Provincial Assemblies are already in action, and are going on well:  and I think, that, though the nation suffers in reputation, it will gain infinitely in happiness under the present administration.  I enclose to Mr. Jay a pamphlet, which I will beg of you to forward.  I leave it open for your perusal.  When you shall have read it, be so good as to stick a wafer in it.  It is not yet published, nor will be for some days.  This copy has been ceded to me as a favor.

How do you like our new constitution?  I confess there are things in it, which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an Assembly has proposed.  The House of federal representatives will not be adequate to the management of affairs, either foreign or federal.  Their President seems a bad edition of a Polish King.  He may be elected from four years to four years, for life.  Reason and experience prove to us, that a chief magistrate, so continuable, is an office for life.  When one or two generations shall have proved, that this is an office for life, it becomes, on every succession, worthy of intrigue, of bribery, of force, and even of foreign interference.  It will be of great consequence to France and England, to have America governed by a Galloman or Angloman.  Once in office, and possessing the military force of the Union, without the aid or check of a council, he would not be easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to withdraw their votes from him.  I wish that at the end of the four years, they had made him for ever ineligible a second time.  Indeed, I think all the good of this new constitution might have been couched in three or four new articles to be added to the good, old, and venerable fabric, which should have been preserved even as a religious relique.  Present me and my daughters affectionately to Mrs. Adams.  The younger one continues to speak of her warmly.  Accept yourself assurances of the sincere esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXIV.—­TO COLONEL SMITH, November 13, 1787

TO COLONEL SMITH.

Paris, November 13, 1787.

Sir,

I am now to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of October the 4th, 8th, and 26th.  In the last, you apologize for your letters of introduction to Americans coming here.  It is so far from needing apology on your part, that it calls for thanks on mine.  I endeavor to show civilities to all the Americans who come here, and who will give me opportunities of doing it:  and it is a matter of comfort to know, from a good quarter, what they are, and how far I may go in my attentions to them.