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

The federal misrepresentation of my sentiments, which occasioned my former letter to you, was gross enough; but that and all others are exceeded by the impudence and falsehood of the printed extract you sent me from Ralph's paper. That a continuance of the embargo for two months longer would have prevented our war; that the non-importation law which succeeded it was a wise and powerful measure, I have constantly maintained. My friendship for Mr. Madison, my confidence in his wisdom and virtue, and my approbation of all his measures, and especially of his taking up at length the gauntlet against England, is known to all with whom I have ever conversed or corresponded on these measures. The word federal, or its synonyma lie, may therefore be written under every word of Mr. Ralph's paragraph. I have ransacked my memory to recollect any incident which might have given countenance to any particle of it, but I find none. For if you will except the bringing into power and importance those who were enemies to himself as well as to the principles of republican government, I do not recollect a single measure of the President which I have not approved. Of those under him, and of some very near him, there have been many acts of which we have all disapproved, and he more than we. We have at times dissented from the measures, and lamented the dilatoriness of Congress. I recollect an instance the first winter of the war, when, from sloth of proceedings, an embargo was permitted to run through the winter, while the enemy could not cruise, nor consequently restrain the exportation of our whole produce, and was taken off in the spring, as soon as they could resume their stations. But this procrastination is unavoidable. How can expedition be expected from a body which we have saddled with an hundred lawyers, whose trade is talking? But lies, to sow division among us, is so stale an artifice of the federal prints, and are so well understood, that they need neither contradiction nor explanation. As to myself, my confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the administration is so entire, that I scarcely notice what is passing, and have almost ceased to read newspapers. Mine remain in our post office a week or ten days, sometimes, unasked for. I find more amusement in studies to which I was always more attached, and from which I was dragged by the events of the times in which I have happened to live.

I rejoice exceedingly that our war with England was single-handed. In that of the Revolution, we had France, Spain, and Holland on our side, and the credit of its success was given to them. On the late occasion, unprepared and unexpecting war, we were compelled to declare it, and to receive the attack of England, just issuing from a general war, fully armed, and freed from all other enemies, and have not only made her sick of it, but glad to prevent, by peace, the capture of her adjacent possessions, which one or two campaigns more would infallibly have made ours. She has found that we can do her more injury than any other enemy on earth, and henceforward will better estimate the value of our peace. But whether her government has power, in opposition to the aristocracy of her navy, to restrain their piracies within the limits of national rights, may well be doubted. I pray, therefore, for peace, as best for all the world, best for us, and best for me, who have already lived to see three wars, and now pant for nothing more than to be permitted to depart in peace. That you also, who have longer to live, may continue to enjoy this blessing with health and prosperity, through as long a life as you desire, is the prayer of yours affectionately.

P. S. June the 14th.—Before I had sent my letter to the post office, I received the new treaty of the allied powers, declaring that the French nation shall not have Bonaparte, and shall have Louis XVIII. for their ruler. They are all then as great rascals as Bonaparte himself. While he was in the wrong, I wished him exactly as much success as would answer our purposes, and no more. Now that they are wrong and he in the right, he shall have all my prayers for success, and that he may dethrone every man of them.

TO MR. MAURY

Monticello, June 15, 1815.

