by the friendships
I contracted there, by the good dispositions I witnessed, and by the
courtesies I received.

I rejoice, as a moralist, at the prospect of a reduction of the duties
on wine, by our national legislature. It is an error to view a tax on
that liquor as merely a tax on the rich. It is a prohibition of its use
to the middling class of our citizens, and a condemnation of them to
the poison of whiskey, which is desolating their houses. No nation is
drunken where wine is cheap; and none sober, where the dearness of wine
substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is, in truth, the
only antidote to the bane of whiskey. Fix but the duty at the rate of
other merchandise, and we can drink wine here as cheap as we do grog:
and who will not prefer it? Its extended use will carry health and
comfort to a much enlarged circle. Every one in easy circumstances (as
the bulk of our citizens are) will prefer it to the poison to which they
are now driven by their government. And the treasury itself will find
that a penny a piece from a dozen, is more than a groat from a single
one. This reformation, however, will require time. Our merchants know
nothing of the infinite variety of cheap and good wines to be had in
Europe; and particularly in France, in Italy, and the Grecian islands:
as they know little, also, of the variety of excellent manufactures and
comforts to be had any where out of England. Nor will these things be
known, nor of course called for here, until the native merchants of
those countries, to whom they are known, shall bring them forward,
exhibit, and vend them at the moderate profits they can afford. This
alone will procure them familiarity with us, and the preference they
merit in competition with corresponding articles now in use.

Our family renew with pleasure their recollections of your kind visit
to Monticello, and join me in tendering sincere assurances of the
gratification it afforded us, and of our great esteem and respectful
consideration.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXLVII.--TO DOCTOR VINE UTLEY, March 21, 1819

TO DOCTOR VINE UTLEY.

Monticello, March 21, 1819.

Sir,

Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the 1st instant; and
the request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled me
not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied
it, of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like
other people, that I might