The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9)

Dear Sir,—I received duly your favor of December the 15th, and with it the copies of your map and travels, for which be pleased to accept my thanks. The book I have read with extreme satisfaction and information. As to the western States, particularly, it has greatly edified me; for of the actual condition of that interesting portion of our country, I had not an adequate idea. I feel myself now as familiar with it as with the condition of the maritime States. I had no conception that manufactures had made such progress there, and particularly of the number of carding and spinning machines dispersed through the whole country. We are but beginning here to have them in our private families. Small spinning jennies of from half a dozen to twenty spindles, will soon, however, make their way into the humblest cottages, as well as the richest houses; and nothing is more certain, than that the coarse and middling clothing for our families, will forever hereafter continue to be made within ourselves. I have hitherto myself depended entirely on foreign manufactures; but I have now thirty-five spindles agoing, a hand carding machine, and looms with the flying shuttle, for the supply of my own farms, which will never be relinquished in my time. The continuance of the war will fix the habit generally, and out of the evils of impressment and of the orders of council, a great blessing for us will grow. I have not formerly been an advocate for great manufactories. I doubted whether our labor, employed in agriculture, and aided by the spontaneous energies of the earth, would not procure us more than we could make ourselves of other necessaries. But other considerations entering into the question, have settled my doubts.

The candor with which you have viewed the manners and condition of our citizens, is so unlike the narrow prejudices of the French and English travellers preceding you, who, considering each the manners and habits of their own people as the only orthodox, have viewed everything differing from that test as boorish and barbarous, that your work will be read here extensively, and operate great good.

Amidst this mass of approbation which is given to every other part of the work, there is a single sentiment which I cannot help wishing to bring to what I think the correct one; and, on a point so interesting, I value your opinion too highly not to ambition its concurrence with my own. Stating in volume one, page sixty-three, the principle of difference between the two great political parties here, you conclude it to be, 'whether the controlling power shall be vested in this or that set of men.' That each party endeavors to get into the administration of the government, and exclude the other from power, is true, and may be stated as a motive of action: but this is only secondary; the primary motive being a real and radical difference of political principle. I sincerely wish our differences were but personally who should govern, and that the principles of our constitution were those of both parties. Unfortunately, it is otherwise; and the question of preference between monarchy and republicanism, which has so long divided mankind elsewhere, threatens a permanent division here.

Among that section of our citizens called federalists, there are three shades of opinion. Distinguishing between the leaders and people who compose it, the leaders consider the English constitution as a model of perfection, some, with a correction of its vices, others, with all its corruptions and abuses. This last was Alexander Hamilton's opinion, which others, as well as myself, have often heard him declare, and that a correction of what are called its vices, would render the English an impracticable government. This government they wished to have established here, and only accepted and held fast, at first, to the present constitution, as a stepping-stone to the final establishment of their favorite model. This party has therefore always clung to England as their prototype, and great auxiliary in promoting and effecting this change. A weighty minority, however, of these leaders, considering the voluntary conversion of our government into a monarchy as too distant, if not desperate, wish to break off from our Union its eastern fragment, as being, in truth, the hot-bed of American monarchism, with a view to a commencement of their favorite government, from whence the other States may gangrene by degrees, and the whole be thus brought finally to the desired point. For Massachusetts, the prime mover in this enterprise, is the last State in the Union to mean a final separation, as being of all the most dependent on the others. Not raising bread for the sustenance of her own inhabitants, not having a stick of timber for the construction of vessels, her principal occupation, nor an article to export in them, where would she be, excluded from the ports of the other States, and thrown into dependence on England, her direct, and natural, but now insidious rival? At the head of this MINORITY is what is called the Essex Junto of Massachusetts. But the MAJORITY of these leaders do not aim at separation. In this, they adhere to the known principle of General Hamilton, never, under any views, to break the Union. Anglomany, monarchy, and separation, then, are the principles of the Essex federalists. Anglomany and monarchy, those of the Hamiltonians, and Anglomany alone, that of the portion among the people who call themselves federalists. These last are as good republicans as the brethren whom they oppose, and differ from them only in their devotion to England and hatred of France which they have imbibed from their leaders. The moment that these leaders should avowedly propose a separation of the Union, or the establishment of regal government, their popular adherents would quit them to a man, and join the republican standard; and the partisans of this change, even in Massachusetts, would thus find themselves an army of officers without a soldier.