I congratulate you, my dear and ancient friend, on the return of peace, and the restoration of intercourse between our two countries. What has passed may be a lesson to both of the injury which either can do the other, and the peace now opened may show what would be the value of a cordial friendship; and I hope the first moments of it will be employed to remove the stumbling block which must otherwise keep us eternal enemies. I mean the impressment of our citizens. This was the sole object of the continuance of the late war, which the repeal of the orders of council would otherwise have ended at its beginning. If according to our estimates, England impressed into her navy 6,000 of our citizens, let her count the cost of the war, and a greater number of men lost in it, and she will find this resource for manning her navy the most expensive she can adopt, each of these men having cost her £30,000 sterling, and a man of her own besides. On that point we have thrown away the scabbard, and the moment an European war brings her back to this practice, adds us again to her enemies. But I hope an arrangement is already made on this subject. Have you no statesmen who can look forward two or three score years? It is but forty years since the battle of Lexington. One-third of those now living saw that day, when we were about two millions of people, and have lived to see this, when we are ten millions. One-third of those now living, who see us at ten millions, will live another forty years, and see us forty millions; and looking forward only through such a portion of time as has passed since you and I were scanning Virgil together, (which I believe is near three score years,) we shall be seen to have a population of eighty millions, and of not more than double the average density of the present. What may not such a people be worth to England as customers and friends? and what might she not apprehend from such a nation as enemies? Now, what is the price we ask for our friendship? Justice, and the comity usually observed between nation and nation. Would there not be more of dignity in this, more character and satisfaction, than in her teasings and harassings, her briberies and intrigues, to sow party discord among us, which can never have more effect here than the opposition within herself has there; which can never obstruct the begetting children, the efficient source of growth; and by nourishing a deadly hatred, will only produce and hasten events which both of us, in moments of sober reflection, should deplore and deprecate. One half of the attention employed in decent observances towards our government, would be worth more to her than all the Yankee duperies played off upon her, at a great expense on her part of money and meanness, and of nourishment to the vices and treacheries of the Henrys and Hulls of both nations. As we never can be at war with any other nation, (for no other nation can get at us but Spain, and her own people will manage her,) the idea may be generated that we are natural enemies, and a calamitous one it will be to both. I hope in God her government will come to a sense of this, and will see that honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality. Her ministers have been weak enough to believe from the newspapers that Mr. Madison and myself are personally her enemies. Such an idea is unworthy a man of sense; as we should have been unworthy our trusts could we have felt such a motive of public action. No two men in the United States have more sincerely wished for cordial friendship with her; not as her vassals or dirty partisans, but as members of co-equal States, respecting each other, and sensible of the good as well as the harm each is capable of doing the other. On this ground there was never a moment we did not wish to embrace her. But repelled by their aversions, feeling their hatred at every point of contact, and justly indignant at its supercilious manifestations, that happened which has happened, that will follow which must follow, in progressive ratio, while such dispositions continue to be indulged. I hope they will see this, and do their part towards healing the minds and cooling the temper of both nations. The irritation here is great and general, because the mode of warfare both on the maritime and inland frontiers has been most exasperating. We perceive the English passions to be high also, nourished by the newspapers, that first of all human contrivances for generating war. But it is the office of the rulers on both sides to rise above these vulgar vehicles of passion; to assuage angry feelings, and by examples and expressions of mutual regard in their public intercourse, to lead their citizens into good temper with each other. No one feels more indignation than myself when reflecting on the insults and injuries of that country to this. But the interests of both require that these should be left to history, and in the meantime be smothered in the living mind. I have indeed little personal concern in it. Time is drawing her curtain on me. But I should make my bow with more satisfaction, if I had more hope of seeing our countries shake hands together cordially. In this sentiment I am sure you are with me, and this assurance must apologize for my indulging myself in expressing it to you, with that of my constant and affectionate friendship and respect.

TO MR. MAURY

Monticello, June 16, 1815.

