Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson Volume II Part 52

LETTER, CXCII.--TO THOMAS PAINE, March 17,1789

TO THOMAS PAINE.

Paris, March 17,1789.

Dear Sir,

My last letter to you extended from December the 23rd to January the 11th. A confidential opportunity now arising, I can acknowledge the receipt of yours of January the 15th, at the date of which you could not have received mine.

You knew, long ago, that the meeting of the States is to be at Versailles, on the 27th of April. This country is entirely occupied in its elections, which go on quietly and well. The Duke d'Orleans is elected for Villers Cotterets. The Prince of Conde has lost the election he aimed at; nor is it certain he can be elected any where. We have no news from Auvergne, whither the Marquis de la Fayette is gone. In general, all the men of influence in the country are gone into the several provinces, to get their friends elected, or be elected themselves. Since my letter to you, a tumult arose in Bretagne, in which four or five lives were lost. They are now quieter, and this is the only instance of a life lost, as yet, in this revolution. The public mind is now so far ripened by time and discussion, that there seems to be but one opinion on the princ.i.p.al points. The question of voting by persons or orders is the most controverted; but even that seems to have gained already a majority among the n.o.bles. I fear more from the number of the a.s.sembly, than from any other cause. Twelve hundred persons are difficult to keep to order, and will be so, especially, till they shall have had time to frame rules of order. Their funds continue stationary, and at the level they have stood at for some years past. We hear so little of the parliaments for some time past, that one is hardly sensible of their existence. This unimportance is probably the forerunner of their total re-modification by the nation. The article of legislation is the only interesting one on which the court has not explicitly declared itself to the nation. The Duke d'Orleans has given instructions to his proxies in the _bailliages_, which would be deemed bold in England, and are reasonable beyond the reach of an Englishman, who, slumbering under a kind of half reformation in politics and religion, is not excited by any thing he sees or feels, to question the remains of prejudice. The writers of this country, now taking the field freely, and unrestrained, or rather revolted by prejudice, will rouse us all from the errors in which we have been hitherto rocked.

We had, at one time, some hope, that an accommodation would have been effected between the Turks and two empires. Probably the taking Oczakow, while it has attached the Empress more to the Crimea, is not important enough to the Turks, to make them consent to peace. These hopes are vanis.h.i.+ng. Nor does there seem any prospect of peace between Russia and Sweden. The palsied condition of England leaves it probable, that Denmark will pursue its hostilities against Sweden. It does not seem certain whether the King of Prussia has advanced so far in that mediation, and in the troubles he has excited in Poland, as to be obliged to become a party. Nor will his becoming a party draw in this country, the present year, if England remains quiet. Papers which have lately pa.s.sed between this court and the government of Holland, prove that this nourishes its discontent, and only waits to put its house in order, before it interposes. They have recalled their amba.s.sador from the Hague, without naming a successor. The King of Sweden, not thinking that Russia and Denmark are enough for him, has arrested a number of his n.o.bles, of princ.i.p.al rank and influence. It is a bold measure, at least, and he is too boyish a character to authorize us to presume it a wise one, merely because he has adopted it. His army was before disgusted. He now puts the n.o.bles and all their dependants on the same side, and they are sure of armed support, by Russia on the north, and Denmark on the south. He can have no salvation but in the King of Prussia.

I have received two letters from Ledyard, the one dated Alexandria, August the 15th, the other Grand Cairo, September the 10th; and one lately from Admiral Paul Jones, dated St. Petersburg, January the 31st.

He was just arrived there, on the call of the Empress, and was uncertain where he should be employed the next campaign. Mr. Littlepage has returned from the Black Sea to Warsaw, where he has been perfectly received by the King. I saw this from under the King's own hand, and was pleased with the parental expressions towards him.

We have no news from America later than the middle of January. My letters inform me, that even the friends of the new const.i.tution have come over to the expediency of adding a declaration of rights. There is reason to hope that this will be proposed by Congress to the several legislatures, and that the plan of New York for calling a new convention, will be rejected. Hitherto, no State had acceded to it but Virginia, in which Henry and anti-federalism had got full possession of their legislature. But the people are better disposed. My departure for America is likely to be r.e.t.a.r.ded, by the want of a Congress to give me permission. I must attend it from the new government. I am anxious to know how much we ought to believe of the recovery of the King of England. By putting little facts together, I see that he is not well.

