Averse to receive addresses, yet unable to prevent them, I have generally endeavored to turn them to some account, by making them the occasion, by way of answer, of sowing useful truths and principles among the people, which might germinate and become rooted among their political tenets.  The Baptist address, now enclosed, admits of a condemnation of the alliance between Church and State, under the authority of the Constitution.  It furnishes an occasion, too, which I have long wished to find, of saying why I do not proclaim fastings and thanksgivings, as my predecessors did.  The address, to be sure, does not point at this, and its introduction is awkward.  But I foresee no opportunity of doing it more pertinently.  I know it will give great offence to the New England clergy;  but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them.  Will you be so good as to examine the answer, and suggest any alterations which might prevent an ill effect, or promote a good one, among the people ?  You understand the temper of those in the North, and can weaken it, therefore, to their stomachs :  it is at present seasoned to the Southern taste only.  I would ask the favor of you to return it, with the address, in the course of the day or evening.  Health and affection.

I have read and considered your report on the operations of the sinking fund, and entirely approve of it, as the best plan on which we can set out.  I think it an object of great importance, to be kept in view and to be undertaken at a fit season, to simplify our system of finance, and bring it within the comprehension of every member of Congress.  Hamilton set out on a different plan.  In order that he might have the entire government of his machine, he determined so to complicate it as that neither the President nor Congress should be able to understand it, or to control him.  He succeeded in doing this, not only beyond their reach, but so that he at length could not unravel it himself.  He gave to the debt, in the first instance, in funding it, the most artificial and mysterious form he could devise.  He then moulded up his appropriations of a number of scraps and remnants, many of which were nothing at all, and applied them to different objects in reversion and remainder, until the whole system was involved in impenetrable fog;  and while he was giving himself the airs of providing for the payment of the debt, he left himself free to add to it continually, as he did in fact, instead of paying it.  I like your idea of kneading all his little scraps and fragments into one batch, and adding to it a complementary sum, which, while it forms it into a single mass from which everything is to be paid, will enable us, should a breach of appropriation ever be charged on us, to prove that the sum appropriated, and more, has been applied to its specific object.

But there is a point beyond this on which I should wish to keep my eye, and to which I should aim to approach by every tack which previous arrangements force on us.  That is, to form into one consolidated mass all the moneys received into the treasury, and to the several expenditures, giving them a preference of payment according to the order in which they should be arranged.  As for example.  1. The interest of the public debt.  2. Such portions of principal as are exigible.  3. The expenses of government.  4. Such other portions of principal as, though not exigible, we are still free to pay when we please.  The last object might be made to take up the residium of money remaining in the treasury at the end of every year, after the three first objects were complied with, and would be the barometer whereby to test the economy of the administration.  It would furnish a simple measure by which every one could mete their merit, and by which every one could decide when taxes were deficient or superabundant.  If to this can be added a simplification of the form of accounts in the treasury department, and in the organization of its officers, so as to bring everything to a single centre, we might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchants books, so that every member of Congress, and every man of any mind in the Union, should be able to comprehend them to investigate abuses, and consequently to control them.  Our predecessors have endeavored by intricacies of system, and shuffling the investigator over from one officer to another, to cover everything from detection.  I hope we shall go in the contrary direction, and that by our honest and judicious reformations, we may be able, within the limits of our time, to bring things back to that simple and intelligible system on which they should have been organized at first.

I have suggested only a single alteration in the report, which is merely verbal and of no consequence.  We shall now get rid of the commissioner of the internal revenue, and superintendent of stamps.  It remains to amalgamate the comptroller and auditor into one, and reduce the register to a clerk of accounts ;  and then the organization will consist, as it should at first, of a keeper of money, a keeper of accounts, and the head of the department.  This constellation of great men in the treasury department was of a piece with the rest of Hamiltons plans.  He took his own stand as a Lieutenant General, surrounded by his Major Generals, and stationing his Brigadiers and Colonels under the name of Supervisors, Inspectors, etc., in the different States.  Let us deserve well of our country by making her interests the end of all our plans, and not our own pomp, patronage and irresponsibility.  I have hazarded these hasty and crude ideas, which occurred on contemplating your report.  They may be the subject of future conversation and correction.  Accept my affectionate salutations.

