I have no doubt the wonderful turn in the public opinion now manifestly taking place and rapidly increasing, will, in the course of this summer, become so universal and so weighty, that friendship abroad and freedom at home will be firmly established by the influence and constitutional powers of the people at large.  If we are forced into war, we must give up political differences of opinion, and unite as one man to defend our country.  But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows.  In fine, if war takes place, republicanism has every thing to fear; if peace, be assured that your forebodings and my alarms will prove vain; and that the spirit of our citizens now rising as rapidly as it was then running crazy, and rising with a strength and majesty which show the loveliness of freedom, will make this government in practice, what it is in principle, a model for the protection of man in a state of freedom and order.  May Heaven have in store for your country a restoration of these blessings, and you be destined as the instrument it will use for that purpose.  But if this be forbidden by fate, I hope we shall be able to preserve here an asylum where your love of liberty and disinterested patriotism will be for ever protected and honored, and where you will find in the hearts of the American people, a good portion of that esteem and affection which glow in the bosom of the friend who writes this; and who with sincere prayers for your health, happiness, and success, and cordial salutations, bids you, for this time, adieu.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CCLI.—­TO JAMES MADISON, February 26, 1799

TO JAMES MADISON.

Philadelphia, February 26, 1799.

Dear Sir,

My last to you was of the 19th; it acknowledged yours of the 8th.  In mine I informed you of the nomination of Murray.  There is evidence that the letter of Talleyrand was known to one of the Secretaries, therefore probably to all; the nomination, however, is declared by one of them to have been kept secret from them all.  He added, that he was glad of it, as, had they been consulted, the advice would have been against making the nomination.  To the rest of the party, however, the whole was a secret till the nomination was announced.  Never did a party show a stronger mortification, and consequently, that war had been their object.  Dana declared in debate (as I have from those who were present) that we had done every thing which might provoke France to war; that we had given her insults which no nation ought to have borne; and yet she would not declare war.  The conjecture as to the executive is, that they received Talleyrand’s letter before or about the meeting of Congress:  that not meaning to meet the overture effectually, they kept it secret, and let all the war measures go on; but that just before the separation of the Senate, the President, not thinking he could