The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9)

Accept affectionate and respectful salutations.

TO MR. VOLNEY

Washington, February 8, 1805.

Dear Sir,—Your letter of November the 26th came to hand May the 14th; the books some time after, which were all distributed according to direction. The copy for the East Indies went immediately by a safe conveyance. The letter of April the 28th, and the copy of your work accompanying that, did not come to hand till August. That copy was deposited in the Congressional library. It was not till my return here from my autumnal visit to Monticello, that I had an opportunity of reading your work. I have read it, and with great satisfaction. Of the first part I am less a judge than most people, having never travelled westward of Staunton, so as to know anything of the face of the country; nor much indulged myself in geological inquiries, from a belief that the skin-deep scratches which we can make or find on the surface of the earth, do not repay our time with as certain and useful deductions as our pursuits in some other branches. The subject of our winds is more familiar to me. On that, the views you have taken are always great, supported in their outlines by your facts; and though more extensive observations, and longer continued, may produce some anomalies, yet they will probably take their place in this first great canvas which you have sketched. In no case, perhaps, does habit attach our choice or judgment more than in climate. The Canadian glows with delight in his sleigh and snow; the very idea of which gives me the shivers. The comparison of climate between Europe and North America, taking together its corresponding parts, hangs chiefly on three great points. 1. The changes between heat and cold in America are greater and more frequent, and the extremes comprehend a greater scale on the thermometer in America than in Europe. Habit, however, prevents these from affecting us more than the smaller changes of Europe affect the European. But he is greatly affected by ours. 2. Our sky is always clear; that of Europe always cloudy. Hence a greater accumulation of heat here than there, in the same parallel. 3. The changes between wet and dry are much more frequent and sudden in Europe than in America. Though we have double the rain, it falls in half the time. Taking all these together, I prefer much the climate of the United States to that of Europe. I think it a more cheerful one. It is our cloudless sky which has eradicated from our constitutions all disposition to hang ourselves, which we might otherwise have inherited from our English ancestors. During a residence of between six and seven years in Paris, I never, but once, saw the sun shine through a whole day, without being obscured by a cloud in any part of it; and I never saw the moment, in which, viewing the sky through its whole hemisphere, I could say there was not the smallest speck of a cloud in it. I arrived at Monticello, on my return from France, in January; and during only two months' stay there, I observed to my daughters, who had been with me to France, that, twenty odd times within that term, there was not a speck of a cloud in the whole hemisphere. Still I do not wonder that an European should prefer his gray to our azure sky. Habit decides our taste in this, as in most other cases.

The account you give of the yellow fever, is entirely agreeable to what we then knew of it. Further experience has developed more and more its peculiar character. Facts appear to have established that it is originated here by a local atmosphere, which is never generated but in the lower, closer, and dirtier parts of our large cities, in the neighborhood of the water: and that, to catch the disease, you must enter the local atmosphere. Persons having taken the disease in the infected quarter, and going into the country, are nursed and buried by their friends, without an example of communicating it. A vessel going from the infected quarter, and carrying its atmosphere in its hold into another State, has given the disease to every person who there entered her. These have died in the arms of their families, without a single communication of the disease. It is certainly, therefore, an epidemic, not a contagious disease; and calls on the chemists for some mode of purifying the vessel by a decomposition of its atmosphere, if ventilation be found insufficient. In the long scale of bilious fevers, graduated by many shades, this is probably the last and most mortal term. It seizes the native of the place equally with strangers. It has not been long known in any part of the United States. The shade next above it, called the stranger's fever, has been coëval with the settlement of the larger cities in the Southern parts, to wit, Norfolk, Charleston, New Orleans. Strangers going to these places in the months of July, August, or September, find this fever as mortal as the genuine yellow fever. But it rarely attacks those who have resided in them some time. Since we have known that kind of yellow fever which is no respecter of persons, its name has been extended to the stranger's fever, and every species of bilious fever which produces a black vomit, that is to say, a discharge of very dark bile. Hence we hear of yellow fever on the Alleghany mountains, in Kentucky, &c. This is a matter of definition only; but it leads into error those who do not know how loosely and how interestedly some physicians think and speak. So far as we have yet seen, I think we are correct in saying, that the yellow fever, which seizes on all indiscriminately, is an ultimate degree of bilious fever never known in the United States till lately, nor farther South, as yet, than Alexandria; and that what they have recently called the yellow fever in New Orleans, Charleston and Norfolk, is what has always been known in those places as confined chiefly to strangers, and nearly as mortal to them, as the other is to all its subjects. But both grades are local; the stranger's fever less so, as it sometimes extends a little into the neighborhood; but the yellow fever rigorously so, confined within narrow and well-defined limits, and not communicable out of those limits. Such a constitution of atmosphere being requisite to originate this disease as is generated only in low, close, and ill-cleansed parts of a town, I have supposed it practicable to prevent its generation by building our cities on a more open plan. Take, for instance, the chequer board for a plan. Let the black squares only be building squares, and the white ones be left open, in turf and trees. Every square of houses will be surrounded by four open squares, and every house will front an open square. The atmosphere of such a town would be like that of the country, insusceptible of the miasmata which produce yellow fever. I have accordingly proposed that the enlargements of the city of New Orleans, which must immediately take place, shall be on this plan. But it is only in ease of enlargements to be made, or of cities to be built, that this means of prevention can be employed.

