The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson [ebook reader online free TXT] 📗

many scenes of happiness mingle themselves with all the recollections of my native woods and fields, to suffer them to be supplanted in my affection by any other. I consider myself here as a traveller only, and not a resident. My commission expires next spring, and if not renewed, I shall, of course, return then. If renewed, I shall remain here some time longer. How much, I cannot say; yet my wishes shorten the period. Among the strongest inducements will be, that of your society and Mrs. Gilmer's, which I am glad to find brought more within reach, by your return to Pen-park. My daughters are importunate to return also. Patsy enjoys good health, and is growing to my stature. Maria arrived here about a month ago, after a favorable voyage, and in perfect health. My own health has been as good as ever, after the first year's probation. If you knew how agreeable to me are the details of the small news of my neighborhood, your charity would induce you to write frequently. Your letters lodged in the post office at Richmond (to be forwarded to New York) come with certainty. We are doubtful yet, whether there will be war or not. Present me with warm affection to Mrs. Gilmer, and be assured yourself of the unvarying sentiments of esteem and attachment, with which I am, dear Doctor, your sincere friend and servant.

 

TO COLONEL T. M. RANDOLPH.

Paris, August 11, 1787.

Dear Sir,—Mr. Ammonett sent me your favor of May 7, which you expected he would have brought. He furnished me with the name of the family to whose property he supposes himself entitled, and the name of the town where it lies. I have endeavored to have them searched out, but as yet neither family nor town is discovered. If they can be found, the estate will then have to be searched for; the laws for limitation of actions will form the next opposition to him, and probably the laws of forfeiture against the Protestants, who were the subject of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, which laws have never been repealed, nor probably ever will be, even should the future condition of Protestants here be mitigated. I shall proceed in the enquiry for him, and let him know the result.

Your son Thomas, at Edinburgh, has done me the favor to open a little correspondence with me. He has sometimes asked my advice as to the course of his studies, which I have given to him the more freely as he informed me he was not tied down to any particular plan by your instructions. He informed me in his last letter that you proposed he should come to Paris this fall, stay here the winter, and return to Virginia in the spring. I understand him as proposing to study the law, so that probably, on his return, you will place him at Williamsburg for that purpose. On this view of his destination I venture to propose to you another plan. The law may be studied as well in one place as another; because it is a study of books alone, at least till near the close of it. Books can be read equally well at Williamsburg, at London, or Paris. The study of the law is an affair of three years, the last of which should be spent in attending Mr. Wythe's lectures. Upon the plan he has now in expectation, his residence here six months as a traveller, must cost him two hundred guineas, and three years' study at Williamsburg, four hundred and fifty guineas more, making five hundred and fifty guineas in the whole. My proposition is that he shall pass his two first years of legal study in some one of the villages within an hour's walk of Paris, boarded with some good family, wherein he may learn to speak the language, which is not to be learned in any other way. By this means he will avoid the loss of time and money which would be the consequence of a residence in the town, and he will be nigh enough to come to dine, to make acquaintances, see good company, and examine the useful details of the city. With very great economy he may do this on one hundred guineas a year, but at his ease for one hundred and fifty guineas. At the end of two years I would propose him a journey through the southern parts of France, thence to Genoa, Leghorn, Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan, Turin, Geneva, Lyons and Paris. This will employ him seven months, and cost him three hundred and thirty guineas, if he goes alone, or two hundred and thirty guineas if he finds a companion. Then he should return to Virginia, and pass his third year of legal study in attending Mr. Wythe's lectures. This whole plan would take three years and seven months, and cost from seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty guineas, which would be one month longer, and one hundred and fifty or two hundred guineas dearer than the one proposed. The advantages of this would be his learning to speak French well, his acquiring a better acquaintance here with men and things, and his having travelled through the most interesting parts of Europe, advantages which he will forever think cheaply purchased for one hundred and fifty or two hundred guineas, even were a deduction of that sum to be made from the establishment you mean to give him. But in every case, whether you decide that he shall return to study in Virginia, or remain here for that purpose, I would recommend that he should not be tied down to quit Edinburgh this fall precisely, but only when he shall have finished his courses of lectures in those sciences with which he should not be unacquainted. I have taken the liberty of noting these to him. I perceive by his letters that he has a good genius, and everybody bears witness to his application, which is almost too great. It would be a pity, therefore, he should miss of giving them full encouragement. I must beg your pardon for thus intruding myself into a business belonging to yourself alone, and hope you will find its excuse in the motives from which it proceeds, friendship for yourself, Mrs. Randolph and your son. I wish to see you gratified, and to be gratified myself in seeing him act the advantageous part, which will naturally result from his talents, his merit, and the favorable ground from which he will start; a fear of seeing this endangered by a too early return to our own country where the example of his cotemporaries may soon possibly lead him from the regular pursuits his friends may chalk out for him, all these considerations have impelled me to take this liberty, and to rely for pardon on the assurance of the sincere attachment and respect with which I am, dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant.

