Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1

I fear from an expression in your letter, that the people of Kentucky think of separating, not only from Virginia (in which they are right), but also from the confederacy. I own, I should think this a most calamitous event, and such a one as every good citizen should set himself against. Our present federal limits are not too large for good government, nor will the increase of votes in Congress produce any ill effect. On the contrary, it will drown the little divisions at present existing there. Our confederacy must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North and South, is to be peopled. We should take care, too, not to think it for the interest of that great continent to press too soon on the Spaniards. Those countries cannot be in better hands. My fear is, that they are too feeble to hold them till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece. The navigation of the Mississippi we must have. This is all we are, as yet, ready to receive. I have made acquaintance with a very sensible, candid gentleman here, who was in South America during the revolt which took place there while our Revolution was going on. He says, that those disturbances (of which we scarcely heard any thing) cost, on both sides, an hundred thousand lives.

I have made a particular acquaintance here with Monsieur de Buffon, and have a great desire to give him the best idea I can of our elk. Perhaps your situation may enable you to aid me in this. You could not oblige me more, than by sending me the horns, skeleton, and skin of an elk, were it possible to procure them. The most desirable form of receiving them would be to have the skin slit from the under jaw along the belly to the tail, and down the thighs to the knee, to take the animal out, leaving the legs and hoofs, the bones of the head, and the horns attached to the skin. By sewing-up the belly, &c. and stuffing the skin, it would present the form of the animal. However, as an opportunity of doing this is scarcely to be expected, I shall be glad to receive them detached, packed in a box and sent to Richmond, to the care of Dr. Currie. Every thing of this kind is precious here. And to prevent my adding to your trouble, I must close my letter with assurances of the esteem and attachment, with which I am, Dear Sir,

your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLIV.—TO THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE TREASURY, January 26, 1786

TO THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE TREASURY.

Paris, January 26, 1786.

Gentlemen,

I have been duly honored by the receipt of your letter of December the 6th, and am to thank you for the communications it contained on the state of our funds and expectations here. Your idea, that these communications, occasionally, may be useful to the United States, is certainly just, as I am frequently obliged to explain our prospects of paying interest, &c. which I should better do with fuller information. If you would be so good as to instruct Mr. Grand, always to furnish me with a duplicate of those cash accounts which he furnishes to you, from time to time, and if you would be so good as to direct your secretary to send me copies of such letters, as you transmit to Mr. Grand, advising him of the remittances he may expect, from time to time. I should, thereby, be always informed of the sum of money on hand here, and the probable expectations of supply. Dr. Franklin, during his residence here, having been authorized to borrow large sums of money, the disposal of that money seemed naturally to rest with him. It was Mr. Grand’s practice, therefore, never to pay money, but on his warrant. On his departure, Mr. Grand sent all money drafts to me, to authorize their payment. I informed him, that this was in nowise within my province; that I was unqualified to direct him in it, and that were I to presume to meddle, it would be no additional sanction to him. He refused, however, to pay a shilling without my order. I have been obliged, therefore, to a nugatory interference, merely to prevent the affairs of the United States from standing still. I need not represent to you the impropriety of my continuing to direct Mr. Grand, longer than till we can receive your orders, the mischief which might ensue from the uncertainty in which this would place you, as to the extent to which you might venture to draw on your funds here, and the little necessity there is for my interference. Whenever you order a sum of money into Mr. Grand’s hands, nothing will be more natural than your instructing him how to apply it, so as that he shall observe your instructions alone. Among these, you would doubtless judge it necessary to give him one standing instruction, to answer my drafts for such sums, as my office authorizes me to call for. These would be salary, couriers, postage, and such other articles as circumstances will require, which cannot be previously defined. These will never be so considerable as to endanger the honor of your drafts. I shall certainly exercise in them the greatest caution, and stand responsible to Congress.

