I have no doubt you have urged these considerations, on every proper occasion, with the government where you are.  They are such as must have effect, if you can find means of producing thorough reflection on them by that government.  The idea here is, that the troops sent to St. Domingo, were to proceed to Louisiana after finishing their work in that island.  If this were the arrangement, it will give you time to return again and again to the charge.

For the conquest of St. Domingo will not be a short work.  It will take considerable time, and wear down a great number of soldiers.  Every eye in the United States is now fixed on the affairs of Louisiana.  Perhaps nothing, since the revolutionary war, has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation.  Notwithstanding temporary bickerings have taken place with France, she has still a strong hold on the affections of our citizens generally.  I have thought it not amiss, by way of supplement to the letters of the Secretary of State, to write you this private one, to impress you with the importance we affix to this transaction.  I pray you to cherish Dupont.  He has the best dispositions for the continuance of friendship between the two nations, and perhaps you may be able to make a good use of him.

Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and high consideration.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CCXCVII.—­TO GOVERNOR MONROE, July 15, 1802

TO GOVERNOR MONROE.

Washington, July 15, 1802.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of the 7th has been duly received.  I am really mortified at the base ingratitude of Callender.  It presents human nature in a hideous form.  It gives me concern, because I perceive that relief, which was afforded him on mere motives of charity, may be viewed under the aspect of employing him as a writer.  When the ‘Political Progress of Britain’ first appeared in this country, it was in a periodical publication called the ‘Bee,’ where I saw it.  I was speaking of it in terms of strong approbation to a friend in Philadelphia, when he asked me, if I knew that the author was then in the city, a fugitive from prosecution on account of that work, and in want of employ for his subsistence.  This was the first of my learning that Callender was the author of the work.  I considered him as a man of science fled from persecution, and assured my friend of my readiness to do whatever could serve him.  It was long after this before I saw him; probably not till 1798.  He had, in the mean time, written a second part of the ‘Political Progress,’ much inferior to the first, and his ‘History of the United States.’  In 1798, I think, I was applied to by Mr. Lieper to contribute to his relief.  I did so.  In 1799, I think, S. T. Mason applied for him.  I contributed again.  He had, by this time, paid me two or three personal visits.  When he fled in a panic from Philadelphia