subsistence shall have been last voted by Congress, and all officers and soldiers, not natives of the United States, shall be incapable of serving in their armies by land, except during a foreign war.  These restrictions I think are so guarded, as to hinder evil only.  However, if we do not have them now, I have so much confidence in my countrymen, as to be satisfied that we shall have them as soon as the degeneracy of our government shall render them necessary.

I have no certain news of Paul Jones.  I understand only, in a general way, that some persecution on the part of his officers occasioned his being called to Petersburg, and that though protected against them by the Empress, he is not yet restored to his station.  Silas Deane is coming over to finish his days in America, not having one sous to subsist on, elsewhere.  He is a wretched monument of the consequences of a departure from right.  I will, before my departure, write Colonel Lee fully the measures I pursued to procure success in his business, and which as yet offer little hope; and I shall leave it in the hands of Mr. Short to be pursued, if any prospect opens on him.  I propose to sail from Havre as soon after the first of October as I can get a vessel; and shall consequently leave this place a week earlier than that.  As my daughters will be with me, and their baggage somewhat more than that of mere voyageures, I shall endeavor, if possible, to obtain a passage for Virginia directly.  Probably I shall be there by the last of November.  If my immediate attendance at New York should be requisite for any purpose, I will leave them with a relation near Richmond, and proceed immediately to New York.  But as I do not foresee any pressing purpose for that journey immediately on my arrival, and as it will be a great saving of time, to finish at once in Virginia, so as to have no occasion to return there after having once gone on to the northward, I expect to proceed to my own house directly.  Staying there two months (which I believe will be necessary), and allowing for the time I am on the road, I may expect to be at New York in February, and to embark from thence or some eastern port.  You ask me if I would accept any appointment on that side of the water?  You know the circumstances which led me from retirement, step by step, and from one nomination to another, up to the present.  My object is a return to the same retirement.  Whenever, therefore, I quit the present, it will not be to engage in any other office, and most especially any one which would require a constant residence from home.  The books I have collected for you will go off for Havre in three or four days, with my baggage.  From that port, I shall try to send them by a direct occasion to New York.

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

Th:  Jefferson.

P. S. I just now learn that Mr. Necker proposed yesterday to the National Assembly a loan of eighty millions, on terms more tempting to the lender than the former, and that they approved it, leaving him to arrange the details, in order that they might occupy themselves at once about the constitution.  T. J.