leo the

Xth, who believed no more of the Christian religion than Diderot, to

finish it; and finding St. Peter's pence insufficient, he deluged all

Europe with indulgences for sale, and excited Luther to controvert his

authority to grant them. Luther, and his associates and followers, went

less than half way in detecting the corruptions of Christianity, but

they acquired reverence and authority among their followers almost as

absolute as that of the Popes had been.

To enter into details would be endless; but I agree with you, that the

natural effect of science and arts is to erect public opinion into a

censor, which must in some degree be respected by all.

There is no difference of opinion or feeling between us, concerning the

partition of Poland, the intended partitions of Pilnitz, or the more

daring partitions of Vienna.

Your question "How the apostasy from national rectitude can be accounted

for?"--is too deep and wide for my capacity to answer. I leave Fisher Ames

to dogmatize up the affairs of Europe and mankind. I have done too much

in this way. A burned child dreads the fire. I can only say at present,

that it should seem that human reason, and human conscience, though I

believe there are such things, are not a match for human passions, human

imaginations, and human enthusiasm. You, however, I believe, have hit

one. Mark, "the fires the governments of Europe felt kindling under their

seats;" and I will hazard a shot at another, the priests of all nations

imagined they felt approaching such flames, as they had so often kindled

about the bodies of honest men. Priests and politicians, never before,

so suddenly and so unanimously concurred in re-establishing darkness

and ignorance, superstition and despotism. The morality of Tacitus is

the morality of patriotism, and Britain and France have adopted his

creed; _i. e._, that all things were made for Rome. "_Jura negat sibi

lata, nihil non arrogat armis_," said Achilles. "Laws were not made for

me," said the Regent of France, and his cardinal minister Du Bois. The

universe was made for me, says man. Jesus despised and condemned such

patriotism; but what nation, or what christian, has adopted his system?

He was, as you say, "the most benevolent Being that ever appeared on

earth." France and England, Bourbons and Bonaparte, and all the sovereigns

at Vienna, have acted on the same principle. "All things were made for

my use. So man for mine, replies a pampered goose." The philosophers of

the eighteenth century have acted on the same principle. When it is to

combat evil, 'tis lawful to employ the devil. _Bonus populus vult decipi,

decipiatur._ They have employed the same falsehood, the same deceit,

which philosophers and priests of all ages have employed for their own

selfish purposes. We now know how their efforts have succeeded. The

old deceivers have triumphed over the new. Truth must be more respected

than it has ever been, before any great improvement can be expected in

the condition of mankind. As Rochfaucauld his maxims drew "from history

and from practice," I believe them true. From the whole nature of man,

moral, intellectual, and physical, he did not draw them.

We must come to the principles of Jesus. But when will all men and

all nations do as they would be done by? Forgive all injuries, and

love their enemies as themselves? I leave those profound philosophers,

whose sagacity perceives the perfectibility of human nature; and those

illuminated theologians, who expect the Apocalyptic reign;--to enjoy

their transporting hopes, provided always that they will not engage us

in crusades and French Revolutions, nor burn us for doubting. My spirit

of prophecy reaches no farther than, _New England_ GUESSES.

You ask, how it has happened that all Europe has acted on the principle,

"that Power was Right." I know not what answer to give you, but this,

that Power always sincerely, conscientiously, _de tres bon foi_, believes

itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views,

beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God service,

when it is violating all his laws. Our passions, ambition, avarice,

love, resentment, &c., possess so much metaphysical subtlety, and so

much overpowering eloquence, that they insinuate themselves into the

understanding and the conscience, and convert both to their party; and

I may be deceived as much as any of them, when I say, that Power must

never be trusted without a check.

Morgan has misrepresented my guess. There is not a word in my letter

about "a million of human beings." Civil wars, of an hundred years,

throughout Europe, were guessed at; and this is broad enough for your

ideas; for eighteen or twenty millions would be a moderate computation

for a century of civil wars throughout Europe. I still pray that a century

of civil wars, may not desolate Europe and America too, south and north.

