Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

Dear Sir,

I have been honored with the receipt of your letter of the 2nd instant, and am to thank you, as I do sincerely, for the partiality with which you receive the copy of the Notes on my country. As I can answer for the facts therein reported on my own observation, and have admitted none on the report of others, which were not supported by evidence sufficient to command my own a.s.sent, I am not afraid that you should make any extracts you please for the Journal de Physique, which come within their plan of publication. The strictures on slavery and on the const.i.tution of Virginia, are not of that kind, and they are the parts which I do not wish to have made public, at least, till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible, that in my own country, these strictures might produce an irritation, which would indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view, that is, the emanc.i.p.ation of their slaves, and the settlement of their const.i.tution on a firmer and more permanent basis. If I learn from thence, that they will not produce that effect, I have printed and reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to every young man at the College. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations. The other copy, delivered at your hotel, was for Monsieur de Buffon. I meant to ask the favor of you to have it sent to him, as I was ignorant how to do it. I have one also for Monsieur Daubenton, but being utterly unknown to him, I cannot take the liberty of presenting it, till I can do it through some common acquaintance.

I will beg leave to say here a few words on the general question of the degeneracy of animals in America. 1. As to the degeneracy of the man of Europe transplanted to America, it is no part of Monsieur de Buffon's system. He goes, indeed, within one step of it, but he stops there. The Abbe Raynal alone has taken that step. Your knowledge of America enables you to judge this question; to say, whether the lower cla.s.s of people in America, are less informed, and less susceptible of information, than the lower cla.s.s in Europe: and whether those in America who have received such an education as that country can give, are less improved by it than Europeans of the same degree of education. 2. As to the aboriginal man of America, I know of no respectable evidence on which the opinion of his inferiority of genius has been founded, but that of Don Ulloa. As to Robertson, he never was in America; he relates nothing on his own knowledge; he is a compiler only of the relations of others, and a mere translator of the opinions of Monsieur de Buffon. I should as soon, therefore, add the translators of Robertson to the witnesses of this fact, as himself. Paw, the beginner of this charge, was a compiler from the works of others; and of the most unlucky description; for he seems to have read the writings of travellers, only to collect and republish their lies. It is really remarkable, that in three volumes 12mo, of small print, it is scarcely possible to find one truth, and yet, that the author should be able to produce authority for every fact he states, as he says he can. Don Ulloa's testimony is of the most respectable. He wrote of what he saw, but he saw the Indian of South America only, and that, after he had pa.s.sed through ten generations of slavery. It is very unfair, from this sample, to judge of the natural genius of this race of men; and after supposing that Don Ulloa had not sufficiently calculated the allowance which should be made for this circ.u.mstance, we do him no injury in considering the picture he draws of the present Indians of South America, as no picture of what their ancestors were, three hundred years ago. It is in North America we are to seek their original character. And I am safe in affirming that the proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America, place them on a level with whites in the same uncultivated state. The North of Europe furnishes subjects enough for comparison with them, and for a proof of their equality. I have seen some thousands myself, and conversed much with them, and have found in them a masculine, sound understanding. I have had much information from men who had lived among them, and whose veracity and good sense were so far known to me, as to establish a reliance on their information. They have all agreed in bearing witness in favor of the genius of this a people. As to their bodily strength, their manners rendering it disgraceful to labor, those muscles employed in labor will be weaker with them, than with the European laborer; but those which are exerted in the chase, and those faculties which are employed in the tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriving ambuscades for him, and in carrying them through their execution, are much stronger than with us, because they are more exercised. I believe the Indian, then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man. I have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so; but it would be hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so. 3. As to the inferiority of the other animals of America, without more facts, I can add nothing to what I have said in my Notes.

As to the theory of Monsieur de Buffon, that heat is friendly, and moisture adverse to the production of large animals, I am lately furnished with a fact by Dr. Franklin, which proves the air of London and of Paris to be more humid than that of Philadelphia, and so creates a suspicion that the opinion of the superior humidity of America, may, perhaps, have been too hastily adopted. And supposing that fact admitted, I think the physical reasonings urged to show, that in a moist country animals must be small, and that in a hot one they must be large, are not built on the basis of experiment. These questions, however, cannot be decided ultimately, at this day. More facts must be collected, and more time flow off, before the world will be ripe for decision. In the mean time, doubt is wisdom.

