t history with more detail,
precision, and candor, than any writer I have yet met with. It is, to be
sure, compiled from those writers; but it is a good secretion of their
matter, the pure from the impure, and presented in a just sense of
right, in opposition to usurpation.

Accept assurances for Mrs. Adams and yourself of my affectionate esteem
and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXLI.--TO MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE, May 14, 1817

TO MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.

Monticello, May 14, 1817.

Although, Dear Sir, much retired from the world, and meddling little in
its concerns, yet I think it almost a religious duty to salute at times
my old friends, were it only to say and to know that 'all's well.'
Our hobby has been politics; but all here is so quiet, and with you so
desperate, that little matter is furnished us for active attention. With
you too, it has long been forbidden ground, and therefore imprudent
for a foreign friend to tread, in writing to you. But although our
speculations might be intrusive, our prayers cannot but be acceptable,
and mine are sincerely offered for the well-being of France. What
government she can bear, depends not on the state of science, however
exalted, in a select band of enlightened men, but on the condition of
the general mind. That, I am sure, is advanced and will advance, and
the last change of government was fortunate, inasmuch as the new will be
less obstructive to the effects of that advancement. For I consider your
foreign military oppression as an ephemeral obstacle only.

Here all is quiet. The British war has left us in debt; but that is
a cheap price for the good it has done us. The establishment of the
necessary manufactures among ourselves, the proof that our government is
solid, can stand the shock of war, and is superior even to civil schism,
are precious facts for us; and of these the strongest proofs were
furnished, when, with four eastern States tied to us, as dead to living
bodies, all doubt was removed as to the achievements of the war, had
it continued. But its best effect has been the complete suppression of
party. The federalists who were truly American, and their great mass was
so, have separated from their brethren who were mere Anglomen, and are
received with cordiality into the republican ranks. Even Connecticut,
as a State, and the last one expected to yield its steady habits (which
were essentially bigoted in politics as well as religion), has chosen
a