Your speculations into futurity in Europe are so probable, that I can

suggest no doubt to their disadvantage. All will depend on the progress of

knowledge. But how shall knowledge advance? Independent of temporal and

spiritual power, the course of science and literature is obstructed and

discouraged by so many causes that it is to be feared their motions will

be slow. I have just finished reading four volumes of D'Israeli's--two

on the "Calamities," and two on the "Quarrels of Authors." These would

be sufficient to show that, slow rises genius by poverty and envy

oppressed. Even Newton, and Locke, and Grotius could not escape. France

could furnish four other volumes of the woes and wars of authors.

My compliments to Mrs. Randolph, her daughter Ellen, and all her other

children; and believe me, as ever.

To which Mrs. Adams adds her affectionate regard, and a wish that distance

did not separate souls congenial.

TO THOMAS W. MAURY.

MONTICELLO, February 3, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 24th ultimo was a week on its way to me,

and this is our first subsequent mail day. Mr. Cabell had written to

me also on the want of the deeds in Captain Miller's case; and as the

bill was in that house, I enclosed them immediately to him. I forgot,

however, to desire that they might be returned when done with, and must,

therefore, ask this friendly attention of you.

You ask me for observations on the memorandum you transcribe, relating

to a map of the States, a mineralogical survey and statistical tables.

The field is very broad, and new to me. I have never turned my mind to

this combination of objects, nor am I at all prepared to give an opinion

on it. On what principles the association of objects may go that far and

not farther, whether we could find a character who would undertake the

mineralogical survey, and who is qualified for it, whether there would

be room for its designations on a well-filled geographical map, and

also for the statistical details, I cannot say. The best mineralogical

charts I have seen, have had nothing geographical but the water courses,

ranges of hills, and most remarkable places, and have been colored,

so as to present to the eye the mineralogical ranges. For the articles

of a statistical table, I think the last census of Congress presented

what was proper, as far as it went, but did not go far enough. It

required detailed accounts of our manufactures, and an enumeration of

our people, according to ages, sexes, and colors. But to this should be

added an enumeration according to their occupations. We should know what

proportion of our people are employed in agriculture, what proportion

are carpenters, smiths, shoemakers, tailors, bricklayers, merchants,

seamen, &c. No question is more curious than that of the distribution of

society into occupations, and none more wanting. I have never heard of

such tables being effected but in the instance of Spain, where it was

first done under the administration, I believe, of Count D'Aranda, and

a second time under the Count de Florida Blanca, and these have been

considered as the most curious and valuable tables in the world. The

combination of callings with us would occasion some difficulty, many of

our tradesmen being, for instance, agriculturalists also; but they might

be classed under their principal occupation. On the geographical branch

I have reflected occasionally. I suppose a person would be employed in

every county to put together the private surveys, either taken from the

surveyors' books or borrowed from the proprietors, to connect them by

supplementary surveys, and to survey the public roads, noting towns,

habitations, and remarkable places, by which means a special delineation

of watercourses, roads, &c., will be obtained. But it will be further

indispensable to obtain the latitudes and longitudes of principal points

in every county, in order to correct the errors of the topographical

surveys, to bring them together, and to assign to each county its exact

space on the map. These observations of latitude and longitude might be

taken for the whole State, by a single person well qualified, in the

course of a couple of years. I could offer some ideas on that subject

to abridge and facilitate the operations, and as to the instruments

to be used; but such details are probably not within the scope of your

inquiries,--they would be in time if communicated to those who will have

the direction of the work. I am sorry I am so little prepared to offer

anything more satisfactory to your inquiries than these extempore hints.

But I have no doubt that what is best will occur to those gentlemen of

the legislature who have had the subject under their contemplation, and

who, impressed with its importance, are exerting themselves to procure

its execution. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

TO JAMES MONROE.

MONTICELLO, February 4, 1816

DEAR SIR,--Your letter concerning that of General Scott is received, and

his is now returned. I am very thankful for these communications. From

forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers

of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as

to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth

notice. A ray, therefore, now and then, from the fountain of light, is

like sight restored to the blind. It tells me where I am; and that to a

mariner who has long been without sight of land or sun, is a rallying

of reckoning which places him at ease. The ground you have taken with

Spain is sound in every part. It is the true ground, especially, as to

the South Americans. When subjects are able to maintain themselves in

the field, they are then an independent power as to all neutral nations,

are entitled to their commerce, and to protection within their limits.