It is but lately that I have received your letter of the 25th Frimaire (December 15) wishing to know whether some officers of your country could expect to be employed in this country.  To prevent a suspense injurious to them, I hasten to inform you, that we are now actually engaged in reducing our military establishment one-third, and discharging one-third of our officers.  We keep in service no more than men enough to garrison the small posts dispersed at great distances on our frontiers, which garrisons will generally consist of a captains company only, and in no cases of more than two or three, in not one, of a sufficient number to require a field officer ;  and no circumstance whatever can bring these garrisons together, because it would be an abandonment of their forts.  Thus circumstanced, you will perceive the entire impossibility of providing for the persons you recommend.  I wish it had been in my power to give you a more favorable answer ;  but next to the fulfilling your wishes, the most grateful thing I can do is to give a faithful answer.  The session of the first Congress convened since republicanism has recovered its ascendancy, is now drawing to a close.  They will pretty completely fulfil all the desires of the people.  They have reduced the army and navy to what is barely necessary.  They are disarming executive patronage and preponderance, by putting down one-half the offices of the United States, which are no longer necessary.  These economies have enabled them to suppress all the internal taxes, and still to make such provision for the payment of their public debt as to discharge that in eighteen years.  They have lopped off a parasite limb, planted by their predecessors on their judiciary body for party purposes;  they are opening the doors of hospitality to fugitives from the oppressions of other countries ;  and we have suppressed all those public forms and ceremonies which tended to familiarize the public eye to the harbingers of another form of government.  The people are nearly all united;  their quondam leaders, infuriated with the sense of their impotence, will soon be seen or heard only in the newspapers, which serve as chimneys to carry off noxious vapors and smoke, and all is now tranquil, firm and well, as it should be.  I add no signature because unnecessary for you.  God bless you, and preserve you still for a season of usefulness to your country.

A favorable and confidential opportunity offering by M. Dupont de Nemours, who is revisiting his native country, gives me an opportunity of sending you a cypher to be used between us, which will give you some trouble to understand, but once understood, is the easiest to use, the most indecipherable, and varied by a new key with the greatest facility, of any I have ever known.  I am in hopes the explanation enclosed will be sufficient.

But writing by Mr. Dupont, I need use no cypher.  I require from him to put this into your own and no other hand, let the delay occasioned by that be what it will.

The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France, works most sorely on the United States.  On this subject the Secretary of State has written to you fully, yet I cannot forbear recurring to it personally, so deep is the impression it makes on my mind.  It completely reverses all the political relations of the United States, and will form a new epoch in our political course.  Of all nations of any consideration, France is the one which, hitherto, has offered the fewest points on which we could have any conflict of right, and the most points of a communion of interests.  From these causes, we have ever looked to her as our natural friend, as one with which we never could have an occasion of difference.  Her growth, therefore, we viewed as our own, her misfortunes ours.  There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy.  It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants.  France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance.  Spain might have retained it quietly for years.  Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would be hardly felt by us, and it would not, perhaps, be very long before some circumstance might arise, which might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her.  Not so can it ever be in the hands of France :  the impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of eternal friction with us, and our character, which, though quiet and loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded, despising wealth in competition with insult or injury, enterprising and energetic as any nation on earth;  these circumstances render it impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends, when they meet in so irritable a position.  They, as well as we, must be blind if they do not see this ;  and we must be very improvident if we do not begin to make arrangements on that hypothesis.  The day that France takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark.  It seals the union of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean.  From that moment, we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.  We must turn all our attention to a maritime force, for which our resources place us on very high ground;  and having formed and connected together a power which may render reinforcement of her settlements here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for the tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American nations.  This is not a state of things we seek or desire.  It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us as necessarily, as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect.  It is not from a fear of France that we deprecate this measure proposed by her.  For however greater her force is than ours, compared in the abstract, it is nothing in comparison of ours, when to be exerted on our soil.  But it is from a sincere love of peace, and a firm persuasion, that bound to France by the interests and the strong sympathies still existing in the minds of our citizens, and holding relative positions which insure their continuance, we are secure of a long course of peace.  Whereas, the change of friends, which will be rendered necessary if France changes that position, embarks us necessarily as a belligerent power in the first war of Europe.  In that case, France will have held possession of New Orleans during the interval of a peace, long or short, at the end of which it will be wrested from her.  Will this short-lived possession have been an equivalent to her for the transfer of such a weight into the scale of her enemy ?  Will not the amalgamation of a young, thriving nation, continue to that enemy the health and force which are at present so evidently on the decline ?  And will a few years possession of New Orleans add equally to the strength of France ?  She may say she needs Louisiana for the supply of her West Indies.  She does not need it in time of peace, and in war she could not depend on them, because they would be so easily intercepted.  I should suppose that all these considerations might, in some proper form, be brought into view of the government of France.  Though stated by us, it ought not to give offence ;  because we do not bring them forward as a menace, but as consequences not controllable by us, but inevitable from the course of things.  We mention them, not as things which we desire by any means, but as things we deprecate;  and we beseech a friend to look forward and to prevent them for our common interest.

If France considers Louisiana, however, as indispensable for her views, she might perhaps be willing to look about for arrangements which might reconcile it to our interests.  If anything could do this, it would be the ceding to us the island of New Orleans and the Floridas.  This would certainly, in a great degree, remove the causes of jarring and irritation between us, and perhaps for such a length of time, as might produce other means of making the measure permanently conciliatory to our interests and friendships.  It would, at any rate, relieve us from the necessity of taking immediate measures for countervailing such an operation by arrangements in another quarter.  But still we should consider New Orleans and the Floridas as no equivalent for the risk of a quarrel with France, produced by her vicinage.