Mr. Grand conceives that he has suffered in your opinion, by an application of two hundred thousand livres, during the last year, differently from what the office of finance had instructed him. This was a consequence of his being thought subject to direction here, and it is but justice to relieve him from blame on that account, and to show that it ought to fall, if any where, on Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, and myself. The case was thus. The monies here were exhausted, Mr. Grand was in advance about fifty thousand livres, and the diplomatic establishments in France, Spain, and Holland, subsisting on his bounties, which they were subject to see stopped every moment, and feared a protest on every bill. Other current expenses, too, were depending on advances from him, and though these were small in their amount, they sometimes involved great consequences. In this situation, he received four hundred thousand livres, to be paid to this government for one year’s interest. We thought the honor of the United States would suffer less by suspending half the payment to this government, replacing Mr. Grand’s advances, and providing a fund for current expenses. We advised him so to do. I still think it was for the best, and I believe my colleagues have continued to see the matter in the same point of view. We may have been biassed by feelings excited by our own distressing situation. But certainly, as to Mr. Grand, no blame belongs to him. We explained this matter in a letter to Congress, at the time, and justice requires this explanation to you, as I conjecture that the former one has not come to your knowledge.

The two hundred thousand livres retained, as before mentioned, have been applied to the purposes described, to the payment of a year’s interest to the French officers (which is about forty-two thousand livres), and other current expenses, which, doubtless, Mr. Grand has explained to you. About a week ago, there remained in his hands but about twelve thousand livres. In this situation, the demands of the French officers for a second year’s interest were presented. But Mr. Grand observed there were neither money nor orders for them. The payment of these gentlemen, the last year, had the happiest effect imaginable; it procured so many advocates for the credit and honor of the United States, who were heard, in all companies. It corrected the idea that we were unwilling to pay our debts. I fear that our present failure towards them will give new birth to new imputations, and a relapse of credit. Under this fear I have written to Mr. Adams, to know whether he can have this money supplied from the funds in Holland; though I have little hope from that quarter, because he had before informed me, that those funds would be exhausted by the spring of the present year, and I doubt, too, whether he would venture to order these payments, without authority from you. I have thought it my duty to state these matters to you.

I have had the honor of enclosing to Mr. Jay, Commodore Jones’s receipts for one hundred and eighty-one thousand and thirty-nine livres, one sol and ten deniers, prize-money, which (after deducting his own proportion) he is to remit to you, for the officers and soldiers who were under his command. I take the liberty of suggesting, whether the expense and risk of double remittances might not be saved, by ordering it into the hands of Mr. Grand immediately, for the purposes of the treasury in Europe, while you could make provision at home for the officers and soldiers, whose demands will come in so slowly, as to leave you the use of a great proportion of this money for a considerable time, and some of it for ever. We could then, immediately, quiet the French officers.

I have the honor to be, with the most perfect respect and esteem, Gentlemen,

your most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLV.—TO MESSRS. BUCHANAN AND HAY, January 26, 1786

TO MESSRS. BUCHANAN AND HAY.

Paris, January 26, 1786.

Gentlemen,

I had the honor of writing to you on the receipt of your orders to procure draughts for the public buildings, and again on the 13th of August. In the execution of these orders, two methods of proceeding presented themselves to my mind. The one was, to leave to some architect to draw an external according to his fancy, in which way, experience shows, that about once in a thousand times a pleasing form is hit upon; the other was, to take some model already devised, and approved by the general suffrage of the world. I had no hesitation in deciding that the latter was best, nor after the decision, was there any doubt what model to take, There is at Nismes, in the south of France, a building, called the Maison Quarr©e, erected in the time of the C¦sars, and which is allowed, without contradiction, to be the most perfect and precious remain of antiquity in existence. Its superiority over any thing at Rome, in Greece, at Balbec, or Palmyra, is allowed on all hands; and this single object has placed Nismes in the general tour of travellers. Having not yet had leisure to visit it, I could only judge of it from drawings, and from the relation of numbers who had been to see it. I determined, therefore, to adopt this model, and to have all its proportions justly observed. As it was impossible for a foreign artist to know what number and sizes of apartments would suit the different corps of our government, nor how they should be connected with one another, I undertook to form that arrangement, and this being done, I committed them to an architect (Monsieur Clerissauk), who had studied this art twenty years in Rome, who had particularly studied and measured the Maison Quarr©e of Nismes, and had published a book containing most excellent plans, descriptions, and observations on it. He was too well acquainted with the merit of that building, to find himself restrained by my injunctions not to depart from his model. In one instance, only, he persuaded me to admit of this. That was, to make the portico two columns deep only, instead of three, as the original is. His reason was, that this latter depth would too much darken the apartments. Economy might be added, as a second reason. I consented to it, to satisfy him, and the plans are so drawn. I knew that it would still be easy to execute the building with a depth of three columns, and it is what I would certainly recommend. We know that the Maison Quarr©e has pleased, universally, for near two thousand years. By leaving out a column, the proportions will be changed, and perhaps the effect may be injured more than is expected. What is good, is often spoiled by trying to make it better.