The party called republican is steadily for the support of the present constitution. They obtained at its commencement, all the amendments to it they desired. These reconciled them to it perfectly, and if they have any ulterior view, it is only, perhaps, to popularize it further, by shortening the Senatorial term, and devising a process for the responsibility of judges, more practicable than that of impeachment. They esteem the people of England and France equally, and equally detest the governing powers of both.

This I verily believe, after an intimacy of forty years with the public councils and characters, is a true statement of the grounds on which they are at present divided, and that it is not merely an ambition for power. An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. And considering as the only offices of power those conferred by the people directly, that is to say, the executive and legislative functions of the General and State governments, the common refusal of these, and multiplied resignations, are proofs sufficient that power is not alluring to pure minds, and is not, with them, the primary principle of contest. This is my belief of it; it is that on which I have acted; and had it been a mere contest who should be permitted to administer the government according to its genuine republican principles, there has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

You expected to discover the difference of our party principles in General Washington's valedictory, and my inaugural address. Not at all. General Washington did not harbor one principle of federalism. He was neither an Angloman, a monarchist, nor a separatist. He sincerely wished the people to have as much self-government as they were competent to exercise themselves. The only point on which he and I ever differed in opinion, was, that I had more confidence than he had in the natural integrity and discretion of the people, and in the safety and extent to which they might trust themselves with a control over their government. He has asseverated to me a thousand times his determination that the existing government should have a fair trial, and that in support of it he would spend the last drop of his blood. He did this the more repeatedly, because he knew General Hamilton's political bias, and my apprehensions from it. It is a mere calumny, therefore, in the monarchists, to associate General Washington with their principles. But that may have happened in this case which has been often seen in ordinary cases, that, by oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves. It is a mere artifice in this party to bolster themselves up on the revered name of that first of our worthies. If I have dwelt longer on this subject than was necessary, it proves the estimation in which I hold your ultimate opinions, and my desire of placing the subject truly before them. In so doing, I am certain I risk no use of the communication which may draw me into contention before the public. Tranquillity is the summum bonum of a Septagenaire.

To return to the merits of your work: I consider it as so lively a picture of the real state of our country, that if I can possibly obtain opportunities of conveyance, I propose to send a copy to a friend in France, and another to one in Italy, who, I know, will translate and circulate it as an antidote to the misrepresentations of former travellers. But whatever effect my profession of political faith may have on your general opinion, a part of my object will be obtained, if it satisfies you as to the principles of my own action, and of the high respect and consideration with which I tender you my salutations.

TO COLONEL DUANE

    Monticello, January 22, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I do not know how the publication of the Review turned out in point of profit, whether gainfully or not. I know it ought to have been a book of great sale. I gave a copy to a student of William and Mary college, and recommended it to Bishop Madison, then President of the college, who was so pleased with it that he established it as a school-book, and as the young gentleman informed me, every copy which could be had was immediately bought up, and there was a considerable demand for more. You probably know best whether new calls for it have been made. Pr. Madison was a good whig. * * * * * Your experiment on that work will enable you to decide whether you ought to undertake another, not of greater but of equal merit. I have received from France a MS. work on Political Economy, written by De Tutt Tracy, the most conspicuous writer of the present day in the metaphysical line. He has written a work entitled Ideology, which has given him a high reputation in France. He considers that as having laid a solid foundation for the present volume on Political Economy, and will follow it by one on Moral Duties. The present volume is a work of great ability. It may be considered as a review of the principles of the Economists, of Smith and of Say, or rather an elementary book on the same subject. As Smith had corrected some principles of the Economists, and Say some of Smiths, so Tracy has done as to the whole. He has, in my opinion, corrected fundamental errors in all of them, and by simplifying principles, has brought the subject within a narrow compass. I think the volume would be of about the size of the Review of Montesquieu. Although he puts his name to the work, he is afraid to publish it in France, lest its freedom should bring him into trouble. If translated and published here, he could disavow it, if necessary. In order to enable you to form a better judgment of the work, I will subjoin a list of the chapters or heads, and if you think proper to undertake the translation and publication, I will send the work itself. You will certainly find it one of the very first order. It begins with * * * * *

Our war on the land has commenced most inauspiciously. I fear we are to expect reverses until we can find out who are qualified for command, and until these can learn their profession. The proof of a general, to know whether he will stand fire, costs a more serious price than that of a cannon; these proofs have already cost us thousands of good men, and deplorable degradation of reputation, and as yet have elicited but a few negative and a few positive characters. But we must persevere till we recover the rank we are entitled to.

