of misanthropy,--so unnatural to Patrick Henry,--is perhaps a
token of that sickness of body which had made the soul sick too, and
had then driven the writer into the wilderness, and still kept him
there:--

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

LEATHERWOOD, 15th Feby., 1780.

DEAR SIR,--I return you many thanks for your favor by Mr.
Sanders. The kind notice you were pleased to take of me was
particularly obliging, as I have scarcely heard a word of
public matters since I moved up in the retirement where I
live.

I have had many anxieties for our commonwealth, principally
occasioned by the depreciation of our money. To judge by
this, which somebody has called the pulse of the state, I
have feared that our body politic was dangerously sick. God
grant it may not be unto death. But I cannot forbear
thinking, the present increase of prices is in great part
owing to a kind of habit, which is now of four or five
years' growth, which is fostered by a mistaken avarice, and
like other habits hard to part with. For there is really
very little money hereabouts.

What you say of the practice of our distinguished Tories
perfectly agrees with my own observation, and the attempts
to raise prejudices against the French, I know, were begun
when I lived below. What gave me the utmost pain was to see
some men, indeed very many, who were thought good Whigs,
keep company with the miscreants,--wretches who, I am
satisfied, were laboring our destruction. This countenance
shown them is of fatal tendency. They should be shunned and
execrated, and this is the only way to supply the place of
legal conviction and punishment. But this is an effort of
virtue, small as it seems, of which our countrymen are not
capable.

Indeed, I will own to you, my dear Sir, that observing this
impunity and even respect, which some wicked individuals
have met with while their guilt was clear as the sun, has
sickened me, and made me sometimes wish to be in retirement
for the rest of my life. I will, however, be down, on the
next Assembly, if I am chosen. My health, I am satisfied,
will never again permit a close application to sedentary
business, and I even doubt whether I can remain below long
enough to serve in the Assembly. I will, however, make the