The present is the first opportunity which has occurred of sending the plans. You will, accordingly, receive herewith the ground plan, the elevation of the front, and the elevation of the side. The architect having been much busied, and knowing that this was all which would be necessary in the beginning, has not yet finished the sections of the building. They must go by some future occasion, as well as the models of the front and side, which are making in plaster of Paris. These were absolutely necessary for the guide of workmen, not very expert in their art. It will add considerably to the expense, and I would not have incurred it, but that I was sensible of its necessity. The price of the model will be fifteen guineas. 1 shall know, in a few days, the cost of the drawings, which probably will be the triple of the model: however, this is but conjecture. I will make it as small as possible, pay it, and render you an account in my next letter. You will find, on examination, that the body of this building covers an area but two fifths of that which is proposed and begun; of course, it will take but about one half the bricks; and, of course, this circumstance will enlist all the workmen, and people of the art, against the plan. Again, the building begun is to have four porticoes; this but one. It is true that this will be deeper than those were probably proposed, but even if it be made three columns deep, it will not take half the number of columns. The beauty of this is insured by experience, and by the suffrage of the whole world: the beauty of that is problematical, as is every drawing, however well it looks on paper, till it be actually executed: and though I suppose there is more room in the plan begun, than in that now sent, yet there is enough in this for all the three branches of government, and more than enough is not wanted. This contains sixteen rooms; to wit, four on the first floor, for the General Court, Delegates, lobby, and conference. Eight on the second floor, for the Executive, the Senate, and six rooms for committees and juries: and over four of these smaller rooms of the second floor, are four mezzininos or entresols, serving as offices for the clerks of the Executive, the Senate, the Delegates, and the Court in actual session. It will be an objection, that the work is begun on the other plan. But the whole of this need not be taken to pieces, and of what shall be taken to pieces, the bricks will do for inner work. Mortar never becomes so hard and adhesive to the bricks, in a few months, but that it may be easily chipped off. And upon the whole, the plan now sent will save a great proportion of the expense.

Hitherto, I have spoken of the capital only. The plans for the prison, also, accompany this. They will explain themselves. I send, also, the plan of the prison proposed at Lyons, which was sent me by the architect, and to which we are indebted for the fundamental idea of ours. You will see, that of a great thing a very small one is made. Perhaps you may find it convenient to build, at first, only two sides, forming an L; but of this, you are the best judges. It has been suggested to me, that fine gravel, mixed in the mortar, prevents the prisoners from cutting themselves out, as that will destroy their tools. In my letter of August the 13th, I mentioned that I could send workmen from hence. As I am in hopes of receiving your orders precisely, in answer to that letter, I shall defer actually engaging any, till I receive them. In like manner, I shall defer having plans drawn for a Governor’s house, &c, till further orders; only assuring you, that the receiving and executing these orders, will always give me a very great pleasure, and the more, should I find that what I have done meets your approbation.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem, Gentlemen,

your most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLVI.—TO JOHN ADAMS, February 7, 1786

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Paris, February 7, 1786.

Dear Sir,

I am honored with yours of January the 19th. Mine of January the 12th, had not, I suppose, at that time got to your hands, as the receipt of it is unacknowledged. I shall be anxious till I receive your answer to it.

