have rendered it so
portable, I should have been one of those who would have been greatly
obliged to them. I find on a more minute examination of my lands that
the short visits heretofore made to them, permitted, that a ten years'
abandonment of them to the ravages of overseers, has brought on them a
degree of degradation far beyond what I had expected. As this obliges me
to adopt a milder course of cropping, so I find that they have enabled
me to do it, by having opened a great deal of lands during my absence. I
have therefore determined on a division of my farms into six fields, to
be put under this rotation: first year, wheat; second, corn, potatoes,
peas; third, rye, or wheat, according to circumstances; fourth and
fifth, clover where the fields will bring it, and buckwheat dressings
where they will not; sixth, folding, and buckwheat dressings. But it
will take me from three to six years to get this plan under way. I am
not yet satisfied that my acquisition of overseers from the head of
Elk has been a happy one, or that much will be done this year towards
rescuing my plantations from their wretched condition. Time, patience,
and perseverance must be the remedy: and the maxim of your letter, 'slow
and sure,' is not less a good one in agriculture than in politics. I
sincerely wish it may extricate us from the event of a war, if this
can be done saving our faith and our rights. My opinion of the British
government is, that nothing will force them to do justice but the
loud voice of their people, and that this can never be excited but by
distressing their commerce. But I cherish tranquillity too much, to
suffer political things to enter my mind at all. I do not forget that
I owe you a letter for Mr. Young; but I am waiting to get full
information. With every wish for your health and happiness, and my most
friendly respects for Mrs. Washington, I have the honor to be, Dear Sir,
your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXX.--TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE, September 7, 1794

TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

Monticello, September 7, 1794.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of August the 28th finds me in bed under a paroxysm of the
rheumatism which has now kept me for ten days in constant torment, and
presents no hope of abatement. But the express and the nature of the
case requiring immediate answer, I write to you in this situation. No
circumstances, my Dear Sir, will ever more tempt me to engage in