made use of as some inducement, while they are so distressed for money. Yet the borrowing the money in Holland will be rendered more difficult by the same event, in proportion as it will increase the demand for money by other powers. The gazettes of Leyden and France to this date, are inclosed, together with some pamphlets on the internal affairs of this country. I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, TO CHARLES THOMPSON. Paris, September 20, 1787. DEAR SIR, Your favor of April the 28th did not come to my hands till the 1st instant. Unfortunately, the boxes of plants, which were a day too late to come by the April packet, missed the packet of June the 10th also, and only came by that of July the 25th. They are not yet arrived at Paris, but I expect them daily. I am sensible of your kind attention to them, and that as you were leaving New York, you took the course which bade fair to be the best. That they were forgotten in the hands in which you placed them, was probably owing to much business, and more important. I have desired Mr. Madison to refund to you the money, you were so kind as to advance for me. The delay of your letter will apologise for this delay of the repayment. I thank you also, for the extract of the letter you were so kind as to communicate to me, on the antiquities found in the western country. I wish that the persons who go thither, would make very exact descriptions of what they see of that kind, without forming any theories. The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object, only the traits which favor that theory. But it is too early to form theories on those antiquities. We must wait with patience till more facts are collected. I wish your Philosophical Society would collect exact descriptions of the several monuments as yet known, and insert them naked in their Transactions, and continue their attention to those hereafter to be discovered. Patience and observation may enable us, in time, to solve the problem, whether those who formed the scattering monuments in our western country, were colonies sent off from Mexico, or the founders of Mexico itself? Whether both were the descendants or the progenitors of the Asiatic red men? The Mexican tradition, mentioned by Dr. Robertson, is an evidence, but a feeble one, in favor of the one opinion. The number of languages radically different, is a strong evidence in favor of the contrary one. There is an American by the name of Ledyard, he who was with Captain Cook on his last and wrote an account voyage, of that voyage, who has gone to St. Petersburg; from thence he was to go to Kamtschatka; to cross over thence to the northwest coast of America, and to penetrate through the main continent, to our side of it. He is a person of ingenuity and information. Unfortunately, he has too much imagination. However, if he escapes safely, he will give us new, curious, and useful information.* I had a letter from him, dated last March, when he was about to leave St. Petersburg on his way to Kamtschatka. With respect to the inclination of the strata of rocks, I had observed them between the Blue Ridge and North Mountains in Virginia, to be parallel with the pole of the earth. I observed the same thing in most instances in the Alps, between Cette and Turin: but in returning along the precipices of the Apennines, where they hang over the Mediterranean, their direction was totally different and various; and you mention, that, in our western country, they are horizontal. This variety proves they have not been formed by subsidence, as some writers of theories of the earth have pretended; for then they should always have been in circular strata, and concentric. It proves, too, that they have not been formed by the rotation of the earth on its axis, as might have been suspected, had all these strata been parallel with that axis. They may, indeed, have been thrown up by explosions, as Whitehurst supposes, or have been the effect of convulsions. But there can be no proof of the explosion, nor is it probable that convulsions have deformed every spot of the earth. It is now generally agreed that rock grows, and it seems that it grows in layers in every direction, as the branches of trees grow in all directions. Why seek further the solution of this phenomenon? Every thing in nature decays. If it were not reproduced then by growth, there would be a chasm. I remember you asked me, in a former letter, whether the The Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard, from his Journals and Correspondence,' have been recently published. steam mill in London was turned by the steam immediately, or by the intermediate agency of water raised by the steam. When I was in London, Boulton made a secret of his mill. Therefore, I was permitted to see it only superficially. I saw no water wheels, and therefore supposed none. I answered you, accordingly, that there were none. But when I was at Nismes, I went to see the steam mill there, and they shewed it to me in all its parts. I saw that their steam raised water, and that this water turned a wheel. I expressed my doubts of the necessity of the inter-agency of water, and that the London mill was without it. But they supposed me mistaken; perhaps I was so: I have had no opportunity since of clearing up the doubt. * * * * * * I had a letter from Mr. Churchman, but not developing his plan of knowing the longitude, fully. I wrote him what was doubted about it, so far as we could conjecture what it was. I am with very