three in the course of the three years I have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts, and a great deal more blood was spilt.  In Turkey, where the sole nod of the despot is death, insurrections are the events of every day.  Compare again the ferocious depredations of their insurgents, with the order, the moderation, and the almost self-extinguishment of ours.  And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the people.  This last is the most certain and the most legitimate engine of government.  Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.  Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.  And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this.  They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.  After all, it is my principle that the will of the majority should prevail.  If they approve the proposed constitution in all its parts, I shall concur in it cheerfully, in hopes they will amend it, whenever they shall find it works wrong.  This reliance cannot deceive us, as long as we remain virtuous; and I think we shall be so, as long as agriculture is our principal object, which will be the case, while there remain vacant lands in any part of America.  When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there.  I have tired you by this time with disquisitions which you have already heard repeated by others, a thousand and a thousand times; and, therefore, shall only add assurances of the esteem and attachment, with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

P. S. The instability of our laws is really an immense evil.  I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions, that there shall always be a twelvemonth between the engrossing a bill and passing it:  that it should then be offered to its passage without changing a word:  and that if circumstances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of both Houses, instead of a bare majority.

LETTER CXVIII.—­TO E. CARRINGTON, December 21, 1787

TO E. CARRINGTON

Paris, December 21, 1787.

Dear Sir,

I have just received your two favors of October the 23rd and November the 10th.  I am much obliged to you for your hints in the Danish business.  They are the only information I have on that subject, except the resolution of Congress, and warn me of a rock on which I should most certainly have split.  The vote plainly points out an agent, only leaving it to my discretion to substitute another.  My judgment concurs with that of Congress as to his fitness.  But I shall inquire for the surest banker at Copenhagen