I have no doubt you have urged these considerations, on every proper occasion, with the government where you are.  They are such as must have effect, if you can find means of producing thorough reflection on them by that government.  The idea here is, that the troops sent to St. Domingo, were to proceed to Louisiana after finishing their work in that island.  If this were the arrangement, it will give you time to return again and again to the charge.  For the conquest of St. Domingo will not be a short work.  It will take considerable time, and wear down a great number of soldiers.  Every eye in the United States is now fixed on the affairs of Louisiana.  Perhaps nothing since the revolutionary war, has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation.  Notwithstanding temporary bickerings have taken place with France, she has still a strong hold on the affections of our citizens generally.  I have thought it not amiss, by way of supplement to the letters of the Secretary of State, to write you this private one, to impress you with the importance we affix to this transaction.  I pray you to cherish Dupont.  He has the best disposition for the continuance of friendship between the two nations, and perhaps you may be able to make a good use of him.

Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and high consideration.

The week being now closed, during which you had given me a hope of seeing you here, I think it safe to enclose you my letters for Paris, lest they should fail of the benefit of so desirable a conveyance.  They are addressed to Kosciusko, Madame de Corny, Mrs. Short, and Chancellor Livingston.  You will perceive the unlimited confidence I repose in your good faith, and in your cordial dispositions to serve both countries, when you observe that I leave the letters for Chancellor Livingston open for your perusal.  The first page respects a cypher, as do the loose sheets folded with the letter.  These are interesting to him and myself only, and therefore are not for your perusal.  It is the second, third, and fourth pages which I wish you to read to possess yourself of completely, and then seal the letter with wafers stuck under the flying seal, that it may be seen by nobody else if any accident should happen to you.  I wish you to be possessed of the subject, because you may be able to impress on the government of France the inevitable consequences of their taking possession of Louisiana;  and though, as I here mention, the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to us would be a palliation, yet I believe it would be no more, and that this measure will cost France, and perhaps not very long hence, a war which will annihilate her on the ocean, and place that element under the despotism of two nations, which I am not reconciled to the more because my own would be one of them.  Add to this the exclusive appropriation of both continents of America as a consequence.  I wish the present order of things to continue, and with a view to this I value highly a state of friendship between France and us.  You know too well how sincere I have ever been in these dispositions to doubt them.  You know, too, how much I value peace, and how unwillingly I should see any event take place which would render war a necessary resource;  and that all our movements should change their character and object.  I am thus open with you, because I trust that you will have it in your power to impress on that government considerations, in the scale against which the possession of Louisiana is nothing.  In Europe, nothing but Europe is seen, or supposed to have any right in the affairs of nations ;  but this little event, of Frances possessing herself of Louisiana which is thrown in as nothing, as a mere make-weight in the general settlement of accounts,this speck which now appears as an almost invisible point in the horizon, is the embryo of a tornado which will burst on the countries on both sides of the Atlantic, and involve in its effects their highest destinies.  That it may yet be avoided is my sincere prayer ;  and if you can be the means of informing the wisdom of Bonaparte of all its consequences, you have deserved well of both countries.  Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.  There is another service you can render.  I am told that Talleyrand is personally hostile to us.  This, I suppose, has been occasioned by the XYZ history.  But he should consider that that was the artifice of a party, willing to sacrifice him to the consolidation of their power.  This nation has done him justice by dismissing them ;  that those in power are precisely those who disbelieved that story, and saw in it nothing but an attempt to deceive our country;  that we entertain towards him personally the most friendly dispositions;  that as to the government of France, we know too little of the state of things there to understand what it is, and have no inclination to meddle in their settlement.  Whatever government they establish, we wish to be well with it.  One more request,that you deliver the letter to Chancellor Livingston with your own hands, and, moreover, that you charge Madame Dupont, if any accident happen to you, that she deliver the letter with her own hands.  If it passes only through hers and yours, I shall have perfect confidence in its safety.  Present her my most sincere respects, and accept yourself assurances of my constant affection, and my prayers, that a genial sky and propitious gales may place you, after a pleasant voyage, in the midst of your friends.

