ch you are entitled, would induce me to be contented with
saying, what is a certain truth, that the world would be pleased with
seeing them heaped on you, and would consider your receiving them as no
derogation from your reputation. But I must own that the declining them
will add to that reputation, as it will show that your motives have
been pure and without any alloy. This testimony, however, is not wanting
either to those who know you, or who do not. I must therefore repeat,
that I think the receiving them will not, in the least, lessen the
respect of the world, if from any circumstances they would be convenient
to you. The candor of my communication will find its justification, I
know, with you.

A tolerable certainty of peace leaves little interesting in the way of
intelligence. Holland and the emperor will be quiet. If any thing is
brewing, it is between the latter and the Porte. Nothing in prospect as
yet from England. We shall bring them, however, to a decision, now that
Mr. Adams is received there. I wish much to hear that the canal through
the Dismal Swamp is resumed.

I have the honor to be, with the highest respect and esteem,

Dear Sir, your most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXXII.--TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA, July 11, 1785

TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.

Paris, July 11, 1785.

Sir,

Mr. Houdon's long and desperate illness has retarded, till now, his
departure for Virginia. We had hoped, from our first conversations with
him, that it would be easy to make our terms, and that the cost of
the statue and expense of sending him, would be but about a thousand
guineas. But when we came to settle this precisely, he thought himself
obliged to ask vastly more insomuch, that, at one moment, we thought
our treaty at an end. But unwilling to commit such a work to an inferior
hand, we made nim an ultimate proposition on our part. He was as much
mortified at the prospect of not being the executor of such a work, as
we were, not to have it done by such a hand. He therefore acceded to our
terms; though we are satisfied he will be a considerable loser. We were
led to insist on them, because, in a former letter to the Governor,
I had given the hope we entertained of bringing the whole within one
thousand guineas. The terms are twenty-five thousand livres, or one
thousand English guineas (the English guinea being worth twenty-five
livres) for the statue and pedestal. Besides