My Dear Sir,—Just as I was about to close my preceding letter, yours of April 29th is put into my hands, and with it the papers your kindness forwards to me. I am glad to see in them expressions of regard for our friendship and intercourse from one side of the houses of parliament. But I would rather have seen them from the other, if not from both. What comes from the opposition is understood to be the converse of the sentiments of the government, and we would not there, as they do here, give up the government for the opposition. The views of the Prince and his ministers are unfortunately to be taken from the speech of Earl Bathurst, in one of the papers you sent me. But what is incomprehensible to me is that the Marquis of Wellesley, advocating us, on the ground of opposition, says that "the aggression which led to the war, was from the United States, not from England." Is there a person in the world who, knowing the circumstances, thinks this? The acts which produced the war were, 1st, the impressment of our citizens by their ships of war, and, 2d, the orders of council forbidding our vessels to trade with any country but England, without going to England to obtain a special license. On the first subject the British minister declared to our Chargé, Mr. Russel, that this practice of their ships of war would not be discontinued, and that no admissible arrangement could be proposed; and as to the second, the Prince Regent, by his proclamation of April 21st, 1812, declared in effect solemnly that he would not revoke the orders of council as to us, on the ground that Bonaparte had revoked his decrees as to us; that, on the contrary, we should continue under them until Bonaparte should revoke as to all the world. These categorical and definite answers put an end to negotiation, and were a declaration of a continuance of the war in which they had already taken from us one thousand ships and six thousand seamen. We determined then to defend ourselves, and to oppose further hostilities by war on our side also. Now, had we taken one thousand British ships and six thousand of her seamen without any declaration of war, would the Marquis of Wellesley have considered a declaration of war by Great Britain as an aggression on her part? They say we denied their maritime rights. We never denied a single one. It was their taking our citizens, native as well as naturalized, for which we went into war, and because they forbade us to trade with any nation without entering and paying duties in their ports on both the outward and inward cargo. Thus to carry a cargo of cotton from Savanna to St. Mary's, and take returns in fruits, for example, our vessel was to go to England, enter and pay a duty on her cottons there, return to St. Mary's, then go back to England to enter and pay a duty on her fruits, and then return to Savanna, after crossing the Atlantic four times, and paying tributes on both cargoes to England, instead of the direct passage of a few hours. And the taking ships for not doing this, the Marquis says, is no aggression. However, it is now all over, and I hope forever over. Yet I should have had more confidence in this, had the friendly expressions of the Marquis come from the ministers of the Prince. On the contrary, we see them scarcely admitting that the war ought to have been ended. Earl Bathurst shuffles together chaotic ideas merely to darken and cover the views of the ministers in protracting the war; the truth being, that they expected to give us an exemplary scourging, to separate from us the States east of the Hudson, take for their Indian allies those west of the Ohio, placing three hundred thousand American citizens under the government of the savages, and to leave the residuum a powerless enemy, if not submissive subjects. I cannot conceive what is the use of your Bedlam when such men are out of it. And yet that such were their views we have evidence, under the hand of their Secretary of State in Henry's case, and of their Commissioners at Ghent. Even now they insinuate the peace in Europe has not suspended the practices which produced the war. I trust, however, they are speaking a different language to our ministers, and join in the hope you express that the provocations which occasioned the late rupture will not be repeated. The interruption of our intercourse with England has rendered us one essential service in planting radically and firmly coarse manufactures among us. I make in my family two thousand yards of cloth a year, which I formerly bought from England, and it only employs a few women, children and invalids, who could do little on the farm. The State generally does the same, and allowing ten yards to a person, this amounts to ten millions of yards; and if we are about the medium degree of manufacturers in the whole Union, as I believe we are, the whole will amount to one hundred millions of yards a year, which will soon reimburse us the expenses of the war. Carding machines in every neighborhood, spinning machines in large families and wheels in the small, are too radically established ever to be relinquished. The finer fabrics perhaps, and even probably, will be sought again in Europe, except broad-cloth, which the vast multiplication of merinos among us will enable us to make much cheaper than can be done in Europe.

Your practice of the cold bath thrice a week during the winter, and at the age of seventy, is a bold one, which I should not, à priori, have pronounced salutary. But all theory must yield to experience, and every constitution has its own laws. I have for fifty years bathed my feet in cold water every morning (as you mention), and having been remarkably exempted from colds (not having had one in every seven years of my life on an average), I have supposed it might be ascribed to that practice. When we see two facts accompanying one another for a long time, we are apt to suppose them related as cause and effect.

Our tobacco trade is strangely changed. We no longer know how to fit the plant to the market. Differences of from four to twelve dollars the hundred are now made on qualities appearing to us entirely whimsical. The British orders of council had obliged us to abandon the culture generally; we are now, however, returning to it, and experience will soon decide what description of lands may continue it to advantage. Those which produce the qualities under seven or eight dollars, must, I think, relinquish it finally. Your friends here are well as far as I have heard. So I hope you are; and that you may continue so as long as you shall think the continuance of life itself desirable, is the prayer of yours sincerely and affectionately.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON

Quincy, June 20, 1815.

