pursuits, the inanity of glory, and the impotence of power! What must have been the agonies of that mind, which in the midst of a career of unparallelled success was thus driven to suicide by despair! I am far from thinking of him so ill as he is generally thought of in this country. I believe him on the contrary to have been a patriotic British minister, and a man of honor. His personal relations with me were always gentlemanly, conciliatory, and obliging. They have been uniformly the same with Mr. Rush. And I fear we shall be no gainers by the exchange for his successor, whoever he may be. I am thinking if Napoleon and he should "meet at compt," what sort of a dialogue would pass between them. Ever affectionately yours.

DEAR SIR:

TO JAMES LLOYD

WASHINGTON, 1st October, 1822.

I had the pleasure of receiving in due time your favor of the 26th July,1 to which I have hitherto delayed replying with a view to request your acceptance of the publication herewith enclosed. You will perceive by casting your eye over it that I have availed myself of your permission to adduce in support of my own opinions, and particularly for the refutation of some very pernicious errors of my adversary, your letter to my father of 8 March, 1815.2

Had the subject merely presented a personal controversy between Mr. Jonathan Russell and me I never should have published a line after the communication to the House of Representatives upon his duplicate letters. Nor should I 1 Printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLV. 405.

2 Ib., 380.

have added a word more, if he had quietly submitted to that retort courteous upon his first diplomatic flourish against his colleagues of the majority at Ghent. But as he did speed a new envenomed shaft against me, in which he had the front to persist not only in the spurious law and perverted facts of his letter from Paris, but in his deprecating estimate of the value of the contested fisheries, I felt a public duty pressing me to lay before the nation information more correct and more true to the general interest, as well as the special interests of our native state. Your letter furnished me the means of doing this in a manner which I trust will prove universally satisfactory to the public, and if it had been written with Mr. Russell's letter before you, it could not have been better adapted to the refutation of it.

I have been highly gratified with the views presented in your letter resulting from your recent visit to the Lakes, a pleasure which I have never yet been able to enjoy, but which I promise to myself as soon as I shall be fairly disentangled from the noose of public service, to which I heartily rejoice that you have again permitted yourself to be tied.

The future capabilities of our country to constitute a power such as associated man has never yet exhibited upon earth are a never failing source of delight to the traveller who, in passing over any part of our almost boundless territory, carries with him a benevolent feeling and a reflecting mind. Our improvements of physical nature upon this continent seem to realize the enchantments of a fairy tale. Would it not be flattering ourselves too much to believe that our improvements in the condition of our moral existence are advancing with equally gigantic strides? Our constitutions of civil government so far as their character has been hitherto tested by experience are certainly very

great improvements upon all the forms of polity that had before been established among men. The sparing delegation and cautious distribution of the power possessed by one man over the will and actions of another (with the exception of slavery), the very limited extent allowed to authoritative control, and the securities and hedges with which personal civil, political and religious liberty are surrounded, have conferred upon us advantages never before enjoyed by human beings. Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation. But our distribution of the powers of government is yet imperfect, and although our complicated machine of two co-ordinate sovereignties has not yet fallen to pieces by its own weakness, it exists in perpetual jeopardy, and has already been many times kept together, not by the natural operation of the machine itself, but sometimes by the cement of national union stronger than all the conflicting authorities, and sometimes by those makers and breakers of all human purposes - Time and Chance. Upon these at least it is not wise to place much reliance. We have not succeeded in providing as well for the protection of property as of personal liberty. Our laws between debtor and creditor are inefficacious and secure justice to neither. Our banks are for the most part fraudulent bankrupts. Our judiciary is not independent in fact, though it is in theory; and according to the prevailing doctrine our national Government is constituted without the power of discharging the first duty of a nation, that of bettering its own condition by internal improvement. Our private morals are tarnished by the unexampled prevalence of drunkenness, and our popular elections and legislative assemblies,

though I believe less corrupt than other bodies of the same description have ever been in Europe, are yet more infected with intrigue and trickery than beseems a virtuous republic. It is among the obligations of our statesmen to apply their ingenuity and exercise their influence for the correction of these evils; to aim as far as their abilities extend towards the moral purification of their country from its besetting sins. First, by setting the example of private morality; and secondly, by promoting the cause in every way that they can lawfully act upon others. The more so as these are vices, excepting perhaps intemperance, of which we hear little in the pulpit and even in the schools.

But that I may not run into a sermon, let me thank you once more for the permission to give your letter to the public, and renew the assurance of the respect and long rooted attachment of your servant and classmate.

SIR:

TO ASBURY DICKINS

WASHINGTON, 4 October, 1822.

In requesting you to make known to the Columbian Institute my acceptance of the honor which they have conferred upon me by electing me their President, I should do injustice to my own feelings and to theirs, by forbearing to add the expression of the deep regret with which in common with them I lament the occasion there has been for this election. Grateful as I am for this testimonial of the favorable regard of the society, I should have felt less diffidence in receiving it could I have flattered myself that I should be enabled worthily to supply the place of a predecessor in whom simplicity of heart, purity of principle and unblem

ished integrity formed the basis of a character of which the meekness of a quiet spirit, the most comprehensive benevolence and an ardent and active zeal for the interest and promotion of science were the congenial ornaments.

With my thanks for the very obliging manner in which you have notified to me the choice of the society I pray you, sir, to accept the assurance of respect with which I am your very obedient servant.

TO THE PRESIDENT

[JAMES MONROE]

WASHINGTON, 5 October, 1822.

DEAR SIR:

A Mr. Burckle called upon me this morning, just arrived from Bogota charged with a project to negotiate a loan of 3 millions of dollars for the government of the Republic of Colombia upon very advantageous terms, and which will, if successful, be useful as he says to the commercial relations of the United States. He wished to know whether the Executive would be disposed to countenance this loan by a private communication to persons in Philadelphia who may be disposed to engage in the loan (say to S. Girard, R. Ralston, the U. S. Bank, etc.) that there may be yielded confidence in the borrowers. Burckle is by birth a German, naturalized citizen of the United States, has resided in this country upwards of twenty years, but the two last years in Colombia, brother-in-law of Mr. Gebhard,' member of Congress, from New York, and otherwise respectably connected. He showed 1 1 John Gebhard, of Claverack.