ill
be used. Indeed, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware are the only States where any thing considerable is desired. In
the course of the summer all which is necessary will be done; and we may
hope that this cause of offence being at an end, the measures we shall
pursue and propose for the amelioration of the public affairs, will
be so confessedly salutary as to unite all men not monarchists in
principle.

We have considerable hopes of republican Senators from South Carolina,
Maryland, and Delaware, and some as to Vermont. In any event we are
secure of a majority in the Senate; and consequently that there will be
a concert of action between the legislature and executive. The removal
of excrescences from the judiciary, is the universal demand. We propose
to re-assemble at Washington on the last day of September. Accept
assurances of my affectionate esteem and high respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCXC.--TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, September 9, 1801

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

Monticello, September 9, 1801.

Dear Sir,

You will receive, probably by this post, from the Secretary of State,
his final instructions for your mission to France. We have not thought
it necessary to say any thing in them on the great question of the
maritime law of nations, which at present agitates Europe, that is to
say, whether free ships shall make free goods; because we do not mean to
take any side in it during the war. But as I had before communicated to
you some loose thoughts on that subject, and have since considered it
with somewhat more attention, I have thought it might be useful that you
should possess my ideas in a more matured form than that in which they
were before given. Unforeseen circumstances may perhaps oblige you to
hazard an opinion on some occasion or other, on this subject, and it is
better that it should not be at variance with Ours. I write this
too, myself, that it may not be considered as official, but merely
my individual opinion, unadvised by those official counsellors whose
opinions I deem my safest guide, and should unquestionably take in form
were circumstances to call for a solemn decision of the question.

When Europe assumed the general form in which it is occupied by the
nations now composing it, and turned its attention to maritime commerce,
we find among its earliest practices, that of taking the goods of an
enemy from the ship of a friend; and that into this practice