I have doubted whether to write to you, because yours of August 25th, received only March 27th, gives me reason to expect you are now on the ocean;  however, as I know that voyages so important are often delayed, I shall venture a line by Mr. Dupont de Nemours.  The Legislature rises this day.  They have carried into execution, steadily almost, all the propositions submitted to them in my message at the opening of the session.  Some few are laid over for want of time.  The most material is the militia, the plan of which they cannot easily modify to their general approbation.  Our majority in the House of Representatives has been about two to one ;  in the Senate, eighteen to fifteen.  After another election it will be of two to one in the Senate, and it would not be for the public good to have it greater.  A respectable minority is useful as censors.  The present one is not respectable, being the bitterest remains of the cup of federalism, rendered desperate and furious by despair.  A small check in the tide of republicanism in Massachusetts, which has showed itself very unexpectedly at the last election, is not accounted for.  Everywhere else we are becoming one.  In Rhode Island the late election gives us two to one through the whole State.  Vermont is decidedly with us.  It is said and believed that New Hampshire has got a majority of republicans now in its Legislature ;  and wanted a few hundreds only of turning out their federal Governor.  He goes assuredly the next trial.  Connecticut is supposed to have gained for us about fifteen or twenty per cent. since the last election;  but the exact issue is not yet known here ;  nor is it certainly known how we shall stand in the House of Representatives of Massachusetts.  In the Senate there we have lost ground.  The candid federalists acknowledge that their party can never more raise its head.  The operations of this session of Congress, when known among the people at large, will consolidate them.  We shall now be so strong that we shall certainly split again;  for freemen, thinking differently and speaking and acting as they think, will form into classes of sentiment.  But it must be under another name.  That of federalism is become so odious that no party can rise under it.  As the division into whig and tory is founded in the nature of man ;  the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive;  the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling a confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government ;  and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into whig and tory, as in England formerly.  As yet no symptoms show themselves, nor will, till after another election.  I am extremely happy to learn that you are so much at your ease, that you can devote the rest of your life to the information of others.  The choice of a place of residence is material.  I do not think you can do better than to fix here for awhile, till you can become again Americanized, and understand the map of the country.  This may be considered as a pleasant country residence, with a number of neat little villages scattered around within the distance of a mile and a half, and furnishing a plain and substantially good society.  They have begun their buildings in about four or five different points, at each of which there are buildings enough to be considered as a village.  The whole population is about six thousand.  Mr. Madison and myself have cut out a piece of work for you, which is to write the history of the United States, from the close of the war downwards.  We are rich ourselves in materials, and can open all the public archives to you;  but your residence here is essential, because a great deal of the knowledge of things is not on paper, but only within ourselves, for verbal communication.  John Marshall is writing the life of General Washington from his papers.  It is intended to come out just in time to influence the next presidential election.  It is written, therefore, principally with a view to electioneering purposes.  But it will consequently be out in time to aid you with information, as well as to point out the perversions of truth necessary to be rectified.  Think of this, and agree to it, and be assured of my high esteem and attachment.

P.S.  There is a most lovely seat adjoining this city, on a high hill, commanding a most extensive view of the Potomac, now for sale.  A superb house, gardens, &c., with thirty or forty acres of ground.  It will be sold under circumstances of distress, and will probably go for the half of what it has cost.  It was built by Gustavus Scott, who is dead bankrupt.

With respect to the bank of Pennsylvania, their difficulties proceed from excessive discounts.  The $3,000,000 due to them comprehend doubtless all the desperate debts accumulated since their institution.  Their buildings should only be counted at the value of the naked ground belonging to them;  because, if brought to market, they are worth to private builders no more than their materials, which are known by experience to be worth no more than the cost of pulling down and removing them.  Their situation then is

They owe.................................. $2,200,000
They have of good money. ... $710,000
............................. 250,000
Ground worth perhaps. ......... 5,000 ...... 965,000
...............................................$ 1,235,000

To pay which $1,235,000, they depend on $3,000,000 of debts due to them, the amount of which shows they are of long standing, a part desperate, a part not commandable.  In this situation it does not seem safe to deposit public money with them, and the effect would only be to enable them to nourish their disease by continuing their excessive discounts the checking of which is the only means of saving themselves from bankruptcy.  The getting them to pay the Dutch debt, is but a deposit in another though a safer form.  If we can with propriety recommend indulgence to the bank of the United States, it would be attended with the least danger to us of any of the measures suggested, but it is in fact asking that bank to lend to the one of Pennsylvania, that they may be enabled to continue lending to others.  The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil.  The multiplication of them was intended to cure it;  but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation.  Between such parties the less we meddle the better.

