QUINCY, July 9, 1813. Lord! Lord! What can I do with so much Greek? When I was of your age, young man, _i. e._, seven, or eight, or nine years ago, I felt a kind of pang of affection for one of the flames of my youth, and again paid my addresses to Isocrates, and Dionysius Hallicarnassensis, &c., &c. I collected all my Lexicons and Grammars, and sat down to περὶ συνθησεως ονοματων, &c. In this way I amused myself for some time; but I found, that if I looked a word to-day, in less than a week I had to look it again. It was to little better purpose than writing letters on a pail of water. Whenever I set down to write to you, I am precisely in the situation of the wood-cutter on Mount Ida. I cannot see wood for trees. So many subjects crowd upon me, that I know not with which to begin. But I will begin, at random, with Belsham; who is, as I have no doubt, a man of merit. He had no malice against you, nor any thought of doing mischief; nor has he done any, though he has been imprudent. The truth is, the dissenters of all denominations in England, and especially the Unitarians, are cowed, as we used to say at College. They are ridiculed, insulted, persecuted. They can scarcely hold their heads above water. They catch at straws and shadows to avoid drowning. Priestley sent your letter to Linsay, and Belsham printed it from the same motive, _i. e._ to derive some countenance from the name of Jefferson. Nor has it done harm here Priestley says to Linsay, "You see he is almost one of us, and he hopes will soon be altogether such as we are." Even in our New England, I have heard a high Federal Divine say, your letters had increased his respect for you. "The same political parties which now agitate the United States, have existed through all time;" precisely. And this is precisely the complaint in the preface to the first volume of my defence. While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now, than three or four thousand years ago. What is the reason? I say, parties and factions will not suffer, or permit improvements to be made. As soon as one man hints at an improvement, his rival opposes it. No sooner has one party discovered or invented an amelioration of the condition of man, or the order of society, than the opposite party belies it, misconstrues, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it. Records are destroyed. Histories are annihilated, or interpolated, or prohibited: sometimes by popes, sometimes by emperors, sometimes by aristocratical, and sometimes by democratical assemblies, and sometimes by mobs.