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Transcriber's Note:

  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_, and Old English text by
  +plus marks+.

  The [bracketed] footnotes are as in the original.

  Inconsistent or incorrect accents and spelling in passages in French,
  Latin and Italian have been left unchanged.

  ς (final form sigma) in the middle of a word has been normalized to σ.
  Greek diacritics were normalized to be all present or all missing,
  according to their preponderance in the quotation.


  The following possible inconsistencies/printer errors/archaic
  spellings/different names for different entities were identified
  but left as printed:

     Vanderkemp and Vander Kemp
     Mellish and Melish
     Rochefaucault, Rochefoucauld, Rochfaucauld
     De Tutt, Destutt, Dustutt Tracy
     Machiavilian and Machiavelian
     ascendancy and ascendency.

     M. DE LOMERIE omitted from the table of contents.

     Page 76: "orders of council have been repeated" should possibly be
     "orders of council have been repealed"

     Page 155: "Tries's" most outrageous riot and rescue should possibly
     be "Fries's".

     Page 159: Hallicarnassensis should possibly be Halicarnassus.

     Page 163: Shaise's rebellion should possibly be Shay's rebellion.

     Page 186: There is a possible punctuation error in the entry for "herb"
     in the list under the heading "Adj."

     Page 357: Pythagonic should possibly be Pythagoric.

     Page 359: "The refractory siston" should possibly be "The refractory
     system".

     Page 402: Pretorian should possibly be Preætorian.

     Page 505: homony should possibly be hominy.

     Table of Contents references Putty, but text references Pully.


  The formulas for calculating an annuity on page 200 were possibly
  printed incorrectly.




     THE
     WRITINGS
     OF
     THOMAS JEFFERSON:
     BEING HIS
     AUTOBIOGRAPHY, CORRESPONDENCE, REPORTS, MESSAGES,
     ADDRESSES, AND OTHER WRITINGS, OFFICIAL
     AND PRIVATE.


     PUBLISHED BY THE ORDER OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS ON THE
     LIBRARY, FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS,
     DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE.


     WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES, TABLES OF CONTENTS, AND A COPIOUS INDEX
     TO EACH VOLUME, AS WELL AS A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE,
     BY THE EDITOR
     H. A. WASHINGTON.


     VOL. VI.


     NEW YORK:
     H. W. DERBY, 625 BROADWAY.
     1861.




     Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
     TAYLOR & MAURY,
     In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of
      Columbia.


     STEREOTYPED BY
     THOMAS B. SMITH,
     32 & 84 Beekman Street.




CONTENTS TO VOL. VI.




BOOK II.

  PART III.--CONTINUED.--LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER HIS RETURN TO THE UNITED
    STATES DOWN TO THE TIME OF HIS DEATH.--(1790-1826,)--3.


     Adams, John, letters written to, 35, 48, 59, 85, 120, 125, 142,
       191, 217, 231, 302, 352, 488, 458, 523, 575.

     Armstrong, General, letter written to, 103.

     Astor, John Jacob, letters written to, 55, 247.

     Austin, Benjamin, letters written to, 520, 553.


     Bailey, General, letter written to, 100.

     Barrow, Mr., letter written to, 456.

     Barbour, Governor, letter written to, 38.

     Bentley, William, letter written to, 503.

     Burnside, Samuel M., letter written to, 290.

     Burwell, W. A., letter written to, 5.


     Cabell, Joseph C., letters written to, 299, 309, 389, 537, 540.

     Cains, Clement, letter written to, 13.

     Canby, Wm., letter written to, 210.

     Carr, Mathew, letter written to, 132.

     Carr, Dabney, letter written to, 527.

     Christian, Charles, letter written to, 44.

     Clay, Mr., letter written to, 7.

     Clarke, John, letter written to, 307.

     Clas, Charles, letter written to, 412.

     Cook, Amos, J., letter written to, 531.

     Cooper, Thomas, letters written to, 71, 311, 371, 375, 389.

     Cooper, Dr. Thomas, letter written to, 290.

     Correa, Mr., letter written to, 480.

     Crawford, Mr., letter written to, 417.

     Crawford, Dr., letter written to, 32.


     Dearborne, H. A. S., letter written to, 27.

