and of removing those causes of bickering and irritation, which should never be permitted to subsist with a nation, with which it is so much our interest to be on cordial terms as with France.  A very small portion of this debt, I mean that part due to the French officers, has done us an injury, of which those in office in America cannot have an idea.  The interest is unpaid for the last three years; and these creditors, highly connected, and at the same time needy, have felt and communicated hard thoughts of us.  Borrowing, as we have done, three hundred thousand florins a year, to pay our interest in Holland, it would have been worth while to have added twenty thousand more, to suppress those clamors.  I am anxious about every thing which may affect our credit.  My wish would be, to possess it in the highest degree, but to use it little.  Were we without credit, we might be crushed by a nation of much inferior resources, but possessing higher credit.  The present system of war renders it necessary to make exertions far beyond the annual resources of the State, and consume in one year the efforts of many.  And this system we cannot change.  It remains, then, that we cultivate our credit with the utmost attention.

I had intended to have written a word to your Excellency on the subject of the new constitution, but I have already spun out my letter to an immoderate length.  I will just observe, therefore, that according to my ideas, there is a great deal of good in it.  There are two things, however, which I dislike strongly, 1.  The want of a declaration of rights.  I am in hopes the opposition in Virginia will remedy this, and produce such a declaration. 2.  The perpetual re-eligibility of the President.  This, I fear, will make that an office for life, first, and then hereditary.  I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe.  I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are.  There is scarcely an evil known in these countries, which may not be traced to their king, as its source, nor a good, which is not derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them.  I can further say, with safety, there is not a crowned head in Europe, whose talents or merits would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.  However, I shall hope, that before there is danger of this change taking place in the office of President, the good sense and free spirit of our countrymen will make the changes necessary to prevent it.  Under this hope, I look forward to the general adoption of the new constitution with anxiety, as necessary for us under our present circumstances.  I have so much trespassed on your patience already, by the length of this letter, that I will add nothing further, than those assurances of sincere esteem and attachment, with which I have the honor to be, your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXXXIII.—­TO JAMES MADISON, May 3,1788