bringing into power
and importance those who were enemies to himself as well as to the
principles of republican government, I do not recollect a single measure
of the President which I have not approved. Of those under him, and
of some very near him, there have been many acts of which we have all
disapproved, and he more than we. We have at times dissented from the
measures, and lamented the dilatoriness of Congress. I recollect an
instance the first winter of the war, when, from sloth of proceedings,
an embargo was permitted to run through the winter, while the enemy
could not cruise, nor consequently restrain the exportation of our whole
produce, and was taken off in the spring, as soon as they could resume
their stations. But this procrastination is unavoidable. How can
expedition be expected from a body which we have saddled with an hundred
lawyers, whose trade is talking? But lies, to sow divisions among
us, are so stale an artifice of the federal prints, and are so well
understood, that they need neither contradiction nor explanation. As to
myself, my confidence in the wisdom and integrity of the administration
is so entire, that I scarcely notice what is passing, and have almost
ceased to read newspapers. Mine remain in our post-office a week or ten
days, sometimes, unasked for. I find more amusement in studies to which
I was always more attached, and from which I was dragged by the events
of the times in which I have happened to live.

I rejoice exceedingly that our war with England was single-handed. In
that of the Revolution, we had France, Spain, and Holland on our side,
and the credit of its success was given to them. On the late occasion,
unprepared and unexpecting war, we were compelled to declare it, and to
receive the attack of England, just issuing from a general war, fully
armed, and freed from all other enemies, and have not only made her
sick of it, but glad to prevent, by a peace, the capture of her adjacent
possessions, which one or two campaigns more would infallibly have made
ours. She has found that we can do her more injury than any other enemy
on earth, and henceforward will better estimate the value of our peace.
But whether her government has power, in opposition to the aristocracy
of her navy, to restrain their piracies within the limits of national
rights, may well be doubted. I pray, therefore, for peace, as best for
all the world, best for us, and best for me, who have already lived to