the guarantee
of France, Russia, Holland, and the United States, allowing to Spain
a nominal supremacy, with authority only to keep the peace among them,
leaving them otherwise all the powers of self-government, until
their experience in them, their emancipation from their priests,
and advancement in information, shall prepare them for complete
independence. I exclude England from this confederacy, because her
selfish principles render her incapable of honorable patronage or
disinterested co-operation: unless, indeed, what seems now probable, a
revolution, should restore to her an honest government, one which will
permit the world to live in peace. Portugal grasping at an extension
of her dominion in the south, has lost her great northern province of
Pernambuco, and I shall not wonder if Brazil should revolt in mass, and
send their royal family back to Portugal, Brazil is more populous, more
wealthy, more energetic, and as wise as Portugal. I have been insensibly
led, my dear friend, while writing to you, to indulge in that line of
sentiment in which we have been always associated, forgetting that these
are matters not belonging to my time. Not so with you, who have still
many years to be a spectator of these events. That these years may
indeed be many and happy, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate
friend.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXLII.--TO ALBERT GALLATIN, June 16, 1817

TO ALBERT GALLATIN.

Monticello, June 16, 1817.

Dear Sir,

The importance that the enclosed letters should safely reach their
destination, impels me to avail myself of the protection of your cover.
This is an inconvenience to which your situation exposes you, while it
adds to the opportunities of exercising yourself in works of charity.

According to the opinion I hazarded to you a little before your
departure, we have had almost an entire change in the body of Congress.
The unpopularity of the compensation law was completed, by the manner of
repealing it as to all the world except themselves. In some States, it
is said, every member is changed; in all, many. What opposition there
was to the original law, was chiefly from southern members. Yet many of
those have been left out, because they received the advanced wages. I
have never known so unanimous a sentiment of disapprobation; and what
is remarkable, is, that it was spontaneous. The newspapers were almost
entirely silent, and the people not only unled by their leaders, but i