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

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Monticello, June 29, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 22d covering the declaration of war. It is entirely popular here, the only opinion being that it should have been issued the moment the season admitted the militia to enter Canada. * * * * * To continue the war popular, two things are necessary mainly. 1. To stop Indian barbarities. The conquest of Canada will do this. 2. To furnish markets for our produce, say indeed for our flour, for tobacco is already given up, and seemingly without reluctance. The great profits of the wheat crop have allured every one to it; and never was such a crop on the ground as that which we generally begin to cut this day. It would be mortifying to the farmer to see such an one rot in his barn. It would soon sicken him to war. Nor can this be a matter of wonder or of blame on him. Ours is the only country on earth where war is an instantaneous and total suspension of all the objects of his industry and support. For carrying our produce to foreign markets our own ships, neutral ships, and even enemy ships under neutral flag, which I would wink at, will probably suffice. But the coasting trade is of double importance, because both seller and buyer are disappointed, and both are our own citizens. You will remember that in this trade our greatest distress in the last war was produced by our own pilot boats taken by the British and kept as tenders to their larger vessels. These being the swiftest vessels on the ocean, they took them and selected the swiftest from the whole mass. Filled with men they scoured everything along shore, and completely cut up that coasting business which might otherwise have been carried on within the range of vessels of force and draught. Why should not we then line our coast with vessels of pilot-boat construction, filled with men, armed with cannonades, and only so much larger as to assure the mastery of the pilot boat? The British cannot counter-work us by building similar ones, because, the fact is, however unaccountable, that our builders alone understand that construction. It is on our own pilot boats the British will depend, which our larger vessels may thus retake. These, however, are the ideas of a landsman only, Mr. Hamilton's judgment will test their soundness.

Our militia are much afraid of being called to Norfolk at this season. They all declare a preference of a march to Canada. I trust however that Governor Barbour will attend to circumstances, and so apportion the service among the counties, that those acclimated by birth or residence may perform the summer tour, and the winter service be allotted to the upper counties.

I trouble you with a letter for General Kosciusko. It covers a bill of exchange from Mr. Barnes for him, and is therefore of great importance to him. Hoping you will have the goodness so far to befriend the General as to give it your safest conveyance, I commit it to you, with the assurance of my sincere affections.

TO NATHANIEL GREENE, MONTAGUE CENTER

Monticello, July 5, 1812.

Sir,—Your favor of May 19th from New Orleans is just now received. I have no doubt that the information you will present to your countrymen on the subject of the Asiatic countries into which you have travelled, will be acceptable as sources both of amusement and instruction; and the more so, as the observations of an American will be more likely to present what are peculiarities to us, than those of any foreigner on the same countries. In reading the travels of a Frenchman through the United States what he remarks as peculiarities in us, prove to us the contrary peculiarities of the French. We have the accounts of Barbary from European and American travellers. It would be more amusing if Melli Melli would give us his observations on the United States. If, with the fables and follies of the Hindoos, so justly pointed out to us by yourselves and other travellers, we could compare the contrast of those which an Hindoo traveller would imagine he found among us, it might enlarge our instruction. It would be curious to see what parallel among us he would select for his Veeshni. What you will have seen in your western tour will also instruct many who often know least of things nearest home.

The charitable institution you have proposed to the city of New Orleans would undoubtedly be valuable, and all such are better managed by those locally connected with them. The great wealth of that city will insure its support, and the names subscribed to it will give it success. For a private individual, a thousand miles distant, to imagine that his name could add anything to what exhibits already the patronage of the highest authorities of the State, would be great presumption. It will certainly engage my best wishes, to which permit me to add for yourself the assurances of my respect.

TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ

Monticello, July 10, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I received by your last post through Mr. Hall, of Baltimore, a copy of your introductory lecture to a course of chemistry, for which accept my thanks. I have just entered on the reading of it, and perceive that I have a feast before me. I discover from an error of the binder, that my copy has duplicates of pages 122, 123, 126, 127, and wants altogether, pages 121, 124, 125, 128, and forseeing that every page will be a real loss, and that the book has been printed at Carlisle, I will request your directions to the printer to enclose those four pages under cover to me at this place, near Milton. You know the just esteem which attached itself to Dr. Franklin's science, because he always endeavored to direct it to something useful in private life. The chemists have not been attentive enough to this. I have wished to see their science applied to domestic objects, to malting, for instance, brewing, making cider, to fermentation and distillation generally, to the making of bread, butter, cheese, soap, to the incubation of eggs, &c. And I am happy to observe some of these titles in the syllabus of your lecture. I hope you will make the chemistry of these subjects intelligible to our good house-wives. Glancing over the pages of your book, the last one caught my attention, where you recommend to students the books on metaphysics. Not seeing De Tutt Tracy's name there, I suspected you might not have seen his work. His first volume on Ideology appeared in 1800. I happen to have a duplicate of this, and will send it to you. Since that, has appeared his second volume on grammar and his third on logic. They are considered as holding the most eminent station in that line; and considering with you that a course of anatomy lays the best foundation for understanding these subjects, Tracy should be preceded by a mature study of the most profound of all human compositions, "Cabanis's Rapports du Physique et du moral de l'homme."

