Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson Volume III Part 51

LETTER CXCIV.*--TO P. MAZZEI, April 24, 1796

TO P. MAZZEI.

Monticello, April 24, 1796.

Mr Dear Friend,

[* The first part of this letter is on private business, and is therefore omitted.]

The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us.

In place of that n.o.ble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican monarchical and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles: the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a great ma.s.s of talents. Against us are the executive, the judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators and holders in the banks and public funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption, and for a.s.similating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever, were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England. In short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But we shall preserve it; and our ma.s.s of weight and wealth on the good side is so great, as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors.

I will forward the testimonial of the death of Mrs. Mazzei, which I can do the more incontrovertibly as she is buried in my grave-yard, and I pa.s.s her gravel daily. The formalities of the proof you require, will occasion delay. I begin to feel the effects of age. My health has suddenly broken down, with symptoms which give me to believe I shall not have much to encounter of the _tedium vita_. While it remains, however, my heart will be warm in its friends.h.i.+ps, and, among these, will always foster the affections with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCV.--TO COLONEL MONROE, June 12, 1796

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Monticello, June 12, 1796.

Dear Sir,

Congress have risen. You will have seen by their proceedings the truth of what I always observed to you, that one man outweighs them all in influence over the people, who have supported his judgment against their own and that of their representatives. Republicanism must lie on its oars, resign the vessel to its pilot, and themselves to the course he thinks best for them. I had always conjectured, from such facts as I could get hold of, that our public debt was increasing about a million of dollars a year. You will see by Gallatin's speeches that the thing is proved. You will see farther, that we are completely saddled and bridled, and that the bank is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where they will guide. They openly publish a resolution, that the national property being increased in value, they must by an increase of circulating medium furnish an adequate representation of it, and by further additions of active capital promote the enterprises of our merchants. It is supposed that the paper in circulation in and around Philadelphia amounts to twenty millions of dollars, and that in the whole Union, to one hundred millions. I think the last too high. All the imported commodities are raised about fifty per cent. by the depreciation of the money. Tobacco shares the rise, because it has no compet.i.tion abroad. Wheat has been extraordinarily high from other causes. When these cease, it must fall to its ancient nominal price, notwithstanding the depreciation of that, because it must contend in market with foreign wheats. Lands have risen within the vortex of the paper, and as far out as that can influence. They have not risen at all here. On the contrary, they are lower than they were twenty years ago.

Those I had mentioned to you, to wit, Carter's and Colle, were sold before your letter came. Colle at two dollars the acre. Carter's had been offered me for two French crowns (13s. 2d.) Mechanics here get from a dollar to a dollar and a half a day, yet are much worse off than at the old prices.

Volney is with me at present. He is on his way to the Illinois. Some late appointments, judiciary and diplomatic, you will have heard, and stared at. The death of R. Jouett is the only small news in our neighborhood.

Our best affections attend Mrs. Monroe, Eliza, and yourself. Adieu affectionately.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVI.--TO THE PRESIDENT, June 19, 1796

TO THE PRESIDENT.

Monticello, June 19, 1796.

In Bache's Aurora of the 9th instant, which came here by the last post, a paper appears, which having been confided, as I presume, to but few hands, makes it truly wonderful how it should have got there. I cannot be satisfied as to my own part, till I relieve my mind by declaring, and I attest every thing sacred and honorable to the declaration, that it has got there neither through me nor the paper confided to me. This has never been from under my own lock and key, or out of my own hands.

No mortal ever knew from me, that these questions had been proposed.

Perhaps I ought to except one person, who possesses all my confidence, as he has possessed yours. I do not remember, indeed, that I communicated it even to him. But as I was in the habit of unlimited trust and counsel with him, it is possible I may have read it to him; no more: for the quire of which it makes a part was never in any hand but my own, nor was a word ever copied or taken down from it, by any body. I take on myself, without fear, any divulgation on his part. We both know him incapable of it. From myself, then, or my paper, this publication has never been derived. I have formerly mentioned to you, that from a very early period of my life, I had laid it down as a rule of conduct never to write a word for the public papers. From this, I have never departed in a single instance; and on a late occasion, when all the world seemed to be writing, besides a rigid adherence to my own rule, I can say with truth, that not a line for the press was ever communicated to me, by any other, except a single pet.i.tion referred for my correction; which I did not correct, however, though the contrary, as I have heard, was said in a public place, by one person through error, through malice by another. I learn that this last has thought it worth his while to try to sow tares between you and me, by representing me as still engaged in the bustle of politics, and in turbulence and intrigue against the government. I never believed for a moment that this could make any impression on you, or that your knowledge of me would not overweigh the slander of an intriguer, dirtily employed in sifting the conversations of my table, where alone he could hear of me; and seeking to atone for his sins against you by sins against another, who had never done him any other injury than that of declining his confidences.

Political conversations I really dislike, and therefore avoid where I can without affectation. But when urged by others, I have never conceived that having been in public life requires me to belie my sentiments, or even to conceal them. When I am led by conversation to express them, I do it with the same independence here, which I have practised every where, and which is inseparable from my nature. But enough of this miserable tergiversator, who ought indeed either to have been of more truth, or less trusted by his country.*

[* Here, in the margin of the copy, is written, apparently at a later date, * General H. Lee.']

