I have received two letters from Ledyard, the one dated Alexandria, August the 15th, the other Grand Cairo, September the 10th; and one lately from Admiral Paul Jones, dated St. Petersburg, January the 31st.  He was just arrived there, on the call of the Empress, and was uncertain where he should be employed the next campaign.  Mr. Littlepage has returned from the Black Sea to Warsaw, where he has been perfectly received by the King.  I saw this from under the King’s own hand, and was pleased with the parental expressions towards him.

We have no news from America later than the middle of January.  My letters inform me, that even the friends of the new constitution have come over to the expediency of adding a declaration of rights.  There is reason to hope that this will be proposed by Congress to the several legislatures, and that the plan of New York for calling a new convention, will be rejected.  Hitherto, no State had acceded to it but Virginia, in which Henry and anti-federalism had got full possession of their legislature.  But the people are better disposed.  My departure for America is likely to be retarded, by the want of a Congress to give me permission.  I must attend it from the new government.  I am anxious to know how much we ought to believe of the recovery of the King of England.  By putting little facts together, I see that he is not well.  Mr. Rumsey (who came in while I was writing the preceding page) tells me you have a long letter ready for me.  I shall be happy to receive it.

I am, with great and sincere attachment, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXIII.—­TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS, March 18, 1789

TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS.

Paris, March 18, 1789.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of November the 29th, 1788, came to hand the last month.  How it happened that mine of August, 1787, was fourteen months on its way, is inconceivable.  I do not recollect by what conveyance I sent it.  I had concluded, however, either that it had miscarried, or that you had become indolent, as most of our countrymen are, in matters of correspondence.

The change in this country since you left it, is such as you can form no idea of.  The frivolities of conversation have given way entirely to politics.  Men, women, and children talk nothing else:  and all, you know, talk a great deal.  The press groans with daily productions, which, in point of boldness, make an Englishman stare, who hitherto has thought himself the boldest of men.  A complete revolution in this government, has, within the space of two years (for it began with the Notables of 1787), been effected merely by the force of public opinion, aided, indeed, by the want of money, which the dissipations of the court had brought on.  And this revolution has not cost a single life, unless we charge to it a little riot lately in Bretagne, which began about