Monticello, August 5, 1815.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of July 24th came to hand on the 31st, and I will proceed to answer your inquiries in the order they are presented as far as I am able.
I have no doubt that the fifth of the Rhode Island resolutions of which you have sent me a copy, is exactly the one erased from our journals. The Mr. Lees, and especially Richard Henry, who was industrious, had a close correspondence, Iknow, with the two Adams', and probably with others in that and the other Eastern States; and I think it was said at the time that copies were sent off by them to the northward the very evening of the day on which they were passed. I can readily enough believe these resolutions were written by Mr. Henry himself. They bear the stamp of his mind, strong without precision. That they were written by Johnson who seconded them, was only the rumor of the day, and very possibly unfounded. But how Edmund Randolph should have said they were written by William Fleming, and Mr. Henry should have written that he showed them to William Fleming, is to me incomprehensible. There was no William Fleming then but the judge now living, whom nobody will ever suspect of taking the lead in rebellion. I am certain he was not then a member, and I think was never a member until the revolution had made some progress. Of this, however, he will inform us with candor and truth. His eldest brother, John Fleming, was a member, and a great speaker in debate. To him they may have been shown. Yet I should not have expected this, because he was extremely attached to Robinson, Peyton Randolph, &c., and at their beck, and had no independence or boldness of mind. However, he was attentive to his own popularity, might have been overruled by views to that, and without correction of the christian name, Mr. Henry's note is sufficient authority to suppose he took the popular side on that occasion. I remember nothing to the contrary. The opposers of the resolutions were Robinson, Peyton Randolph, Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, and all the cyphers of the aristocracy. No longer possessing the journals, I cannot recollect nominally the others. They opposed them on the ground that the same principles had been expressed in the petition, &c., of the preceding year, to which an answer, not yet received, was daily expected, that they were therein expressed in more conciliatory terms, and therefore more likely to have good effect. The resolutions were carried chiefly by the vote of the middle and upper country. To state the differences between the classes of society and the lines of demarkation which separated them, would be difficult. The law,you know, admitted none except as to the twelve counsellors. Yet in a country insulated from the European world, insulated from its sister colonies, with whom there was scarcely any intercourse, little visited by foreigners, and having little matter to act upon within itself, certain families had risen to splendor by wealth and the preservation of it from generation to generation under the law entails; some had produced a series of men of talents; families in general had remained stationary on the grounds of their forefathers, for there was no emigration to the westward in those days. The wild Irish, who had gotten possession of the valley between the Blue Ridge and North Mountain, forming a barrier over which none ventured to leap, and would still less venture to settle among. In such a state of things, scarcely admitting any change of station, society would settle itself down into several strata, separated by no marked lines, but shading off imperceptibly from top to bottom, nothing disturbing the order of their repose. There were then aristocrats, half-breeds, pretenders, a solid independent yeomanry, looking askance at those above, yet not venturing to jostle them, and last and lowest, a seculum of beings called overseers, the most abject, degraded and unprincipled race, always cap in hand to the Dons who employed them, and furnishing materials for the exercise of their pride, insolence and spirit of domination. Your characters are inimitably and justly drawn. I am not certain if more might not be said of Colonel Richard Bland. He was the most learned and logical man of those who took prominent lead in public affairs, profound in constitutional lore, a most ungraceful speaker, (as were Peyton Randolph and Robinson, in a remarkable degree.) He wrote the first pamphlet on the nature of the connection with Great Britain which had any pretension to accuracy of view on that subject, but it was a singular one. He would set out on sound principles, pursue them logically till he found them leading to the precipice which he had to leap, start back alarmed, then resume his ground, go over it in another direction, be led again by the correctness of his reasoning to the same place, and again back about, and try other processes to reconcile right and wrong,but finally left his reader and himself bewildered between the steady index of the compass in their hand, and the phantasm to which it seemed to point. Still there was more sound matter in his pamphlet than in the celebrated Farmer's letters, which were really but anignus fatuus, misleading us from true principles.
Landon Carter's measure you may take from the first volume of the American Philosophical transactions, where he has one or more long papers on the weavil, and perhaps other subjects. His speeches, like his writings, were dull, vapid, verbose, egotistical, smooth as the lullaby of the nurse, and commanding, like that, the repose only of the hearer.