Dear Sir,—The fit of recollection came upon both of us so nearly at the same time, that I may, some time or other, begin to think there is something in Priestley's and Hartley's vibrations. The day before yesterday I sent to the post-office a letter to you, and last night I received your kind favor of the 10th.

The question before the human race is, whether the God of Nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles? Or, in other words, whether authority is originally in the people? or whether it has descended for 1800 years in a succession of popes and bishops, or brought down from heaven by the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove, in a phial of holy oil?

Who shall take the side of God and Nature? Brachmans? Mandarins? Druids? or Tecumseh and his brother the prophet? Or shall we become disciples of the Philosophers? And who are the Philosophers? Frederic? Voltaire? Rousseau? Buffon? Diderot? or Condorsett? These philosophers have shown themselves as incapable of governing mankind, as the Bourbons or the Guelphs. Condorsett has let the cat out of the bag. He has made precious confessions. I regret that I have only an English translation of his "Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human mind." But in pages 247, 248, and 249, you will find it frankly acknowledged, that the philosophers of the eighteenth century, adopted all the maxims, and practiced all the arts of the Pharisees, the ancient priests of all countries, the Jesuits, the Machiavillians, &c., &c., to overthrow the institutions that such arts had established. This new philosophy was, by his own account, as insidious, fraudulent, hypocritical, and cruel, as the old policy of the priests, nobles, and kings. When and where were ever found, or will be found, sincerity, honesty, or veracity, in any sect or party in religion, government, or philosophy? Johnson and Burke were more of Catholics than Protestants at heart, and Gibbon became an advocate for the inquisition.

There is no act of uniformity in the Church, or State, philosophic. As many sects and systems among them, as among Quakers and Baptists. Bonaparte will not revive inquisitions, Jesuits, or slave trade, for which habitudes the Bourbons have been driven again into exile.

We shall get along with, or without war. I have at last procured the Marquis D'Argens' Occellus, Timæus, and Julian. Three such volumes I never read. They are a most perfect exemplification of Condorsett's precious confessions. It is astonishing they have not made more noise in the world. Our Athanasians have printed in a pamphlet in Boston, your letters and Priestley's from Belsham's Lindsey. It will do you no harm. Our correspondence shall not again be so long interrupted. Affectionately.

Mrs. Adams thanks Mr. Jefferson for his friendly remembrance of her, and reciprocates to him a thousand good wishes.

P. S. Ticknor and Gray were highly delighted with their visit; charmed with the whole family. Have you read Carnot? Is it not afflicting to see a man of such large views, so many noble sentiments, and such exalted integrity, groping in the dark for a remedy, a balance, or a mediator between independence and despotism? How shall his "love of country," "his honor," and his "national spirit," be produced?

I cannot write a hundredth part of what I wish to say to you.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON

Quincy, June 22, 1815.

Dear Sir,—Can you give me any information concerning A. G. Camus? Is he a Chateaubriand? or a Marquis D'Argens? Does he mean to abolish Christianity? or to restore the Inquisition, the Jesuits, the Pope and the Devil?

Within a few days I have received a thing as unexpected to me as an apparition from the dead: Rapport à l'Institut National. Par A. G. Camus, imprimè par ordre de l'Institut, Pluviose An XI.

In page 55 of this report, he says, "Certain pieces which I found in the chamber of accounts in Brussels, gave me useful indications concerning the grand collection of the Bollandists; and conducted me to make researches into the state of that work, unfortunately interrupted at this day. It would add to the Institute to propose to government the means of completing it; as it has done with success for the collection of the historians of France, of diplomas and ordinances.14"

Permit me to dwell a few minutes on this important work.

