ably so applied, without order, for the purchase of the
outfit. The reason of the thing, the usage of all nations, the usage of
our own, by paying all expenses of preceding ministers, which gave them
the outfit, as far as their circumstances appeared to them to render it
necessary, have made me take for granted all along, that it would not
be refused to me: nor should I have mentioned it now, but that the
administration is passing into other hands, and more complicated forms.
It would be disagreeable to me to be presented to them, in the first
instance, as a suitor. Men come into business at first with visionary
principles. It is practice alone, which can correct and conform them
to the actual current of affairs. In the mean time, those to whom their
errors were first applied, have been their victims. The government may
take up the project of appointing foreign ministers without outfits,
and they may ruin two or three individuals, before they find that that
article is just as indispensable as the salary. They must then fall into
the current of general usage, which has become general, only because
experience has established its necessity. Upon the whole, be so good as
to reflect on it, and to do, not what your friendship to me, but your
opinion of what is right, shall dictate.

Accept, in all cases, assurances of the sincere esteem and respect with
which I am, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXLI.--TO PETER CARU, May 23, 1788

TO PETER CARU.

Paris, May 23, 1788.

Dear Peter,

The preceding letter [* For the letter referred to, see ante, LXXIV.]
was written at its date, and I supposed you in possession of it, when
your letters of December the 10th, 1787, and March the 18th, 1788, told
me otherwise. Still I supposed it on its way to you, when a few days
ago, having occasion to look among some papers in the drawer, where
my letters are usually put away, till an opportunity of sending them
occurs, I found that this letter had slipped among them, so that it
had never been forwarded. I am sorry for it, on account of the remarks
relative to the Spanish language only. Apply to that with all the
assiduity you can. That language and the English covering nearly the
whole face of America, they should be well known to every inhabitant,
who means to look beyond the limits of his farm. I like well the
distribution of your time, mentioned in your letter of March the 18th;
and the counsels of