This country still pursues its line of peace.  The ministry seem now all united in it; some from a belief of their inability to carry on a war; others from a desire to arrange their internal affairs, and improve their constitution.  The differences between the King and parliaments threaten a serious issue.  Many symptoms indicate that the government has in contemplation some act of highhanded authority.  An extra number of printers have for several days been employed, the apartment wherein they are at work being surrounded by a body of guards, who permit no body either to come out or go in.  The commanders of the provinces, civil and military, have been ordered to be at their stations on a certain day of the ensuing week.  They are accordingly gone:  so that the will of the King is probably to be announced through the whole kingdom on the same day.  The parliament of Paris, apprehending that some innovation is to be attempted, which may take from them the opportunity of deciding on it after it shall be made known, came last night to the resolution of which I have the honor to enclose you a manuscript copy.  This you will perceive to be, in effect, a declaration of rights.  I am obliged to close here the present letter, lest I should miss the opportunity of conveying it by a passenger who is to call for it.  Should the delay of the packet admit any continuation of these details, they shall be the subject of another letter, to be forwarded by post.  The gazettes of Leyden and France accompany this.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXXXV.—­TO THE COUNT DE MOUSTIER, May 17, 1788

TO THE COUNT DE MOUSTIER.

Paris, May 17, 1788.

Dear Sir,

I have at length an opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of your favors of February, and March the 14th, and congratulating you on your resurrection from the dead, among whom you had been confidently entombed by the news-dealers of Paris.  I am sorry that your first impressions have been disturbed by matters of etiquette, where surely they should least have been expected to occur.  These disputes are the most insusceptible of determination, because they have no foundation in reason.  Arbitrary and senseless in their nature, they are arbitrarily decided by every nation for itself.  These decisions are meant to prevent disputes, but they produce ten, where they prevent one.  It would have been better, therefore, in a new country, to have excluded etiquette altogether; or if it must be admitted in some form or other, to have made it depend on some circumstance founded in nature, such as the age or station of the parties.  However, you have got over all this, and I am in hopes have been able to make up a society suited to your own dispositions.  Your situation will doubtless