You ask if you may quote me, first, for the loan office; second, Phillips' case; and third, the addresses prepared for Congress by Henry and Lee. For the two first certainly, because within my own knowledge, especially citing the record in Phillips' case, which of itself refutes the diatribes published on that subject; but not for the addresses, because I was not present, nor know anything relative to them but by hearsay from others. My first and principal information on that subject I know I had from Ben Harrison, on his return from the first session of the old Congress. Mr. Pendleton, also, I am tolerably certain, mentioned it to me; but the transaction is too distant, and my memory too indistinct, to hazard as with precision, even what I think I heard from them. In this decay of memory Mr. Edmund Randolph must have suffered at a much earlier period of life than myself. I cannot otherwise account for his saying to you that Robert Carter Nicholas came into the Legislature only on the death of Peyton Randolph, which was in 1776. Seven years before that period, I went first into the Legislature myself, to-wit: in 1769, and Mr. Nicholas was then a member, and I think not a new one. I remember it from an impressive circumstance. It was the first assembly of Lord Botetourt, being called on his arrival. On receiving the Governor's speech, it was usual to move resolutions as heads for an address. Mr. Pendleton asked me to draw the resolutions, which I did. They were accepted by the house, and Pendleton, Nicholas, myself and some others, were appointed acommittee to prepare the address. The committee desired me to do it, but when presented it was thought to pursue too strictly the diction of the resolutions, and that their subjects were not sufficiently amplified. Mr. Nicholas chiefly objected to it, and was desired by the committee to draw one more at large, which he did with amplification enough, and it was accepted. Being a young man as well as a young member, it made on me an impression proportioned to the sensibility of that time of life. On a similar occasion some years after, I had reason to retain a remembrance of his presence while Peyton Randolph was living. On the receipt of Lord North's propositions, in May or June, 1775, Lord Dunmore called the assembly. Peyton Randolph, then President of Congress and Speaker of the House of Burgesses, left the former body and came home to hold the assembly, leaving in Congress the other delegates who were the ancient leaders of our house. He therefore asked me to prepare the answer to Lord North's propositions, which I did. Mr. Nicholas, whose mind had as yet acquired no tone for that contest, combated the answer fromalphatoomega, and succeeded in diluting it in one or two small instances. It was firmly supported however, in committee of the whole, by Peyton Randolph, who had brought with him the spirit of the body over which he had presided, and it was carried, with very little alteration, by strong majorities. I was the bearer of it myself to Congress, by whom, as it was the first answer given to those propositions by any legislature, it was received with peculiar satisfaction. I am sure that from 1769, if not earlier, to 1775, you will find Mr. Nicholas' name constantly in the journals, for he was an active member. I think he represented James City county. Whether on the death of Peyton Randolph he succeeded him for Williamsburg, I do not know. If he did, it may account for Mr. Randolph's error.
You ask some account of Mr. Henry's mind, information and manners in 1759-'60, when I first became acquainted with him. We met at Nathan Dandridge's, in Hanover, about the Christmas of that winter, and passed perhaps a fortnight together at therevelries of the neighborhood and season. His manners had something of the coarseness of the society he had frequented; his passion was fiddling, dancing and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and it attached every one to him. The occasion perhaps, as much as his idle disposition, prevented his engaging in any conversation which might give the measure either of his mind or information. Opportunity was not wanting, because Mr. John Campbell was there, who had married Mrs. Spotswood, the sister of Colonel Dandridge. He was a man of science, and often introduced conversations on scientific subjects. Mr. Henry had a little before broke up his store, or rather it had broken him up, and within three months after he came to Williamsburg for his license, and told me, I think, he had read law not more than six weeks. I have by this time, probably, tired you with these old histories, and shall, therefore, only add the assurance of my great friendship and respect.
Monticello, August 10, 1815.
Dear Sir,—The simultaneous movements in our correspondence have been remarkable on several occasions. It would seem as if the state of the air, or state of the times, or some other unknown cause, produced a sympathetic effect on our mutual recollections. I had sat down to answer your letters of June the 19th, 20th and 22d, with pen, ink and paper before me, when I received from our mail that of July the 30th. You ask information on the subject of Camus. All I recollect of him is, that he was one of the deputies sent to arrest Dumourier at the head of his army, who were, however, themselves arrested by Dumourier, and long detained as prisoners. I presume, therefore, he was a Jacobin. You will find his character in the most excellent revolutionary history of Toulongeon. I believe, also, he may be the same person who has given us a translation of Aristotle's Natural History, from the Greek into French. Of his reportto the National Institute on the subject of the Bollandists, your letter gives me the first information. I had supposed them defunct with the society of Jesuits, of which they were; and that their works, although above ground, were, from their bulk and insignificance, as effectually entombed on their shelves, as if in the graves of their authors. Fifty-two volumes in folio, of theacta sanctorum, in dog-Latin, would be a formidable enterprise to the most laborious German. I expect, with you, they are the most enormous mass of lies, frauds, hypocrisy and imposture, that was ever heaped together on this globe. By what chemical process M. Camus supposed that an extract of truth could be obtained from such a farrago of falsehood, I must leave to the chemists and moralists of the age to divine.
