mitted none on
the report of others, which were not supported by evidence sufficient to
command my own assent, I am not afraid that you should make any extracts
you please for the Journal de Physique, which come within their plan
of publication. The strictures on slavery and on the constitution of
Virginia, are not of that kind, and they are the parts which I do
not wish to have made public, at least, till I know whether their
publication would do most harm or good. It is possible, that in my
own country, these strictures might produce an irritation, which would
indispose the people towards the two great objects I have in view,
that is, the emancipation of their slaves, and the settlement of their
constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis. If I learn from
thence, that they will not produce that effect, I have printed and
reserved just copies enough to be able to give one to every young man at
the College. It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not
to the one now in power, for these great reformations. The other copy,
delivered at your hotel, was for Monsieur de Buffon. I meant to ask the
favor of you to have it sent to him, as I was ignorant how to do it. I
have one also for Monsieur Daubenton, but being utterly unknown to him,
I cannot take the liberty of presenting it, till I can do it through
some common acquaintance.

I will beg leave to say here a few words on the general question of the
degeneracy of animals in America. 1. As to the degeneracy of the man of
Europe transplanted to America, it is no part of Monsieur de Buffon's
system. He goes, indeed, within one step of it, but he stops there. The
Abbe Raynal alone has taken that step. Your knowledge of America enables
you to judge this question; to say, whether the lower class of people
in America, are less informed, and less susceptible of information,
than the lower class in Europe: and whether those in America who have
received such an education as that country can give, are less improved
by it than Europeans of the same degree of education. 2. As to the
aboriginal man of America, I know of no respectable evidence on which
the opinion of his inferiority of genius has been founded, but that of
Don Ulloa. As to Robertson, he never was in America; he relates nothing
on his own knowledge; he is a compiler only of the relations of others,
and a mere translator of the opinions of Monsieur de Buffon. I should
as soon, therefore, add the translator