Every kindness which can be shown the South Americans, every friendly

office and aid within the limits of the law of nations, I would extend

to them, without fearing Spain or her Swiss auxiliaries. For this is

but an assertion of our own independence. But to join in their war, as

General Scott proposes, and to which even some members of Congress seem

to squint, is what we ought not to do as yet. On the question of our

interest in their independence, were that alone a sufficient motive of

action, much may be said on both sides. When they are free, they will

drive every article of our produce from every market, by underselling

it, and change the condition of our existence, forcing us into other

habits and pursuits. We shall, indeed, have in exchange some commerce

with them, but in what I know not, for we shall have nothing to offer

which they cannot raise cheaper; and their separation from Spain seals

our everlasting peace with her. On the other hand, so long as they are

dependent, Spain, from her jealousy, is our natural enemy, and always in

either open or secret hostility with us. These countries, too, in war,

will be a powerful weight in her scale, and, in peace, totally shut to us.

Interest then, on the whole, would wish their independence, and justice

makes the wish a duty. They have a right to be free, and we a right to

aid them, as a strong man has a right to assist a weak one assailed by

a robber or murderer. That a war is brewing between us and Spain cannot

be doubted. When that disposition is matured on both sides, and open

rupture can no longer be deferred, then will be the time for our joining

the South Americans, and entering into treaties of alliance with them.

There will then be but one opinion, at home or abroad, that we shall be

justifiable in choosing to have them with us, rather than against us. In

the meantime, they will have organized regular governments, and perhaps

have formed themselves into one or more confederacies; more than one I

hope, as in single mass they would be a very formidable neighbor. The

geography of their country seems to indicate three: 1. What is north of

the Isthmus. 2. What is south of it on the Atlantic; and 3. The southern

part on the Pacific. In this form, we might be the balancing power. _À

propos_ of the dispute with Spain, as to the boundary of Louisiana. On our

acquisition of that country, there was found in possession of the family

of the late Governor Messier, a most valuable and original MS. history

of the settlement of Louisiana by the French, written by Bernard de la

Harpe, a principal agent through the whole of it. It commences with the

first permanent settlement of 1699, (that by de la Salle in 1684, having

been broken up,) and continues to 1723, and shows clearly the continual

claim of France to the Province of Texas, as far as the Rio Bravo, and

to all the waters running into the Mississippi, and how, by the roguery

of St. Denis, an agent of Crozat the merchant, to whom the colony was

granted for ten years, the settlements of the Spaniards at Nacadoches,

Adais, Assinays, and Natchitoches, were fraudulently invited and connived

at. Crozat's object was commerce, and especially contraband, with the

Spaniards, and these posts were settled as convenient smuggling stages

on the way to Mexico. The history bears such marks of authenticity as

place it beyond question. Governor Claiborne obtained the MS. for us,

and thinking it too hazardous to risk its loss by the way, unless a copy

were retained, he had a copy taken. The original having arrived safe

at Washington, he sent me the copy, which I now have. Is the original

still in your office? or was it among the papers burnt by the British?

If lost, I will send you my copy; if preserved, it is my wish to deposit

the copy for safe keeping with the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia,

where it will be safer than on my shelves. I do not mean that any part

of this letter shall give to yourself the trouble of an answer; only

desire Mr. Graham to see if the original still exists in your office,

and to drop me a line saying yea or nay; and I shall know what to do.

Indeed the MS. ought to be printed, and I see a note to my copy which

shows it has been in contemplation, and that it was computed to be of

twenty sheets at sixteen dollars a sheet, for three hundred and twenty

copies, which would sell at one dollar apiece, and reimburse the expense.

On the question of giving to La Motte the consulship of Havre, I know

the obstacle of the Senate. Their determination to appoint natives only

is generally proper, but not always. These places are for the most part

of little consequence to the public; and if they can be made resources

of profit to our ex-military worthies, they are so far advantageous. You

and I, however, know that one of these new novices, knowing nothing of

the laws or authorities of his port, nor speaking a word of its language,

is of no more account than the fifth wheel of a coach. Had the Senate a

power of removing as well as of rejecting, I should have fears, from their

foreign antipathies, for my old friend Cathalan, Consul at Marseilles.

