ause I think
the beauty of a motto is to condense much matter in as few words as
possible. The word omitted will be supplied by every reader.

The European papers have announced, that the Assembly of Virginia were
occupied on the revisal of their code of laws. This, with some other
similar intelligence, has contributed much to convince the people of
Europe, that what the English papers are constantly publishing of our
anarchy, is false; as they are sensible that such a work is that of a
people only, who are in perfect tranquillity. Our act for freedom of
religion is extremely applauded. The ambassadors and ministers of the
several nations of Europe, resident at this court, have asked of me
copies of it, to send to their sovereigns, and it is inserted at full
length in several books now in the press; among others, in the new
_Encyclopedie_. I think it will produce considerable good even in these
countries, where ignorance, superstition, poverty, and oppression of
body and mind, in every form, are so firmly settled on the mass of the
people, that their redemption from them can never be hoped. If all the
sovereigns of Europe were to set themselves to work, to emancipate the
minds of their subjects from their present ignorance and prejudices, and
that, as zealously as they now endeavor the contrary, a thousand years
would not place them on that high ground, on which our common people
are now setting out. Ours could not have been so fairly placed under the
control of the common sense of the people, had they not been separated
from their parent stock, and kept from contamination, either from them,
or the other people of the old world, by the intervention of so wide an
ocean. To know the worth of this, one must see the want of it here. I
think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the
diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can
be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness. If any body
thinks, that kings, nobles, or priests are good conservators of the
public happiness, send him here. It is the best school in the universe
to cure him of that folly. He will see here, with his own eyes, that
these descriptions of men are an abandoned confederacy against the
happiness of the mass of the people. The omnipotence of their effect
cannot be better proved, than in this country particularly, where,
notwithstanding the finest soil upon earth, the finest climate under
heaven, an