Europe, pax et panis would certainly be my motto.  Wars and contentions, indeed, fill the pages of history with more matter.  But more blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.  This is what I ambition for my own country, and what it has fortunately enjoyed now upwards of twenty years, while Europe has been in constant volcanic eruption.  I again, my friend, repeat my joy that you have escaped the overwhelming torrent of its lava.

At the end of my present term, of which two years are yet to come, I propose to retire from public life, and to close my days on my patrimony of Monticello, in the bosom of my family.  I have hitherto enjoyed uniform health; but the weight of public business begins to be too heavy for me, and I long for the enjoyments of rural life, among my books, my farms, and my family.  Having performed my quadragena stipendia, I am entitled to my discharge, and should be sorry, indeed, that others should be sooner sensible than myself when I ought to ask it.  I have, therefore, requested my fellow-citizens to think of a successor for me, to whom I shall deliver the public concerns with greater joy than I received them.  I have the consolation too of having added nothing to my private fortune, during my public service, and of retiring with hands as clean as they are empty.  Pardon me these egoisms, which, if ever excusable, are so when writing to a friend to whom our concerns are not uninteresting.  I shall always be glad to hear of your health and happiness, and having been out of the way of hearing of any of our cotemporaries of the corps diplomatique at Paris, any details of their subsequent history, which you will favor me with, will be thankfully received.  I pray you to make my friendly respects acceptable to Madame la Comtesse Diodati, to assure M. Tronchin of my continued esteem, and to accept yourself my affectionate salutations, and assurances of constant attachment and respect.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XLII.—­TO MR. BOWDOIN, April 2, 1807

TO MR. BOWDOIN.

Washington, April 2, 1807.

Dear Sir,

I wrote you on the 10th of July last; but neither your letter of October the 20th nor that of November the 15th mentioning the receipt of it, I fear it has miscarried.  I therefore now enclose a duplicate.  As that was to go under cover of the Secretary of State’s despatches by any vessel going from our distant ports, I retained the polygraph therein mentioned for a safer conveyance.  None such has occurred till now, that the United States’ armed brig the Wasp, on her way to the Mediterranean is to touch at Falmouth, with despatches for our ministers at London, and at Brest, with others for yourself and General Armstrong.