MONTICELLO, February 24, 1823. DEAR SIR,--I have read with much satisfaction the reply of Mr. Everett, your brother, to the criticisms on his work on the state of Europe, and concur with him generally in the doctrines of the reply. Certainly _provisions_ are not allowed, by the consent of nations, to be contraband but where everything is so, as in the ease of a blockaded town, with which all intercourse is forbidden. On the question whether the principle of "free bottoms making free goods, and enemy bottoms enemy goods," is now to be considered as established in the law of nations, I will state to you a fact within my own knowledge, which may lessen the weight of our authority as having acted in the war of France and England on the ancient principle "that the goods of an enemy in the bottom of a friend are lawful prize; while those of a friend in an enemy bottom are not so." England became a party in the general war against France on the 1st of February, 1793. We took immediately the stand of neutrality. We were aware that our great intercourse with these two maritime nations would subject us to harassment by multiplied questions on the duties of neutrality, and that an important and early one would be which of the two principles above stated should be the law of action with us? We wished to act on the new one of "free bottoms free goods;" and we had established it in our treaties with other nations, but not with England. We determined therefore to avoid, if possible, committing ourselves on this question until we could negotiate with England her acquiescence in the new principle. Although the cases occurring were numerous, and the ministers, Genet and Hammond, eagerly on the watch, we were able to avoid any declaration until the massacre of St. Domingo. The whites, on that occasion, took refuge on board our ships, then in their harbor, with all the property they could find room for; and on their passage to the United States, many of them were taken by British cruisers, and their cargoes seized as lawful prize. The inflammable temper of Genet kindled at once, and he wrote, with his usual passion, a letter reclaiming an observance of the principle of "free bottoms free goods," as if already an acknowledged law of neutrality. I pressed him in conversation not to urge this point; that although it had been acted on by convention, by the armed neutrality, it was not yet become a principle of universal admission; that we wished indeed to strengthen it by our adoption, and were negotiating an acquiescence on the part of Great Britain: but if forced to decide prematurely, we must justify ourselves by a declaration of the ancient principle, and that no general consent of nations had as yet changed it. He was immoveable, and on the 25th of July wrote a letter, so insulting, that nothing but a determined system of justice and moderation would have prevented his being shipped home in the first vessel.