Logan’s bill has passed.  On this subject it is hardly necessary for me to declare to you, on every thing sacred, that the part they ascribed to me was entirely a calumny.  Logan called on me, four or five days before his departure, and asked and received a certificate (in my private capacity) of his citizenship and circumstances of life, merely as a protection, should he be molested in the present turbulent state of Europe.  I have given such to an hundred others, and they have been much more frequently asked and obtained by tories than whigs.

*****

Accept my sincere prayers for long and happy years to you still, and my affectionate salutations and adieu.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CCXLVII.—­TO JAMES MADISON, February 5, 1799

TO JAMES MADISON.

Philadelphia, February 5, 1799.

Dear Sir,

I wrote you last on the 30th of January; since which yours of the 25th has been received.

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The bill for continuing the suspension of intercourse with France and her dependencies, is still before the Senate, but will pass by a very great vote.  An attack is made on what is called the Toussaint’s clause, the object of which, as is charged by the one party and admitted by the other, is to facilitate the separation of the island from France.  The clause will pass, however, by about nineteen to eight, or perhaps eighteen to nine.  Rigaud, at the head of the people of color, maintains his allegiance.  But they are only twenty-five thousand souls, against five hundred thousand, the number of the blacks.  The treaty made with them by Maitland is (if they are to be separated from France) the best thing for us.  They must get their provisions from us.  It will indeed be in English bottoms, so that we shall lose the carriage.  But the English will probably forbid them the ocean, confine them to their island, and thus prevent their becoming an American Algiers.  It must be admitted, too, that they may play them off on us when they please.  Against this there is no remedy but timely measures on our part, to clear ourselves, by degrees, of the matter on which that lever can work.

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A piece published in Bache’s paper on foreign influence, has had the greatest currency and effect.  To an extraordinary first impression, they have been obliged to make a second, and of an extraordinary number.  It is such things as these the public want.  They say so from all quarters, and that they wish to hear reason instead of disgusting blackguardism.  The public sentiment being now on the creen, and many heavy circumstances about to fall into the republican scale, we are sensible that this summer is the season for systematic energies and sacrifices.  The engine is the press.  Every man must lay his purse and his pen under contribution.  As to the former, it is possible I may be obliged to assume something