     Dearborne, General, letter written to, 450.

     Delaplaine, Mr., letters written to, 343, 373.

     Duane, Colonel Wm., letters written to, 75, 79, 98, 109, 211.

     Dufief, M., letter written to, 339.


     Edwards, James L., letter written to, 8.

     Eppes, Mr., letter written to, 15.

     Eppes, John W., letters written to, 136, 194, 228.

     Evans, Oliver, letter written to, 297.


     Fleming, George, letter written to, 504.

     Flourney, Thomas C., letter written to, 82.


     Gallatin, Albert, letter written to, 498.

     Galloway, Benjamin, letter written to, 41.

     Gerry, Eldridge, letter written to, 62.

     Girardin, Mr., letters written to, 335, 411, 439, 455.

     Gray, Francis C., letter written to, 436.

     Granger, Gideon, letter written to, 329.

     Green, Nathaniel, letter written to, 71.

     Greenhow, Samuel, letter written to, 308.


     Humboldt, Baron de, letter written to, 267.


     Jones, Dr. Walter, letter written to, 284.


     King, Miles, letter written to, 387.

     Kosciusko, General, letters written to, 67, 77.


     La Fayette, Marquis de, letter written to, 421.

     Latrobe, Mr., letter written to, 74.

     Law, Thomas, letter written to, 348.

     Leiper, Thomas, letters written to, 281, 463.

     Letre, Thomas, letter written to, 79.

     Lincoln, Levi, letter written to, 7.

     Logan, Dr., letters written to, 215, 497.

     Lyon, James, letter written to, 10.


     Macon, Nathaniel, letter written to, 534.

     Manners, Dr. John, letter written to, 319.

     Martin, James, letter written to, 213.

     Maury, James, letter written to, 51.

     Maury, Mr., letters written to, 467, 469.

     Maury, Thomas W., letter written to, 548.

     Mellish, Mr., letters written to, 93, 403.

     McMatron, Thomas Paine, letter written to, 107.

     McPherson, Isaac, letter written to, 42.

     Middleton, Henry, letter written to, 90.

     Milligan, Joseph, letter written to, 568.

     Mitchell, Andrew, letters written to, 6, 483.

     Mole, Baron de, letter written to, 363.

     Monroe, James, letters written to, 34, 123, 130, 394, 407, 550.

     Morrell, Dr., letter written to, 99.


     Nash, Melatiah, letter written to, 29.

     Nelson, Hon. Mr., letter written to, 46.

     Nemours, Dupont de, letters written to, 428, 457, 507, 589.

     Nicholas, Governor, letters written to, 560, 578.


     Onis, Chevalier de, letter written to, 341.


     Patterson, Dr. R. M., letters written to, 10, 17, 26, 83, 301, 396,
       397.

     Partridge, Captain, letters written to, 495, 510.

     Peale, Mr., letter written to, 6.

     Pintard, John, letter written to, 289.

     Plumer, Governor, letter written to, 414.

     President of the United States, letters written to, 47, 57, 58, 70,
       77, 101, 111, 133, 385, 391, 452.

     Putty, Thomas, letter written to, 34.


     Ritchie, Thomas, letter written to, 532.

     Roane, Judge, letter written to, 493.

     Rodman, Mr., letter written to, 54.

     Ronaldson, Mr., letter written to, 91.

     Rodney, Cæsar A., letter written to, 448.


     Sargeant, Ezra, letter written to, 42.

     Say, Jean Baptiste, letter written to, 430.

     Shecut, John, letter written to, 153.

     Short, Wm., letters written to, 127, 398.

     Serra, Correa de., letters written to, 405, 595.

     Small, Abraham, letter written to, 346.

     Smith, Samuel H., letter written to, 383.

     Spafford, Horatio G., letter written to, 334.

     Stael, Madame de, letter written to, 481.


     Taylor, John, letter written to, 604.

     Tessé, Madame de, letter written to, 271.

     Thompson, Charles, letter written to, 518.

     Todd, Paine, letter written to, 16.

     Torrence, W. H., letter written to, 460.

     Tyler, Judge, letter written to, 65.


     Valentin, Don de Toronda Coruna, letter written to, 273

     Vander Kemp, Mr., letters written to, 44, 593.

