hemselves to be
governed by their minority. This minority may say, that whenever they
relapse into their own principles, they will quit them, and draw the
seat from under them. They may quit them, indeed, but, in the mean time,
all the venal will have become associated with them, and will give them
a majority sufficient to keep them in place, and to enable them to eject
the heterogeneous friends by whose aid they get again into power. I
cannot believe any portion of real republicans will enter into this
trap; and if they do, I do not believe they can carry with them the mass
of their States, advancing so steadily as we see them, to an union of
principle with their brethren. It will be found in this, as in all
other similar cases, that crooked schemes will end by overwhelming their
authors and coadjutors in disgrace, and that he alone who walks strict
and upright, and who in matters of opinion will be contented that others
should be as free as himself, and acquiesce when his opinion is fairly
overruled, will attain his object in the end. And that this may be
the conduct of us all, I offer my sincere prayers, as well as for your
health and happiness.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XII.--TO MRS. ADAMS, June 13,1804

TO MRS. ADAMS.

Washington, June 13,1804.

Dear Madam,

The affectionate sentiments which you have had the goodness to express
in your letter of May the 20th, towards my dear departed daughter, have
awakened in me sensibilities natural to the occasion, and recalled
your kindnesses to her, which I shall ever remember with gratitude and
friendship. I can assure you with truth, they had made an indelible
impression on her mind, and that to the last, on our meetings after long
separations, whether I had heard lately of you, and how you did, were
among the earliest of her inquiries. In giving you this assurance, I
perform a sacred duty for her, and, at the same time, am thankful for
the occasion furnished me, of expressing my regret that circumstances
should have arisen, which have seemed to draw a line of separation
between us. The friendship with which you honored me has ever been
valued, and fully reciprocated; and although events have been passing
which might be trying to some minds, I never believed yours to be
of that kind, nor felt that my own was. Neither my estimate of your
character, nor the esteem founded in that, has ever been lessened for a
single moment, although doubts whether it would be acc