Even if originally Jefferson had been of another opinion, the situation in Europe would have rapidly brought him to the same conclusion. For the credit of the United States could only be maintained on the condition that the newly formed confederation gave guarantees of permanency and stability. In his letters to foreign correspondents, such as Dumas, financial agent of the United States in Holland, he consequently affected more confidence in the wisdom of the convention than he perhaps felt at heart: No trouble of any sort is to be anticipated. Happily for us that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient, to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers, and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or restore their constitutions.[158] The main principle to observe is a separation of powers into "legislative, executive and judiciary" as complete as possible, and the rest will follow of itself. Yet as the convention approached, he favored less than ever the possibility of trusting any individual with the executive power for an indefinite length of time. "There are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an Assembly has proposed," he wrote to Adams. His chief objection to the Constitution was the appointment of a President who would be a sort of Polish king. If they wanted a President they could have it, provided they should make him ineligible at the end of four years. He even came to wonder whether too much ado was not made by the convention, for all the good that was in the new Constitution "could have been couched in three or four new articles added to the old articles of confederation." Far from being a radical and one of these reformers who first think of destroying the old order of things in order to build anew, Jefferson proposed to keep as much as possible "the good old and venerable fabric which should have been preserved, even as a religious relic."[159] At that time Jefferson had not yet received the text of the Constitution and had only vaguely heard of the discussion in the convention. When the newspapers brought him more details, he acquainted Carmichael with his views on the situation. This time his objection to the proposed scheme was more specific. It bore not only on the presidency but on the absence of a Bill of Rights; the thirteen States could not be melted into one government without guarantees to the people, and particularly without the recognition of the freedom of the press. The subordination of the laws of the States to Federal legislation was equally objectionable and he predicted that many States, among them Virginia, would reject several articles, making it necessary to assemble another convention to reach a better agreement.[160]