     Vaughan, John, letter written to, 416.


     Watson, John F., letter written to, 345.

     Wendover, Mr., letter written to, 444.

     Wheaton, Dr., letter written to, 43.

     Wilson, John, letter written to, 190.

     Wilson, Dr. Peter, letter written to, 529.

     Wirt, William, letters written to, 364, 483.

     Worcester, Rev. Mr., letter written to, 538.

     Wright, Hon. Mr., letter written to, 78.


     Yancey, Colonel, letter written to, 514.


     Address lost, letters written to, 129, 260, 391, 557.


     Adams, John, letters written by, 146, 150, 154, 204, 208, 249,
       251, 254, 263, 316, 324, 357, 473, 474, 491, 500, 545, 554,
       598, 601.




PART III.--CONTINUED.

LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER HIS RETURN TO THE U. S. DOWN TO THE TIME OF HIS
DEATH.

1790-1826.


TO DR. RUSH.

                                            POPLAR FOREST, August 17, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I write to you from a place ninety miles from Monticello,
near the New London of this State, which I visit three or four times a
year, and stay from a fortnight to a month at a time. I have fixed myself
comfortably, keep some books here, bring others occasionally, am in the
solitude of a hermit, and quite at leisure to attend to my absent friends.
I note this to show that I am not in a situation to examine the dates of
our letters, whether I have overgone the annual period of asking how you
do? I know that within that time I have received one or more letters from
you, accompanied by a volume of your introductory lectures, for which
accept my thanks. I have read them with pleasure and edification, for I
acknowledge facts in medicine as far as they go, distrusting only their
extension by theory. Having to conduct my grandson through his course of
mathematics, I have resumed that study with great avidity. It was ever
my favorite one. We have no theories there, no uncertainties remain on
the mind; all is demonstration and satisfaction. I have forgotten much,
and recover it with more difficulty than when in the vigor of my mind
I originally acquired it. It is wonderful to me that old men should not
be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress
of decay. Our old revolutionary friend Clinton, for example, who was a
hero, but never a man of mind, is wonderfully jealous on this head. He
tells eternally the stories of his younger days to prove his memory, as
if memory and reason were the same faculty. Nothing betrays imbecility so
much as the being insensible of it. Had not a conviction of the danger
to which an unlimited occupation of the executive chair would expose
the republican constitution of our government, made it conscientiously
a duty to retire when I did, the fear of becoming a dotard and of being
insensible of it, would of itself have resisted all solicitations to
remain. I have had a long attack of rheumatism, without fever and without
pain while I keep myself still. A total prostration of the muscles of the
back, hips and thighs, deprived me of the power of walking, and leaves it
still in a very impaired state. A pain when I walk, seems to have fixed
itself in the hip, and to threaten permanence. I take moderate rides,
without much fatigue; but my journey to this place, in a hard-going gig,
gave me great sufferings which I expect will be renewed on my return as
soon as I am able. The loss of the power of taking exercise would be a
sore affliction to me. It has been the delight of my retirement to be in
constant bodily activity, looking after my affairs. It was never damped
as the pleasures of reading are, by the question of _cui bono?_ for
what object? I hope your health of body continues firm. Your works show
that of your mind. The habits of exercise which your calling has given
to both, will tend long to preserve them. The sedentary character of my
public occupations sapped a constitution naturally sound and vigorous,
and draws it to an earlier close. But it will still last quite as long
as I wish it. There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not
occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance. We
must continue while here to exchange occasionally our mutual good wishes.
I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the
true old man's milk and restorative cordial. God bless you and preserve
you through a long and healthy old age.


TO WM. A. BURWELL, ESQ.

