to get here before the winter sets in.  I look forward with great fondness to the moment, when I can again see my own country and my own neighbors, and endeavor to anticipate as little as possible the pain of another separation from them.  I hope I shall find you all under the peaceable establishment of the new constitution, which, as far as I can judge from public papers, seems to have become necessary for the happiness of our country.  I thank you for your kind inquiries about my wrist.  I followed advice with it, till I saw, visibly, that the joint had never been replaced, and that it was absurd to expect that cataplasms and waters would reduce dislocated bones.  From that moment I have done nothing.  I have for ever lost the use of my hand, except that I can write:  and a withered hand and swelled and crooked fingers, still remaining twenty-seven months after the accident, make me fear I do not yet know the worst of it.  But this, too, we will talk over at Monticello, and endeavor that it be the only pain to which our attention may be recalled.  Adieu, my dear friend.  Kiss and bless every body for me, Mrs. Gilmer especially.  Assure her and yourself of the sincere and constant attachment of, Dear Doctor, your affectionate friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXVI.—­TO THOMAS PAINE, December 23,1788

TO THOMAS PAINE.

Paris, December 23,1788.

Dear Sir,

It is true that I received very long ago your favors of September the 9th and 15th, and that I have been in daily intention of answering them, fully and confidentially; but you know such a correspondence between you and me cannot pass through the post, nor even by the couriers of ambassadors.  The French packet-boats being discontinued, I am now obliged to watch opportunities by Americans going to London, to write my letters to America.  Hence it has happened, that these, the sole opportunities by which I can write to you without fear, have been lost, by the multitude of American letters I had to write.  I now determine, without foreseeing any such conveyance, to begin my letter to you, so that when a conveyance occurs, I shall only have to add recent occurrences.  Notwithstanding the interval of my answer which has taken place, I must beg a continuance of your correspondence; because I have great confidence in your communications, and since Mr. Adams’s departure, I am in need of authentic information from that country.

I will begin with the subject of your bridge, in which I feel myself interested; and it is with great pleasure that I learn, by your favor of the 16th, that the execution of the arch of experiment exceeds your expectations.  In your former letter you mention, that, instead of arranging your tubes and bolts as ordinates to the cord of the arch, you had reverted to your first idea, of arranging them in the direction of radii.  I am sure it will gain both in beauty and strength.