of funds which ought to be husbanded for the effectual operations of a long war. I fear, too, it will render the militia discontented, perhaps clamorous for an end of the war on any terms. I am happy to see that it is entirely popular as yet, and that no symptom of flinching from it appears among the people, as far as I can judge from the public papers, or from my own observation, limited to the few counties adjacent to the two branches of James river. I have such confidence that what I suggest has been already maturely discussed in the Cabinet, and that for wise and sufficient reasons the present mode of employing the frigates is the best, that I hesitate about sending this even after having written. Yet in that case it will only have given you the trouble of reading it. You will bury it in your own breast, as _non-avenue_, and see in it only an unnecessary zeal on my part, and a proof of the unlimited confidence of yours ever and affectionately. TO JOHN ADAMS. MONTICELLO, June 15, 1813. DEAR SIR,--I wrote you a letter on the 27th of May, which probably would reach you about the 3d instant, and on the 9th I received yours of the 29th of May. Of Lindsay's Memoirs I had never before heard, and scarcely indeed of himself. It could not, therefore, but be unexpected, that two letters of mine should have anything to do with his life. The name of his editor was new to me, and certainly presents itself for the first time under unfavorable circumstances. Religion, I suppose, is the scope of his book; and that a writer on that subject should usher himself to the world in the very act of the grossest abuse of confidence, by publishing private letters which passed between two friends, with no views to their ever being made public, is an instance of inconsistency as well as of infidelity, of which I would rather be the victim than the author.