An interruption here, and the departure of the gentleman by whom I send this, oblige me to conclude it with assurances of the sincere respect and esteem, with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XXXII.—­TO JAMES MADISON, December 16, 1786

TO JAMES MADISON.

Paris, December 16, 1786.

Dear Sir,

After a very long silence, I am at length able to write to you.  An unlucky dislocation of my right wrist has disabled me from using that hand, three months.  I now begin to use it a little, but with great pain; so that this letter must be taken up at such intervals as the state of my hand will permit, and will probably be the work of some days.  Though the joint seems to be well set, the swelling does not abate, nor the use of it return.  I am now, therefore, on the point of setting out, to the south of France, to try the use of some mineral waters there, by immersion.  This journey will be of two or three months.

I enclose you herein a copy of the letter from the minister of finance to me, making several advantageous regulations for our commerce.  The obtaining this has occupied us a twelvemonth.  I say us, because I find the Marquis de la Fayette so useful an auxiliary, that acknowledgements for his co-operation are always due.  There remains still something to do for the articles of rice, turpentine, and ship duties.  What can be done for tobacco when the late regulation expires, is very uncertain.  The commerce between the United States and this country being put on a good footing, we may afterwards proceed to try if any thing can be done to favor our intercourse with her colonies.  Admission into them for our fish and flour, is very desirable:  but, unfortunately, both those articles would raise a competition against their own.

I find by the public papers, that your commercial convention failed in point of representation.  If it should produce a full meeting in May, and a broader reformation, it will still be well.  To make us one nation as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in domestic ones, gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general and particular governments.  But to enable the federal head to exercise the powers given it, to best advantage, it should be organized, as the particular ones are, into legislative, executive, and judiciary.  The first and last are already separated.  The second should be.  When last with Congress, I often proposed to members to do this, by making of the committee of the States an executive committee during the recess of Congress, and during its sessions to appoint a committee to receive and despatch all executive business, so that Congress itself should meddle only with what should be legislative.  But I question if any Congress (much less all successively) can have self-denial enough