In return for the many richer favors received from you, I send you my little tract on the batture of New Orleans, and Livingston's claim to it. I was at a loss where to get it printed, and confided it to the editor of the Edinburgh Review, re-printed at New York. But he has not done it immaculately. Although there are typographical errors in your lecture, I wonder to see so difficult a work so well done at Carlisle. I am making a fair copy of the catalogue of my library, which I mean to have printed merely for the use of the library. It will require correct orthography in so many languages, that I hardly know where I can get it done. Have you read the Review of Montesquieu, printed by Duane? I hope it will become the elementary book of the youth at all our colleges. Such a reduction of Montesquieu to his true value had been long wanting in political study. Accept the assurance of my great and constant esteem and respect.

TO MR. LATROBE

Monticello, July 12, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Of all the faculties of the human mind, that of memory is the first which suffers decay from age. Of the commencement of this decay, I was fully sensible while I lived in Washington, and it was my earliest monitor to retire from public business. It has often since been the source of great regret when applied to by others to attest transactions in which I had been an agent, to find that they had entirely vanished from my memory. In no case has it given me more concern than in that which is the subject of your letter of the 2d instant: the supper given in 1807 to the workmen on the capitol. Of this supper I have not the smallest recollection. If it ever was mentioned to me, not a vestige of it now remains in my mind. This failure of my memory is no proof the thing did not happen, but only takes from it the support of my testimony, which cannot be given for what is obliterated from it. I have looked among my papers to see if they furnish any trace of the matter, but I find none, and must therefore acquiesce in my incompetence to administer to truth on this occasion. I am sorry to learn that Congress has relinquished the benefit of the engagements of Andrei & Franzoni, on the sculpture of the capitol. They are artists of a grade far above what we can expect to get again. I still hope they will continue to work on the basis of the appropriation made, and as far as that will go; so that what is done will be well done; and perhaps a more favorable moment may still preserve them to us. With respect to yourself, the little disquietudes from individuals not chosen for their taste in works of art, will be sunk into oblivion, while the Representatives' chamber will remain a durable monument of your talents as an architect. I say nothing of the Senate room, because I have never seen it. I shall live in the hope that the day will come when an opportunity will be given you of finishing the middle building in a style worthy of the two wings, and worthy of the first temple dedicated to the sovereignty of the people, embellishing with Athenian taste the course of a nation looking far beyond the range of Athenian destinies. In every situation, public or private, be assured of my sincere wishes for your prosperity and happiness, and of the continuance of my esteem and respect.

TO COLONEL DUANE

Monticello, August 4, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 17th ult. came duly to hand, and I have to thank you for the military manuals you were so kind as to send me. This is the sort of book most needed in our country, where even the elements of tactics are unknown. The young have never seen service, and the old are past it, and of those among them who are not superannuated themselves, their science is become so. I see, as you do, the difficulties and defects we have to encounter in war, and should expect disasters if we had an enemy on land capable of inflicting them. But the weakness of our enemy there will make our first errors innocent, and the seeds of genius which nature sows with even hand through every age and country, and which need only soil and season to germinate, will develop themselves among our military men. Some of them will become prominent, and seconded by the native energy of our citizens, will soon, I hope, to our force add the benefits of skill. The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent. Halifax once taken, every cock-boat of hers must return to England for repairs. Their fleet will annihilate our public force on the water, but our privateers will eat out the vitals of their commerce. Perhaps they will burn New York or Boston. If they do, we must burn the city of London, not by expensive fleets or congreve rockets, but by employing an hundred or two Jack-the-painters, whom nakedness, famine, desperation and hardened vice, will abundantly furnish from among themselves. We have a rumor now afloat that the orders of council are repeated. The thing is impossible after Castlereagh's late declaration in Parliament, and the re-construction of a Percival ministry.