Accept the assurances of my continued esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR MORRELL

    Monticello, February 5, 1813.

Sir,—The book which you were so kind as to take charge of at Paris for me, is safely received, and I thank you for your care of it, and more particularly for the indulgent sentiments you are so kind as to express towards myself. I am happy at all times to hear of the welfare of my literary friends in that country; they have had a hard time of it since I left them. I know nothing which can so severely try the heart and spirit of man, and especially of the man of science, as the necessity of a passive acquiescence under the abominations of an unprincipled tyrant who is deluging the earth with blood to acquire for himself the reputation of a Cartouche or a Robin Hood. The petty larcenies of the Blackbeards and Buccaneers of the ocean, the more immediately exercised on us, are dirty and grovelling things addressed to our contempt, while the horrors excited by the Scelerat of France are beyond all human execrations. With my thanks for your kind attentions, be pleased to accept the assurance of my respect.

TO GENERAL BAILEY

    Monticello, February 6, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of January 25th is received, and I have to renew my thanks to you for the map accompanying it. These proofs of friendly remembrance give additional interest to the subjects which convey them. The scenes, too, which compose the map, are become highly interesting. Our first entrance on them has been peculiarly inauspicious. Our men are good, but force without conduct is easily baffled. The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses. But our turn of success will come by-and-bye, and we must submit to the previous misfortunes which are to be the price of it. I think with you on the subject of privateers. Our ships of force will undoubtedly be blockaded by the enemy, and we shall have no means of annoying them at sea but by small, swift-sailing vessels; these will be better managed and more multiplied in the hands of individuals than of the government. In short, they are our true and only weapon in a war against Great Britain, when once Canada and Nova Scotia shall have been rescued from them. The opposition to them in Congress is merely partial. It is a part of the navy fever, and proceeds from the desire of securing men for the public ships by suppressing all other employments from them. But I do not apprehend that this ill-judged principle is that of a majority of Congress. I hope, on the contrary, they will spare no encouragement to that kind of enterprise. Our public ships, to be sure, have done wonders. They have saved our military reputation sacrificed on the shores of Canada; but in point of real injury and depredation on the enemy, our privateers without question have been most effectual. Both species of force have their peculiar value. I salute you with assurances of friendship and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

    Monticello, February 8, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 27th ult. has been duly received. You have had a long holiday from my intrusions. In truth I have had nothing to write about, and your time should not be consumed by letters about nothing. The enclosed paper however makes it a duty to give you the trouble of reading it. You know the handwriting and the faith due to it. Our intimacy with the writer leaves no doubt about his facts, and in his letter to me he pledges himself for their fidelity. He says the narrative was written at the request of a young friend in Virginia, and a copy made for my perusal, on the presumption it would be interesting to me. Whether the word "Confidential" at the head of the paper was meant only for his young friend or for myself also, nothing in his letter indicates. I must, therefore, govern myself by considerations of discretion and of duty combined. Discretion dictates that I ought not so to use the paper as to compromit my friend; an effect which would be as fatal to my peace as it might be to his person. But duty tells me that the public interest is so deeply concerned in your perfect knowledge of the characters employed in its high stations, that nothing should be withheld which can give you useful information. On these grounds I commit it to yourself and the Secretary at War, to whose functions it relates more immediately. It may have effect on your future designation of those to whom particular enterprises are to be committed, and this is the object of the communication. If you should think it necessary that the minds of the other members of the Cabinet should be equally apprized of its contents, although not immediately respecting their departments, the same considerations, and an entire confidence in them personally, would dictate its communication to them also. But beyond this no sense of duty calls on me for its disclosure, and fidelity to my friend strongly forbids it. The paper presents such a picture of indecision in purpose, inattention to preparation, and imprudence of demeanor, as to fix a total incompetence for military direction. How greatly we were deceived in this character, as is generally the case in appointments not on our own knowledge. I remember when we appointed him we rejoiced in the acquisition of an officer of so much understanding and integrity, as we imputed to him; and placed him as near the head of the army as the commands then at our disposal admitted. Perhaps, still, you may possess information giving a different aspect to this case, of which I sincerely wish it may be susceptible. I will ask the return of the paper when no longer useful to you.

