The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
DEAR SIR,--I have to thank you for the pamphlets you were so kind as to
send me. You will know what I thought of them by my having before sent a
dozen sets to Virginia to distribute among my friends. Yet I thank you not
the less for these, which I value the more as they came from yourself. The
stock of them which Campbell had was, I believe, exhausted the first or
second day of advertising them. The papers of political arithmetic, both
in yours and Mr. Cooper's pamphlets, are the most precious gifts that can
be made to us; for we are running navigation mad, and commerce mad, and
navy mad, which is worst of all. How desirable is it that you could pursue
that subject for us. From the Porcupines of our country you will receive
no thanks; but the great mass of our nation will edify and thank you.
How deeply have I been chagrined and mortified at the persecutions which
fanaticism and monarchy have excited against you, even here! At first I
believed it was merely a continuance of the English persecution. But I
observe that on the demise of Porcupine and division of his inheritance
between Fenno and Brown, the latter (though succeeding only to the
_federal_ portion of Porcupinism, not the _Anglican_, which is Fenno's
part) serves up for the palate of his sect, dishes of abuse against you
as high seasoned as Porcupine's were. You have sinned against church and
king, and can therefore never be forgiven. How sincerely have I regretted
that your friend, before he fixed his choice of a position, did not
visit the valleys on each side of the ridge in Virginia, as Mr. Madison
and myself so much wished. You would have found there equal soil, the
finest climate and most healthy one on the earth, the homage of universal
reverence and love, and the power of the country spread over you as a
shield. But since you would not make it your country by adoption, you must
now do it by your good offices. I have one to propose to you which will
produce their good, and gratitude to you for ages, and in the way to which
you have devoted a long life, that of spreading light among men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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