On the subject of the history of the American Revolution, you ask who shall write it? Who can write it? And who will ever be able to write it? Nobody; except merely its external facts; all its councils, designs and discussions having been conducted by Congress with closed doors, and no members, as far as I know, having even made notes of them. These, which are the life and soul of history, must forever be unknown. Botta, as you observe, has put his own speculations and reasonings into the mouths of persons whom he names, but who, you and I know, never made such speeches. In this he has followed the example of the ancients, who made their great men deliver long speeches, all of them in the same style, and in that of the author himself. The work is nevertheless a good one, more judicious, more chaste, more classical, and more true than the party diatribe of Marshall. Its greatest fault is in having taken too much from him. I possessed the work, and often recurred to considerable portions of it, although I never read it through. But a very judicious and well-informed neighbor of mine went through it with great attention, and spoke very highly of it. I have said that no member of the old Congress, as far as I knew, made notes of the discussion. I did not know of the speeches you mention of Dickinson and Witherspoon. But on the questions of Independence, and on the two articles of Confederation respectingtaxes and votings, I took minutes of the heads of the arguments. On the first, I threw all into one mass, without ascribing to the speakers their respective arguments; pretty much in the manner of Hume's summary digests of the reasonings in parliament for and against a measure. On the last, I stated the heads of the arguments used by each speaker. But the whole of my notes on the question of Independence does not occupy more than five pages, such as of this letter; and on the other questions, two such sheets. They have never been communicated to any one. Do you know that there exists in manuscript the ablest work of this kind ever yet executed, of the debates of the constitutional convention of Philadelphia in 1788? The whole of everything said and done there was taken down by Mr. Madison, with a labor and exactness beyond comprehension.
I presume that our correspondence has been observed at the post offices, and thus has attracted notice. Would you believe, that a printer has had the effrontery to propose to me the letting him publish it? These people think they have a right to everything, however secret or sacred. I had not before heard of the Boston pamphlet with Priestley's letters and mine.
At length Bonaparte has got on the right side of a question. From the time of his entering the legislative hall to his retreat to Elba, no man has execrated him more than myself. I will not except even the members of the Essex Junto; although for very different reasons; I, because he was warring against the liberty of his own country, and independence of others; they, because he was the enemy of England, the Pope, and the Inquisition. But at length, and as far as we can judge, he seems to have become the choice of his nation. At least, he is defending the cause of his nation, and that of all mankind, the rights of every people to independence and self-government. He and the allies have now changed sides. They are parcelling out among themselves Poland, Belgium, Saxony, Italy, dictating a ruler and government to France, and looking askance at our republic, the splendid libel on their governments, and he is fighting for theprinciples of national independence, of which his whole life hitherto has been a continued violation. He has promised a free government to his own country, and to respect the rights of others; and although his former conduct inspires little confidence in his promises, yet we had better take the chance of his word for doing right, than the certainty of the wrong which his adversaries are doing and avowing. If they succeed, ours is only the boon of the Cyclops to Ulysses, of being the last devoured.
Present me affectionately and respectfully to Mrs. Adams, and Heaven give you both as much more of life as you wish, and bless it with health and happiness.
P. S. August the 11th.—I had finished my letter yesterday, and this morning receive the news of Bonaparte's second abdication. Very well. For him personally, I have no feeling but reprobation. The representatives of the nation have deposed him. They have taken the allies at their word, that they had no object in the war but his removal. The nation is now free to give itself a good government, either with or without a Bourbon; and France unsubdued, will still be a bridle on the enterprises of the combined powers, and a bulwark to others.
Quincy, August 24, 1815.
