us. The government of New Orleans is still
without such a head as I wish. The salary of five thousand dollars
is too small; but I am assured the Orleans legislature would make it
adequate, would you accept it. It is the second office in the United
States in importance, and I am still in hopes you will accept it. It is
impossible to let you stay at home while the public has so much need
of talents. I am writing under a severe indisposition of periodical
headache, without scarcely command enough of my mind to know what
I write. As a part of this letter concerns Mr. Pinckney as well as
yourself, be so good as to communicate so much of it to him; and with
my best respects to him, to Mrs. Monroe, and your daughter, be assured
yourself, in all cases, of my constant and affectionate friendship and
attachment.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XLI.--M. LE COMTE DIODATI, March 29, 1807

M. LE COMTE DIODATI.

Washington, March 29, 1807.

My Dear and Antient Friend,

Your letter of August the 29th reached me the 18th of February. It
enclosed a duplicate of that written from Brunswick five years before,
but which I never received, or had notice of, but by this duplicate. Be
assured, my friend, that I was incapable of such negligence towards
you, as a failure to answer it would have implied. It would illy have
accorded with those sentiments of friendship I entertained for you at
Paris, and which neither time nor distance has lessened. I often pass in
review the many happy hours I spent with Madame Diodati and yourself on
the banks of the Seine, as well as at Paris, and I count them among
the most pleasing I enjoyed in France. Those were indeed days of
tranquillity and happiness. They had begun to cloud a little before I
left you; but I had no apprehension that the tempest, of which I saw the
beginning, was to spread over such an extent of space and time. I have
often thought of you with anxiety, and wished to know how you weathered
the storm, and into what port you had retired. The letters now received
give me the first information, and I sincerely felicitate you on your
safe and quiet retreat. Were I in Europe, _pax et panis_ would certainly
be my motto. Wars and contentions, indeed, fill the pages of history
with more matter. But more blest is that nation whose silent course of
happiness furnishes nothing for history to say. This is what I ambition
for my own country, and what it has fortunately enjoyed now upwards of
twenty