The accession to your Cabinet meets general approbation. This is chiefly at present given to the character most known, but will be equally so to the other when better known. I think you could not have made better appointments.

The autumn and winter have been most unfriendly to the wheat in red lands, by continued cold and alternate frosts and thaws. The late snow of about ten inches now disappearing, have received it. That grain is got to $2 at Richmond. This is the true barometer of the popularity of the war. Ever affectionately yours.

TO GENERAL ARMSTRONG

    Monticello, February 8, 1813.

Dear General,—I have long ago in my heart congratulated our country on your call to the place you now occupy. But with yourself personally it is no subject of congratulation. The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind. The duties of office are a Corvée which must be undertaken on far other considerations than those of personal happiness. But whether this be a subject of congratulation or of condolence, it furnishes the occasion of recalling myself to your recollection, and of renewing the assurances of my friendship and respect. Whatever you do in office, I know will be honestly and ably done, and although we who do not see the whole ground may sometimes impute error, it will be because we, not you, are in the wrong; or because your views are defeated by the wickedness or incompetence of those you are obliged to trust with their execution. An instance of this is the immediate cause of the present letter. I have enclosed a paper to the President, with a request to communicate it to you, and if he thinks it should be known to your associates of the Cabinet, although not immediately respecting their departments, he will communicate it to them also. That it should go no further is rendered an obligation on me by considerations personal to a young friend whom I love and value, and by the confidence which has induced him to commit himself to me. I hope, therefore, it will never be known that such a narrative has been written, and much less by whom written, and to whom addressed. It is unfortunate that heaven has not set its stamp on the forehead of those whom it has qualified for military achievement. That it has left us to draw for them in a lottery of so many blanks to a prize, and where the blank is to be manifested only by the public misfortunes. If nature had planted the fœnum in cornu on the front of treachery, of cowardice, of imbecility, the unfortunate debut we have made on the theatre of war would not have sunk our spirits at home, and our character abroad. I hope you will be ready to act on the first breaking of the ice, as otherwise we may despair of wresting Canada from our enemies. Their starving manufactories can furnish men for its defence much faster than we can enlist them for its assault.

Accept my prayers for success in all your undertakings, and the assurance of my affectionate esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR RUSH

    Monticello, March 6, 1813.

Dear Sir,—I received some time ago a letter signed "James Carver," proposing that myself, and my friends in this quarter, should subscribe and forward a sum of money towards the expenses of his voyage to London, and maintenance there while going through a course of education in their Veterinary school, with a view to his returning to America, and practising the art in Philadelphia. The name, person and character of the writer, were equally unknown to me, and unauthenticated, but as self-declared in the letter. I supposed him an Englishman, from the style in which he spoke of "His Majesty," and because an American, without offence to the laws, could not now be going, nor be sent by private individuals to England. The scheme did not appear to me either the shortest or surest way of going to work to accomplish the object. Because, if the Veterinary institution there be of the celebrity he described, it must already have produced subjects prepared for entering into practice, and disposed to come to a good position, claiming nothing till they should enter into function, or not more than their passage. I did not receive the letter until the day had elapsed on which the vessel was to depart wherein he had taken his passage; and his desire that the answer should go through you, is my only authority for troubling you with this, addressed to you, whom I know, love, and revere, and not to him, who, for any evidence I have but from himself, may be a zealous son of science, or an adventurer wanting money to carry him to London. I know nothing of the Veterinary institution of London, yet have no doubt it merits the high character he ascribes to it. It is a nation which possesses many learned men. I know well the Veterinary school of Paris, of long standing, and saw many of its publications during my residence there. They were classically written, announced a want of nothing but certainty as to their facts, which granted, the hypotheses were learned and plausible. The coach-horses of the rich of Paris were availed of the institution; but the farmers even of the neighborhood could not afford to call a Veterinary Doctor to their plough-horses in the country, or to send them to a livery stable to be attended in the city. On the whole, I was not a convert to the utility of the Institution. You know I am so to that of medicine, even in human complaints, but in a limited degree. That there are certain diseases of the human body, so distinctly pronounced by well-articulated symptoms, and recurring so often, as not to be mistaken, wherein experience has proved that certain substances applied, will restore order, I cannot doubt. Such are Kinkina in Intermittents, Mercury in Syphilis, Castor Oil in Dysentery, &c. And so far I go with the physicians. But there are also a great mass of indistinct diseases, presenting themselves under no form clearly characterized, nor exactly recognized as having occurred before, and to which of course the application of no particular substance can be known to have been made, nor its effect on the case experienced. These may be called unknown cases, and they may in time be lessened by the progress of observation and experiment. Observing that there are in the construction of the animal system some means provided unknown to us, which have a tendency to restore order, when disturbed by accident, called by physicians the vis medicatrix naturæ, I think it safer to trust to this power in the unknown cases, than to uncertain conjectures built on the ever-changing hypothetical systems of medicine. Now, in the Veterinary department all are unknown cases. Man can tell his physician the seat of his pain, its nature, history, and sometimes its cause, and can follow his directions for the curative process—but the poor dumb horse cannot signify where his pain is, what it is, or when or whence it came, and resists all process for its cure. If in the case of man, then, the benefit of medical interference in such cases admits of question, what must it be in that of the horse? And to what narrow limits is the real importance of the Veterinary art reduced? When a boy, I knew a Doctor Seymour, neighbor to our famous botanist Clayton, who imagined he could cure the diseases of his tobacco plants; he bled some, administered lotions to others, sprinkled powders on a third class, and so on—they only withered and perished the faster. I am sensible of the presumption of hazarding an opinion to you on a subject whereon you are so much better qualified for decision, both by reading and experience. But our opinions are not voluntary. Every man's own reason must be his oracle. And I only express mine to explain why I did not comply with Mr. Carver's request; and to give you a further proof that there are no bounds to my confidence in your indulgence in matters of opinion.