Dear Sir,Your favor of the 12th has been duly received, and with that pleasure which the approbation of the good and the wise must ever give.  The sentiments it impresses are far beyond my merits or pretensions;  they are precious testimonies to me however, that my sincere desire to do what is right and just is viewed with candor.  That it should be handed to the world under the authority of your name is securing its credit with posterity.  In the great work which has been effected in America, no individual has a right to take any great share to himself.  Our people in a body are wise, because they are under the unrestrained and unperverted operation of their own understanding.  Those whom they have assigned to the direction of their affairs, have stood with a pretty even front.  If any one of them was withdrawn, many others entirely equal, have been ready to fill his place with as good abilities.  A nation, composed of such materials, and free in all its members from distressing wants, furnishes hopeful implements for the interesting experiment of self-government;  and we feel that we are acting under obligations not confined to the limits of our own society.  It is impossible not to be sensible that we are acting for all mankind ;  that circumstances denied to others, but indulged to us, have imposed on us the duty of proving what is the degree of freedom and self-government in which a society may venture to leave its individual members.  One passage, in the paper you enclosed me, must be corrected.  It is the following, "and all say it was yourself more than any other individual, that planned and established it" i.e., the Constitution.  I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it was established.  On receiving it I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, the substitution of militia for a standing army, and an express reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to the Union.  He accordingly moved in the first session of Congress for these amendments, which were agreed to and ratified by the States as they now stand.  This is all the hand I had in what related to the Constitution.  Our predecessors made it doubtful how far even these were of any value ;  for the very law which endangered your personal safety, as well as that which restrained the freedom of the press, were gross violations of them.  However, it is still certain that though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people ;  they fix too for the people the principles of their political creed.

We shall all absent ourselves from this place during the sickly season ; say from about the 22d of July to the last of September.  Should your curiosity lead you hither either before or after that interval, I shall be very happy to receive you, and shall claim you as my guest.  I wish the advantages of a mild over a winter climate had been tried for you before you were located where you are.  I have ever considered this as a public as well as personal misfortune.  The choice you made of our country for your asylum was honorable to it;  and I lament that for the sake of your happiness and health its most benign climates were not selected.  Certainly it is a truth that climate is one of the sources of the greatest sensual enjoyment.  I received in due time the letter of April 10th referred to in your last, with the pamphlet it enclosed, which I read with the pleasure I do everything from you.  Accept assurances of my highest veneration and respect.

Dear Sir,The course of things in the neighboring islands of the West Indies, appear to have given a considerable impulse to the minds of the slaves in different parts of the United States.  A great disposition to insurgency has manifested itself among them, which, in one instance, in the State of Virginia, broke out into actual insurrection.  This was easily suppressed; but many of those concerned (between twenty and thirty, I believe) fell victims to the law.  So extensive an execution could not but excite sensibility in the public mind, and begat a regret that the laws had not provided for such cases, some alternative, combining more mildness with equal efficacy.  The Legislature of the State at a subsequent meeting took the subject into consideration, and have communicated to me through the Governor of the State, their wish that some place could be provided, out of the limits of the United States, to which slaves guilty of insurgency might be transported;  and they have particularly looked to Africa as offering the most desirable receptacle.  We might, for this purpose, enter into negotiations with the natives, on some part of the coast, to obtain a settlement;  and, by establishing an African company, combine with it commercial operations, which might not only reimburse expenses, but procure profit also.  But there being already such an establishment on that coast by the English Sierra Leone company, made for the express purpose of colonizing civilized blacks to that country, it would seem better, by incorporating our emigrants with theirs, to make one strong, rather than two weak colonies.  This would be the more desirable because the blacks settled at Sierra Leone having chiefly gone from the States, would often receive among those we should send, their acquaintances and relatives.  The object of this letter therefore is to ask the favor of you to enter into conference with such persons private and public as would be necessary to give us permission to send thither the persons under contemplation.  It is material to observe that they are not felons, or common malefactors, but persons guilty of what the safety of society, under actual circumstances, obliges us to treat as a crime, but which their feelings may represent in a far different shape.  They are such as will be a valuable acquisition to the settlement already existing there, and well calculated to co-operate in the plan of civilization.

As the expense of so distant a transportation would be very heavy, and might weigh unfavorably in deciding between the modes of punishment, it is very desirable that it should be lessened as much as practicable.  If the regulations of the place would permit these emigrants to dispose of themselves, as the Germans and others do who come to this country poor, by giving their labor for a certain time to some one who will pay their passage ;  and if the master of the vessel could be permitted to carry articles of commerce from this country and take back others from that, which might yield him a mercantile profit sufficient to cover the expenses of the voyage, a serious difficulty would be removed.  I will ask your attention therefore to arrangements necessary for this purpose.

The consequences of permitting emancipations to become extensive, unless the condition of emigration be annexed to them, furnish also matter of solicitation to the Legislature of Virginia, as you will perceive by their resolution enclosed to you.  Although provision for the settlement of emancipated negroes might perhaps be obtainable nearer home than Africa, yet it is desirable that we should be free to expatriate this description of people also to the colony of Sierra Leone, if considerations respecting either themselves or us should render it more expedient.  I will pray you therefore to get the same permission extended to the reception of these as well as the first mentioned.  Nor will there be a selection of bad subjects;  the emancipations, for the most part, being either of the whole slaves of the master, or of such individuals as have particularly deserved well :  the latter is most frequent.