I have been fully sensible of the anxieties of your situation, and that your attentions were wholly consecrated, where alone they were wholly due, to the succor of friends.h.i.+p and worth. However much I prize your society, I wait with patience the moment when I can have it without taking what is due to another. In the mean time, I am solaced with the hope of possessing your friends.h.i.+p, and that it is not ungrateful to you to receive the a.s.surances of that with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir,

your most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXII.--TO JOHN ADAMS, June 15, 1785

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Pa.s.sy, June 15, 1785.

Sir,

Among the instructions given to the ministers of the United States for treating with foreign powers, was one of the 11th of May, 1784, relative to an individual of the name of John Baptist Picquet. It contains an acknowledgement, on the part of Congress, of his merits and sufferings by friendly services rendered to great numbers of American seamen carried prisoners into Lisbon, and refers to us the delivering him these acknowledgements in honorable terms, and the making him such gratification, as may indemnify his losses, and properly reward his zeal. This person is now is Paris, and asks whatever return is intended for him. Being in immediate want of money, he has been furnished with ten guineas. He expressed, desires of some appointment either for himself or son at Lisbon, but has been told that none such are in our gift, and that nothing more could be done for him in that line, than to mention to Congress that his services will merit their recollection, if they should make any appointment there a.n.a.logous to his talents. He says his expenses in the relief of our prisoners have been upwards of fifty moidores. Supposing that, as he is poor, a pecuniary gratification will be most useful to him, we propose, in addition to what he has received, to give him a hundred and fifty guineas, or perhaps four thousand livres, and to write a joint letter to him expressing the sense Congress entertain of his services. We pray you to give us your sentiments on this subject by return of the first post, as he is waiting here, and we wish the aid of your counsels therein.

We are to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of June 3rd, informing us of your reception at the court of London.

I am, with sentiments of great respect and esteem, Dear Sir,

your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXIII.--TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA, June 16, 1785

TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.

Paris,

June 16, 1785.

Sir,

I had the honor of receiving, the day before yesterday, the resolution of Council, of March the 10th, and your letter of March the 30th, and shall, with great pleasure, unite my endeavors with those of the Marquis de la Fayette and Mr. Barclay, for the purpose of procuring the arms desired. Nothing can be more wise than this determination to arm our people, as it is impossible to say when our neighbors may think proper to give them exercise. I suppose that the establis.h.i.+ng a manufacture of arms, to go hand in hand with the purchase of them from hence, is at present opposed by good reasons. This alone would make us independent for an article essential to our preservation; and workmen could probably be either got here, or drawn from England, to be embarked hence.

In a letter of January the 12th, to Governor Harrison, I informed him of the necessity that the statuary should see General Was.h.i.+ngton; that we should accordingly send him over unless the Executive disapproved of it, in which case I prayed to receive their pleasure. Mr. Houdon being new re-established in his health, and no countermand received, I hope this measure met the approbation of the Executive: Mr. Houdon will therefore go over with Dr. Franklin, some time in the next month.

I have the honor of enclosing you the substance of propositions which have been made from London to the Farmers General of this country, to furnish them with the tobacco of Virginia and Maryland, which propositions were procured for me by the Marquis de la Fayette. I take the liberty of troubling you with them, on a supposition that it may be possible to have this article furnished from those two States to this country, immediately, without its pa.s.sing through the _entrepot_ of London, and the returns for it being made, of course, in London merchandise. Twenty thousand hogsheads of tobacco a year, delivered here in exchange for the produce and manufactures of this country, many of which are as good, some better, and most of them cheaper than in England, would establish a rivals.h.i.+p for our commerce, which would have happy effects in all the three countries. Whether this end will be best effected by giving out these propositions to our merchants, and exciting them to become candidates with the Farmers General for this contract, or by any other means, your Excellency will best judge on the spot.