I consider this last circumstance fortunate for us. The repeal of the orders of council would only add recruits to our minority, and enable them the more to embarrass our march to thorough redress of our past wrongs, and permanent security for the future. This we shall attain if no internal obstacles are raised up. The exclusion of their commerce from the United States, and the closing of the Baltic against it, which the present campaign in Europe will effect, will accomplish the catastrophe already so far advanced on them. I think your anticipations of the effects of this are entirely probable, their arts, their science, and what they have left of virtue, will come over to us, and although their vices will come also, these, I think, will soon be diluted and evaporated in a country of plain honesty. Experience will soon teach the new-comers how much more plentiful and pleasant is the subsistence gained by wholesome labor and fair dealing, than a precarious and hazardous dependence on the enterprises of vice and violence. Still I agree with you that these immigrations will give strength to English partialities, to eradicate which is one of the most consoling expectations from the war. But probably the old hive will be broken up by a revolution, and a regeneration of its principles render intercourse with it no longer contaminating. A republic there like ours, and a reduction of their naval power within the limits of their annual facilities of payment, might render their existence even interesting to us. It is the construction of their government, and its principles and means of corruption, which make its continuance inconsistent with the safety of other nations. A change in its form might make it an honest one, and justify a confidence in its faith and friendship. That regeneration however will take a longer time than I have to live. I shall leave it to be enjoyed among you, and make my exit with a bow to it, as the most flagitious of governments I leave among men. I sincerely wish you may live to see the prodigy of its renovation, enjoying in the meantime health and prosperity.

TO GENERAL KOSCIUSKO

Monticello, August 5, 1812.

Dear General,—* * * * *

I have little to add to my letter of June. We have entered Upper Canada, and I think there can be no doubt of our soon having in our possession the whole of the St. Lawrence except Quebec. We have at this moment about two hundred privateers on the ocean, and numbers more going out daily. It is believed we shall fit out about a thousand in the whole. Their success has been already great, and I have no doubt they will cut up more of the commerce of England than all the navies of Europe could do, could those navies venture to sea at all. You will find that every sea on the globe where England has any commerce, and where any port can be found to sell prizes, will be filled with our privateers. God bless you and give you a long and happy life.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Monticello, August 5, 1812.

Dear Sir,—* * * * *

I am glad of the re-establishment of a Percival ministry. The opposition would have recruited our minority by half way offers. With Canada in hand we can go to treaty with an off-set for spoliation before the war. Our farmers are cheerful in the expectation of a good price for wheat in Autumn. Their pulse will be regulated by this, and not by the successes or disasters of the war. To keep open sufficient markets is the very first object towards maintaining the popularity of the war, which is as great at present as could be desired. We have just had a fine rain of 1¼ inches in the most critical time for our corn. The weather during the harvest was as advantageous as could be. I am sorry to find you remaining so long at Washington. The effect on your health may lose us a great deal of your time; a couple of months at Montpelier at this season would not lose us an hour. Affectionate salutations to Mrs. Madison and yourself.

TO THE HONORABLE MR. WRIGHT

Monticello, August 8, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I receive and return the congratulations of your letter of July 6 with pleasure, and join the great mass of my fellow citizens in saying, "Well done, good and faithful servants, receive the benedictions which your constituents are ready to give you." The British government seem to be doing late, what done earlier might have prevented war; to wit: repealing the orders in Council. But it should take more to make peace than to prevent war. The sword once drawn, full justice must be done. "Indemnification for the past and security for the future," should be painted on our banners. For 1,000 ships taken, and 6,000 seamen impressed, give us Canada for indemnification, and the only security they can give us against their Henrys, and the savages, and agree that the American flag shall protect the persons of those sailing under it, both parties exchanging engagements that neither will receive the seamen of the other on board their vessels. This done, I should be for peace with England and then war with France. One at a time is enough, and in fighting the one we need the harbors of the other for our prizes. Go on as you have begun, only quickening your pace, and receive the benedictions and prayers of those who are too old to offer anything else.

TO THOMAS LETRE, ESQ

Monticello, August 8, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I duly received your favor of the 14th ult., covering a paper containing proceedings of the patriots of South Carolina. It adds another to the many proofs of their steady devotion to their own country. I can assure you the hearts of their fellow citizens in this State beat in perfect unison with them, and with their government. Of this their concurrence in the election of Mr. Madison and Mr. Gerry, at the ensuing election, will give sufficient proof. The schism in Massachusetts, when brought to the crisis of principle, will be found to be exactly the same as in the Revolutionary war. The monarchists will be left alone, and will appear to be exactly the tories of the last war. Had the repeal of the orders of council, which now seems probable, taken place earlier, it might have prevented war; but much more is requisite to make peace—"indemnification for the past, and security for the future," should be the motto of the war. 1,000 ships taken, 6,000 seamen impressed, savage butcheries of our citizens, and incendiary machinations against our union, declare that they and their allies, the Spaniards, must retire from the Atlantic side of our continent as the only security or indemnification which will be effectual. Accept the assurances of my great esteem and respect.