I was perfectly satisfied before I received your letter, that your opinion had been misunderstood or misrepresented in the case of the Chevalier de Mezieres. Your letter, however, will enable me to say so with authority. It is proper it should be known, that you had not given the opinion imputed to you, though, as to the main question, it is become useless; Monsieur de Reyneval having assured me, that what I had written on that subject had perfectly satisfied the Count de Vergennes and himself, that this case could never come under the treaty. To evince, still further, the impropriety of taking up subjects gravely, on such imperfect information as this court had, I have this moment received a copy of an act of the Georgia Assembly, placing the subjects of France, as to real estates, on the footing of natural citizens, and expressly recognising the treaty. Would you think any thing could be added, after this, to put this question still further out of doors? A gentleman of Georgia assured me, General Oglethorpe did not own a foot of land in the State. I do not know whether there has been any American determination on the question, whether American citizens and British subjects, born before the Revolution, can be aliens to one another. I know there is an opinion of Lord Coke’s, in Colvin’s case, that if England and Scotland should, in a course of descent, pass to separate Kings, those born under the same sovereign during the union, would remain natural subjects and not aliens. Common sense urges some considerations against this. Natural subjects owe allegiance; but we owe none. Aliens are the subjects of a foreign power; we are subjects of a foreign power. The King, by the treaty, acknowledges our independence; how then can we remain natural subjects? The King’s power is, by the constitution, competent to the making peace, war, and treaties. He had, therefore, authority to relinquish our allegiance by treaty. But if an act of parliament had been necessary, the parliament passed an act to confirm the treaty. So that it appears to me, that in this question, fictions of law alone are opposed to sound sense.

I am in hopes Congress will send a minister to Lisbon. I know no country, with which we are likely to cultivate a more useful commerce. I have pressed this in my private letters.

It is difficult to learn any thing certain here, about the French and English treaty. Yet, in general, little is expected to be done between them. I am glad to hear that the Delegates of Virginia had made the vote relative to English commerce, though they afterwards repealed it. I hope they will come to again. When my last letters came away, they were engaged in passing the revisal of their laws, with some small alterations. The bearer of this, Mr. Lyons, is a sensible, worthy young physician, son of one of our judges, and on his return to Virginia. Remember me with affection to Mrs. and Miss Adams, Colonels Smith and Humphreys, and be assured of the esteem with which I am, Dear Sir,

your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLVII.—TO JAMES MADISON, February 8, 1786

TO JAMES MADISON.

Paris, February 8, 1786.

Dear Sir,

My last letters were of the 1st and 20th of September, and the 28th of October. Yours, unacknowledged, are of August the 20th, October the 3rd, and November the 15th. I take this, the first safe opportunity, of enclosing to you the bills of lading for your books, and two others for your namesake of Williamsburg, and for the attorney, which I will pray you to forward. I thank you for the communication of the remonstrance against the assessment. Mazzei, who is now in Holland, promised me to have it published in the Leyden gazette. It will do us great honor. I wish it may be as much approved by our Assembly, as by the wisest part of Europe. I have heard, with great pleasure, that our Assembly have come to the resolution, of giving the regulation of their commerce to the federal head. I will venture to assert, that there is not one of its opposers, who, placed on this ground, would not see the wisdom of this measure. The politics of Europe render it indispensably necessary, that, with respect to every thing external, we be one nation only, firmly hooped together. Interior government is what each State should keep to itself. If it were seen in Europe, that all our States could be brought to concur in what the Virginia Assembly has done, it would produce a total revolution in their opinion of us, and respect for us. And it should ever be held in mind, that insult and war are the consequences of a want of respectability in the national character. As long as the States exercise, separately, those acts of power which respect foreign nations, so long will there continue to be irregularities committed by some one or other of them, which will constantly keep us on an ill footing with foreign nations.

I thank you for your information as to my Notes. The copies I have remaining shall be sent over, to be given to some of my friends and to select subjects in the College. I have been unfortunate here with this trifle. I gave out a few copies only, and to confidential persons, writing in every copy a restraint against its publication. Among others, I gave a copy to a Mr. Williams: he died. I immediately took every precaution I could to recover this copy. But, by some means or other, a bookseller had got hold of it. He employed a hireling translator, and is about publishing it in the most injurious form possible. I am now at a loss what to do as to England. Every thing, good or bad, is thought worth publishing there; and I apprehend a translation back from the French, and a publication there. I rather believe it will be most eligible to let the original come out in that country: but am not yet decided.