Dear Sir,—If I am neither deceived by the little information I have, or by my wishes for its truth, I should say that France is the mostProtestantcountry of Europe at this time, though I cannot think it the mostreformed. In consequence of these reveries, I have imagined that Camus and the Institute, meant, by the revival and continuance of theActa Sanctorum, to destroy the Pope, and the Catholic church and Hierarchies,de fonde en comble, or in the language of Frederick Pollair, D'Alembert, &c.,"ecraser le miserable"—"Crush the wretch." This great workmust contain the most complete history of the corruptions of Christianity that has ever appeared, Priestley's not excepted and his history of ancient opinions not excepted.
As to the History of the Revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an effect, and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington. The records of thirteen Legislatures, the pamphlets, newspapers, in all the colonies ought to be consulted, during that period, to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed, concerning the authority of Parliament over the colonies. The Congress of 1774 resembled in some respects, though I hope not in many, the council of Nice in ecclesiastical history. It assembled the Priests from the east and the west, the north and the south, who compared notes, engaged in discussions and debates, and formed results by one vote, and by two votes, which went out to the world as unanimous.
Mr. Madison's Notes of the Convention of 1787 or 1788 are consistent with his indefatigable character. I shall never see them, but I hope posterity will.
That our correspondence has been observed is no wonder; for your hand is more universally known than your face. No printer has asked me for copies; but it is no surprise that you have been requested. These gentry will print whatever will sell; and our correspondence is thought such an oddity by both parties, that the printers imagine an edition would soon go off, and yield them a profit. There has, however, been no tampering with your letters to me. They have all arrived in good order.
Poor Bonaparte! Poor Devil! What has, and what will become of him? Going the way of King Theodore, Alexander, Cæsar, Charles XIIth, Cromwell, Wat Tyler, and Jack Cade,i.e., to a bad end. And what will become of Wellington?Envied, hated, despised, by all the barons, earls, viscounts, marquises, as an upstart, a parvenue elevated over their heads. For these people have no idea of any merit, but birth. Wellington must pass the rest of his days buffeted, ridiculed, scorned and insulted by factions, as Marlborough and his Duchess did. Military glory dazzles the eyes of mankind, and for a time eclipses all wisdom and virtue, all laws, human and divine; and after this it would be bathos to descend to services merely civil or political.
Napoleon has imposed kings upon Spain, Holland, Sweden, Westphalia, Saxony, Naples, &c. The combined emperors and kings are about to retaliate upon France, by imposing a king upon her. These are all abominable examples, detestable precedents. When will the rights of mankind, the liberties and independence of nations, be respected? When the perfectibility of the human mind shall arrive at perfection. When the progress of Manillius'Ratioshall have not onlyeripuit cœlo fulmen, Jouvisque fulgores, but made mankind rational creatures.
It remains to be seen whether the allies were honest in their declaration that they were at war only with Napoleon.
Can the French ever be cordially reconciled to the Bourbons again? If not, who can they find for a head? the infant, or one of the generals? Innumerable difficulties will embarrass either project. I am, as ever
Monticello, October 12, 1815.
Dear Sir,—I received in a letter from Colonel Monroe the enclosed paper communicated, as he said, with your permission, and even with a wish to know my sentiments on the important question it discusses. It is now more than forty years since I have ceased to be habitually conversant with legal questions; and my pursuits through that period have seldom required or permitted a renewal of my former familiarity with them. Myideas at present, therefore, on such questions, have no claim to respect but such as might be yielded to the common auditors of a law argument.
I well knew that in certain federal cases the laws of the United States had given to a foreign party, whether plaintiff or defendant, a right to carry his cause into the federal court; but I did not know that where he had himself elected the State judicature, he could, after an unfavorable decision there, remove his case to the federal court, and thus take the benefit of two chances where others have but one; nor that the right of entertaining the question in this case had been exercised, or claimed by the federal judiciary after it had been postponed on the party's first election. His failure, too, to place on the record the particular ground which might give jurisdiction to the federal court, appears to me an additional objection of great weight. The question is of the first importance. The removal of it seems to be out of the analogies which guide the two governments on their separate tracts, and claims the solemn attention of both judicatures, and of the nation itself. I should fear to make up a final opinion on it, until I could see as able a development of the grounds of the federal claim as that which I have now read against it. I confess myself unable to foresee what those grounds would be. The paper enclosed must call them forth, and silence them too, unless they are beyond my ken. I am glad, therefore, that the claim is arrested, and made the subject of special and mature deliberation. I hope our courts will never countenance the sweeping pretensions which have been set up under the words "general defence and public welfare." These words only express the motives which induced the Convention to give to the ordinary legislature certain specified powers which they enumerate, and which they thought might be trusted to the ordinary legislature, and not to give them the unspecified also; or why any specification? They could not be so awkward in language as to mean, as we say, "all and some." And should this construction prevail, all limits to the federal government are done away. This opinion, formed on the first rise of the question,I have never seen reason to change, whether in or out of power; but, on the contrary, find it strengthened and confirmed by five and twenty years of additional reflection and experience: and any countenance given to it by any regular organ of the government, I should consider more ominous than anything which has yet occurred.
