sessed. Accept therefore, I pray you, my sincere thanks for your kind offer, and assurances of the gratification these curiosities will yield here. As such objects cannot be conveyed without injury but by water, I will ask the favor of you to forward them by some vessel going down the river to Orleans, to the address of Mr. Daniel Clarke, junior, of that place, to whom I wrote to have them forwarded round by sea, and to answer for me the expenses of transportation, package, &c. I am, with many acknowledgments for this mark of your attention, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

TO DOCTOR PRIESTLY

PHILADELPHIA, January 18, 1800.

DEAR SIR,-I have to thank you for the pamphlets you were so kind as to send me. You will know what I thought of them by my having before sent a dozen sets to Virginia to distribute among my friends. Yet I thank you not the less for these, which I value the more as they came from yourself. The stock of them which Campbell had was, I believe, exhausted the first or second day of advertising them. The papers of political arithmetic, both in yours and Mr. Cooper's pamphlets, are the most precious gifts that can be made to us; for we are running navigation mad, and commerce mad, and navy mad, which is worst of all. How desirable is it that you could pursue that subject for us. From the Porcupines of our country you will receive no thanks; but the great mass of our nation will edify and thank you. How deeply have I been chagrined and mortified at the persecutions which fanatism and monarchy have excited against you, even here! At first I believed it was merely a continuance of the English persecution. But I observe that on the demise of Porcupine and division of his inheritance between Fenno and Brown, the latter (though succeeding only to the federal portion of Porcupinism, not the Anglican, which is Fenno's part) serves up for

the palate of his sect, dishes of abuse against you as high seasoned as Porcupine's were. You have sinned against church and king, and can therefore never be forgiven. How sincerely have I regretted that your friend, before he fixed his choice of a position, did not visit the valleys on each side of the ridge in Virginia, as Mr. Madison and myself so much wished. You would have found there equal soil, the finest climate and most healthy one on the earth, the homage of universal reverence and love, and the power of the country spread over you as a shield. But since you would not make it your country by adoption, you must now do it by your good offices. I have one to propose to you which will produce their good, and gratitude to you for ages, and in the way to which you have devoted a long life, that of spreading light among men.

We have in that State a College (William and Mary) just well enough endowed to draw out the miserable existence to which a miserable constitution has doomed it. It is moreover eccentric in its position, exposed to all bilious diseases as all the lower country is, and therefore abandoned by the public care, as that part of the country itself is in a considerable degree by its inhabitants. We wish to establish in the upper country, and more centrally for the State, an University on a plan so broad and liberal and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support, and be a temptation to the youth of other States to come and drink of the cup of knowledge and fraternize with us. The first step is to obtain a good plan; that is, a judicious selection of the sciences, and a practicable grouping of some of them together, and ramifying of others, so as to adopt the professorships to our uses and our means. In an institution meant chiefly for use, some branches of science, formerly esteemed, may be now omitted; so may others now valued in Europe, but useless to us for ages to come. As an example of the former, the oriental learning, and of the latter, almost the whole of the institution proposed to Congress by the Secretary of War's report of the 5th inst. Now there is no one to whom this subject is so familiar as yourself. There is no one in the world who, equally with yourself,

unites this full possession of the subject with such a knowledge of the state of our existence, as enables you to fit the garment to him who is to pay for it and to wear it. To you therefore we address our solicitations, and to lessen to you as much as possible the ambiguities of our object, I will venture even to sketch the sciences which seem useful and practicable for us, as they occur to me while holding my pen. Botany, chemistry, zoology, anatomy, surgery, medicine, natural philosophy, agriculture, mathematics, astronomy, geography, politics, commerce, history, ethics, law, arts, fine arts. This list is imperfect because I make it hastily, and because I am unequal to the subject. It is evident that some of these articles are too much for one professor and must therefore be ramified; others may be ascribed in groups to a single professor. This is the difficult part of the work, and requires a head perfectly knowing the extent of each branch, and the limits within which it may be circumscribed, so as to bring the whole within the powers of the fewest professors possible, and consequently within the degree of expense practicable for us. We should propose that the professors follow no other calling, so that their whole time may be given to their academical functions; and we should propose to draw from Europe the first characters in science, by considerable temptations, which would not need to be repeated after the first set should have prepared fit successors and given reputation to the institution. From some splendid characters I have received offers most perfectly reasonable and practicable.