His father was appointed by Dr. Franklin, early in the revolutionary war,

but being old, the business was done by the son. On the establishment of

our present government, the commission was given by General Washington

to the son, at the request of the father. He has been the consul now

twenty-six years, and has done its duties nearly forty years. He is a

man of understanding, integrity and zeal, of high mercantile standing,

an early citizen of the United States, and speaks and writes our language

as fluently as French. His conduct in office has been without a fault. I

have known him personally and intimately for thirty years, have a great

and affectionate esteem for him, and should feel as much hurt were he

to be removed as if removed myself from an office. But I trust he is out

of the reach of the Senate, and secure under the wings of the executive

government. Let me recommend him to your particular care and patronage,

as well deserving it, and end the trouble of reading a long letter with

assurances of my constant and affectionate friendship.

TO BENJAMIN AUSTIN, ESQ.

MONTICELLO, February 9, 1816.

SIR,--Your favor of January 25th is just now received. I am in general

extremely unwilling to be carried into the newspapers, no matter what

the subject; the whole pack of the Essex kennel would open upon me. With

respect, however, to so much of my letter of January 9th as relates to

manufactures, I have less repugnance, because there is perhaps a degree of

duty to avow a change of opinion called for by a change of circumstances,

and especially on a point now become peculiarly interesting.

What relates to Bonaparte stands on different ground. You think it

will silence the misrepresentations of my enemies as to my opinions of

him. No, Sir; it will not silence them. They had no ground either in my

words or actions for these misrepresentations before, and cannot have

less afterwards; nor will they calumniate less. There is, however, a

consideration respecting our own friends, which may merit attention. I

have grieved to see even good republicans so infatuated as to this man,

as to consider his downfall as calamitous to the cause of liberty. In

their indignation against England which is just, they seem to consider

all _her_ enemies as _our_ friends, when it is well known there was

not a being on earth who bore us so deadly a hatred. In fact, he saw

nothing in this world but himself, and looked on the people under him as

his cattle, beasts for burthen and slaughter. Promises cost him nothing

when they could serve his purpose. On his return from Elba, what did he

not promise? But those who had credited them a little, soon saw their

total insignificance, and, satisfied they could not fall under worse

hands, refused every effort after the defeat of Waterloo. Their present

sufferings will have a term; his iron despotism would have had none.

France has now a family of fools at its head, from whom, whenever it

can shake off its foreign riders, it will extort a free constitution,

or dismount them and establish some other on the solid basis of national

right. To whine after this exorcised demon is a disgrace to republicans,

and must have arisen either from want of reflection, or the indulgence

of passion against principle. If anything I have said could lead them

to take correcter views, to rally to the polar principles of genuine

republicanism, I could consent that that part of my letter also should

go into a newspaper. This I leave to yourself and such candid friends

as you may consult. There is one word in the letter, however, which

decency towards the allied sovereigns requires should be softened.

Instead of _despots_, call them _rulers_. The first paragraph, too, of

seven or eight lines, must be wholly omitted. Trusting all the rest to

your discretion, I salute you with great esteem and respect.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

QUINCY, March 2, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--I cannot be serious! I am about to write you the most frivolous

letter you ever read.

Would you go back to your cradle and live over again your seventy years?

I believe you would return me a New England answer, by asking me another

question. Would you live your eighty years over again?

I am prepared to give you an explicit answer, the question involves so

many considerations of metaphysics and physics, of theology and ethics,

of philosophy and history, of experience and romance, of tragedy, comedy

and farce, that I would not give my opinion without writing a volume to

justify it.

I have lately lived over again, in part, from 1753, when I was junior

sophister at college, till 1769, when I was digging in the mines as a

barrister at law, for silver and gold, in the town of Boston; and got

as much of the shining dross for my labor as my utmost avarice at that

time craved.

