He soon afterwards, however, did receive a letter from Mr. Sullivan, by which his conjecture was confirmed: and he thus good-humouredly speaks of it to Colonel Smith, Mr. Adams's son-in-law, who was then in London. "You ask if you shall say anything to Sullivan about the bill. No, only that it is paid. I have, within two or three days, received letters from him, explaining the matter. It was my fault, that I had not given him a rough idea of the expense I would be willing to incur for them. He had made the acquisition an object of a regular campaign, and that too of a winter one. The troops he employed sallied forth, as he writes me, in the month of March-much snow-a herd attacked-one killed in the wilderness-a road to cut twenty miles-to be drawn by hand from the frontiers to his house-bones to be cleaned, &c. &c. &c. In fine, he put himself to an infinitude of trouble, more than I meant: he did it cheerfully, and I feel myself really under obligations to him. That the tragedy might not want a proper catastrophe, the box, bones, and all are lost: so that this chapter of Natural History will still remain a blank. But I have written to him not to send me another. I will leave it for my successor to fill up, whenever I shall make my bow here."

It seems, however, that the skeleton of this moose, which was to vindicate the insulted honour of its country, did arrive in safety a few days afterwards, and was, in due form, sent to the Count de Buffon.

If governments are sometimes able to conceal their projects until they are ripe for execution, it must be admitted, on the other hand, that they are often suspected of designs for which there is no foundation. It seems probable that the imputation against Mr. Pitt, in the following extract of a letter from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Jay, of aiming to re-establish the British dominion in America, is of this character. Knowing the animosity then felt by England towards this country,

he seemed to believe it capable of any scheme of injury, however impolitic, extravagant, or impracticable. "The following solution of the British armaments is supposed, in a letter of the 25th ultimo, from Colonel Blachden, of Connecticut, now at Dunkirk, to the Marquis de La Fayette. I will cite it in his own words. A gentleman who left London two days ago, and came to this place to-day, informs me, that it is now generally supposed, that Mr. Pitt's great secret, which has puzzled the whole nation so long, and to accomplish which design the whole nation is armed, is to make a vigorous effort for the recovery of America.' When I recollect the delay they have made in delivering the forts in America, and that a little more than a year ago, one of the British ministry wrote to the king a letter, in which were these remarkable words, if your Majesty pleases, America may yet be yours;' add to this, if it were possible for the present ministry in England to effect such a matter, they would secure their places and their power for a long time, and should they fail in the end, they would be certain of holding them during the attempt, which it is in their power to prolong as much as they please; and, at all events, they would boast of having endeavoured the recovery of what a former ministry had abandoned, it is possible."

"A similar surmise has come in a letter from a person in Rotterdam to one at this place. I am satisfied that the king of England believes the mass of our people to be tired of their independence, and desirous of returning under his government; and that the same opinion prevails in the ministry and nation. They have hired their news-writers to repeat this lie in their Gazettes so long, that they have become the dupes of it themselves. But there is no occasion to recur to this, in order to account for their arming. A more rational purpose avowed, that purpose executed, and when executed, a solemn agreement to disarm, seem to leave no

doubt that the re-establishment of the stadtholder was their object. Yet, it is possible that, having found this court will not make war in this moment for an ally, new views may arise, and they may think the moment favourable for executing any purposes they may have in our quarter." He, therefore, earnestly recommends that the present season of truce, or peace, should be used to fill our magazines with

arms.

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CHAPTER XI.

Mr. Jefferson's views of the Federal Constitution. His two principal objections. Visits Holland. National credit in Amsterdam. Prisoners in Algiers. Plan of liberating them. Expenses of American ministers. Consular convention. Gordon's History of the American Revolution. Some opinions in physical science-faith in its improvements. Silas Deane's letter-book. Claims of French officers. Memoir on the admission of American fish-oil into France. Asks leave to return home. Views of the future policy of the United States. Progress of the French Revolution. Meeting of the statesgeneral. Scarcity of bread in Paris. Complaints of French officers against the United States.

1787-1789.

IN September, of the present year, the convention which had met in Philadelphia to form a federal constitution, terminated its labours, after a session of four months, with closed doors, and submitted the constitution it had framed to the people of the several states for their ratification. Mr. Jefferson seems, at an early period, to have been dissatisfied with it, both on account of some of the articles it contained, and of others it omitted. His opinions can be collected from his remarks to his several correspondents. It not only gratifies our curiosity to know the first impressions on this important subject, of one whose opinions afterwards became the standard of orthodoxy with the democratic party of the country, but as these speculations of Mr. Jefferson have been since tested by experience, they cannot but be instructive in the intricate science of government, whether that experience has tended to invalidate or confirm them.

In November he writes to Mr. Adams, "How do you like our new constitution? I confess there are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed. The house of federal representatives will not be adequate to the management of affairs, either foreign or federal. Their president seems a bad edition of a Polish king. He may be elected from four years to four years for life. Reason and experience prove to us that a chief magistrate so continuable is an office for life. When one or two generations shall have proved that there is an office for life, it becomes on every succession worthy of intrigue, of bribery, force, and even of foreign interference.— It will be of great consequence to France and England to have America governed by a Galloman or Angloman. Once in office and possessing the military force of the union without the aid or check of a council, he would not be easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to withdraw their votes from him. I wish at the end of the four years they had made him for ever ineligible a second time."

To Colonel Smith he says of the constitution, "there are very good articles in it, and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings, would have for ever excluded the idea of one continuable for life." Apprehending that arguments would be drawn for this enlargement of the powers of the federal government generally, and of its executive, in particular, from the recent insurrection in Massachusetts, he speaks of it not only as an unimportant affair, but as scarcely to be deprecated. "God forbid," he exclaims, "we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always