, and continuing there. Come
then and see the proofs of this, and on your return add your testimony
to that of every thinking American, in order to satisfy our countrymen
how much it is their interest to preserve, uninfected by contagion,
those peculiarities in their governments and manners, to which they
are indebted for those blessings. Adieu, my dear friend; present me
affectionately to your colleagues. If any of them think me worth writing
to, they may be assured that in the epistolary account I will keep the
debit side against them. Once more, adieu.

Yours affectionately,

Th: Jefferson.

P.S. June 19. Since writing the above we have received the following
account: Monsieur Pilatre de Roziere, who had been waiting for some
months at Boulogne for a fair wind to cross the channel, at length took
his ascent with a companion. The wind changed after a while, and brought
him back on the French coast. Being at a height of about six thousand
feet, some accident happened to his balloon of inflammable air; it
burst, they fell from that height, and were crushed to atoms. There
was a montgolfier combined with the balloon of inflammable air. It is
suspected the heat of the montgolfier rarefied too much the inflammable
air of the other, and occasioned it to burst. The montgolfier came down
in good order.

T.J.

LETTER LXV.--TO CHARLES THOMSON, June 21, 1785

TO CHARLES THOMSON.

Paris, June 21, 1785.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of March the 6th has come duly to hand. You therein
acknowledge the receipt of mine of November the 11th; at that time you
could not have received my last, of February the 8th. At present there
is so little new in politics, literature, or the arts, that I write
rather to prove to you my desire of nourishing your correspondence
than of being able to give you any thing interesting at this time. The
political world is almost lulled to sleep by the lethargic state of the
Dutch negotiation, which will probably end in peace. Nor does this court
profess to apprehend, that the Emperor will involve this hemisphere
in war by his schemes on Bavaria and Turkey. The arts, instead of
advancing, have lately received a check, which will probably render
stationary for a while, that branch of them which had promised to
elevate us to the skies. Pilatre de Roziere, who had first ventured into
that region, has fallen a sacrifice to it. In an attempt to pass from
Boulogne over to England, a change in the win