At the hazard of all the little vision that is left me, I have read the

history of that period of sixteen years, in the volumes of the Baron de

Grimm. In a late letter to you, I expressed a wish to see a history of

quarrels and calamities of authors in France, like that of D'Israeli in

England. I did not expect it so soon; but now I have it in a manner more

masterly than I ever hoped to see it. It is not only a narration of the

incessant great wars between the ecclesiastics and the philosophers, but

of the little skirmishes and squabbles of Poets, Musicians, Sculptors,

Painters, Architects, Tragedians, Comedians, Opera-Singers and Dancers,

Chansons, Vaudevilles, Epigrams, Madrigals, Epitaphs, Anagrams, Sonnets,

&c. No man is more sensible than I am of the service to science and

letters, Humanity, Fraternity and Liberty, that would have been rendered

by the Encyclopedists and Economists, by Voltaire, D'Alembert, Buffon,

Diderot, Rousseau La Lande, Frederick and Catherine, if they had possessed

common sense. But they were all totally destitute of it. They all seemed

to think that all christendom was convinced as they were, that all

religion was "visions Judaicques," and that their effulgent lights had

illuminated all the world. They seemed to believe, that whole nations

and continents had been changed in their principles, opinions, habits

and feelings, by the sovereign grace of their Almighty philosophy,

almost as suddenly as Catholics and Calvinists believe in instantaneous

conversion. They had not considered the force of early education on the

millions of minds who had never heard of their philosophy. And what

was their philosophy? Atheism; pure, unadulterated Atheism. Diderot,

D'Alembert, Frederick, De La Lande and Grimm, were indubitable Atheists.

The universe was matter only, and eternal; spirit was a word without a

meaning; liberty was a word without a meaning. There was no liberty in

the Universe; liberty was a word void of sense. Every thought, word,

passion, sentiment, feeling, all motion and action was necessary. All

beings and attributes were of eternal necessity; conscience, morality,

were all nothing but fate.

This was their creed, and this was to perfect human nature, and convert

the earth into a paradise of pleasure.

Who, and what is this fate? He must be a sensible fellow. He must be

a master of science. He must be a master of spherical Trigonometry

and great circle sailing. He must calculate eclipses in his head by

intuition. He must be master of the science of infinitesimal--"_Le science

des infinimens petits_." He must involve and extract all the roots by

intuition, and be familiar with all possible or imaginable sections of

the cone. He must be a master of arts, mechanical and imitative. He must

have more eloquence than Demosthenes, more wit than Swift or Voltaire,

more humor than Butler or Trumbull, and what is more comfortable than

all the rest, he must be good natured; for this is upon the whole a good

world. There is ten times as much pleasure as pain in it.

Why then should we abhor the word God, and fall in love with the word

Fate? We know there exists energy and intellect enough to produce

such a world as this, which is a sublime and beautiful one, and a very

benevolent one, notwithstanding all our snarling; and a happy one, if

it is not made otherwise by our own fault. Ask a mite, in the centre of

your mammoth cheese, what he thinks of the "το παν."

I should prefer the philosophy of Timæus, of Locris, before that of

Grimm and Diderot, Frederick and D'Alembert. I should even prefer the

Shasta of Hindostan, or the Chaldean, Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Christian,

Mahometan, Tubonic, or Celtic Theology. Timæus and Picellus taught that

three principles were eternal, God, Matter and Form. God was good, and

had ideas. Matter was necessity. Fate dead--without ideas--without form,

without feeling--perverse, untractable; capable, however, of being cut

into forms, spheres, circles, triangles, squares, cubes, cones, &c. The

ideas of the good God labored upon matter to bring it into form; but

matter was fate, necessity, dulness, obstinacy--and would not always

conform to the ideas of the good God who desired to make the best of

all possible worlds; but Matter, Fate, Necessity, resisted, and would

not let him complete his idea. Hence all the evil and disorder, pain,

misery and imperfection of the Universe.

We all curse Robespierre and Bonaparte, but were they not both such

restless, vain, extravagant animals as Diderot and Voltaire? Voltaire

was the greatest literary character, and Bonaparte the greatest military

character of the eighteenth century. There is all the difference between

them. Both equally heroes and equally cowards.

