Th:  Jefferson.

P. S. August the 11th.  I had finished my letter yesterday, and this morning receive the news of Bonaparte’s second abdication.  Very well.  For him personally, I have no feeling but reprobation.  The representatives of the nation have deposed him.  They have taken the allies at their word, that they had no object in the war but his removal.  The nation is now free to give itself a good government, either with or without a Bourbon; and France unsubdued, will still be a bridle on the enterprises of the combined powers, and a bulwark to others.  T.J.

LETTER CXXIX.—­TO DABNEY CARR, January 19, 1816

TO DABNEY CARR.

Monticello, January 19, 1816.

Dear Sir,

At the date of your letter of December the 1st, I was in Bedford, and since my return, so many letters, accumulated during my absence, having been pressing for answers, that this is the first moment I have been able to attend to the subject of yours.  While Mr. Girardin was in this neighborhood writing his continuation of Burke’s History, I had suggested to him a proper notice of the establishment of the committee of correspondence here in 1773, and of Mr. Carr, your father, who introduced it.  He has doubtless done this, and his work is now in the press.  My books, journals of the times, &c. being all gone, I have nothing now but an impaired memory to resort to for the more particular statement you wish.  But I give it with the more confidence, as I find that I remember old things better than new.  The transaction took place in the session of Assembly of March 1773.  Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Frank Lee, your father, and myself, met by agreement, one evening, about the close of the session, at the Raleigh Tavern, to consult on the measures which the circumstances of the times seemed to call for.  We agreed, in result, that concert in the operations of the several Colonies was indispensable; and that to produce this, some channel of correspondence between them must be opened:  that, therefore, we would propose to our House the appointment of a committee of correspondence, which should be authorized and instructed to write to the Speakers of the House of Representatives of the several Colonies, recommending the appointment of similar committees on their part, who, by a communication of sentiment on the transactions threatening us all, might promote a harmony of action salutary to all.  This was the substance, not pretending to remember words.  We proposed the resolution, and your father was agreed on to make the motion.  He did it the next day, March the 12th, with great ability, reconciling all to it, not only by the reasonings, but by the temper and moderation with which it was developed.  It was adopted by a very general vote.  Peyton Randolph, some of us who proposed it, and who else I do not remember, were appointed of the committee.  We immediately