other form it
may be attempted. I can scarcely withhold myself from joining in the
wish of Silas Deane, that there were an ocean of fire between us and the
old world.

A perfect confidence that you are as much attached to peace and union
as myself, that you equally prize independence of all nations and the
blessings of self-government, has induced me freely to unbosom myself
to you, and let you see the light in which I have viewed what has been
passing among us from the beginning of the war. And I shall be happy,
at all times, in an intercommunication of sentiments with you, believing
that the dispositions of the different parts of our country have been
considerably misrepresented and misunderstood in each part, as to
the other, and that nothing but good can result from an exchange of
information and opinions between those whose circumstances and morals
admit no doubt of the integrity of their views.

I remain, with constant and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your affectionate
friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CCXI.--TO GENERAL GATES, May 30,1797

TO GENERAL GATES.

Philadelphia, May 30,1797.

Dear General,

I thank you for the pamphlet of Erskine enclosed in your favor of the
9th instant, and still more for the evidence which your letter affords
me of the health of your mind, and I hope of your body also. Erskine has
been reprinted here, and has done good. It has refreshed the memory
of those who had been willing to forget how the war between France
and England had been produced; and who, aping St. James's, called it a
defensive war on the part of England. I wish any events could induce
us to cease to copy such a model, and to assume the dignity of being
original. They had their paper system, stockjobbing, speculations,
public debt, monied interest, &c, and all this was contrived for us.
They raised their cry against jacobinism and revolutionists, we against
democratic societies and anti-federalists; their alarmists sounded
insurrection, ours marched an army to look for one, but they could
not find it. I wish the parallel may stop here, and that we may avoid,
instead of imitating, a general bankruptcy and disastrous war.

Congress, or rather the Representatives, have been a fortnight debating
between a more or less irritating answer to the President's speech.
The latter was lost yesterday, by forty-eight against fifty-one or
fifty-two. It is believed, however, that when they come to propose
m