I am sensible how much these slight observations, on a question which you have so profoundly considered, need apology. They must find this in my zeal for the administration of our government according to its true spirit, federal as well as republican, and in my respect for any wish which you might be supposed to entertain for opinions of so little value. I salute you with sincere and high respect and esteem.
Monticello, October 12, 1815.
Sir,—I thank you for the statement of altitudes, which you have been so kind as to send me of our northern mountains. It came opportunely, as I was about making inquiries for the height of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, which have the reputation of being the highest in our maritime States, and purpose shortly to measure geometrically the height of the Peaks of Otter, which I suppose the highestfrom their base, of any on the east side of the Mississippi, except the White Mountains, and not far short of their height, if they are but of 4,885 feet. The method of estimating heights by the barometer, is convenient and useful, as being ready, and furnishing an approximation to truth. Of what degree of accuracy it is susceptible we know not as yet; no certain theory being established for ascertaining the density and weight of that portion of the column of atmosphere contiguous to the mountain; from the weight of which, nevertheless, we are to infer the height of the mountain. The most plausible seems to be that which supposes the mercury ofbarometer divided into horizontal lamina of equalthickness; and a similar column of the atmosphere into lamina of equalweights. The former divisions give a set of arithmetical, the latter of geometrical progressionals, which being the character of Logarithms and their numbers, the tables of these furnish ready computations, needing, however, the corrections which the state of the thermometer calls for. It is probable that in taking heights in the vicinity of each other in this way, there may be no considerable error, because the passage between them may be quick and repeated. The height of a mountain from its base, thus taken, merits, therefore, a very different degree of credit from that of its height above the level of the sea, where that is distant. According, for example, to the theory above mentioned, the height of Monticello from its base is 580 feet, and its base 610 feet 8 inches, above the level of the ocean; the former, from other facts, I judge to be near the truth; but a knowledge of the different falls of water from hence to the tide-water at Richmond, a distance of seventy-five miles, enables us to say that the whole descent to that place is but 170 or 180 feet. From thence to the ocean may be a distance of one hundred miles; it is all tide-water, and through a level country. I know not what to conjecture as the amount of descent, but certainly not 435 feet, as that theory would suppose, nor the quarter part of it. I do not know by what rule General Williams made his computations; he reckons the foot of the Blue Ridge, twenty miles from here, but 100 feet above the tide-water at Richmond. We know the descent, as before observed, to be at least 170 feet from hence, to which is to be added that from the Blue Ridge to this place, a very hilly country, with constant and great waterfalls. His estimate, therefore, must be much below truth. Results so different prove that for distant comparisons of height, the barometer is not to be relied on according to any theory yet known. While, therefore, we give a good degree of credit to the results of operations between the summit of a mountain and its base, we must give less to those between its summit and the level of the ocean.
I will do myself the pleasure of sending you my estimate ofthe Peaks of Otter, which I count on undertaking in the course of the next month. In the meantime accept the assurance of my great respect.
Monticello, October 15,1815.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for the extract in yours of August 16th respecting the Emperor Alexander. It arrived here a day or two after I had left this place, from which I have been absent seven or eight weeks. I had from other information formed the most favorable opinion of the virtues of Alexander, and considered his partiality to this country as a prominent proof of them. The magnanimity of his conduct on the first capture of Paris still magnified everything we had believed of him; but how he will come out of his present trial remains to be seen. That the sufferings which France had inflicted on other countries justified severe reprisals, cannot be questioned; but I have not yet learned what crimes of Poland, Saxony, Belgium, Venice, Lombardy and Genoa, had merited for them, not merely a temporary punishment, but that of permanent subjugation and a destitution of independence and self-government. The fable of Æsop of the lion dividing the spoils, is, I fear, becoming true history, and the moral code of Napoleon and the English government a substitute for that of Grotius, of Puffendorf, and even of the pure doctrine of the great author of our own religion. We were safe ourselves from Bonaparte, because he had not the British fleets at his command. We were safe from the British fleets, because they had Bonaparte at their back; but the British fleets and the conquerors of Bonaparte being now combined, and the Hartford nation drawn off to them, we have uncommon reason to look to our own affairs. This, however, I leave to others, offering prayers to heaven, the only contribution of old age, for the safety of our country. Be so good as to present me affectionately to Mrs. Logan, and to accept yourself the assurance of my esteem and respect.