Mr. Rumsey (who came in while I was writing the preceding page) tells me you have a long letter ready for me. I shall be happy to receive it.

I am, with great and sincere attachment, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXIII.--TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS, March 18, 1789

TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS.

Paris, March 18, 1789.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of November the 29th, 1788, came to hand the last month. How it happened that mine of August, 1787, was fourteen months on its way, is inconceivable. I do not recollect by what conveyance I sent it. I had concluded, however, either that it had miscarried, or that you had become indolent, as most of our countrymen are, in matters of correspondence.

The change in this country since you left it, is such as you can form no idea of. The frivolities of conversation have given way entirely to politics. Men, women, and children talk nothing else: and all, you know, talk a great deal. The press groans with daily productions, which, in point of boldness, make an Englishman stare, who hitherto has thought himself the boldest of men. A complete revolution in this government, has, within the s.p.a.ce of two years (for it began with the _Notables_ of 1787), been effected merely by the force of public opinion, aided, indeed, by the want of money, which the dissipations of the court had brought on. And this revolution has not cost a single life, unless we charge to it a little riot lately in Bretagne, which began about the price of bread, became afterwards political, and ended in the loss of four or five lives. The a.s.sembly of the States General begins the 27th of April. The representation of the people will be perfect. But they will be alloyed by an equal number of n.o.bility and clergy. The first great question they will have to decide, will be, whether they shall vote by orders or persons. And I have hopes, that the majority of the n.o.bles are already disposed to join the _Tiers-Etat_, in deciding that the vote shall be by persons. This is the opinion _a la mode_ at present, and mode has acted a wonderful part in the present instance.

All the handsome young women, for example, are for the _Tiers-Etat_ and this is an army more powerful in France, than the two hundred thousand men of the King. Add to this, that the court itself is for the _Tiers-Etat_, as the only agent which can relieve their wants: not by giving money themselves (they are squeezed to the last drop), but by pressing it from the non-contributing orders. The King stands engaged to pretend no more to the power of laying, continuing, or appropriating taxes; to call the States General periodically; to submit _lettres de cachet_ to legal restrictions; to consent to freedom of the press; and that all this shall be fixed by a fundamental const.i.tution, which shall bind his successors. He has not offered a partic.i.p.ation in the legislature, but it will surely be insisted on. The public mind is so ripened on all these subjects, that there seems to be now but one opinion. The clergy, indeed, think separately, and the old men among the n.o.bles: but their voice is suppressed by the general one of the nation. The writings published on this occasion are, some of them, very valuable; because, unfettered by the prejudices under which the English labor, they give a full scope to reason, and strike out truths, as yet unperceived and unacknowledged on the other side the channel. An Englishman, dozing under a kind of half reformation, is not excited to think by such gross absurdities as stare a Frenchman in the face, wherever he looks, whether it be towards the throne or the altar. In fine, I believe this nation will, in the course of the present year, have as full a portion of liberty dealt out to them, as the nation can bear at present, considering how uninformed the ma.s.s of their people is.

This circ.u.mstance will prevent the immediate establishment of the trial by jury. The palsied state of the executive in England is a fortunate circ.u.mstance for France, as it will give her time to arrange her affairs internally. The consolidation and funding their debts, will give government a credit which will enable them to do what they please.

For the present year the war will be confined to the two empires and Denmark, against Turkey and Sweden. It is not yet evident, whether Prussia will be engaged. If the disturbances of Poland break out into overt acts, it will be a power divided in itself, and so of no weight.

Perhaps by the next year England and France may be ready to take the field. It will depend on the former princ.i.p.ally, for the latter, though she may be then able, must wish still a little time to see her new arrangements well under way. The English papers and English ministry say the King is well. He is better, but not well: no malady requires a longer time to insure against its return than insanity. Time alone can distinguish accidental insanity from habitual lunacy.