                                            POPLAR FOREST, August 19, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I am here after a long absence, having been confined at home
a month by rheumatism. I thought myself equal to the journey when I set
out, but I have suffered much coming, staying, and shall, returning.
If I am not better after a little rest at home, I shall set out for
the warm springs. The object of this letter is to inform Mrs. Burwell
that a ring, which she left where she washed the morning of leaving
Fludd's, is safe and will be delivered to her order or to herself when
she passes. I have not seen the President since he came home, nor do I
know what has passed with Foster from the fountain head; but through a
channel in which I have confidence, I learn he has delivered a formal
note in the name of his government, declaring that the circumstances
of the war oblige them to take possession of the ocean, and permit no
commerce on it but through their ports. Thus their purpose is at length
avowed. They cannot from their own resources maintain the navy necessary
to retain the dominion of the ocean, and mean that other nations shall
be assessed to maintain their own chains. Should the king die, as is
probable, although the ministry which would come in stand so committed
to repeal the orders of Council, I doubt if the nation will permit it.
For the usurpation of the sea has become a national disease. This state
of things annihilates the culture of tobacco, except of about 15,000
hhds. on the prime lands. Wheat and Flour keep up. Wheat was at 9s. 6d.
at Richmond ten days ago. I have sold mine here at the Richmond price,
abating 2s., but 8s. a bushel has been offered for machined wheat. Present
me respectfully to Mrs. Burwell, and accept assurances of affectionate
respect and esteem.


TO MR. PEALE.

                                            POPLAR FOREST, August 20, 1811.

It is long, my dear Sir, since we have exchanged a letter. Our former
correspondence had always some little matter of business interspersed;
but this being at an end, I shall still be anxious to hear from you
sometimes, and to know that you are well and happy. I know indeed that
your system is that of contentment under any situation. I have heard that
you have retired from the city to a farm, and that you give your whole
time to that. Does not the museum suffer? And is the farm as interesting?
Here, as you know, we are all farmers, but not in a pleasing style. We
have so little labor in proportion to our land that, although perhaps we
make more profit from the same labor, we cannot give to our grounds that
style of beauty which satisfies the eye of the amateur. Our rotations are
corn, wheat, and clover, or corn, wheat, clover and clover, or wheat,
corn, wheat, clover and clover; preceding the clover by a plastering.
But some, instead of clover substitute mere rest, and all are slovenly
enough. We are adding the care of Merino sheep. I have often thought
that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should
have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market
for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me
as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the
garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection,
the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead
of one harvest a continued one through the year. Under a total want of
demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden.
But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.

Your application to whatever you are engaged in I know to be incessant.
But Sundays and rainy days are always days of writing for the farmer.
Think of me sometimes when you have your pen in hand, and give me
information of your health and occupations; and be always assured of my
great esteem and respect.


TO MR. CLAY.

                                            POPLAR FOREST, August 23, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--While here, and much confined to the house by my rheumatism,
I have amused myself with calculating the hour lines of an horizontal
dial for the latitude of this place, which I find to be 37° 22´ 26´´.
The calculations are for every five minutes of time, and are always
exact to within less than half a second of a degree. As I do not know
that any body here has taken this trouble before, I have supposed a copy
would be acceptable to you. It may be a good exercise for Master Cyrus
to make you a dial by them. He will need nothing but a protractor, or a
line of chords and dividers. A dial of size, say of from twelve inches to
two feet square, is the cheapest and most accurate measure of time for
general use, and would I suppose be more common if every one possessed
the proper horary lines for his own latitude. Williamsburg being very
nearly in the parallel of Poplar Forest, the calculations now sent would
serve for all the counties in the line between that place and this, for
your own place, New London, and Lynchburg in this neighborhood. Slate,
as being less affected by the sun, is preferable to wood or metal, and
needs but a saw and plane to prepare it, and a knife point to mark the
lines and figures. If worth the trouble, you will of course use the
paper enclosed; if not, some of your neighbors may wish to do it, and
the effect to be of some use to you will strengthen the assurances of
my great esteem and respect.


TO LEVI LINCOLN, ESQ.

                                               MONTICELLO, August 25, 1811.