The request of the Legislature of Virginia having produced to me the occasion of addressing you, I avail myself of it to assure you of my perfect satisfaction with the manner in which you have conducted the several matters confided to you by us;  and to express my hope that through your agency we may be able to remove everything inauspicious to a cordial friendship between this country and the one in which you are stationed ;  a friendship dictated by too many considerations not to be felt by the wise and the dispassionate of both nations.  It is therefore with the sincerest pleasure I have observed on the part of the British government various manifestations of just and friendly disposition towards us.  We wish to cultivate peace and friendship with all nations, believing that course most conducive to the welfare of our own.  It is natural that these friendships should bear some proportion to the common interests of the parties.  The interesting relations between Great Britain and the United States, are certainly of the first order ;  and as such are estimated, and will be faithfully cultivated by us.  These sentiments have been communicated to you from time to time in the official correspondence of the Secretary of State, but I have thought it might not be unacceptable to be assured that they perfectly concur with my own personal convictions, both in relation to yourself and the country in which you are.  I pray you to accept assurances of my high consideration and respect.

Dear Sir,Your favor of the 7th has been duly received.  I am really mortified at the base ingratitude of Callendar.  It presents human nature in a hideous form.  It gives me concern, because I perceive that relief, which was afforded him on mere motives of charity, may be viewed under the aspect of employing him as a writer.  When the Political Progress of Britain first appeared in this country, it was in a periodical publication called the Bee, where I saw it.  I was speaking of it in terms of strong approbation to a friend in Philadelphia, when he asked me if I knew that the author was then in the city, a fugitive from prosecution on account of that work, and in want of employ for his subsistence.  This was the first of my learning that Callendar was the author of the work.  I considered him as a man of science fled from persecution, and assured my friend of my readiness to do whatever could serve him.  It was long after this before I saw him ;  probably not till 1798.  He had, in the meantime, written a second part of the Political Progress, much inferior to the first, and his History of the United States.  In 1798, I think, I was applied to by Mr. Lieper to contribute to his relief.  I did so.  In 1799, I think, S.T. Mason applied for him.  I contributed again.  He had, by this time, paid me two or three personal visits.  When he fled in a panic from Philadelphia to General Masons, he wrote to me that he was a fugitive in want of employ, wished to know if he could get into a counting-house or a school, in my neighborhood or in that of Richmond;  that he had materials for a volume, and if he could get as much money as would buy the paper, the profit of the sale would be all his own.  I availed myself of this pretext to cover a mere charity, by desiring him to consider me a subscriber for as many copies of his book as the money enclosed (fifty dollars) amounted to;  but to send me two copies only, as the others might lay till called for.  But I discouraged his coming into my neighborhood.  His first writings here had fallen far short of his original Political Progress, and the scurrilities of his subsequent ones began evidently to do mischief.  As to myself, no man wished more to see his pen stopped;  but I considered him still as a proper object of benevolence.  The succeeding year, he again wanted money to buy paper for another volume.  I made his letter, as before, the occasion of giving him another fifty dollars.  He considers these as proofs of my approbation of his writings, when they were mere charities, yielded under a strong conviction that he was injuring us by his writings.  It is known to many that the sums given to him were such, and even smaller than I was in the habit of giving to others in distress, of the federal as well as the republican party, without attention to political principles.  Soon after I was elected to the government, Callendar came on here, wishing to be made postmaster at Richmond.  I knew him to be totally unfit for it ;  and however ready I was to aid him with my own charities, (and I then gave him fifty dollars) I did not think the public offices confided to me to give away as charities.  He took it in mortal offence, and from that moment has been hauling off to his former enemies, the federalists.  Besides the letter I wrote him in answer to the one from General Masons, I wrote him another, containing answers to two questions he addressed to me.  1. Whether Mr. Jay received salary as Chief Justice and Envoy at the same time;  and 2, something relative to the expenses of an embassy to Constantinople.  I think these were the only letters I ever wrote him in answer to volumes he was perpetually writing to me.  This is the true state of what has passed between him and me.  I do not know that it can be used without committing me in controversy, as it were, with one too little respected by the public to merit that notice.  I leave to your judgment what use can be made of these facts.  Perhaps it will be better judged of, when we see what use the tories will endeavor to make of their new friend.  I shall leave this on the 21st, and be at Monticello probably on the 24th, or within two or three days of that, and shall hope, ere long, to see you there.

Accept assurances of my affectionate attachment.