The operations which have taken place in America lately fill me with pleasure. In the first place, they realize the confidence I had, that, whenever our affairs go obviously wrong, the good sense of the people will interpose, and set them to rights. The example of changing a const.i.tution, by a.s.sembling the wise men of the State, instead of a.s.sembling armies, will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had given them. The const.i.tution, too, which was the result of our deliberations, is unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men, and some of the accommodations of interest which it has adopted are greatly pleasing to me, who have before had occasions of seeing how difficult those interests were to accommodate. A general concurrence of opinion seems to authorize us to say it has some defects. I am one of those who think it a defect, that the important rights, not placed in security by the frame of the const.i.tution itself, were not explicitly secured by a supplementary declaration. There are rights which it is useless to surrender to the government, and which governments have yet always been fond to invade. These are the rights of thinking, and publis.h.i.+ng our thoughts by speaking or writing; the right of free commerce; the right of personal freedom. There are instruments for administering the government so peculiarly trust-worthy, that we should never leave the legislature at liberty to change them. The new const.i.tution has secured these in the executive and legislative departments; but not in the judiciary. It should have established trials by the people themselves, that is to say, by jury. There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation, and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors, that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot, but in well defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army. We are now allowed to say, such a declaration of rights, as a supplement to the const.i.tution, where that is silent, is wanting, to secure us in these points. The general voice has legitimated this objection. It has not, however, authorized me to consider as a real defect, what I thought, and still think one, the perpetual re-eligibility of the President. But three States out of eleven having declared against this, we must suppose we are wrong, according to the fundamental law of every society, the _lex majoris partis_, to which we are bound to submit. And should the majority change their opinion, and become sensible that this trait in their const.i.tution is wrong, I would wish it to remain uncorrected, as long as we can avail ourselves of the services of our great leader, whose talents and whose weight of character, I consider as peculiarly necessary to get the government so under way, as that it may afterwards be carried on by subordinate characters.

I must give you sincere thanks for the details of small news contained in your letter. You know how previous that kind of information is to a person absent from his country, and how difficult it is to be procured.

I hope to receive soon permission to visit America this summer, and to possess myself anew, by conversation with my countrymen, of their spirit and their ideas. I know only the Americans of the year 1784. They tell me this is to be much a stranger to those of 1789. This renewal of acquaintance is no indifferent matter to one, acting at such a distance, as that instructions cannot be received hot and hot. One of my pleasures, too, will be that of talking over the old and new with you.

In the mean time, and at all times, I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem. Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson,

LETTER CXCIV.--TO DOCTOR WILLARD, March 24, 1789

TO DOCTOR WILLARD.

Paris, March 24, 1789.

Sir,

I have been lately honored with your letter of September the 24th, 1788, accompanied by a diploma for a Doctorate of Laws, which the University of Harvard has been pleased to confer on me. Conscious how little I merit it, I am the more sensible of their goodness and indulgence to a stranger, who has had no means ef serving or making himself known to them. I beg you to return them my grateful thanks, and to a.s.sure them that this notice from so eminent a seat of science is very precious to me.

The most remarkable publications we have had in France, for a year or two past, are the following. _Les Voyages d'Anacharsis, par Abbe Barthelemi_, seven volumes, octavo. This is a very elegant digest of whatever is known of the Greeks; useless, indeed, to him who has read the original authors, but very proper for one who reads modern languages only. The works of the King of Prussia. The Berlin edition is in sixteen volumes, octavo. It is said to have been gutted at Berlin; and here it has been still more mangled. There are one or two other editions published abroad, which pretend to have rectified the maltreatment both of Berlin and Paris. Some time will be necessary to settle the public mind as to the best edition.

Montignot has given us the original Greek, and a French translation of the seventh book of Ptolemy's great work, under the t.i.tle of _Etat des Etoiles fixes au second siecle_, in quarto. He has given the designation of the same stars by Flamsteed and Bayer, and their position in the year 1786. A very remarkable work is the _Mechanique a.n.a.lytique of La Grange_, in quarto. He is allowed to be the greatest mathematician now living, and his personal worth is equal to his science. The object of his work is to reduce all the principles of mechanics to the single one of the equilibrium, and to give a simple formula applicable to them all. The subject is treated in the algebraic method, without diagrams to a.s.sist the conception. My present occupations not permitting me to read any thing which requires a long and undisturbed attention, I am not able to give you the character of this work from my own examination. It has been received with great approbation in Europe. In Italy, the works of Spallanzani on Digestion and Generation are valuable. Though, perhaps, too minute, and therefore tedious, he has developed some useful truths, and his book is well worth attention; it is in four volumes, octavo.