It is long, my good friend, since we have exchanged a letter; and yet
I demur to all prescription against it. I cannot relinquish the right
of correspondence with those I have learnt to esteem. If the extension
of common acquaintance in public life be an inconvenience, that with
select worth is more than a counterpoise. Be assured your place is high
among those whose remembrance I have brought with me into retirement,
and cherish with warmth. I was overjoyed when I heard you were appointed
to the supreme bench of national justice, and as much mortified when I
heard you had declined it. You are too young to be entitled to withdraw
your services from your country. You cannot yet number the _quadraginta
stipendia_ of the veteran. Our friends, whom we left behind, have ceased
to be friends among themselves. I am sorry for it, on their account
and on my own, for I have sincere affection for them all. I hope it
will produce no schisms among us, no desertions from our ranks; that no
Essex man will find matter of triumph in it. The secret treasons of his
heart, and open rebellions on his tongue, will still be punished, while
_in fieri_, by the detestation of his country, and by its vengeance in
the overt act. What a pity that history furnishes so many abuses of the
punishment by exile, the most rational of all punishments for meditated
treason. Their great king beyond the water would doubtless receive them as
kindly as his Asiatic prototype did the fugitive aristocracy of Greece.
But let us turn to good-humored things. How do you do? What are you
doing? Does the farm or the study occupy your time, or each by turns? Do
you read law or divinity? And which affords the most curious and cunning
learning? Which is most disinterested? And which was it that crucified
its Saviour? Or were the two professions united among the Jews? In that
case, what must their Caiaphases have been? Answer me these questions,
or any others you like better, but let me hear from you and know that
you are well and happy. That you may long continue so is the prayer of
yours affectionately.


TO MR. JAMES L. EDWARDS.

                                             MONTICELLO, September 5, 1811.

SIR,--Your letter of August 20th has truly surprised me. In this it is
said that, _for certain services performed_ by Mr. James Lyon and Mr.
Samuel Morse, formerly editors of the Savannah Republican, I promised
them the sum of one thousand dollars. This, Sir, is totally unfounded. I
never promised to any printer on earth the sum of one thousand dollars,
nor any other sum, for certain services performed, or for any services
which that expression would imply. I have had no accounts with printers
but for their newspapers, for which I have paid always the ordinary price
and no more. I have occasionally joined in moderate contributions to
printers, as I have done to other descriptions of persons, distressed or
persecuted, not by promise, but the actual payment of what I contributed.
When Mr. Morse went to Savannah, he called on me and told me he meant to
publish a paper there, for which I subscribed, and paid him the year in
advance. I continued to take it from his successors, Everett & McLean,
and Everett & Evans, and paid for it at different epochs up to December
31, 1808, when I withdrew my subscription. You say McLean informed you
"he had some expectation of getting the money, as he had received a
letter from me on the subject." If such a letter exists under my name,
it is a forgery. I never wrote but a single letter to him, that was of
the 28th of January, 1810, and was on the subject of the last payment
made for his newspaper, and on no other subject; and I have two receipts
of his, (the last dated March 9, 1809,) of payments for his paper, both
stating to be _in full of all demands_, and a letter of the 17th of April,
1810, in reply to mine, manifestly showing he had no demand against me
of any other nature. The promise is said to have been made to Morse &
Lyon. Were Mr. Morse living, I should appeal to him with confidence, as
I believe him to have been a very honest man. Mr. Lyon I suppose to be
living, and will, I am sure, acquit me of any such transaction as that
alleged. The truth, then, being that I never made the promise suggested,
nor any one of a like nature to any printer or other person whatever,
every principle of justice and of self-respect requires that I should
not listen to any such demand.


TO MR. JAMES LYON.

                                             MONTICELLO, September 5, 1811.

SIR,--I enclose you the copy of a letter I have received from a James
L. Edwards, of Boston. You will perceive at once its swindling object.
It appeals to two dead men, and one, (yourself,) whom he supposes I
cannot get at. I have written him an answer which may perhaps prevent
his persevering in the attempt, for the whole face of his letter betrays
a consciousness of its guilt. But perhaps he may expect that I would
sacrifice a sum of money rather than be disturbed with encountering a bold
falsehood. In this he is mistaken; and to prepare to meet him, should
he repeat his demand, and considering that he has presumed to implicate
your name in this attempt, I take the liberty of requesting a letter
from you bearing testimony to the truth of my never having made to you,
or within your knowledge or information, any such promise to yourself,
your partner Morse, or any other. My confidence in your character leaves
me without a doubt of your honest aid in repelling this base and bold
attempt to fix on me practices to which no honors or powers in this world
would ever have induced me to stoop. I have solicited none, intrigued
for none. Those which my country has thought proper to confide to me
have been of their own mere motion, unasked by me. Such practices as
this letter-writer imputes to me, would have proved me unworthy of their
confidence.