I do not propose to give you all this trouble merely of my own head, that would be arrogance. It has been the subject of consultation among the ablest and highest characters of our State, who only wait for a plan to make a joint and I hope a successful effort to get the thing carried into effect. They will receive your ideas with the greatest deference and thankfulness. We shall be here certainly for two months to come; but should you not have leisure to think of it before Congress adjourns, it will come safely to me afterwards by post, the nearest post office being Milton.

Will not the arrival of Dupont tempt you to make a visit to this quarter? I have no doubt the alarmists are already whetting their shafts for him also, but their gass is nearly run out, and the day I believe is approaching when we shall be as free to pursue what is true wisdom as the effects of their follies will permit ; for some of them we shall be forced to wade through because we are emerged in them.

Wishing you that pure happiness which your pursuits and circumstances offer, and which I am sure you are too wise to suffer a diminution of by the pigmy assaults made on you, and with every sentiment of affectionate esteem and respect, I am, dear Sir, your most humble, and most obedient servant.

TO HENRY INNIS, ESQ.

PHILADELPHIA, January 23, 1800.

DEAR SIR,-Your favor of December 6th I received here on the 30th of same month, and have to thank you for the papers it contained. They serve to prove that if Cressap was not of the party of Logan's murderers, yet no injury was done his character by believing it. I shall, while here this winter, publish such material testimony on the subject as I have received; which by the kindness of my friends will be amply sufficient. It will appear that the deed was generally imputed to Cressap by both whites and Indians, that his character was justly stained with their blood, perhaps that he ordered this transaction, but that he was not himself present at the time. I shall consequently make a proper change in the text of the Notes on Virginia, to be adopted, if any future edition of that work should be printed.

With respect to the judiciary district to be established for the Western States, nothing can be wilder than to annex to them any State on the Eastern waters. I do not know what may be the dispositions of the House of Representatives on that subject, but I should hope from what I recollect of those manifested by the Senate on the same subject at the former session, that they

may be induced to set off the Western country in a district. And I expect that the reason of the thing must bring both Houses into the measure.

The Mississippi Territory has petitioned to be placed at once in what is called the second stage of government. Surely, such a government as the first form prescribed for the Territories is a despotic oligarchy without one rational object.

I had addressed the enclosed letters to the care of the postmaster at Louisville; but not knowing him, I have concluded it better to ask the favor of you to avail them of any passage which may offer down the river. I presume the boats stop of course at those places.

We have wonderful rumors here at this time. One that the King of England is dead. As this would ensure a general peace, I do not know that it would be any misfortune to humanity. The other is that Bonaparte, Sieyes and Ducos have usurped the French government. This is West India news, and shows that after killing Bonaparte a thousand times, they have still a variety of parts to be acted by him. Were it really true. While I was writing the last word a gentleman enters my room and brings a confirmation that something has happened at Paris. This is arrived at New York by a ship from Cork. The particulars differ from the West India account. We are therefore only to believe that a revolution of some kind has taken place, and that Bonaparte is at the head of it, but what are the particulars and what the object, we must wait with patience to learn. In the meantime we may speak hypothetically. If Bonaparte declares for Royalty, either in his own person, or of Louis XVIII., he has but a few days to live. In a nation of so much enthusiasm, there must be a million of Brutuses who will devote themselves to death to destroy him. But, without much faith in Bonaparte's heart, I have so much in his head, as to indulge another train of reflection. The republican world has been long looking with anxiety on the two experiments going on of a single elective Executive here, and a plurality there. Opinions have been considerably divided on the event in both countries. The greater