SIR,--Your favor of May 30th was delivered me on my return to this place, and I now enclose the prospectus of Clarkson's history with my subscription to it. I have perused with great satisfaction the Report of the Committee for the African institution. The sentiments it breathes are worthy of the eminent characters who compose the institution, as are also the generous cares they propose to undertake. I wish they may begin their work at the right end. Our experience with the Indians has proved that letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilization. Our Indian neighbors will occupy all the attentions we may spare, towards the improvement of their condition. The four great Southern tribes are advancing hopefully. The foremost are the Cherokees, the upper settlements of whom have made to me a formal application to be received into the Union as citizens of the United States, and to be governed by our laws. If we can form for them a simple and acceptable plan of advancing by degrees to a maturity for receiving our laws, the example will have a powerful effect towards stimulating the other tribes in the same progression, and will cheer the gloomy views which have overspread their minds as to their own future history. I salute you with friendship and great respect. TO MR. FRANKLIN. WASHINGTON, June 22d, 1808. Thomas Jefferson returns his thanks to Mr. Franklin for the address to the Society of Friends which he was so kind as to send him. The appeal both to facts and principles is strong, and their consistency will require an able advocate. Conscious that the present administration has been essentially pacific, and that in all questions of importance it has been governed by the identical principles professed by that Society, it has been quite at a loss to conjecture the unknown cause of the opposition of the greater part, and bare neutrality of the rest. The hope however that prejudices would at length give way to facts, has never been entirely extinguished, and still may be realized in favor of another administration. TO DOCTOR LEIB. WASHINGTON, June 23, 1808.