will be a cheap price for the preceding
articles; and let the same act declare your immediate separation till
the next anniversary meeting. You will carry back to your constituents
more good than ever was effected before without violence, and you will
stop exactly at the point where violence would otherwise begin. Time
will be gained, the public mind will continue to ripen and to be
informed, a basis of support may be prepared with the people themselves,
and expedients occur for gaining still something further at your next
meeting, and for stopping again at the point of force. I have ventured
to send yourself and Monsieur de la Fayette a sketch of my ideas of
what this act might contain, without endangering any dispute. But it is
offered merely as a canvass for you to work on, if it be fit to work on
at all. I know too little of the subject, and you know too much of it,
to justify me in offering any thing but a hint. I have done it, too, in
a hurry: insomuch, that since committing it to writing, it occurs to
me that the fifth article may give alarm; that it is in a good degree
included in the fourth, and is, therefore, useless. But after all,
what excuse can I make, Sir, for this presumption. I have none but an
unmeasurable love for your nation, and a painful anxiety lest despotism,
after an unaccepted offer to bind its own hands, should seize you again
with tenfold fury. Permit me to add to these, very sincere assurances of
the sentiments of esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be,
Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

[The annexed is the Charter accompanying the preceding letter.]

A Charter of Rights, solemnly established by the King and Nation.

1. The States General shall assemble, uncalled, on the first day of
November, annually, and shall remain together so long as they shall
see cause. They shall regulate their own elections and proceedings, and
until they shall ordain otherwise, their elections shall be in the forms
observed in the present year, and shall be triennial.

2. The States General alone shall levy money on the nation, and shall
appropriate it.

3. Laws shall be made by the States General only, with the consent of
the King.

4. No person shall be restrained of his liberty, but by regular process
from a court of justice, authorized by a general law. (Except that a
Noble may be imprisoned by order of a court of justice, on the prayer
of twe