 

TO THE REVEREND JAMES MADISON.

Paris, August 13, 1787.

Dear Sir,—I have been long, very long, without answering your favor of March 27, 1786, and since that I have received those of December 28, and by Mrs. Oster. The reason of this has been that the genius of invention and improvement in Europe seems to be absolutely taking a nap. We have nothing to communicate to you but of the small kind, such as making the axletree turn with the wheel, which has been proposed here, adopted by some, and thought to be proved best by experiment, though theory has nothing to urge in its favor. A hydrostatic waistcoat is lately announced, which a person puts on either above or below his clothes in a minute, and fills with air by blowing with the mouth in twelve seconds. It is not yet shown, however, so I cannot tell you either the manner or matter of its construction. It may be useful when the loss of a vessel is foreseen. Herschell's discovery of two satellites to his planet, you have heard of ere this. He first saw them in January last. One revolves round its principal in about a week; the other in about a fortnight. I think your conjecture that the periodical variation of light in certain fixed stars proceeds from Maculæ, is more probable than that of Maupertius, who supposes those bodies may be flat, and more probable also than that which supposes the star to have an orbit of revolution so large as to vary sensibly its degree of light. The latter is rendered more difficult of belief from the shortness of the period of variation. I thank you for the shells you sent me. Their identity with marine shells and their vicinity to the sea, argue an identity of cause. But still the shells found in the mountains are very imperfectly accounted for. I have lately become acquainted with a memoire on a petrification mixed with shells by a Monsieur de La Sauvagere, giving an exact account of what Voltaire had erroneously stated in his questions Encyclopediques, article Coquilles, from whence I had transferred it into my notes. Having been lately at Tours, I had an opportunity of enquiring into de La Sauvagere's character, and the facts he states. The result was entirely in his and their favor. This fact is so curious, so circumstantially detailed, and yet so little like any known operation of nature, that it throws the mind under absolute suspense. The memoir is out of print. But my bookseller is now in search of it, and if he can find it I will put a copy of it into a box of books I shall send by the September packet, addressed to Mr. Wythe. In the same box I will put for you the Bibliotheque Physico-economique, for 1786, 1787, the connoissance des tems, Fourcroy's Chemistry, wherein all the later discoveries are digested, and a number of my notes on Virginia, of a copy of which you will be pleased to accept. It is a poor crayon, which yourself and the gentlemen which issue from your school must fill up. We are doubtful here whether we are to have peace or war. The movements of Prussia and England indicate war; the finances of England and France indicate peace. I think the two last will endeavor to accommodate the Dutch differences. Be pleased to present me respectfully to Mrs. Madison, and after repeating the recommendation of my nephew to you, I take the liberty of assuring you of that esteem with which I am, dear Sir, your friend and servant.

 

TO THE HONORABLE J. BLAIR.

Paris, August 13, 1787.

Dear Sir,—I received the letter with which you were pleased to honor me, by Mrs. Oster, and immediately waited on her with a tender of my services. She had, however, so far got her matters arranged as to be no longer in fear of any disagreeable measure, and is since gone to establish herself with her friends in Lorraine. I wish she may not there have alarms of a different nature. We have hitherto been in hopes that the desperate state of the finances of France and England would indispose those powers to war, and induce them, by an armed mediation, to quiet the affairs of Holland. The actual march, however, of the Prussian troops, the departure of the British squadron somewhere westwardly, and the preparations for a naval armament at Brest, and a land one in the neighborhood of the Netherlands, render war at present more expected than it has been. Still we look to the necessities of the two principal powers as promising efficacy to the negotiations not yet broken off. Though we shall be neutrals, and as such shall derive considerable pecuniary advantages, yet I think we shall lose in happiness and morals by being launched again into the ocean of speculation, led to overtrade ourselves,