The genus irritabile vatum could not let the author of the Ruins publish a new work, without seeking in it the means of discrediting that puzzling composition. Some one of those holy calumniators has selected from your new work every scrap of a sentence, which, detached from its context, could displease an American reader. A cento has been made of these, which has run through a particular description of newspapers, and excited a disapprobation even in friendly minds, which nothing but the reading of the book will cure. But time and truth will at length correct error.

Our countrymen are so much occupied in the busy scenes of life, that they have little time to write or invent. A good invention here, therefore, is such a rarity as it is lawful to offer to the acceptance of a friend. A Mr. Hawkins of Frankford, near Philadelphia, has invented a machine which he calls a polygraph, and which carries two, three, or four pens. That of two pens, with which I am now writing, is best; and is so perfect that I have laid aside the copying-press, for a twelve month past, and write always with the polygraph. I have directed one to be made, of which I ask your acceptance. By what conveyance I shall send it while Havre is blockaded, I do not yet know. I think you will be pleased with it, and will use it habitually as I do; because it requires only that degree of mechanical attention which I know you to possess. I am glad to hear that M. Cabanis is engaged in writing on the reformation of medicine. It needs the hand of a reformer, and cannot be in better hands than his. Will you permit my respects to him and the Abbe de la Roche to find a place here?

A word now on our political state. The two parties which prevailed with so much violence when you were here, are almost wholly melted into one. At the late Presidential election I have received one hundred and sixty-two votes against fourteen only. Connecticut is still federal by a small majority; and Delaware on a poise, as she has been since 1775, and will be till Anglomany with her yields to Americanism. Connecticut will be with us in a short time. Though the people in mass have joined us, their leaders had committed themselves too far to retract. Pride keeps them hostile; they brood over their angry passions, and give them vent in the newspapers which they maintain. They still make as much noise as if they were the whole nation. Unfortunately, these being the mercantile papers, published chiefly in the sea-ports, are the only ones which find their way to Europe, and make very false impressions there. I am happy to hear that the late derangement of your health is going off, and that you are re-established. I sincerely pray for the continuance of that blessing, and with my affectionate salutations, tender you assurances of great respect and attachment.

P. S. The sheets which you receive are those of the copying-pen of the polygraph, not of the one with which I have written.

TO JUDGE TYLER

Monticello, March 29, 1805.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 17th found me on a short visit to this place, and I observe in it with great pleasure a continuance of your approbation of the course we are pursuing, and particularly the satisfaction you express with the last inaugural address. The first was, from the nature of the case, all profession and promise. Performance, therefore, seemed to be the proper office of the second. But the occasion restricted me to mention only the most prominent heads, and the strongest justification of these in the fewest words possible. The crusade preached against philosophy by the modern disciples of steady habits, induced me to dwell more in showing its effect with the Indians than the subject otherwise justified.