When you ask my opinion of a University--it would have been easy to advise

Mathematics, experimental Philosophy, Natural History, Chemistry and

Astronomy, Geography and the Fine Arts; to the exclusion of Metaphysics

and Theology. But knowing the eager impatience of the human mind to

search into eternity and infinity, the first cause and last end of all

things--I thought best to leave it its liberty to inquire till it is

convinced, as I have been these fifty years, that there is but one Being

in the Universe who comprehends it; and our last resource is resignation.

This Grimm must have been in Paris when you were there. Did you know

him, or hear of him?

I have this moment received two volumes more, but these are from 1777

to 1782,--leaving the chain broken from 1769 to 1777. I hope hereafter

to get the two intervening volumes. I am your old friend.

March 13, 1816.

A writer in the National Intelligencer of February 24th, who signs

himself B., is endeavoring to shelter under the cloak of General

Washington, the present enterprise of the Senate to wrest from the

House of Representatives the power, given them by the constitution, of

participating with the Senate in the establishment and continuance of

laws on specified subjects. Their aim is, by associating an Indian chief,

or foreign government, in form of a treaty, to possess themselves of the

power of repealing laws become obnoxious to them, without the assent of

the third branch, although that assent was necessary to make it a law.

We are then to depend for the secure possession of our laws, not on our

immediate representatives chosen by ourselves, and amenable to ourselves

every other year, but on Senators chosen by the legislatures, amenable

to them only, and that but at intervals of six years, which is nearly

the common estimate for a term for life. But no act of that sainted

worthy, no thought of General Washington, ever countenanced a change of

our constitution so vital as would be the rendering insignificant the

popular, and giving to the aristocratical branch of our government, the

power of depriving us of our laws.

The case for which General Washington is quoted is that of his treaty

with the Creeks, wherein was a stipulation that their supplies of goods

should continue to be imported duty free. The writer of this article

was then a member of the legislature, as he was of that which afterwards

discussed the British treaty, and recollects the facts of the day, and

the ideas which were afloat. The goods for the supplies of the Creeks

were always imported into the Spanish ports of St. Augustine, Pensacola,

Mobile, New Orleans, &c., (the United States not owning then one foot

of coast on the gulf of Mexico, or south of St. Mary's,) and from these

ports they were carried directly into the Creek country, without ever

entering the jurisdiction of the United States. In that country their

laws pretended to no more force than in Florida or Canada. No officer of

their customs could go to levy duties in the Spanish or Creek countries,

out of which these goods never came. General Washington's stipulation in

that treaty therefore, was nothing more than that our laws should not

levy duties where we have no right to levy them, that is, in foreign

ports, or foreign countries. These transactions took place while the

Creek deputation was in New York, in the month of July 1790, and in March

preceding we had passed a law delineating specially the line between

their country and ours. The only subject of curiosity is how so nugatory

a stipulation should have been placed in a treaty? It was from the fears

of Mr. Gillevray, who was the head of the deputation, who possessed from

the Creeks themselves the exclusive right to supply them with goods,

and to whom this monopoly was the principle source of income.

The same writer quotes from a note in Marshal's history, an opinion of

Mr. Jefferson, given to General Washington on the same occasion of the

Creek treaty. Two or three little lines only of that opinion are given

us, which do indeed express the doctrine in broad and general terms. Yet

we know how often a few words withdrawn from their place may seem to bear

a general meaning, when their context would show that their meaning must

have been limited to the subject with respect to which they were used.

If we could see the whole opinion, it might probably appear that its

foundation was the peculiar circumstances of the Creek nation. We may

say too, on this opinion, as on that of a judge whose positions beyond

the limits of the case before him are considered as obiter sayings,

never to be relied on as authority.

In July '90, moreover, the government was but just getting under way.