While on the subject of papers, permit me to ask one from you. You remember the difference of opinion between Hamilton and Knox on the one part, and myself on the other, on the subject of firing on the Little Sarah, and that we had exchanged opinions and reasons in writing. On your arrival in Philadelphia I delivered you a copy of my reasons, in the presence of Colonel Hamilton. On our withdrawing, he told me he had been so much engaged that he had not been able to prepare a copy of his and General Knox's for you, and that if I would send you the one he had given me, he would replace it in a few days. I immediately sent it to you, wis.h.i.+ng you should see both sides of the subject together. I often after applied to both the gentlemen, but could never obtain another copy. I have often thought of asking this one, or a copy of it, back from you, but have not before written on subjects of this kind to you.

Though I do not know that it will ever be of the least importance to me, yet one loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. They possess my paper in my own hand-writing. It is just I should possess theirs. The only thing amiss is, that they should have left me to seek a return of the paper, or a copy of it, from you.

I put away this disgusting dish of old fragments, and talk to you of my pease and clover. As to the latter article, I have great encouragement from the friendly nature of our soil. I think I have had, both the last and present year, as good clover from common grounds, which had brought several crops of wheat and corn without ever having been manured, as I ever saw on the lots around Philadelphia. I verily believe that a field of thirty-four acres, sowed on wheat April was twelvemonth, has given me a ton to the acre at its first cutting this spring. The stalks extended, measured three and a half feet long very commonly. Another field, a year older, and which yielded as well the last year, has sensibly fallen off this year. My exhausted fields bring a clover not high enough for hay, but I hope to make seed from it. Such as these, however, I shall hereafter put into pease in the broadcast, proposing that one of my sowings of wheat shall be after two years of clover, and the other after two years of pease. I am trying the white boiling pea of Europe (the Albany pea) this year, till I can get the hog-pea of England, which is the most productive of all. But the true winter-vetch is what we want extremely. I have tried this year the Caroline drill. It is absolutely perfect. Nothing can be more simple, nor perform its office more perfectly for a single row. I shall try to make one to sow four rows at a time of wheat or peas, at twelve inches distance. I have one of the Scotch thres.h.i.+ng-machines nearly finished. It is copied exactly from a model of Mr. Pinckney sent me, only that I have put the whole works (except the horse-wheel) into a single frame, moveable from one field to another on the two axles of a wagon. It will be ready in time for the harvest which is coming on, which will give it a full trial. Our wheat and rye are generally fine, and the prices talked of bid fair to indemnify us for the poor crops of the two last years.

I take the liberty of putting under your cover a letter to the son of the Marquis de la Fayette, not exactly knowing where to direct to him.

With very affectionate compliments to Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton, I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem and respect, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVII.--TO M. DE LA FAYETTE, June 19, 1796

TO M. DE LA FAYETTE.

Monticello, June 19, 1796.

Dear Sir,

The inquiries of Congress were the first intimation which reached my retirement of your being in this country, and from M. Volney, now with me, I first learned where you are. I avail myself of the earliest moments of this information, to express to you the satisfaction with which I learn that you are in the land of safety, where you will meet in every person the friend of your worthy father and family. Among these I beg leave to mingle my own a.s.surances of sincere attachment to him, and my desire to prove it by every service I can render you. I know, indeed, that you are already under too good a patronage to need any other, and that my distance and retirement render my affections unavailing to you.

They exist, nevertheless, in all their purity and warmth towards your father and every one embraced by his love; and no one has wished with more anxiety to see him once more in the bosom of a nation, who, knowing his works and his worth, desire to make him and his family for ever their own. You were, perhaps, too young to remember me personally when in Paris. But I pray you to remember, that should any occasion offer wherein I can be useful to you, there is no one on whose friends.h.i.+p and zeal you may more confidently count. You will, some day perhaps, take a tour through these States. Should any thing in this part of them attract your curiosity, it would be a circ.u.mstance of great gratification to me to receive you here, and to a.s.sure you in person of those sentiments of esteem, and attachment with which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVIII.--TO JONATHAN WILLIAMS, July 3,1796

TO JONATHAN WILLIAMS.

Monticello, July 3,1796.

Dear Sir,

I take shame to myself for having so long left unanswered your valuable favor on the subject of the mountains. But in truth, I am become lazy as to every thing except agriculture. The preparations for harvest, and the length of the harvest itself, which is not yet finished, would have excused the delay however, at all times and under all dispositions. I examined, with great satisfaction, your barometrical estimate of the heights of our mountains; and with the more, as they corroborated conjectures on this subject which I had made before. My estimates had made them a little higher than yours (I speak of the Blue Ridge.) Measuring with a very nice instrument the angle subtended vertically by the highest mountain of the Blue Ridge opposite to my own house, a distance of about eighteen miles south westward, I made the highest about two thousand feet, as well as I remember, for I can no longer find the notes I made. You make the south side of the mountain near Rockfish Gap, one thousand seven hundred and twenty-two feet above Woods. You make the other side of the mountain seven hundred and sixty-seven feet.