Monticello, October 16, 1815.
Dear Sir,—A long absence from home must apologize for my so late acknowledgment of your welcome favor of September 6th. Our storm of the 4th of that month gave me great uneasiness for you; for I was certain you must be on the coast, and your actual arrival was unknown to me. It was such a wind as I have not witnessed since the year 1769. It did, however, little damage with us, only prostrating our corn, and tearing tobacco, without essential injury to either. It could have been nothing compared with that of the 23d, off the coast of New England, of which we had not a breath, but on the contrary, fine, fair weather. Is this the judgment of God between us? I congratulate you sincerely on your safe return to your own country, and without knowing your own wishes, mine are that you would never leave it again. I know you would be useful to us at Paris, and so you would anywhere; but nowhere so useful as here. We are undone, my dear Sir, if this banking mania be not suppressed.Aut Carthago, aut Roma delenda est.The war, had it proceeded, would have upset our government; and a new one, whenever tried, will do it. And so it must be while our money, the nerve of war, is much or little, real or imaginary, as our bitterest enemies choose to make it. Put down the banks, and if this country could not be carried through the longest war against her most powerful enemy, without ever knowing the want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitorous classes of her citizens, without bearing hard on the resources of the people, or loading the public with an indefinite burthen of debt, I know nothing of my countrymen. Not by any novel project, not by anycharlatanerie, but by ordinary and well-experienced means; by the total prohibition of all private paper at all times, by reasonable taxes in war aided by the necessary emissions of public paper of circulating size, this bottomed on special taxes, redeemable annually as this special tax comes in, and finally within a moderate period,—even with the flood of privatepaper by which we were deluged, would the treasury have ventured its credit in bills of circulating size, as of five or ten dollars, &c., they would have been greedily received by the people in preference to bank paper. But unhappily the towns of America were considered as the nation of America, the dispositions of the inhabitants of the former as those of the latter, and the treasury, for want of confidence in the country, delivered itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and pretenders to be money-holders, whom it could have crushed at any moment. Even the last half-bold half-timid threat of the treasury, showed at once that these jugglers were at the feet of government. For it never was, and is not, any confidence in their frothy bubbles, but the want of all other medium, which induced, or now induces, thecountrypeople to take their paper; and at this moment, when nothing else is to be had, no man will receive it but to pass it away instantly, none for distant purposes. We are now without any common measure of the value of property, and private fortunes are up or down at the will of the worst of our citizens. Yet there is no hope of relief from the legislatures who have immediate control over this subject. As little seems to be known of the principles of political economy as if nothing had ever been written or practised on the subject, or as was known in old times, when the Jews had their rulers under the hammer. It is an evil, therefore, which we must make up our minds to meet and to endure as those of hurricanes, earthquakes and other casualties: let us turn over therefore another leaf.
I grieve for France; although it cannot be denied that by the afflictions with which she wantonly and wickedly overwhelmed other nations, she has merited severe reprisals. For it is no excuse to lay the enormities to the wretch who led to them, and who has been the author of more misery and suffering to the world, than any being who ever lived before him. After destroying the liberties of his country, he has exhausted all its resources, physical and moral, to indulge his own maniac ambition, his own tyrannical and overbearing spirit. His sufferings cannot be toogreat. But theirs I sincerely deplore, and what is to be their term? The will of the allies? There is no more moderation, forbearance, or even honesty in theirs, than in that of Bonaparte. They have proved that their object, like his, is plunder. They, like him, are shuffling nations together, or into their own hands, as if all were right which they feel a power to do. In the exhausted state in which Bonaparte has left France, I see no period to her sufferings, until this combination of robbers fall together by the ears. The French may then rise up and choose their side. And I trust they will finally establish for themselves a government of rational and well-tempered liberty. So much science cannot be lost; so much light shed over them can never fail to produce to them some good, in the end. Till then we may ourselves fervently pray, with the liturgy a little parodied, "Give peace till that time, oh Lord, because there is none other that will fight for us but only thee, oh God." It is rare that I indulge in these poetical effusions; but your former and latter relations with both subjects have associated you with them in my mind, and led me beyond the limits of attention I ordinarily give to them. Whether you go or stay with us, you have always the prayers of yours affectionately.