Dear Sir,After writing you on the 15th, I turned to my letter file to see what letters I had written to Callendar, and found them to have been of the dates of 1798, October the 11th, and 1799, September the 6th, and October the 6th;  but on looking for the letters, they were not in their places, nor to be found.  On recollection, I believe I sent them to you a year or two ago.  If you have them, I shall be glad to receive them at Monticello, where I shall be on this day sennight.  I enclose you a paper, which shows the tories mean to pervert these charities to Callendar as much as they can.  They will probably first represent me as the patron and support of the Prospect before us, and other things of Callendars ;  and then picking out all the scurrilities of the author against General Washington, Mr. Adams, and others, impute them to me.  I, as well as most other republicans who were in the way of doing it, contributed what I could afford to the support of the republican papers and printers, paid sums of money for the Bee, the Albany Register, &c., when they were staggering under the sedition law;  contributed to the fines of Callendar himself, of Holt, Brown and others, suffering under that law.  I discharged, when I came into office, such as were under the persecution of our enemies, without instituting any prosecutions in retaliation.  They may, therefore, with the same justice, impute to me, or to every republican contributor, everything which was ever published in those papers or by those persons.  I must correct a fact in mine of the 15th.  I find I did not enclose the fifty dollars to Callendar himself while at General Masons, but authorized the general to draw on my correspondent at Richmond, and to give the money to Callendar.  So the other fifty dollars of which he speaks were by order on my correspondent at Richmond.

Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and respect.

Dear Sir,The departure of Madame Brugnard for France furnishes me a safe conveyance of a letter, which I cannot avoid embracing, although I have nothing particular for the subject of it.  It is well, however, to be able to inform you, generally, through a safe channel, that we stand completely corrected of the error, that either the government or the nation of France has any remains of friendship for us.  The portion of that country which forms an exception, though respectable in weight, is weak in numbers.  On the contrary, it appears evident, that an unfriendly spirit prevails in the most important individuals of the government, towards us.  In this state of things, we shall so take our distance between the two rival nations, as, remaining disengaged till necessity compels us, we may haul finally to the enemy of that which shall make it necessary.  We see all the disadvantageous consequences of taking a side, and shall be forced into it only by a more disagreeable alternative;  in which event, we must countervail the disadvantages by measures which will give us splendor and power, but not as much happiness as our present system.  We wish, therefore, to remain well with France.  But we see that no consequences, however ruinous to them, can secure us with certainty against the extravagance of her present rulers.  I think, therefore, that while we do nothing which the first nation on earth would deem crouching, we had better give to all our communications with them a very mild, complaisant, and even friendly complexion, but always independent.  Ask no favors, leave small and irritating things to be conducted by the individuals interested in them, interfere ourselves but in the greatest cases, and then not push them to irritation.  No matter at present existing between them and us is important enough to risk a breach of peace ;  peace being indeed the most important of all things for us, except the preserving an erect and independent attitude.  Although I know your own judgment leads you to pursue this line identically, yet I thought it just to strengthen it by the concurrence of my own.  You will have seen by our newspapers, that with the aid of a lying renegado from republicanism, the federalists have opened all their sluices of calumny.  They say we lied them out of power, and openly avow they will do the same by us.  But it was not lies or arguments on our part which dethroned them, but their own foolish acts, sedition laws, alien laws, taxes, extravagances and heresies.  Porcupine, their friend, wrote them down.  Callendar, their new recruit, will do the same.  Every decent man among them revolts at his filth ;  and there cannot be a doubt, that were a Presidential election to come on this day, they would certainly have but three New England States, and about half a dozen votes from Maryland and North Carolina, these two States electing by districts.  Were all the States to elect by a general ticket, they would have but three out of sixteen States.  And these three are coming up slowly.  We do, indeed, consider Jersey and Delaware as rather doubtful.  Elections which have lately taken place there, but their event not yet known here, will show the present point of their varying condition.

My letters to you being merely private, I leave all details of business to their official channel.

Accept assurances of my constant friendship and high respect.

P.S.  We have received your letter announcing the arrival of Mr. Dupont.

You know my doubts, or rather convictions, about the unconstitutionality of the act for building piers in the Delaware, and the fears that it will lead to a bottomless expense, and to the greatest abuses.  There is, however, one intention of which the act is susceptible, and which will bring it within the Constitution ;  and we ought always to presume that the real intention which is alone consistent with the Constitution.  Although the power to regulate commerce does not give a power to build piers, wharves, open ports, clear the beds of rivers, dig canals, build warehouses, build manufacturing machines, set up manufactories, cultivate the earth, to all of which the power would go if it went to the first, yet a power to provide and maintain a navy, is a power to provide receptacles for it, and places to cover and preserve it.  In choosing the places where this money should be laid out, I should be much disposed, as far as contracts will permit, to confine it to such place or places as the ships of war may lie at, and be protected from ice ;  and I should be for stating this in a message to Congress, in order to prevent the effect of the present example.  This act has been built on the exercise of the power of building light houses, as a regulation of commerce.  But I well remember the opposition, on this very ground, to the first act for building a light house.  The utility of the thing has sanctioned the infraction.  But if on that infraction we build a second, on that second a third, &c., any one of the powers in the Constitution may be made to comprehend every power of government.  Will you read the enclosed letters on the subject of New Orleans, and think what we can do or propose in the case ?

Accept my affectionate salutations.

