not believe
it the more because he says it. For myself, even in his most flattering
periods of the conspiracy, I never entertained one moment's fear. My
long and intimate knowledge of my countrymen satisfied and satisfies me,
that, let there ever be occasion to display the banners of the law,
and the world will see how few and pitiful are those who shall array
themselves in opposition. I as little fear foreign invasion. I have
indeed thought it a duty to be prepared to meet even the most powerful,
that of a Bonaparte, for instance, by the only means competent, that of
a classification of the militia, and placing the junior classes at the
public disposal: but the lesson he receives in Spain extirpates all
apprehensions from my mind. If, in a peninsula, the neck of which is
adjacent to him, and at his command, where he can march any army without
the possibility of interception or obstruction from any foreign power,
he finds it necessary to begin with an army of three hundred thousand
men, to subdue a nation of five millions, brutalized by ignorance, and
enervated by long peace, and should find constant reinforcements of
thousands after thousands necessary to effect at last a conquest as
doubtful as deprecated, what numbers would be necessary against eight
millions of free Americans, spread over such an extent of country
as would wear him down by mere marching, by want of food, autumnal
diseases, &c.? How would they be brought, and how reinforced, across an
ocean of three thousand miles, in possession of a bitter enemy, whose
peace, like the repose of a dog, is never more than momentary? And for
what? For nothing but hard blows. If the Orleanese Creoles would but
contemplate these truths, they would cling to the American Union, soul
and body, as their first affection, and we should be as safe there as
we are every where else. I have no doubt of their attachment to us in
preference of the English.

I salute you with sincere friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXXII.--TO LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR LINCOLN, November 13, 1808

TO LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR LINCOLN.

Washington, November 13, 1808.

Dear Sir,

I enclose you a petition from Nantucket, and refer it for your decision.
Our opinion here is, that that place has been so deeply concerned in
smuggling, that if it wants, it is because it has illegally sent away
what it ought to have retained for its own consumption. Be so good as to
bear in mind that I hav