Present my respects to Mrs. Smith, and be assured of the sincere esteem of, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXV.—­TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL, December 11, 1787

TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.

Paris, December 11, 1787.

Dear Sir,

I am later in acknowledging the receipt of your favors of October the 15th, and November the 5th and 15th, because we have been long expecting a packet, which I hoped would bring communications worth detailing to you; and she arrived only a few days ago, after a very long passage indeed.  I am very sorry you have not been able to make out the cipher of my letter of September the 25th, because it contained things which I wished you to know at that time.  They have lost now a part of their merit; * but still I wish you could decipher them, as there remains a part, which it might yet be agreeable to you to understand.  I have examined the cipher, from which it was written.  It as precisely a copy of those given to Messrs. Barclay and Lambe.  In order that you may examine whether yours corresponds, I will now translate into cipher, the three first lines of my letter of June the 14th.

*****

This will serve to show, whether your cipher corresponds with mine, as well as my manner of using it.  But I shall not use it in future, till I know from you the result of your re-examination of it.  I have the honor now, to return you the letter you had been so good as to enclose to me.  About the same time of Liston’s conversation with you, similar ones were held with me by Mr. Eden.  He particularly questioned me on the effect of our treaty with France, in the case of a war, and what might be our dispositions.  I told him without hesitation, that our treaty obliged us to receive the armed vessels of France, with their prizes, into our ports, and to refuse the admission of prizes made on her by her enemies; that there was a clause by which we guarantied to France her American possessions, and which might, perhaps, force us into the war, if these were attacked.  ‘Then it will be war,’ said he, ’for they will assuredly be attacked.’  I added, that our dispositions would be to be neutral, and that I thought it the interest of both those powers that we should be so, because it would relieve both from all anxiety as to the feeding their West India islands, and England would, moreover, avoid a heavy land war on our continent, which would cripple all her proceedings elsewhere.  He expected these sentiments from me personally, and he knew them to be analogous to those of our country.  We had often before had occasions of knowing each other:  his peculiar bitterness towards us had sufficiently appeared, and I had never concealed from him, that I considered the British as our natural enemies, and as the only nation on earth, who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls.  And I am satisfied, that were our continent to be swallowed up by the ocean, Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one end to the other.  Mr. Adams, as you know, has asked his recall.  This has been granted, and Colonel Smith is to return too; Congress having determined to put an end to their commission at that court.  I suspect and hope they will make no new appointment.