TO COLONEL WILLIAM DUANE

Monticello, October 1, 1812.

Dear Sir,—Your favor of September the 20th, has been duly received, and I cannot but be gratified by the assurance it expresses, that my aid in the councils of our government would increase the public confidence in them; because it admits an inference that they have approved of the course pursued, when I heretofore bore a part in those councils. I profess, too, so much of the Roman principle, as to deem it honorable for the general of yesterday to act as a corporal to-day, if his services can be useful to his country; holding that to be false pride, which postpones the public good to any private or personal considerations. But I am past service. The hand of age is upon me. The decay of bodily faculties apprizes me that those of the mind cannot be unimpaired, had I not still better proofs. Every year counts by increased debility, and departing faculties keep the score. The last year it was the sight, this it is the hearing, the next something else will be going, until all is gone. Of all this I was sensible before I left Washington, and probably my fellow laborers saw it before I did. The decay of memory was obvious; it is now become distressing. But the mind too, is weakened. When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me, but with unequal powers. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor, and time, and slow investigation. When I offered this, therefore, as one of the reasons deciding my retirement from office, it was offered in sincerity and a consciousness of its truth. And I think it a great blessing that I retain understanding enough to be sensible how much of it I have lost, and to avoid exposing myself as a spectacle for the pity of my friends; that I have surmounted the difficult point of knowing when to retire. As a compensation for faculties departed, nature gives me good health, and a perfect resignation to the laws of decay which she has prescribed to all the forms and combinations of matter.

The detestable treason of Hull has, indeed, excited a deep anxiety in all breasts. The depression was in the first moment gloomy and portentous. But it has been succeeded by a revived animation, and a determination to meet the occurrence with increased efforts; and I have so much confidence in the vigorous minds and bodies of our countrymen, as to be fearless as to the final issue. The treachery of Hull, like that of Arnold, cannot be matter of blame on our government. His character, as an officer of skill and bravery, was established on the trials of the last war, and no previous act of his life had led to doubt his fidelity. Whether the Head of the war department is equal to his charge, I am not qualified to decide. I knew him only as a pleasant, gentlemanly man in society; and the indecision of his character rather added to the amenity of his conversation. But when translated from the colloquial circle to the great stage of national concerns, and the direction of the extensive operations of war, whether he has been able to seize at one glance the long line of defenceless border presented by our enemy, the masses of strength which we hold on different points of it, the facility this gave us of attacking him, on the same day, on all his points, from the extremity of the lakes to the neighborhood of Quebec, and the perfect indifference with which this last place, impregnable as it is, might be left in the hands of the enemy to fall of itself; whether, I say, he could see and prepare vigorously for all this, or merely wrapped himself in the cloak of cold defence, I am uninformed. I clearly think with you on the competence of Monroe to embrace great views of action. The decision of his character, his enterprise, firmness, industry, and unceasing vigilance, would, I believe, secure, as I am sure they would merit, the public confidence, and give us all the success which our means can accomplish. If our operations have suffered or languished from any want of energy in the present head which directs them, I have so much confidence in the wisdom and conscientious integrity of Mr. Madison, as to be satisfied, that however torturing to his feelings, he will fulfil his duty to the public and to his own reputation, by making the necessary change. Perhaps he may be preparing it while we are talking about it; for of all these things I am uninformed. I fear that Hull's surrender has been more than the mere loss of a year to us. Besides bringing on us the whole mass of savage nations, whom fear and not affection has kept in quiet, there is danger that in giving time to an enemy who can send reinforcements of regulars faster than we can raise them, they may strengthen Canada and Halifax beyond the assailment of our lax and divided powers. Perhaps, however, the patriotic efforts from Kentucky and Ohio, by recalling the British force to its upper posts, may yet give time to Dearborne to strike a blow below. Effectual possession of the river from Montreal to the Chaudiere, which is practicable, would give us the upper country at our leisure, and close forever the scenes of the tomahawk and scalping knife.

But these things are for others to plan and achieve. The only succor from the old must lie in their prayers. These I offer up with sincere devotion; and in my concern for the great public, I do not overlook my friends, but supplicate for them, as I do for yourself, a long course of freedom, happiness and prosperity.