P. S. The two letters you enclosed me were from Warden and De Lormerie, and neither from La Fayette, as you supposed.
Quincy, November 13, 1815.
Dear Sir,—The fundamental article of my political creed is, that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor; equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical.
Accordingly, arbitrary power, wherever it has resided, hanever failed to destroy all the records, memorials, and histories of former times which it did not like, and to corrupt and interpolate such as it was cunning enough to preserve or tolerate. We cannot therefore say with much confidence, what knowledge or what virtues may have prevailed in some former ages in some quarters of the world.
Nevertheless, according to the few lights that remain to us, we may say that the eighteenth century, notwithstanding all its errors and vices, has been, of all that are past, the most honorable to human nature. Knowledge and virtues were increased and diffused. Arts, sciences useful to men, ameliorating their condition, were improved more than in any former equal period.
But what are we to say now? Is the nineteenth century to be a contrast to the eighteenth? Is it to extinguish all the lights of its predecessors? Are the Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index Expurgatorius, and the knights-errant of St. Ignatius Loyola to be revived and restored to all their salutary powers of supporting and propagating the mild spirit of Christianity? The proceedings of the allies and their Congress at Vienna, the accounts from Spain, France, &c., the Chateaubriands and the Genti's, indicate which way the wind blows. The priests are at their old work again. The Protestants are denounced, and another St. Bartholomew's day threatened.
This, however, will probably, twenty-five years hence, be honored with the character of "The effusions of a splenetic mind, rather than as the sober reflections of an unbiased understanding." I have received Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Price, by William Morgan, F.R.S. In pages 151 and 155 Mr. Morgan says: "So well assured was Dr. Price of the establishment of a free constitution in France, and of the subsequent overthrow of despotism throughout Europe, as the consequence of it, that he never failed to express his gratitude to heaven for having extended his life to the present happy period, in which after sharing the benefits of one revolution, he has been spared to be a witness to two other revolutions, both glorious." But some of his correspondents were not quite so sanguine in their expectationsfrom the last of the revolutions; and among these, the late American Ambassador, Mr. John Adams. In a long letter which he wrote to Dr. Price at this time, so far from congratulating him on the occasion, he expresses himself in terms of contempt, in regard to the French revolution; and after asking rather too severely what good was to be expected from a nation of Atheists, he concluded with foretelling the destruction of a million of human beings as the probable consequence of it. These harsh censures and gloomy predictions were particularly ungrateful to Dr. Price, nor can it be denied that they must have then appeared as theeffusions of a splenetic mind, rather than as the sober reflectionsof an unbiased understanding.
I know not what a candid public will think of this practice of Mr. Morgan, after the example of Mr. Belsham, who, finding private letters in the Cabinet of a great and good man, after his decease, written in the utmost freedom and confidence of intimate friendship, by persons still living, though after the lapse of a quarter of a century, produces them before the world.
Dr. Disney had different feelings and a different judgment. Finding some cursory letters among the papers of Mr. Hollis, he would not publish them without my consent. In answer to his request, I submitted them to his discretion, and might have done the same to Mr. Morgan; indeed, had Mr. Morgan published my letter entire, I should not have given him nor myself any concern about it. But as in his summary he has not done the latter justice, I shall give it with all its faults.
Mr. Morgan has been more discreet and complaisant to you than to me. He has mentioned respectfully your letters from Paris to Dr. Price, but has given us none of them. As I would give more for these letters than for all the rest of the book, I am more angry with him for disappointing me, than for all he says of me and my letter, which, scambling as it is, contains nothing but the sure words of prophecy. I am, as usual, yours
Monticello, December 28, 1815.
Dear Sir,—At the date of your letter of October 30th, I had just left home on a journey from which I am recently returned. I had many years ago understood that Professor Ebeling was engaged in a geographical work which would comprehend the United States, and indeed I expected it was finished and published. I am glad to learn that his candor and discrimination have been sufficient to guard him against trusting the libel of Dr. Morse on this State. I wish it were in my power to give him the aid you ask, but it is not. The whole forenoon with me is engrossed by correspondence too extensive and laborious for my age. Health, habit, and necessary attention to my farms, require me then to be on horseback until a late dinner, and the society of my family and friends, with some reading, furnish the necessary relaxations of the rest of the day. Add to this that the cession of my library to Congress has left me without materials for such an undertaking. I wish the part of his work which gives the geography of this country may be translated and published, that ourselves and the world may at length have something like a dispassionate account of these States. Poor human nature! when we are obliged to appeal for the truth of mere facts from an eye-witness to one whose faculties for discovering it are only an honest candor and caution in sifting the grain from its chaff!
