is. Among these are some, as you will
perceive, of which I ask your acceptance. It is a great comfort to me,
that while here, I am able to furnish some amusement to my friends, by
sending them such productions of genius, ancient and modern, as might
otherwise escape them; and I hope they will permit me to avail myself of
the occasion, while it lasts.

This world is going all to war. I hope ours will remain clear of it. It
is already declared between the Turks and Russians, and considering the
present situation of Holland, it cannot fail to spread itself all over
Europe. Perhaps it may not be till next spring, that the other powers
will be engaged in it: nor is it as yet clear, how they will arrange
themselves. I think it not impossible, that France and the two empires
may join against all the rest. The Patriotic party in Holland will
be saved by this, and the Turks sacrificed. The only thing which can
prevent the union of France and the two empires, is the difficulty of
agreeing about the partition of the spoils. Constantinople is the key of
Asia. Who shall have it, is the question. I cannot help looking forward
to the re-establishment of the Greeks as a people, and the language of
Homer becoming again a living language, as among possible events. You
have now with you Mr. Paradise, who can tell you how easily the modern
may be improved into the ancient Greek.

You ask me in your letter, what ameliorations I think necessary in our
federal constitution. It is now too late to answer the question, and
it would always have been presumption in me to have done it. Your own
ideas, and those of the great characters who were to be concerned with
you in these discussions, will give the law, as they ought to do, to us
all. My own general idea was, that the States should severally preserve
their sovereignty in whatever concerns themselves alone, and that
whatever may concern another State, or any foreign nation, should be
made a part of the federal sovereignty: that the exercise of the federal
sovereignty should be divided among three several bodies, legislative,
executive, and judiciary, as the State sovereignties are: and that
some peaceable means should be contrived, for the federal head to force
compliance on the part of the States. I have reflected on your idea of
wooden or ivory diagrams, for the geometrical demonstrations. I should
think wood as good as ivory; and that in this case, it might add to the
improvement of the you