themselves with a control over their government.  He has asseverated to me a thousand times his determination that the existing government should have a fair trial, and that in support of it he would spend the last drop of his blood.  He did this the more repeatedly, because he knew General Hamilton’s political bias, and my apprehensions from it.  It is a mere calumny, therefore, in the monarchists, to associate General Washington with their principles.  But that may have happened in this case which has been often seen in ordinary cases, that, by often repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.  It is a mere artifice in this party, to bolster themselves up on the revered name of that first of our worthies.  If I have dwelt longer on this subject than was necessary, it proves the estimation in which I hold your ultimate opinions, and my desire of placing the subject truly before them.  In so doing, I am certain I risk no use of the communication which may draw me into contention before the public.  Tranquillity is the summum bonum of a Septagenaire.

To return to the merits of your work; I consider it as so lively a picture of the real state of our country, that if I can possibly obtain opportunities of conveyance, I propose to send a copy to a friend in France, and another to one in Italy, who, I know, will translate and circulate it as an antidote to the misrepresentations of former travellers.  But whatever effect my profession of political faith may have on your general opinion, a part of my object will be obtained, if it satisfies you as to the principles of my own action, and of the high respect and consideration with which I tender you my salutations.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CVII.—­TO MADAME LA BARONNE DE STAEL-HOLSTEIN, May 24, 1818

TO MADAME LA BARONNE DE STAEL-HOLSTEIN.

United States of America,

May 24, 1818.

I received with great pleasure, my dear Madam and friend, your letter of November the 10th, from Stockholm, and am sincerely gratified by the occasion it gives me of expressing to you the sentiments of high respect and esteem which I entertain for you.  It recalls to my remembrance a happy portion of my life, passed in your native city; then the seat of the most amiable and polished society of the world, and of which yourself and your venerable father were such distinguished members.  But of what scenes has it since been the theatre, and with what havoc has it overspread the earth!  Robespierre met the fate, and his memory the execration, he so justly merited.  The rich were his victims, and perished by thousands.  It is by millions that Bonaparte destroys the poor, and he is eulogized and deified by the sycophants—­even of science.  These merit more than the mere oblivion to which they will be consigned; and the day will come when a just posterity will give to their hero the only pre-eminence