The Professor's history of Hamburg is doubtless interesting and instructive, and valuable as a corrective of the false information we derive from newspapers. I should read it with pleasure, but I fear its transportation and return would expose it to too much risk. Notwithstanding all the French and British atrocities, which will forever disgrace the present era of history, their shameless prostration of all the laws of morality which constitute the security, the peace and comfort of man—notwithstanding the waste of human life, and measure of human suffering which they have inflicted on the world—nations hitherto in slavery havedescried through all this bloody mist a glimmering of their own rights, have dared to open their eyes, and to see that their own power and their own will suffice for their emancipation. Their tyrants must now give them more moderate forms of government, and they seem now to be sensible of this themselves. Instead of the parricide treason of Bonaparte in employing the means confided to him as a republican magistrate to the overthrow of that republic, and establishment of a military despotism in himself and his descendants, to the subversion of the neighboring governments, and erection of thrones for his brothers, his sisters and sycophants, had he honestly employed that power in the establishment and support of the freedom of his own country, there is not a nation in Europe which would not at this day have had a more rational government, one in which the will of the people should have had a moderating and salutary influence. The work will now be longer, will swell more rivers with blood, produce more sufferings and more crimes. But it will be consummated; and that it may be will be the theme of my constant prayers while I shall remain on the earth beneath, or in the heavens above. To these I add sincere wishes for your health and happiness.
Monticello, December 29, 1815.
Sir,—At the date of your favor of October 30th, I had just left home on a journey to a distant possession of mine, from which I am but recently returned, and I wish that the matter of my answer could compensate for its delay. But, Sir, it happens that of all the machines which have been employed to aid human labor, I have made myself the least acquainted with (that which is certainly the most powerful of all) the steam engine. In its original and simple form indeed, as first constructed by Newcomen and Savary, it had been a subject of my early studies; but once possessed of the principle, I ceased to follow up the numerousmodifications of the machinery for employing it, of which I do not know whether England or our own country has produced the greatest number. Hence, I am entirely incompetent to form a judgment of the comparative merit of yours with those preceding it; and the cession of my library to Congress has left me without any examples to turn to. I see, indeed, in yours, the valuable properties of simplicity, cheapness and accommodation to the small and more numerous calls of life, and the calculations of its power appear sound and correct. Yet experience and frequent disappointment have taught me not to be over-confident in theories or calculations, until actual trial of the whole combination has stamped it with approbation. Should this sanction be added, the importance of your construction will be enhanced by the consideration that a smaller agent, applicable to our daily concerns, is infinitely more valuable than the greatest which can be used only for great objects. For these interest the few alone, the former the many. I once had an idea that it might perhaps be possible to economize the steam of a common pot, kept boiling on the kitchen fire until its accumulation should be sufficient to give a stroke, and although the strokes might not be rapid, there would be enough of them in the day to raise from an adjacent well the water necessary for daily use; to wash the linen, knead the bread, beat the homony, churn the butter, turn the spit, and do all other household offices which require only a regular mechanical motion. The unproductive hands now necessarily employed in these, might then increase the produce of our fields. I proposed it to Mr. Rumsey, one of our greatest mechanics, who believed in its possibility, and promised to turn his mind to it. But his death soon after disappointed this hope. Of how much more value would this be to ordinary life than Watts & Bolton's thirty pair of mill-stones to be turned by one engine, of which I saw seven pair in actual operation. It is an interesting part of your question, how much fuel would be requisite for your machine?
Your letter being evidence of your attention to mechanical things, and to their application to matters of daily interest, I willmention 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:Cross-armnearly 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 seendone 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.
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 wecannot 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 lategoldenachievements 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 buttwo chances of limit. The first is her bankruptcy, which will deprive her of thegoldeninstrument 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 thesummum bonumof 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 timeand 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.
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 insensibleonly 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.
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, andcalled 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 anà 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 importantobject 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,
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 ismore 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.
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 interestedin 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 thatnothingcan produce butnothing; 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-hazardon 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.