I have purchased little for you in the book way since I sent the catalogue of my former purchases. I wish, first, to have your answer to that, and your information, what parts of these purchases went out of your plan. You can easily say, Buy more of this kind, less of that, &c. My wish is to conform myself to yours. I can get for you the original Paris edition of the Encyclop©die, in thirty-five volumes, folio, for six hundred and twenty livres; a good edition, in thirty-nine volumes, 4to, for three hundred and eighty livres; and a good one, in thirty-nine volumes, 8vo, for two hundred and eighty livres. The new one will be superior in far the greater number of articles; but not in all. And the possession of the ancient one has, moreover, the advantage of supplying present use. I have bought one for myself, but wait your orders as to you. I remember your purchase of a watch in Philadelphia. If it should not have proved good, you can probably sell it. In that case, I can get for you here, one made as perfect as human art can make it, for about twenty-four louis. I have had such a one made, by the best and most faithful hand in Paris. It has a second hand, but no repeating, no day of the month, nor other useless thing to impede and injure the movements which are necessary. For twelve louis more, you can have in the same cover, but on the back, and absolutely unconnected with the movements of the watch, a pedometer, which shall render you an exact account of the distances you walk. Your pleasure hereon shall be awaited.

Houdon has returned. He called on me, the other day, to remonstrate against the inscription proposed for General Washington’s statue. He says it is too long to be put on the pedestal. I told him, I was not at liberty to permit any alteration, but I would represent his objection to a friend, who could judge of its validity, and whether a change could be authorized. This has been the subject of conversations here, and various devices and inscriptions have been suggested. The one which has appeared best to me, may be translated as follows: ‘Behold, Reader, the form of George Washington. For his worth, ask History; that will tell it, when this stone shall have yielded to the decays of time. His country erects this monument.’ Houdon makes it.‘This for one side. On the second, represent the evacuation of Boston, with the motto, ‘Hostibus primum fugatis.’ On the third, the capture of the Hessians, with ‘Hostibus iterum devictis.’ On the fourth, the surrender of York, with ‘Hostibus ultimum debellatis.’ This is seizing the three most brilliant actions of his military life. By giving out, here, a wish of receiving mottos for this statue, we might have thousands offered, from which still better might be chosen. The artist made the same objection, of length, to the inscription for the bust of the Marquis de la Fayette. An alteration of that might come in time still, if an alteration was wished. However, I am not certain that it is desirable in either case. The State of Georgia has given twenty thousand acres of land, to the Count d’Estaing. This gift is considered here as very honorable to him, and it has gratified him much. I am persuaded, that a gift of lands by the State of Virginia to the Marquis de la Fayette, would give a good opinion here of our character, and would reflect honor on the Marquis. Nor am I sure that the day will not come, when it might be an useful asylum to him. The time of life at which he visited America was too well adapted to receive good and lasting impressions, to permit him ever to accommodate himself to the principles of monarchical government; and it will need all his own prudence, and that of his friends, to make this country a safe residence for him. How glorious, how comfortable in reflection, will it be, to have prepared a refuge for him in case of a reverse. In the mean time, he could settle it with tenants from the freest part of this country, Bretaigne. I have never suggested the smallest idea of this kind to him: because the execution of it should convey the first notice. If the State has not a right to give him lands with their own officers, they could buy up, at cheap prices, the shares of others. I am not certain, however, whether, in the public or private opinion, a similar gift to Count Rochambeau could be dispensed with. If the State could give to both, it would be better: but, in any event, I think they should to the Marquis. Count Rochambeau, too, has really deserved more attention than he has received. Why not set up his bust, that of Gates, Greene, Franklin, in your new capitol? A propos of the capital. Do, my dear friend, exert yourself to get the plan begun on set aside, and that adopted, which was drawn here. It was taken from a model which has been the admiration of sixteen centuries; which has been the object of as many pilgrimages as the tomb of Mahomet; which will give unrivalled honor to our State, and furnish a model whereon to form the taste of our young men. It will cost much less too, than the one begun; because it does not cover one half of the area. Ask, if you please, a sight of my letter of January the 26th, to Messrs. Buchanan and Hay, which will spare me the repeating its substance here.