The war with Tripoli stands on two grounds of fact. 1st. It is made known to us by our agents with the three other Barbary States, that they only wait to see the event of this, to shape their conduct accordingly. If the war is ended by additional tribute, they mean to offer us the same alternative. 2dly. If peace was made, we should still, and shall ever, be obliged to keep a frigate in the Mediterranean to overawe rupture, or we must abandon that market. Our intention in sending Morris with a respectable force, was to try whether peace could be forced by a coercive enterprise on their town. His inexecution of orders baffled that effort. Having broke him, we try the same experiment under a better commander. If in the course of the summer they cannot produce peace, we shall recall our force, except one frigate and two small vessels, which will keep up a perpetual blockade. Such a blockade will cost us no more than a state of peace, and will save us from increased tributes, and the disgrace attached to them. There is reason to believe the example we have set, begins already to work on the dispositions of the powers of Europe to emancipate themselves from that degrading yoke. Should we produce such a revolution there, we shall be amply rewarded for what we have done. Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great respect and esteem.

TO DOCTOR LOGAN

Washington, May 11, 1805.

Dear Sir,—* * * * *

I see with infinite pain the bloody schism which has taken place among our friends in Pennsylvania and New York, and will probably take place in other States. The main body of both sections mean well, but their good intentions will produce great public evil. The minority, whichever section shall be the minority, will end in coalition with the federalists, and some compromise of principle; because these will not sell their aid for nothing. Republicanism will thus lose, and royalism gain, some portion of that ground which we thought we had rescued to good government. I do not express my sense of our misfortunes from any idea that they are remediable. I know that the passions of men will take their course, that they are not to be controlled but by despotism, and that this melancholy truth is the pretext for despotism. The duty of an upright administration is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing of these family dissensions, and to cherish the good principles of both parties. The war ad internecionem which we have waged against federalism, has filled our latter times with strife and unhappiness. We have met it, with pain indeed, but with firmness, because we believed it the last convulsive effort of that Hydra, which in earlier times we had conquered in the field. But if any degeneracy of principle should ever render it necessary to give ascendancy to one of the rising sections over the other, I thank my God it will fall to some other to perform that operation. The only cordial I wish to carry into my retirement, is the undivided good will of all those with whom I have acted.

Present me affectionately to Mrs. Logan, and accept my salutations, and assurances of constant friendship and respect.

TO JUDGE SULLIVAN

Washington, May 21, 1805.

Dear Sir,—An accumulation of business, which I found on my return here from a short visit to Monticello, has prevented till now my acknowledgment of your favor of the 14th ultimo. This delay has given time to see the result of the contest in your State, and I cannot but congratulate you on the advance it manifests, and the certain prospect it offers that another year restores Massachusetts to the general body of the nation. You have indeed received the federal unction of lying and slandering. But who has not? Who will ever again come into eminent office, unanointed with this chrism? It seems to be fixed that falsehood and calumny are to be their ordinary engines of opposition; engines which will not be entirely without effect. The circle of characters equal to the first stations is not too large, and will be lessened by the voluntary retreat of those whose sensibilities are stronger than their confidence in the justice of public opinion. I certainly have known, and still know, characters eminently qualified for the most exalted trusts, who could not bear up against the brutal hackings and hewings of these heroes of Billingsgate. I may say, from intimate knowledge, that we should have lost the services of the greatest character of our country, had he been assailed with the degree of abandoned licentiousness now practised. The torture he felt under rare and slight attacks, proved that under those of which the federal bands have shown themselves capable, he would have thrown up the helm in a burst of indignation. Yet this effect of sensibility must not be yielded to. If we suffer ourselves to be frightened from our post by mere lying, surely the enemy will use that weapon; for what one so cheap to those of whose system of politics morality makes no part? The patriot, like the Christian, must learn that to bear revilings and persecutions is a part of his duty; and in proportion as the trial is severe, firmness under it becomes more requisite and praiseworthy. It requires, indeed, self-command. But that will be fortified in proportion as the calls for its exercise are repeated. In this I am persuaded we shall have the benefit of your good example. To the other falsehoods they have brought forward, should they add, as you expect, insinuations of want of confidence in you from the administration generally, or myself particularly, it will, like their other falsehoods, produce in the public mind a contrary inference.