Mr. Adams and myself are in habitual correspondence. I owe him a letter at this time, and shall pay the debt as soon as I have something to write about: for with the commonplace topic of politics we do not meddle. Where there are so many others on which we agree, why should we introduce the only one on which we differ. Besides the pleasure which our naval successes have given to every honest patriot, his must be peculiar, because a navy has always been his hobby-horse. A little further time will show whether his ideas have been premature, and whether the little we can oppose on that element to the omnipotence of our enemy there, would lessen the losses of the war, or contribute to shorten its duration, the legitimate object of every measure. On the land, indeed, we have been most unfortunate; so wretched a succession of generals never before destroyed the fairest expectations of a nation, counting on the bravery of its citizens, which has proved itself on all these trials. Our first object must now be the vindication of our character in the field; after that, peace with the liberum mare, personal inviolability there, and ouster from this continent of the incendiaries of savages. God send us these good things, and to you health and life here, till you wish to awake to it in another state of being.

TO M. DE LOMERIE

    Monticello, April 3, 1813.

Sir,—Your letter of the 26th has been received, as had been that of the 5th. The preceding ones had been complied with by applications verbal and written to the members of the government, to which I could expect no specific answers, their whole time being due to the public, and employed on their concerns. Had it been my good fortune to preserve at the age of seventy, all the activity of body and mind which I enjoyed in earlier life, I should have employed it now, as then, in incessant labors to serve those to whom I could be useful. But the torpor of age is weighing heavily on me. The writing table is become my aversion, and its drudgeries beyond my remaining powers. I have retired, then, of necessity, from all correspondence not indispensably called for by some special duty, and I hope that this necessity will excuse me with you from further interference in obtaining your passage to France, which requires solicitations and exertions beyond what I am able to encounter. I request this the more freely, because I am sure of finding, in your candor and consideration, an acquiescence in the reasonableness of my desire to indulge the feeble remains of life in that state of ease and tranquillity which my condition, physical and moral, require. Accept, then, with my adieux, my best wishes for a safe and happy return to your native country, and the assurances of my respect.

TO MR. THOMAS PAINE M'MATRON

    Monticello, April 3, 1813.

