laborer; but those which are exerted in the chase, and those faculties which are employed in the tracing an enemy or a wild beast, in contriving ambuscades for him, and in carrying them through their execution, are much stronger than with us, because they are more exercised.  I believe the Indian, then, to be, in body and mind, equal to the white man.  I have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so; but it would be hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so. 3.  As to the inferiority of the other animals of America, without more facts, I can add nothing to what I have said in my Notes.

As to the theory of Monsieur de Buffon, that heat is friendly, and moisture adverse to the production of large animals, I am lately furnished with a fact by Dr. Franklin, which proves the air of London and of Paris to be more humid than that of Philadelphia, and so creates a suspicion that the opinion of the superior humidity of America, may, perhaps, have been too hastily adopted.  And supposing that fact admitted, I think the physical reasonings urged to show, that in a moist country animals must be small, and that in a hot one they must be large, are not built on the basis of experiment.  These questions, however, cannot be decided ultimately, at this day.  More facts must be collected, and more time flow off, before the world will be ripe for decision.  In the mean time, doubt is wisdom.

I have been fully sensible of the anxieties of your situation, and that your attentions were wholly consecrated, where alone they were wholly due, to the succor of friendship and worth.  However much I prize your society, I wait with patience the moment when I can have it without taking what is due to another.  In the mean time, I am solaced with the hope of possessing your friendship, and that it is not ungrateful to you to receive the assurances of that with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir,

your most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER LXII.—­TO JOHN ADAMS, June 15, 1785

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Passy, June 15, 1785.

Sir,

Among the instructions given to the ministers of the United States for treating with foreign powers, was one of the 11th of May, 1784, relative to an individual of the name of John Baptist Picquet.  It contains an acknowledgement, on the part of Congress, of his merits and sufferings by friendly services rendered to great numbers of American seamen carried prisoners into Lisbon, and refers to us the delivering him these acknowledgements in honorable terms, and the making him such gratification, as may indemnify his losses, and properly reward his zeal.  This person is now is Paris, and asks whatever return is intended for him.  Being in immediate want of money, he has been furnished with ten guineas.  He expressed,