great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your friend and servant, TH: JEFFERSON. TO JOHN JAY. SIR, Paris, September 22, 1787. The letters of which the inclosed are copies, are this moment received, and as there is a possibility that they may reach Havre before the packet sails, I have the honor of inclosing them to you. They contain a promise of reducing the duties on tar, pitch and turpentine, and that the government will interest itself with the city of Rouen, to reduce the local duty on potash, By this you will perceive, that we are getting on a little in this business, though under their present embarrassments, it is difficult to procure the attention of the ministers to it. The parliament has enregistered the edict for a rigorous levy of the deux vingtiemes. As this was proposed by the King in lieu of the impost territorial, there is no doubt now, that the latter, with the stamp tax, will be immediately repealed. There can be no better proof of the revolution in the public opinion, as to the powers of the monarch, and of the force too, of that opinion. Six weeks ago, we saw the King displaying the plenitude of his omnipotence, as hitherto conceived, to enforce these two acts. At this day, he is forced to retract them by the public voice; for as to the opposition of the parliament, that body is too little esteemed to produce this effect in any case, where the public do not throw themselves into the same scale. I have the honor to be, with the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, TH: JEFFERSON. TO JOHN JAY. Paris, September 22, 1787. SIR, When I had the honor of addressing you this morning, intelligence was handing about, which I did not think well enough authenticated to communicate to you. As it is now ascertained, I avail myself of the chance that another post may yet reach Havre, before the departure of the packet. This will depend on the wind, which has for some days been unfavorable. I must premise, that this court, about ten days ago, declared, by their chargé des affaires in Holland, that if the Prussian troops continued to menace Holland with an invasion, his Majesty was determined, in quality of ally, to succour that province. An official letter from the Hague, of the 18th instant, assures that the Prussian army entered the territory of Holland on the 15th, that most of the principal towns had submitted, some after firing a gun or two, others without resistance: that the Rhingrave de Salm had evacuated Utretcht, with part of the troops under his command, leaving behind him one hundred and forty-four pieces of cannon, with great warlike stores: that the standard of Orange was hoisted every where: that no other cockade could be worn at the Hague: that the States General were to assemble that night for reinstating the Stadtholder in all his rights. The letter concludes, we have this moment intelligence that Woerden has capitulated; so that Amsterdam remains without defence.' So far the letter. We know, otherwise, that Monsieur de St. Priest, who had set out on his embassy to the Hague, has stopped at Antwerp, not choosing to proceed further till new orders. This court has been completely deceived, first by its own great desire to avoid a war, and secondly by calculating that the King of Prussia would have acted on principles of common sense, which would surely have dictated, that a power, lying between the jaws of Russia and Austria, should not separate itself from France, unless, indeed, he had assurances of dispositions in those two powers, which are not supposed to exist. On the contrary, I am persuaded that they ask the alliance of France, whom we suppose to be under hesitations between her reluctance to abandon the Turks, her jealousy of increasing by their spoils, the power of the two empires, and her inability to oppose them. If they cannot obtain her alliance, they will surely join themselves to England and Prussia. Official advices are received, that the first division of the Russian army has passed the Borysthenes into the Polish Ukraine, and is marching towards the frontiers of Turkey. Thus, we may consider the flames of war as completely kindled in two distinct parts of this quarter of the globe, and that though France and England have not yet engaged themselves in it, the probabilities are, that they will do it. I have the honor to be, with the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, TH: JEFFERSON. TO MR. CARNES. Paris, September 22, 1787. SIR, I am honored by your favor of the 17th instant. A war between France and England does not necessarily engage America in it; and I think she will be disposed rather to avail herself of the advantages of a neutral power. By the former usage of nations, the goods of a friend were safe, though taken in an enemy bottom, and those of an enemy were lawful prize, though found in a free bottom. But in our treaties with France, &c. we have established the simpler rule, that a free bottom makes free goods, and an enemy bottom, enemy goods. The same rule has been adopted by the treaty of armed neutrality between Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Pertugal, and assented to by France and Spain. Contraband goods, however, are always excepted, so that they may still be seized; but the same powers have established that naval stores are not contraband: and this may be considered now as the law of nations. Though England acquiesced under this during the late war, rather than draw on herself the neutral powers, yet she never acceded to the new principle, and her |