* * * * * * * *

I tender you my friendly and respectful salutations.

TO MR. DUNBAR

Washington, May 25, 1805.

Dear Sir,—Your several letters, with the portions of your journals, forwarded at different times, have been duly received; and I am now putting the journal into the hands of a person properly qualified to extract the results of your observations, and the various interesting information contained among them, and bring them into such a compass as may be communicated to the Legislature. Not knowing whether you might not intend to make a map yourself, of the course of the river, he will defer that to the last part of his work, on the possibility that we may receive it from yourself. Your observations on the difficulty of transporting baggage from the head of the Red river to that of the Arkansas, with the dangers from the seceding Osages residing on the last river, have determined me to confine the ensuing mission to the ascent of the Red river to its source, and to descend the same river again, which will give an opportunity of better ascertaining that which, in truth, next to the Missouri, is the most interesting water of the Mississippi. You will accordingly receive instructions to this effect, from the Secretary of War. Dr. Hunter does not propose to take a part in this mission, and we suppose that Mr. George Davis, a deputy of Mr. Briggs, will be the fittest person to take the direction of the expedition, and Col. Freeman as an assistant, and successor, in case of accident, to the principal. Still, these propositions are submitted to your control, as being better acquainted with both characters. I write to Gov. Claiborne, to endeavor to get a passport from the Marquis of Casa-Calvo, for our party, as a protection from any Spaniards who may be fallen in with on the route. We offer to receive one or two persons, to be named by him, and subsisted by us into the party, as a proof that the expedition is merely scientific, and without any views to which Spain could take exception. The best protection against the Indians will be the authority to confer with them on the subject of commerce. Such conferences should be particularly held with the Arkansas and Panis, residing on the Red river, and everything possible be done to attach them to us affectionately. In the present state of things between Spain and us, we should spare nothing to secure the friendship of the Indians within reach of her. While Capt. Lewis' mission was preparing, as it was understood that his reliance for his longitudes must be on the lunar observations taken, as at sea, with the aid of a time-keeper, and I knew that a thousand accidents might happen to that in such a journey as his, and thus deprive us of the principal object of the expedition, to wit, the ascertaining the geography of that river, I set myself to consider whether in making observations at land, that furnishes no resource which may dispense with the time-keeper, so necessary at sea. It occurred to me that as we can always have a meridian at land, that would furnish what the want of it at sea obliges us to supply by the time-keeper. Supposing Capt. Lewis then furnished with a meridian, and having the requisite tables and nautical almanac with him,—first, he might find the right ascension of the moon, when on the meridian of Greenwich, on any given day; then find by observation when the moon should attain that right ascension (by the aid of a known star), and measure her distance in that moment from his meridian. This distance would be the difference of longitude between Greenwich and the place of observation. Or secondly, observe the moon's passage over his meridian, and her right ascension at that moment. See by the tables the time at Greenwich when she had that right ascension. That gives her distance from the meridian of Greenwich, when she was on his meridian. Or thirdly, observe the moon's distance from his meridian at any moment, and her right ascension at that moment; and find from the tables her distance from the meridian of Greenwich, when she had that right ascension, which will give the distance of the two meridians. This last process will he simplified by taking, for the moment of observation, that of an appulse of the moon and a known star, or when the moon and a known star are in the same vertical. I suggested this to Mr. Briggs, who considered it as correct and practicable, and proposed communicating it to the Philosophical Society; but I observed that it was too obvious not to have been thought of before, and supposed it had not been adopted in practice, because of no use at sea, where a meridian cannot be had, and where alone the nations of Europe had occasion for it. Before his confirmation of the idea, however, Capt. Lewis was gone. In conversation afterwards with Baron Humboldt, he observed that the idea was correct, but not new; that I would find it in the third volume of Delalande. I received two days ago the third and fourth volumes of Montuela's History of Mathematics, finished and edited by Delalande; and find, in fact, that Morin and Vanlangren, in the seventeenth century, proposed observations of the moon on the meridian, but it does not appear whether they meant to dispense with the time-keeper. But a meridian at sea being too impracticable, their idea was not pursued. The purpose of troubling you with these details, is to submit to your consideration and decision whether any use can be made of them advantageously in our future expeditions, and particularly that up the Red river.

