mental to the obtaining this. But while the
purchase of tobacco is monopolized by a company, and they pay for that
monopoly a heavy price to the government, they doubtless are at liberty
to fix such places and terms of purchase, as may enable them to make
good their engagements with government. I see no more reason for
obliging them to give a greater price for tobacco than they think they
can afford, than to do the same between two individuals treating for
a horse, a house, or any thing else. Could this be effected by
applications to the minister, it would only be a palliative which would
retard the ultimate cure, so much to be wished for and aimed at by every
friend to this country, as well as to America.

I have the honor to be, Gentlemen,

your most obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson

LETTER LXXVIII.--TO DR. STILES, July 17,1785

TO DR. STILES.

Sir,

Paris, July 17,1785.

I have long deferred doing myself the honor of writing to you,
wishing for an opportunity to accompany my letter with a copy of the
_Bibliotheque Physico-oeconomique_, a book published here lately in
four small volumes, and which gives an account of all the improvements
in the arts which have been made for some years past. I flatter myself
you will find in it many things agreeable and useful. I accompany it
with the volumes of the _Connoissance des Terns_ for the years 1781,
1784, 1785, 1786, 1787. But why, you will ask, do I send you old
almanacs, which are proverbially useless? Because, in these publications
have appeared, from time to time, some of the most precious things in
astronomy. I have searched out those particular volumes which might be
valuable to you on this account. That of 1781 contains De la Caillie's
catalogue of fixed stars reduced to the commencement of that year, and
a table of the aberrations and nutations of the principal stars. 1784
contains the same catalogue with the _nebuleuses_ of Messier. 1785
contains the famous catalogue of Flamsteed, with the positions of the
stars reduced to the beginning of the year 1784, and which supersedes
the use of that immense book. 1786 gives you Euler's lunar tables
corrected; and 1787, the tables for the planet Herschel. The two last
needed not an apology, as not being within the description of old
almanacs. It is fixed on grounds which scarcely admit a doubt, that the
planet Herschel was seen by Mayer in the year 1756, and was considered
by him as one of the zodiaca