While writing to you in this desultory manner, I shall seize the occasion to give the outline of a little occurrence of quite recent date, and which is, in some measure, of personal interest to myself.  A controversy concerning the cost of government, was commenced some time in November last, under the following circumstances, and has but just been concluded.  As early as the July preceding, a writer in the employment of the French government produced a laboured article, in which he attempted to show that, head for head, the Americans paid more for the benefits of government than the French.  Having the field all to himself, both as to premises and conclusions, this gentleman did not fail to make out a strong case against us; and, as a corollary to this proposition, which was held to be proved, he, and others of his party, even went so far as to affirm that a republic, in the nature of things, must be a more expensive polity than a monarchy.

This extravagant assertion had been considered as established, by a great many perfectly well-meaning people, for some months, before I even knew that it had ever been made.  A very intelligent and a perfectly candid Frenchman mentioned it one day, in my presence, admitting that he had been staggered by the boldness of the proposition, as well as by the plausibility of the arguments by which it had been maintained.  It was so contrary to all previous accounts of the matter, and was, especially, so much opposed to all I had told him, in our frequent disquisitions on America, that he wished me to read the statements, and to refute them, should it seem desirable.  About the same time, General Lafayette made a similar request, sending me the number of the periodical that contained the communication, and suggesting the expediency of answering it.  I never, for an instant, doubted the perfect right of an American, or any one else, to expose the errors that abounded in this pretended statistical account, but I had little disposition for the task.  Having, however, good reason to think it was aimed covertly at General Lafayette, with the intention to prove his ignorance of the America he so much applauded, I yielded to his repeated requests, and wrote a hasty letter to him, dissecting, as well as my knowledge and limited access to authorities permitted, the mistakes of the other side.  This letter produced replies, and the controversy was conducted through different channels, and by divers agents, up to a time when the varying and conflicting facts of our opponents appeared to be pretty well exhausted.  It was then announced that instructions had been sent to America to obtain more authentic information; and we were promised a farther exposure of the weakness of the American system, when the other side should receive this re-enforcement to their logic.[7]