The duty law was not passed until the succeeding month of August. This

question of the effect of a treaty was then of the first impression;

and none of us, I suppose, will pretend that on our first reading of the

constitution we saw at once all its intentions, all the bearings of every

word of it, as fully and as correctly as we have since understood them,

after they have become subjects of public investigation and discussion;

and I well remember the fact that, although Mr. Jefferson had retired

from office before Mr. Jay's mission, and the question on the British

treaty, yet during its discussion we were well assured of his entire

concurrence in opinion with Mr. Madison and others who maintained the

rights of the House of Representatives, so that, if on a _primâ facie_

view of the question, his opinion had been too general, on stricter

investigation, and more mature consideration, his ultimate opinion was

with those who thought that the subjects which were confided to the

House of Representatives in conjunction with the President and Senate,

were exceptions to the general treaty power given to the President and

Senate alone; (according to the general rule that an instrument is to

be so construed as to reconcile and give meaning and effect to all its

parts;) that whenever a treaty stipulation interferes with a law of the

three branches, the consent of the third branch is necessary to give

it effect; and that there is to this but the single exception of the

question of war and peace. There the constitution expressly requires

the concurrence of the three branches to commit us to the state of war,

but permits two of them, the President and Senate, to change it to that

of peace, for reasons as obvious as they are wise. I think then I may

affirm, in contradiction to B., that the present attempt of the Senate

is not sanctioned by the opinion either of General Washington or of Mr.

Jefferson.

I meant to confine myself to the case of the Creek treaty, and not to

go into the general reasoning, for after the logical and demonstrative

arguments of Mr. Wilde of Georgia, and others on the floor of Congress,

if any man remains unconvinced I pretend not the powers of convincing him.

TO GOVERNOR NICHOLAS.

MONTICELLO, April 2, 1816.

DEAR SIR,--Your favor of March 22d has been received. It finds me

more laboriously and imperiously engaged than almost on any occasion

of my life. It is not, therefore, in my power to take into immediate

consideration all the subjects it proposes; they cover a broad surface,

and will require some development. They respect,

I. Defence.

II. Education.

III. The map of the State.

This last will comprise,

1. An astronomical survey, to wit, Longitudes and Latitudes.

2. A geometrical survey of the external boundaries, the mountains and

rivers.

3. A typographical survey of the counties.

4. A mineralogical survey.

Each of these heads require distinct consideration. I will take them up

one at a time, and communicate my ideas as leisure will permit.

I. On the subject of Defence, I will state to you what has been heretofore

contemplated and proposed. Some time before I retired from office, when

the clouds between England and the United States thickened so as to

threaten war at hand, and while we were fortifying various assailable

points on our sea-board, the defence of the Chesapeake became, as it

ought to have been, a subject of serious consideration, and the problem

occurred, whether it could be defended at its mouth? its effectual defence

in detail being obviously impossible. My idea was that we should find

or prepare a station near its mouth for a very great force of vessels of

annoyance of such a character as to assail, when the weather and position

of an enemy suited, and keep or withdraw themselves into their station

when adverse. These means of annoyance were to consist of gun-boats,

row-boats, floating batteries, bomb-ketches, fire-ships, rafts, turtles,

torpedoes, rockets, and whatever else could be desired to destroy a

ship becalmed, to which could now be added Fulton scows. I thought it

possible that a station might be made on the middle grounds, (which

are always shallow, and have been known to be uncovered by water,) by a

circumvallation of stones dropped loosely on one another, so as to take

their own level, and raised sufficiently high to protect the vessels

within them from the waves and boat attacks. It is by such a wall that

the harbor of Cherbury has been made. The middle grounds have a firmer

bottom, and lie two or three miles from the ship channel on either side,

and so near the Cape as to be at hand for any enemy moored or becalmed

within them. A survey of them was desired, and some officer of the navy

received orders on the subject, who being opposed to our possessing

anything below a frigate or line of battle ship, either visited or did

not visit them, and verbally expressed his opinion of impracticability.

I state these things from memory, and may err in small circumstances,

but not in the general impression.

A second station offering itself was the mouth of Lynhaven river, which

having but four or five feet water, the vessels would be to be adapted

to that, or its entrance deepened; but there it would be requisite to

have, first, a fort protecting the vessels within it, and strong enough

to hold out until a competent force of militia could be collected for

its relief. And, second, a canal uniting the tide waters of Lynhaven

river and the eastern branch, three or four miles apart only of low

level country. This would afford to the vessels a retreat for their own

safety, and a communication with Norfolk and Albemarle Sound, so as to

give succor to these places if attacked, or receive it from them for a

special enterprise. It was believed that such a canal would then have

cost about thirty thousand dollars.