Clavigero, an Italian also, who has resided thirty-six years in Mexico, has given us a History of that country, which certainly merits more respect than any other work on the same subject. He corrects many errors of Dr. Robertson; and though sound philosophy will disapprove many of his ideas, we must still consider it as an useful work, and a.s.suredly the best we possess on the same subject. It is in four thin volumes, small quarto. De la Lande has not yet published a fifth volume.

The chemical dispute about the conversion and reconversion of air and water, continues still undecided. Arguments and authorities are so balanced, that we may still safely believe, as our fathers did before us, that these principles are distinct. A schism of another kind has taken place among the chemists. A particular set of them here have undertaken to remodel all the terms of the science, and to give to every substance a new name, the composition, and especially the termination of which, shall define the relation in which it stands to other substances of the same family. But the science seems too much in its infancy as yet, for this reformation; because, in fact, the reformation of this year must be reformed again the next year, and so on, changing the names of substances as often as new experiments develope properties in them undiscovered before. The new nomenclature has, accordingly, been already proved to need numerous and important reformations. Probably it will not prevail. It is espoused by the minority only here, and by very few, indeed, of the foreign chemists. It is particularly rejected in England.

In the arts, I think two of our countrymen have presented the most important inventions. Mr. Paine, the author of 'Common Sense,' has invented an iron bridge, which promises to be cheaper by a great deal than stone, and to admit of a much greater arch. He supposes it may be ventured for an arch of five hundred feet. He has obtained a patent for it in England, and is now executing the first experiment with an arch of between ninety and one hundred feet. Mr. Rumsey has also obtained a patent for his navigation by the force of steam in England, and is soliciting a similar one here. His princ.i.p.al merit is in the improvement of the boiler, and instead of the complicated machinery of oars and paddles, proposed by others, the subst.i.tution of so simple a thing as the reaction of a stream of water on his vessel. He is building a sea-vessel at this time in England, and she will be ready for an experiment in May. He has suggested a great number of mechanical improvements in a variety of branches, and, upon the whole, is the most original and the greatest mechanical genius I have ever seen. The return of La Peyrouse (whenever that shall happen) will probably add to our knowledge in Geography, Botany, and Natural History. What a field have we at our doors to signalize ourselves in! The Botany of America is far from being exhausted, its Mineralogy is untouched, and its Natural History or Zoology totally mistaken and misrepresented. As far as I have seen, there is not one single species of terrestrial birds common to Europe and America, and I question if there be a single species of quadrupeds. (Domestic animals are to be excepted.) It is for such inst.i.tutions as that over which you preside so worthily, Sir, to do justice to our country, its productions, and its genius. It is the work to which the young men, whom you are forming, should lay their hands.

We have spent the prime of our lives in procuring them the precious blessing of liberty. Let them spend theirs in showing that it is the great parent of science and of virtue; and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free. n.o.body wishes more warmly for the success of your good exhortations on this subject, than he who has the honor to be, with sentiments of great esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCV.--TO J. SARSFIELD, April 3, 1789

TO J. SARSFIELD.

Paris, April 3, 1789.

Sir,

I could not name to you the day of my departure from Paris, because I do not know it. I have not yet received my _conge_, though I hope to receive it soon, and to leave this some time in May, so that I may be back before the winter.

Impost is a duty paid on any imported article, in the moment of its importation, and of course, it is collected in the sea-ports only.

Excise is a duty on any article, whether imported or raised at home, and paid in the hands of the consumer or retailer; consequently, it is collected through the whole country. These are the true definitions of these words as used in England, and in the greater part of the United States. But in Ma.s.sachusetts, they have perverted the word excise to mean a tax on all liquors, whether paid in the moment of importation or at a later moment, and on nothing else. So that in reading the debates of the Ma.s.sachusetts convention, you must give this last meaning to the word excise.

Rotation is the change of officers required by the laws at certain epochs, and in a certain order: thus, in Virginia, our justices of the peace are made sheriffs one after the other, each remaining in office two years, and then yielding it to his next brother in order of seniority. This is the just and cla.s.sical meaning of the word. But in America we have extended it (for want of a proper word) to all cases of officers who must be necessarily changed at a fixed epoch, though the successor be not pointed out in any particular order, but comes in by free election. By the term rotation in office, then, we mean an obligation on the holder of that office to go out at a certain period.