Accept my affectionate salutations.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XXIX.—­TO MR. HARRIS, April 18, 1806

To Mr. Harris.

Washington, April 18, 1806.

Sir,

It is now some time since I received from you, through the house of Smith and Buchanan, at Baltimore, a bust of the Emperor Alexander, for which I have to return you my thanks.  These are the more cordial, because of the value the bust derives from the great estimation in which its original is held by the world, and by none more than by myself.  It will constitute one of the most valued ornaments of the retreat I am preparing for myself at my native home.  Accept, at the same time, my acknowledgments for the elegant work of Atkinson and Walker on the customs of the Russians.  I had laid it down as a law for my conduct while in office, and hitherto scrupulously observed, to accept of no present beyond a book, a pamphlet, or other curiosity of minor value; as well to avoid imputations on my motives of action, as to shut out a practice susceptible of such abuse.  But my particular esteem for the character of the Emperor places his image in my mind above the scope of law.  I receive it, therefore, and shall cherish it with affection.  It nourishes the contemplation of all the good placed in his power, and of his disposition to do it.

A little before Dr. Priestley’s death, he informed me that he had received intimations, through a channel he confided in, that the Emperor entertained a wish to know something of our constitution.  I have therefore selected the two best works we have on that subject, for which I pray you to ask a place in his library.  They are too much in detail to occupy his time; but they will furnish materials for an abstract, to be made by others, on such a scale as may bring the matter within the compass of the time which his higher callings can yield to such an object.

At a very early period of my life, contemplating the history of the aboriginal inhabitants of America, I was led to believe that if there had ever been a relation between them and the men of color in Asia, traces of it would be found in their several languages.  I have therefore availed myself of every opportunity which has offered, to obtain vocabularies of such tribes as have been within my reach, corresponding to a list then formed of about two hundred and fifty words.  In this I have made such progress, that within a year or two more I think to give to the public what I then shall have acquired.  I have lately seen a report of Mr. Volney’s to the Celtic Academy, on a work of Mr. Pallas, entitled Vocabulaires Compares des Langues de toute la Terre; with a list of one hundred and thirty words, to which the vocabulary is limited.  I find that seventy-three of these words are common to that and to my vocabulary, and therefore will enable us, by a comparison of language,