civilization which had already developed on the northern continent of the New World. This sentiment appears even during the first year of his stay in Paris in a letter to Mrs. Trist: It is difficult to conceive how so good a people, with so good a king, so well-disposed rulers in general, so genial a climate, so fertile a soil, should be rendered so ineffectual for producing human happiness by one single curse--that of a bad form of government. But it is a fact in spite of the mildness of their governors, the people are ground to powder by the vices of the form of government. Of twenty millions of people supposed to be in France, I am of opinion there are nineteen millions more wretched, more accursed, in every circumstance of human existence, than the most conspicuously wretched individual of the whole United States.... Nourish peace with their persons, but war against their manners. Every step we take towards the adoption of their manners is a step to perfect misery.[183] This was no passing mood: a few weeks earlier he had written much more vehemently to his friend and "_élève_", James Monroe, engaging him to come to France in order to see for himself the extraordinary superiority of America over Europe and particularly France. It will make you adore your own country, it's soil, it's climate, it's equality, liberty, laws, people & manners. My God! how little do my country men know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy. I confess I had no idea of it myself. While we shall see multiplied instances of Europeans going to live in America, I will venture to say no man now living will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe & continuing there.[184] But unhappy as they are, the French are lovable, for he loved them with all his heart and thought that, "with a better religion, a better form of government and their present Governors, their condition and country would be most enviable." At any rate they were to be preferred to the "rich, proud, hectoring, swearing, squibbling, carnivorous animals who lived on the other side of the Channel."[185] At the beginning of his stay, Jefferson paid little attention to the internal affairs of the country; the only incident worth comment during his first year in Paris was the imprisonment of the chief editor of the _Journal de Paris_ who was sent to the Bastille, perhaps to end his days there: Thus--wrote he--you see the value of energy in Government for such a measure, which would have been wrapt in the flames of war and desolation in America, ends without creating the slightest disturbance. Every attempt to criticize even mildly the government is followed immediately by stern measures, suppressing the London papers, suppressing the _Leyden Gazette_, imprisoning Beaumarchais, and imprisoning the editor of the _Journal_, the author of the _Mercure_, etc.[186]