of Mr. Sprowle is
yet unsold. It was advertised so long ago, as to found a presumption
that the sale has taken place. In any event, you may safely go to
Virginia. It is in the London newspapers only, that exist those mobs and
riots, which are fabricated to deter strangers from going to America.
Your person will be sacredly safe, and free from insult. You can best
judge from the character and qualities of your son, whether he may be
an useful co-adjutor to you there. I suppose him to have taken side with
the British, before our Declaration of Independence; and, if this was
the case, I respect the candor of the measure, though I do not its
wisdom. A right to take the side which every man's conscience approves
in a civil contest, is too precious a right, and too favorable to the
preservation of liberty, not to be protected by all its well informed
friends. The Assembly of Virginia have given sanction to this right
in several of their laws, discriminating honorably those who took
side against us before the Declaration of Independence, from those
who remained among us, and strove to injure us by their treacheries.
I sincerely wish that you, and every other to whom this distinction
applies favorably, may find, in the Assembly of Virginia, the good
effects of that justice and generosity, which have dictated to them
this discrimination. It is a sentiment which will gain strength in their
breasts, in proportion as they can forget the savage cruelties committed
on them, and will, I hope, in the end, reduce them to restore the
property itself, wherever it is unsold, and the price received for it,
where it has been actually sold.

I am, Madam,

your very humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXX.--TO JOHN ADAMS, July 7, 1785

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Paris, July 7, 1785.

Dear Sir,

This will accompany a joint letter enclosing the draft of a treaty? and
my private letter of June 23rd, which has waited so long for a private
conveyance. We daily expect from the Baron Thulemeyer the French column
for our treaty with his sovereign. In the mean while, two copies are
preparing with the English column, which Dr. Franklin wishes to sign
before his departure, which will be within four or five days. The
French, when received, will be inserted in the blank columns of each
copy. As the measure of signing at separate times and places is new, we
think it necessary to omit no other circumstance of ceremony which can
be observed. Tha