or pretext, and most especially, their transfer to any
power by conquest, cession, or acquisition in any other way. I should
think it, therefore, advisable, that the Executive should encourage the
British government to a continuance in the dispositions expressed in
these letters, by an assurance of his concurrence with them as far as
his authority goes; and that as it may lead to war, the declaration of
which requires an act of Congress, the case shall be laid before them
for consideration at their first meeting, and under the reasonable
aspect in which it is seen by himself.

I have been so long weaned from political subjects, and have so long
ceased to take any interest in them, that I am sensible I am not
qualified to offer opinions on them worthy of any attention. But the
question now proposed involves consequences so lasting, and effects so
decisive of our future destinies, as to re-kindle all the interest I
have heretofore felt on such occasions, and to induce me to the hazard
of opinions, which will prove only my wish to contribute still my mite
towards any thing which may be useful to our country. And praying you to
accept it at only what it is worth, I add the assurance of my constant
and affectionate friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXVII.--TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE, November 4, 1823

TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.

Monticello, November 4, 1823.

My Dear Friend,

Two dislocated wrists and crippled fingers have rendered writing so
slow and laborious, as to oblige me to withdraw from nearly all
correspondence: not, however, from yours, while I can make a stroke with
a pen. We have gone through too many trying scenes together, to forget
the sympathies and affections they nourished.

Your trials have indeed been long and severe. When they will end, is yet
unknown, but where they will end, cannot be doubted. Alliances, Holy or
Hellish, may be formed, and retard the epoch of deliverance, may swell
the rivers of blood which are yet to flow, but their own will close the
scene, and leave to mankind the right of self-government. I trust that
Spain will prove, that a nation cannot be conquered which determines
not to be so, and that her success will be the turning of the tide of
liberty, no more to be arrested by human efforts. Whether the state of
society in Europe can bear a republican government, I doubted, you know
when with you, and I do now. A hereditary chief, strictly limited,