It is long since I have known anything of your situation or pursuits. I
hope they have been successful, and tender you my best wishes that they
may continue so, and for your own health and happiness.


TO DOCTOR PATTERSON.

                                            MONTICELLO, September 11, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--The enclosed work came to me without a scrip of a pen
other than what you see in the title-page--"A Monsieur le President
de la Société." From this I conclude it intended for the Philosophical
Society, and for them I now enclose it to you. You will find the notes
really of value. They embody and ascertain to us all the scraps of
new discoveries which we have learned in detached articles from less
authentic publications. M. Goudin has generally expressed his measures
according to the old as well as the new standard, which is a convenience
to me, as I do not make a point of retaining the last in my memory.
I confess, indeed, I do not like the new system of French measures,
because not the best, and adapted to a standard accessible to themselves
exclusively, and to be obtained by other nations only from them. For, on
examining the map of the earth, you will find no meridian on it but the
one passing through their country, offering the extent of land on both
sides of the 45th degree, and terminating at both ends in a portion of
the ocean which the conditions of the problem for an universal standard
of measures require. Were all nations to agree therefore to adopt this
standard, they must go to Paris to ask it; and they might as well long
ago have all agreed to adopt the French foot, the standard of which they
could equally have obtained from Paris. Whereas the pendulum is equally
fixed by the laws of nature, is in possession of every nation, may be
verified everywhere and by every person, and at an expense within every
one's means. I am not therefore without a hope that the other nations
of the world will still concur, some day, in making the pendulum the
basis of a common system of measures, weights and coins, which applied
to the present metrical systems of France and of other countries, will
render them all intelligible to one another. England and this country
may give it a beginning, notwithstanding the war they are entering
into. The republic of letters is unaffected by the wars of geographical
divisions of the earth. France, by her power and science, now bears down
everything. But that power has its measure in time by the life of one
man. The day cannot be distant in the history of human revolutions, when
the indignation of mankind will burst forth, and an insurrection of the
universe against the political tyranny of France will overwhelm all her
arrogations. Whatever is most opposite to them will be most popular, and
what is reasonable therefore in itself, cannot fail to be adopted the
sooner from that motive. But why leave this adoption to the tardy will
of governments who are always, in their stock of information, a century
or two behind the intelligent part of mankind, and who have interests
against touching ancient institutions? Why should not the college of the
literary societies of the world adopt the second pendulum as the unit
of measure on the authorities of reason, convenience and common consent?
And why should not our society open the proposition by a circular letter
to the other learned institutions of the earth? If men of science,
in their publications, would express measures always in multiples and
decimals of the pendulum, annexing their value in municipal measures as
botanists add the popular to the botanical names of plants, they would
soon become familiar to all men of instruction, and prepare the way for
legal adoptions. At any rate, it would render the writers of every nation
intelligible to the readers of every other, when expressing the measures
of things. The French, I believe, have given up their Decada Calendar,
but it does not appear that they retire from the centesimal division of
the quadrant. On the contrary, M. Borda has calculated according to that
division, new trigonometrical tables not yet, I believe, printed. In the
excellent tables of Callet, lately published by Didot, in stereotype,
he has given a table of Logarithmic lines and tangents for the hundred
degrees of the quadrant, abridged from Borda's manuscript. But he has
given others for the sexagesimal division, which being for every 10´´
through the whole table, are more convenient than Hutton's, Scherwin's,
or any of their predecessors. It cannot be denied that the centesimal
division would facilitate our arithmetic, and that it might have been
preferable had it been originally adopted, as a numeration by eighths
would have been more convenient than by tens. But the advantages would
not now compensate the embarrassments of a change.

I extremely regret the not being provided with a time-piece equal to the
observations of the approaching eclipse of the sun. Can you tell me what
would be the cost in Philadelphia of a clock, the time-keeping part of
which should be perfect? And what the difference of cost between a wooden
and gridiron pendulum? To be of course without a striking apparatus, as
it would be wanted for astronomical purposes only. Accept assurances of
affectionate esteem and respect.


TO CLEMENT CAINE, ESQ.

                                            MONTICELLO, September 16, 1811.

SIR,--Your favor of April 2d was not