ich I have the honor to be, Dear Sir, your most
obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XXXII.--TO JAMES MADISON, December 16, 1786

TO JAMES MADISON.

Paris, December 16, 1786.

Dear Sir,

After a very long silence, I am at length able to write to you. An
unlucky dislocation of my right wrist has disabled me from using that
hand, three months. I now begin to use it a little, but with great pain;
so that this letter must be taken up at such intervals as the state of
my hand will permit, and will probably be the work of some days. Though
the joint seems to be well set, the swelling does not abate, nor the use
of it return. I am now, therefore, on the point of setting out, to
the south of France, to try the use of some mineral waters there, by
immersion. This journey will be of two or three months.

I enclose you herein a copy of the letter from the minister of finance
to me, making several advantageous regulations for our commerce. The
obtaining this has occupied us a twelvemonth. I say us, because I find
the Marquis de la Fayette so useful an auxiliary, that acknowledgements
for his co-operation are always due. There remains still something to do
for the articles of rice, turpentine, and ship duties. What can be done
for tobacco when the late regulation expires, is very uncertain. The
commerce between the United States and this country being put on a good
footing, we may afterwards proceed to try if any thing can be done to
favor our intercourse with her colonies. Admission into them for our
fish and flour, is very desirable: but, unfortunately, both those
articles would raise a competition against their own.

I find by the public papers, that your commercial convention failed in
point of representation. If it should produce a full meeting in May, and
a broader reformation, it will still be well. To make us one nation as
to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in domestic ones, gives
the outline of the proper division of powers between the general and
particular governments. But to enable the federal head to exercise
the powers given it, to best advantage, it should be organized, as the
particular ones are, into legislative, executive, and judiciary. The
first and last are already separated. The second should be. When last
with Congress, I often proposed to members to do this, by making of
the committee of the States an executive committee during the recess of
Congress, and during i