ow disturbance, and that you may
enjoy as many years of life, health, and ease as yourself shall wish, is
the sincere prayer of your constant and affectionate friend.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXXXIX.--TO DOCTOR JONES, March 5, 1810

TO DOCTOR JONES.

Monticello, March 5, 1810.

Dear Sir,

I received duly your favor of the 19th ultimo, and I salute you with
all antient and recent recollections of friendship. I have learned,
with real sorrow, that circumstances have risen among our executive
counsellors, which have rendered foes those who once were friends.
To themselves it will be a source of infinite pain and vexation, and
therefore chiefly I lament it, for I have a sincere esteem for both
parties. To the President it will be really inconvenient: but to the
nation I do not know that it can do serious injury, unless we were to
believe the newspapers, which pretend that Mr. Gallatin will go out.
That indeed would be a day of mourning for the United States: but I hope
that the position of both gentlemen may be made so easy as to give no
cause for either to withdraw. The ordinary business of every day is done
by consultation between the President and the Head of the department
alone to which it belongs. For measures of importance or difficulty, a
consultation is held with the Heads of departments, either assembled, or
by taking their opinions separately in conversation or in writing. The
latter is most strictly in the spirit of the constitution. Because the
President, on weighing the advice of all, is left free to make up an
opinion for himself. In this way they are not brought together, and it
is not necessarily known to any what opinion the others have given. This
was General Washington's practice for the first two or three years of
his administration, till the affairs of France and England threatened
to embroil us, and rendered consideration and discussion desirable. In
these discussions, Hamilton and myself were daily pitted in the cabinet
like two cocks. We were then but four in number, and, according to the
majority, which of course was three to one, the President decided.
The pain was for Hamilton and myself, but the public experienced no
inconvenience. I practised this last method, because the harmony was so
cordial among us all, that we never failed, by a contribution of mutual
views of the subject, to form an opinion acceptable to the whole. I
think there never was one instance to the contrary, in an