to the Virginia convention.  A riot has taken place in New York, which I will state to you from an eye-witness.  It has long been a practice with the surgeons of that city, to steal from the grave bodies recently buried.  A citizen had lost his wife:  he went, the first or second evening after her burial, to pay a visit to her grave..  He found that it had been disturbed, and suspected from what quarter.  He found means to be admitted to the anatomical lecture of that day, and on his entering the room, saw the body of his wife, naked and under dissection.  He raised the people immediately.  The body, in the mean time, was secreted.  They entered into and searched the houses of the physicians whom they most suspected, but found nothing.  One of them however more guilty or more timid than the rest, took asylum in the prison.  The mob considered this an acknowledgment of guilt.  They attacked the prison.  The Governor ordered militia to protect the culprit, and suppress the mob.  The militia, thinking the mob had just provocation, refused to turn out.  Hereupon the people of more reflection, thinking it more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law, than that he should escape, armed themselves, and went to protect the physician.  They were received by the mob with a volley of stones, which wounded several of them.  They hereupon fired on the mob and killed four.  By this time, they received a reinforcement of other citizens of the militia horse, the appearance of which, in the critical moment, dispersed the mob.  So ended this chapter of history, which I have detailed to you, because it may be represented as a political riot, when politics had nothing to do with it.  Mr. Jay and Baron Steuben were both grievously wounded in the head by stones.  The former still kept his bed, and the latter his room, when the packet sailed, which was the 24th of April.  I am, with sentiments of great esteem and respect, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXXXIX.—­TO JOHN JAY, May 27, 1788

TO JOHN JAY.

(Private.) Paris, May 27, 1788.

Dear Sir,

The change which is likely to take place in the form of our government, seems to render it proper, that, during the existence of the present government, an article should be mentioned which concerns me personally.  Uncertain, however, how far Congress may have decided to do business when so near the close of their administration; less capable than those on the spot of foreseeing the character of the new government; and not fully confiding in my own judgment, where it is so liable to be seduced by feeling, I take the liberty of asking your friendly counsel, and that of my friend Mr. Madison, and of referring the matter to your judgments and discretion.