Your letter on the current of the Mississippi, and paper on the same subject, corrected at once my doubts on your theory of the currents of that river. Constant employment in a very different line permits me to turn to philosophical subjects only when some circumstance forces them on my attention. No occurrence had called my mind to this subject, particularly since I had first been initiated into the original Torricellian doctrine of the velocities at different depths, being in the sub-duplicate ratio of the depths. And though Buat had given me his book while at Paris, your letter was the first occasion of my turning to it, and getting my mind set to rights to a certain degree. There is a subsequent work by Bernard, which is said to have furnished corrections and additions to Buat; but I have never seen it.

The work we are now doing is, I trust, done for posterity, in such a way that they need not repeat it. For this we are much indebted to you, not only for the labor and time you have devoted to it, but for the excellent method of which you have set the example, and which I hope will be the model to be followed by others. We shall delineate with correctness the great arteries of this great country. Those who come after us will extend the ramifications as they become acquainted with them, and fill up the canvas we begin. With my acknowledgments for your zealous aid in this business, accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great esteem and respect.

TO DOCTOR SIBLEY

Washington, May 27, 1805.

Dear Sir,—I have been some time a debtor for your letters of March 20th and September 2d, of the last year. A constant pressure of things which will not admit delay, prevents my acknowledging with punctuality the letters I receive, although I am not insensible to the value of the communications, and the favor done me in making them. To these acknowledgments I propose to add a solicitation of a literary kind, to which I am led by your position, favorable to this object, and by a persuasion that you are disposed to make to science those contributions which are within your convenience. The question whether the Indians of America have emigrated from another continent, is still undecided. Their vague and imperfect traditions can satisfy no mind on that subject. I have long considered their languages as the only remaining monument of connection with other nations, or the want of it, to which we can now have access. They will likewise show their connections with one another. Very early in life, therefore, I formed a vocabulary of such objects as, being present everywhere, would probably have a name in every language; and my course of life having given me opportunities of obtaining vocabularies of many Indian tribes, I have done so on my original plan, which though far from being perfect, has the valuable advantage of identity, of thus bringing the languages to the same points of comparison. A letter from you to General Dearborne, giving valuable information respecting the Indians west of the Mississippi and south of the Arkansas, presents a much longer list of tribes than I had expected; and the relations in which you stand with them, and the means of intercourse these will furnish, induce me to hope you will avail us of your means of collecting their languages for this purpose. I enclose you a number of my blank vocabularies, to lessen your trouble as much as I can. I observe you mention several tribes which, having an original language of their own, nevertheless have adopted some other, common to other tribes. But it is their original languages I wish to obtain. I am in hopes you will find persons situated among or near most of the tribes, who will take the trouble of filling up a vocabulary. No matter whether the orthography used be English, Spanish, French, or any other, provided it is stated what the orthography is. To save unnecessary trouble, I should observe that I already possess the vocabularies of the Attacapas and Chetimachas, and no others within the limits before mentioned. I have taken measures for obtaining those north of the Arcansa, and already possess most of the languages on this side the Mississippi. A similar work, but on a much greater scale, has been executed under the auspices of the late empress of Russia, as to the red nations of Asia, which, however, I have never seen. A comparison of our collection with that will probably decide the question of the sameness or difference of origin, although it will not decide which is the mother country, and which the colony. You will receive from Gen. Dearborne some important instructions with respect to the Indians. Nothing must be spared to convince them of the justice and liberality we are determined to use towards them, and to attach them to us indissolubly. Accept my apologies for the trouble I am giving you, with my salutations and assurances of respect.