shall acquiesce in it cheerfully, and do every thing in my power to encourage my countrymen still to continue their occupation.

The actual sessions of our several Legislatures would render it interesting to forward immediately the regulations proposed on our commerce; and the expiration of the order of Bernis, at the close of this month, endangers a suspension and derangement in the commerce of tobacco, very embarrassing to the merchants of the two countries. Pardon me, therefore, sir, if I appear solicitous to obtain the ultimate decision of his Majesty's Council on these subjects, and to ask as early a communication of that decision as shall be convenient.

I have the honor to be, &c.,

TH: JEFFERSON.

FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JOHN ADAMS.

Dear Sir,

Paris, September 13, 1787.

This will be delivered to you by young Mr. Rutledge. Your knowledge of his father will introduce him to your notice. He merits it, moreover, on his own account.

I am now to acknowledge your favors of October the 8th and 26th. That of August the 25th was duly received, nor can I recollect by what accident I was prevented from acknowledging it in mine of September the 28th. It has been the source of my subsistence hitherto, and must continue to be so, till I receive letters on the affairs of money from America. Van Staphorsts and Willinks have answered my drafts. Your books for the Marquis de la Fayette are received here. I will notify it to him, who is at present with his Provincial Assembly in Auvergne.

Little is said lately of the progress of negotiations between the Courts of Petersburgh, Vienna, and Versailles. The distance of the former, and the cautious, unassuming character of its Minister here, is one cause of delays. A greater one is, the greediness and unstable character of the Emperor. Nor do I think that the principal here will be easily induced to lend himself to any connexion which shall threaten a war within a considerable number of His own reign will be that of peace only, in all probability; and were any accident to tumble him down, this country would immediately gird on its sword and buckler, and trust to occurrences for supplies of VOL. II.-8

years.

money. The wound their honor has sustained, festers in their hearts; and it may be said, with truth, that the Archbishop and a few priests determined to support his measures, because, proud to see their order come again into power, are the only advocates for the line of conduct which has been pursued. It is said, and believed through Paris, literally, that the Count de Montmorin, "pleuroit comme un enfant," when obliged to sign the counter-declaration. Considering the phrase as figurative, I believe it expresses the distress of his heart. Indeed, he has made no secret of his individual opinion. In the mean time, the principal goes on with a firm and patriotic spirit in reforming the cruel abuses of the Government, and preparing a new constitution, which will give to this people as much liberty as they are capable of managing. This, I think, will be the glory of his administration, because, though a good theorist in finance, he is thought to execute badly. They are about to open a loan of one hundred millions to supply present wants, and it is said the preface of the arrêt will contain a promise of the convocation of the States General during the ensuing year. Twelve or fifteen Provincial Assemblies are already in action, and are going on well; and I think, that though the nation suffers in reputation, it will gain infinitely in happiness under the present administration. I enclose to Mr. Jay a pamphlet, which I will beg of you to forward. I leave it open for your perusal. When you shall have read it, be so good as to stick a wafer in it. It is not yet published, nor will be for some days. This copy has been ceded to me as a favor.

How do you like our new Constitution? I confess there are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed. The house of federal representatives will not be adequate to the management of affairs, either foreign or federal. Their President seems a bad edition of a Polish King. He may be elected from four years to four years, for life. Reason and experience prove to us that a chief magistrate, so continuable, is an officer for life. When one or two generations shall have proved that this is an office for life, it becomes, on every succession, worthy of intrigue, of bribery, of force, and even of foreign interference. It will be of great consequence to France and England to have America governed by a Galloman or Angloman. Once in office, and possessing the military force of the Union, without the aid or

check of a Council, he would not be easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to withdraw their votes from him. I wish that at the end of the four years they had made him forever ineligible a second time. Indeed, I think all the good of this new Constitution might have been couched in three or four new articles to be added to the good, old, and venerable fabric, which should have been preserved even as a religious relique. Present me and my daughters affectionately to Mrs. Adams. The younger one continues to speak of her warmly.

Accept yourself, assurances of the sincere esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be, &c.,

TH: JEFFERSON.

FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO COLONEL SMITH.

Dear Sir,

Paris, November 13, 1787.

I am now to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of October the 4th, 8th, and 26th. In the last you apologize for your letters of introduction to Americans coming here. It is so far from needing apology on your part that it calls for thanks on mine. I endeavor to show civilities to all the Americans who come here, and who will give me opportunities of doing it. And it is a matter of comfort to know, from a good quarter, what they are, and how far I may go in my attentions to them.

Can you send me Woodmanson's bills for the two copying presses for the Marquis de la Fayette and the Marquis de Chastellux? The latter makes one article in the considerable account of old standing, and which I cannot present for want of this article. I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams that I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new Constitution. I beg leave, through you, to place them where due. It will yet be three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it, and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate, eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one. And what we have always read of the elections of Polish Kings, should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life.

Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British Ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the Ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon, and What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Our convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts; and on the spur of the moment, they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted. You ask me if any thing transpires here on the subject of South America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. But this country, probably, will join the extinguishers. The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse when we cannot inform.

The

pacify them.

The tree of

Present my respects to Mrs. Smith, and be assured of the sincere esteem of, dear sir, your friend and servant,

TH: JEFFERSON.

FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.

Dear Sir,

Paris, December 11, 1787.

I am later in acknowledging the receipt of your favors of October the 15th, and November the 5th and 15th, because we have been long expecting a packet, which I hoped would bring communications worth detailing to you, and she arrived only a few days ago after a very long passage indeed. I am very sorry you have not been able to make out the cypher of my letter of September the 25th, because it contained things which I wished you to know at that time. They have lost now a part of their merit; but still I wish you could decypher them, as there remains a part which it yet might be agreeable to you to understand. I have examined the cypher from which it was written. It is precisely a copy of those given to Messrs. Barclay and Lamb. In order that you may examine whether yours correspond, I will now translate into cypher the three first lines of my letter of June the 14.

cypher corresponds with But I shall not use it in

mine, as well as my manner of using it. future till I know from you the result of your reëxamination of it. I have the honor now to return you the letter you had been so good as to enclose to me. About the same time of Liston's conversation with you, similar ones were held with me by Mr. Eden. He particularly questioned me on the effect of our treaty with France, in the case of a war, and what might be our dispositions. I told him, without hesitation, that our treaty obliged us to receive the armed vessels of France, with their prizes, into our ports, and to refuse the admission of prizes made on her by her enemies; that there was a clause by which we guarantied to France her American possessions, and which might, perhaps, force us into the war, if these were attacked. "Then it will be war," said he, "for they will assuredly be attacked." I added, that our dispositions would be to be neutral, and that I thought it the interest of both these Powers that we should be so, because it would relieve both from all anxiety as to the feeding their West India Islands; and England would, moreover, avoid a heavy land war on our continent, which would cripple all her proceedings elsewhere. He expected these sentiments from me