"Almost all the history of Europe, and a part of that of the east, from the seventh century to the thirteenth, is in the lives of personages to whom have been given the title of Saints. Every one may have remarked, that in reading history, there is no event of any importance, in civil order, in which some Bishop, some Abbé, some Monk, or some Saint, did not take a part. It is, therefore, a great service, rendered by the Jesuits (known under the name of the Bollandists) to those who would write history, to have formed the immense collection, extended to fifty-two volumes in folio, known under the title of the Acts of the Saints. The service they have rendered to literature, is considerably augmented, by the insertion, in their acts of the Saints, a great number of diplomas and dissertations, the greatest part of which are models of criticism. There is no man, among the learned, who does not interest himself in this great collection. My intention is not to recall to your recollection the original authors, or their first labors. We may easily know them by turning over the leaves of the collection, or if we would find the result already written, it is in the Historical Library of Mensel, T. 1, part 1, p. 306, or in the Manual of Literary History, by Bougine, T. 2, p. 641.

"I shall date what I have to say to you only from the epoch of the suppression of the society, of which the Bollandists were members.

"At that time, three Jesuits were employed in the collection of the Acts of the Saints; to wit, the Fathers De Bie, De Bue, and Hubens. The Father Gesquière, who had also labored at the Acts of the Saints, reduced a particular collection, entitled Select Fragments from Belgical Writers, and extracts or references to matters contained in a collection entitled Museum of Bellarmine. These four monks inhabited the house of the Jesuits at Antwerp. Independently of the use of the library of the convent, the Bollandists had their particular library, the most important portion of which was a state of the Lives of the Saints for every day of the month, with indications of the books in which were found those which were already printed, and the original manuscripts, or the copies of manuscripts, which were not yet printed. They frequently quote this particular collection in their general collection. The greatest part of the copies they had assembled, were the fruit of a journey of the Fathers Papebrock and Henshen, made to Rome in 1660. They remained there till 1662. Papebrock and his associate brought from Rome copies of seven hundred Lives of Saints, in Greek or in Latin. The citizen La Serna, has in his library a copy, taken by himself, from the originals, of the relation of the journey of Papebrock to Rome, and of the correspondence of Henshen with his colleagues. The relation and the correspondence are in Latin. See Catalogue de la Serna, T. 3, N. 3903.

"After the suppression of the Jesuits, the commissioners apposed their seals upon the library of the Bollandists, as well as on that of the Jesuits of Antwerp. But Mr. Girard, then Secretary of the Academy at Brussels, who is still living, and who furnished me a part of the documents I use, charged with the inventory and sale of the books, withdrew those of the Bollandists, and transported them to Brussels.

"The Academy of Brussels proposed to continue the Acts of the Saints under its own name, and for this purpose to admit the four Jesuits into the number of its members. The Father Gesquière alone consented to this arrangement. The other Jesuits obtained of government, through the intervention of the Bishop of Newstadt, the assurance, that they might continue their collection. In effect, the Empress Maria Theresa approved, by a decree of the 19th of June, 1778, a plan which was presented to her, for the continuation of the works, both by the Bollandists and of Gesquière. This plan is in ample detail. It contains twenty articles, and would be useful to consult, if any persons should resume the Acts of the Saints. The establishment of the Jesuits was fixed in the Abby of Candenberg, at Brussels; the library of the Bollandists was transported to that place; one of the monks of the Abby was associated with them; and the Father Hubens being dead, was replaced by the Father Berthod, a Benedictine, who died in 1789. The Abby of Candenberg having been suppressed, the government assigned to the Bollandists a place in the ancient College of the Jesuits, at Brussels. They there placed their library, and went there to live. There they published the fifty-first volume of their collection in 1786, the fifth tome of the month of October, printed at Brussels, at the printing press Imperial and Royal, (in typis Cæsario regiis.) They had then two associates, and they flattered themselves that the Emperor would continue to furnish the expense of their labors. Nevertheless, in 1788, the establishment of the Bollandists was suppressed, and they even proposed to sell the stock of the printed volumes; but, by an instruction (Avis) of the 6th of December, 1788, the ecclesiastical commission superseded the sale, till the result could be known of a negociation which the Father De Bie had commenced with the Abbé of St. Blaise, to establish the authors, and transport the stock of the work, as well as the materials for its continuation at St. Blaise.