of federalists are secured in the Senate, and expected in the House of Representives.  General Washington will be President, and probably Mr. Adams Vice-President.  So that the constitution will be put under way by those who will give it a fair trial.  It does not seem probable that the attempt of New York, to have another convention to make amendments, will succeed, though Virginia concurs in it.  It is tolerably certain that Congress will propose amendments to the Assemblies, as even the friends of the constitution are willing to make amendments; some from a conviction they are necessary, others, from a spirit of conciliation.  The addition of a bill of rights will, probably, be the most essential change.  A vast majority of anti-federalists have got into the Assembly of Virginia, so that Mr. Henry is omnipotent there.  Mr. Madison was left out as a senator by eight or nine votes; and Henry has so modeled the districts for representatives, as to tack Orange to counties where himself has great influence, that Madison may not be elected into the lower federal House, which was the place he had wished to serve in, and not the Senate.  Henry pronounced a philippic against Madison in open Assembly, Madison being then at Philadelphia.  Mifflin is President of Pennsylvania, and Peters, Speaker.  Colonel Howard is Governor of Maryland.  Beverly Randolph, Governor of Virginia; (this last is said by a passenger only, and he seems not very sure.) Colonel Humphreys is attacked in the papers for his French airs, for bad poetry, bad prose, vanity, &c.  It is said his dress, in so gay a style, gives general disgust against him.  I have received a letter from him.  He seems fixed with General Washington.  Mayo’s bridge, at Richmond, was completed, and carried away in a few weeks.  While up, it was so profitable that he had great offers for it.  A turnpike is established at Alexandria, and succeeds.  Rhode Island has again refused to call a convention.  Spain has granted to Colonel Morgan, of New Jersey, a vast tract of land on the western side of the Mississippi, with the monopoly of the navigation of that river.  He is inviting settlers, and they swarm to him.  Even the settlement of Kentucky is likely to be much weakened by emigrations to Morgan’s grant.  Warville has returned, charmed with our country.  He is going to carry his wife and children to settle there.  Gouverneur Morris has just arrived here; deputed, as is supposed, to settle Robert Morris’s affairs, which continue still deranged.  Doctor Franklin was well when he left America, which was about the middle of December.

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I send Mr. Rutledge two letters by this post.  Be so good as to present him my esteem, and to be assured yourself, of the sincere esteem and attachment with which I am and shall ever be?  Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXIV.—­TO M. DE VILLEDEUIL, February 10, 1789