Dear Sir,Your favor of the 16th is received, and that of July the 24th had come to hand while I was at Monticello.  I sincerely condole with you on the sickly state of your family, and hope this will find them re-established with the approach of the cold season.  As yet, however, we have had no frost in this place, and it is believed the yellow fever still continues in Philadelphia, if not in Baltimore.  We shall all be happy to see you here whenever the state of your family admits it.  You will have seen by the newspapers that we have gained ground generally in the elections, that we have lost ground in not a single district of the United States, except Kent county in Delaware, where a religious dissension occasioned it.  In Jersey the elections are always carried by small majorities, consequently the issue is affected by the smallest accidents.  By the paper of the last night we have a majority of three in their Council, and one in their House of Representatives;  another says it is only of one in each House :  even the latter is sufficient for every purpose.  The opinion I originally formed has never been changed, that such of the body of the people as thought themselves federalists, would find that they were in truth republicans, and would come over to us by degrees;  but that their leaders had gone too far ever to change.  Their bitterness increases with their desperation.  They are trying slanders now which nothing could prompt but a gall which blinds their judgments as well as their consciences.  I shall take no other revenge, than, by a steady pursuit of economy and peace, and by the establishment of republican principles in substance and in form, to sink federalism into an abyss from which there shall be no resurrection for it.  I still think our original idea as to office is best :  that is, to depend, for the obtaining a just participation, on deaths, resignations, and delinquencies.  This will least affect the tranquillity of the people, and prevent their giving into the suggestion of our enemies, that ours has been a contest for office, not for principle.  This is rather a slow operation, but it is sure if we pursue it steadily, which, however, has not been done with the undeviating resolution I could have wished.  To these means of obtaining a just share in the transaction of the public business, shall be added one other, to wit, removal for electioneering activity, or open and industrious opposition to the principles of the present government, legislative and executive.  Every officer of the government may vote at elections according to his conscience ;  but we should betray the cause committed to our care, were we to permit the influence of official patronage to be used to overthrow that cause.  Your present situation will enable you to judge of prominent offenders in your State, in the case of the present election.  I pray you to seek them, to mark them, to be quite sure of your ground, that we may commit no error or wrong, and leave the rest to me.  I have been urged to remove Mr. Whittemore, the surveyor of Gloucester, on grounds of neglect of duty and industrious opposition.  Yet no facts are so distinctly charged as to make the step sure which we should take in this.  Will you take the trouble to satisfy yourself on this point ?  I think it not amiss that it should be known that we are determined to remove officers who are active or open mouthed against the government, by which I mean the legislature as well as the executive.  Accept assurances of my sincere friendship and high respect.

Dear Sir,Your favor of October 25th was received in due time, and I thank you for the long extract you took the trouble of making from Mr. Stones letter.  Certainly the information it communicates as to Alexander kindles a great deal of interest in his existence, and strong spasms of the heart in his favor.  Though his means of doing good are great, yet the materials on which he is to work are refractory.  Whether he engages in private correspondences abroad, as the King of Prussia did much, and his grandfather sometimes, I know not;  but certainly such a correspondence would be very interesting to those who are sincerely anxious to see mankind raised from their present abject condition.  It delights me to find that there are persons who still think that all is not lost in France :  that their retrogradation from a limited to an unlimited despotism, is but to give themselves a new impulse.  But I see not how or when.  The press, the only tocsin of a nation, is completely silenced there, and all means of a general effort taken away.  However, I am willing to hope, and as long as anybody will hope with me;  and I am entirely persuaded that the agitations of the public mind advance its powers, and that at every vibration between the points of liberty and despotism, something will be gained for the former.  As men become better informed, their rulers must respect them the more.  I think you will be sensible that our citizens are fast returning, from the panic into which they were artfully thrown, to the dictates of their own reason;  and I believe the delusions they have seen themselves hurried into will be useful as a lesson under similar attempts on them in future.  The good effects of our late fiscal arrangements will certainly tend to unite them in opinion, and in confidence as to the views of their public functionaries, legislative and executive.  The path we have to pursue is so quiet that we have nothing scarcely to propose to our Legislature.  A noiseless course, meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness.  If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.  Their finances are now under such a course of application as nothing could derange but war or federalism.  The gripe of the latter has shown itself as deadly as the jaws of the former.  Our adversaries say we are indebted to their providence for the means of paying the public debt.  We never charged them with the want of foresight in providing money, but with the misapplication of it after they had provided it.  We say they raised not only enough, but too much ;  and that after giving back the surplus we do more with a part than they did with the whole.

Your letter of November 18th is also received.  The places of midshipman are so much sought that (being limited) there is never a vacancy.  Your son shall be set down for the 2d place, which shall be vacant;  the 1st being anticipated.  We are not long generally without vacancies happening.  As soon as he can be appointed you shall know it.  I pray you to accept assurances of my great attachment and respect.