Sir,—Your favor of March 24th is received, and nothing could have been so pleasing to me as to have been able to comply wit the request therein made, feeling especial motives to become useful to any person connected with Mr. M'Matron. But I shall state to you the circumstances which control my will, and rest on your candor their just estimate. When I retired from the government four years ago, it was extremely my wish to withdraw myself from all concern with public affairs, and to enjoy with my fellow citizens the protection of government, under the auspices and direction of those to whom it was so worthily committed. Solicitations from my friends, however, to aid them in their applications for office, drew from me an unwary compliance, till at length these became so numerous as to occupy a great portion of my time in writing letters to the President and heads of departments, and although these were attended to by them with great indulgence, yet I was sensible they could not fail of being very embarrassing. They kept me, at the same time, standing forever in the attitude of a suppliant before them, daily asking favors as humiliating and afflicting to my own mind, as they were unreasonable from their multitude. I was long sensible of the necessity of putting an end to these unceasing importunities, when a change in the heads of the two departments to which they were chiefly addressed, presented me an opportunity. I came to a resolution, therefore, on that change, never to make another application. I have adhered to it strictly, and find that on its rigid observance, my own happiness and the friendship of the government too much depend, for me to swerve from it in future. On consideration of these circumstances, I hope you will be sensible how much they import, both to the government and myself; and that you do me the justice to be assured of the reluctance with which I decline an opportunity of being useful to one so nearly connected with Mr. M'Matron, and that with the assurance of my regrets, you will accept that of my best wishes for your success, and of my great respect.

TO COLONEL DUANE

    Monticello, April 4, 1813.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of February 14th has been duly received, and the MS. of the commentary on Montesquieu is also safe at hand. I now forward to you the work of Tracy, which you will find a valuable supplement and corrective to those we already possess on political economy. It is a little unlucky that its outset is of a metaphysical character, which may damp the ardor of perusal in some readers. He has been led to this by a desire to embody this work, as well as a future one he is preparing on morals, with his former treatise on Ideology. By-the-bye, it is merely to this work that Bonaparte alludes in his answer to his Council of State, published not long since, in which he scouts "the dark and metaphysical doctrine of Ideology, which, diving into first causes, founds on this basis a legislation of the people, &c." If, indeed, this answer be not a forgery, for everything is now forged, even to the fat of our beef and mutton: yet the speech is not unlike him, and affords scope for an excellent parody. I wish you may succeed in getting the commentary on Montesquieu reviewed by the Edinburgh Reviewers. I should expect from them an able and favorable analysis of it. I sent a copy of it to a friend in England, in the hope he would communicate it to them; not, however, expressing that hope, lest the source of it should have been made known. But the book will make its way, and will become a standard work. A copy which I sent to France was under translation by one of the ablest men of that country.

It is true that I am tired of practical politics, and happier while reading the history of ancient than of modern times. The total banishment of all moral principle from the code which governs the intercourse of nations, the melancholy reflection that after the mean, wicked and cowardly cunning of the cabinets of the age of Machiavel had given place to the integrity and good faith which dignified the succeeding one of a Chatham and Turgot, that this is to be swept away again by the daring profligacy and avowed destitution of all moral principle of a Cartouche and a Blackbeard, sickens my soul unto death. I turn from the contemplation with loathing, and take refuge in the histories of other times, where, if they also furnished their Tarquins, their Catalines and Caligulas, their stories are handed to us under the brand of a Livy, a Sallust and a Tacitus, and we are comforted with the reflection that the condemnation of all succeeding generations has confirmed the censures of the historian, and consigned their memories to everlasting infamy, a solace we cannot have with the Georges and Napoleons but by anticipation.

In surveying the scenes of which we make a part, I confess that three frigates taken by our gallant little navy, do not balance in my mind three armies lost by the treachery, cowardice, or incapacity of those to whom they were intrusted. I see that our men are good, and only want generals. We may yet hope, however, that the talents which always exist among men will show themselves with opportunity, and that it will be found that this age also can produce able and honest defenders of their country, at what further expense, however, of blood and treasure, is yet to be seen. Perhaps this Russian mediation may cut short the history of the present war, and leave to us the laurels of the sea, while our enemies are bedecked with those of the land. This would be the reverse of what has been expected, and perhaps of what was to be wished.

I have never seen the work on Political Economy, of which you speak. Say and Tracy contain the sum of that science as far as it has been soundly traced in my judgment. And it is a pity that Say's work should not, as well as Tracy's, be made known to our countrymen by a good translation. It would supplant Smith's book altogether, because shorter, clearer and sounder.

Accept my friendly salutations and assurances of continued esteem and respect.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

    Monticello, May 21, 1813.

