The author of the political part of the Encyclopedie Methodique desired me to examine his article, Etats Unis.  I did so.  I found it a tissue of errors; for in truth they know nothing about us here.  Particularly, however, the article Cincinnati was a mere philippic against that institution:  in which it appeared that there was an utter ignorance of facts and motives.  I gave him notes on it.  He reformed it, as he supposed, and sent it again to me to revise.  In this reformed state, Colonel Humphreys saw it.

I found it necessary to write that article for him.  Before I gave it to him, I showed it to the Marquis de la Fayette, who made a correction or two.  I then sent it to the author.  He used the materials, mixing a great deal of his own with them.  In a work which is sure of going down to the latest posterity, I thought it material to set facts to rights, as much as possible.  The author was well disposed; but could not entirely get the better of his original bias.  I send you the article as ultimately published.  If you find any material errors in it, and will be so good as to inform me of them, I shall probably have opportunities of setting this author to rights.  What has heretofore passed between us on this institution, makes it my duty to mention to you, that I have never heard a person in Europe, learned or unlearned, express his thoughts on this institution, who did not consider it as dishonorable and destructive to our governments; and that every writing which has come out since my arrival here, in which it is mentioned, considers it, even as now reformed, as the germ whose developement is one day to destroy the fabric we have reared.  I did not apprehend this, while I had American ideas only.  But I confess that what I have seen in Europe, has brought me over to that opinion; and that though the day may be at some distance, beyond the reach of our lives perhaps, yet it will certainly come, when a single fibre left of this institution will produce an hereditary aristocracy, which will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.  To know the mass of evil which flows from this fatal source, a person must be in France; he must see the finest soil, the finest climate, the most compact state, the most benevolent character of people, and every earthly advantage combined, insufficient to prevent this scourge from rendering existence a curse to twenty-four out of twenty-five parts of the inhabitants of this country.  With us, the branches of this institution cover all the states.  The southern ones, at this time, are aristocratical in their dispositions:  and that that spirit should grow and extend itself, is within the natural order of things.  I do not flatter myself with the immortality of our governments:  but I shall think little also of their longevity, unless this germ of destruction be taken out.  When the society themselves shall weigh the possibility of evil, against the impossibility of any good to proceed from this institution, I cannot help hoping they will eradicate it.  I know they wish the permanence of our governments, as much as any individuals composing them.