Dear Sir,—The enclosed letter from Whit was unquestionably intended for you. The subject, the address, both of title and place, prove it, and the mistake of the name only shows the writer to be a very uninquisitive statesman. Dr. Waterhouse's letter, too, was intended for your eye, and although the immediate object fails by previous appointment, yet he seems to entertain further wishes. I enclose, too, the newspapers he refers to, as some of their matter may have escaped your notice, and the traitorous designs fostered in Massachusetts, and explained in them, call for attention.

We have never seen so unpromising a crop of wheat as that now growing. The winter killed an unusual proportion of it, and the fly is destroying the remainder. We may estimate the latter loss at one-third at present, and fast increasing from the effect of the extraordinary drought. With such a prospect before us, the blockade is acting severely on our past labors. It caught nearly the whole wheat of the middle and upper country in the hands of the farmers and millers, whose interior situation had prevented their getting it to an earlier market. From this neighborhood very little had been sold. When we cast our eyes on the map, and see the extent of country from New York to North Carolina inclusive, whose produce is raised on the waters of the Chesapeake, (for Albemarle sound is, by the canal of Norfolk, become a water of the Chesapeake,) and consider its productiveness, in comparison with the rest of the Atlantic States, probably a full half, and that all this can be shut up by two or three ships of the line lying at the mouth of the bay, we see that an injury so vast to ourselves and so cheap to our enemy, must forever be resorted to by them, and constantly maintained. To defend all the shores of those waters in detail is impossible. But is there not a single point where they may be all defended by means to which the magnitude of the object gives a title? I mean at the mouth of the Chesapeake. Not by ships of the line, or frigates; for I know that with our present enemy we cannot contend in that way. But would not a sufficient number of gun-boats of small draught, stationed in Lynhaven river, render it unsafe for ships of war either to ascend the Chesapeake or to lie at its mouth? I am not unaware of the effect of the ridicule cast on this instrument of defence by those who wished for engines of offence. But resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us. I know, too, the prejudices of the gentlemen of the navy, and that these are very natural. No one has been more gratified than myself by the brilliant achievements of our little navy. They have deeply wounded the pride of our enemy, and been balm to ours, humiliated on the land where our real strength was felt to lie. But divesting ourselves of the enthusiasm these brave actions have justly excited, it is impossible not to see that all these vessels must be taken and added to the already overwhelming force of our enemy; that even while we keep them, they contribute nothing to our defence, and that so far as we are to be defended by anything on the water, it must be by such vessels as can assail under advantageous circumstances, and under adverse ones withdraw from the reach of the enemy. This, in shoally waters, is the humble, the ridiculed, but the formidable gun-boats. I acknowledge that in the case which produces these reflections, the station of Lynhaven river would not be safe against land attacks on the boats, and that a retreat for them is necessary in this event. With a view to this there was a survey made by Colonel Tatham, which was lodged either in the war or navy office, showing the depth and length of a canal which would give them a retreat from Lynhaven river into the eastern branch of Elizabeth river. I think the distance is not over six or eight miles, perhaps not so much, through a country entirely flat, and little above the level of the sea. A cut of ten yards wide and four yards deep, requiring the removal of forty cubic yards of earth for every yard in length of the canal, at twenty cents the cubic yard, would cost about $15,000 a mile. But even doubling this to cover all errors of estimate, although in a country offering the cheapest kind of labor, it would be nothing compared with the extent and productions of the country it is to protect. It would, for so great a country, bear no proportion to what has been expended, and justly expended by the Union, to defend the single spot of New York.

While such a channel of retreat secures effectually the safety of the gun-boats, it insures also their aid for the defence of Norfolk, if attacked from the sea. And the Norfolk canal gives them a further passage into Albemarle sound, if necessary for their safety, or in aid of the flotilla of that sound, or to receive the aid of that flotilla either at Norfolk or in Lynhaven river. For such a flotilla there also will doubtless be thought necessary, that being the only outlet now, as during the last war, for the waters of the Chesapeake. Colonel Monroe, I think, is personally intimate with the face of all that country, and no one, I am certain, is more able or more disposed than the present Secretary of the Navy, to place himself above the navy prejudices, and do justice to the aptitude of these humble and economical vessels to the shallow waters of the South. On the bold Northern shores they would be of less account, and the larger vessels will of course be more employed there. Were they stationed with us, they would rather attract danger than ward it off. The only service they can render us would be to come in a body when the occasion offers, of overwhelming a weaker force of the enemy occupying our bay, to oblige them to keep their force in a body, leaving the mass of our coast open.