to my conduct in its various duties and relations, is the more grateful, as proceeding from eye-witnesses and observers, from triers of the vicinage.  Of you, then, my neighbors, I may ask, in the face of the world, ’Whose ox have I taken, or whom have I defrauded?  Whom have I oppressed, or of whose hand have I received a bribe to blind mine eyes therewith?’ On your verdict I rest with conscious security.  Your wishes for my happiness are received with just sensibility, and I offer sincere prayers for your own welfare and prosperity.

Th:  Jefferson.

April 3, 1809.

LETTER LXXXI.—­TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS, June 13, 1809

TO WILSON C. NICHOLAS.

Monticello, June 13, 1809.

Dear Sir,

I did not know till Mr. Patterson called on us, a few days ago, that you had passed on to Washington.  I had recently observed in the debates of Congress, a matter introduced, on which I wished to give explanations more fully in conversation, which I will now do by abridgment in writing.  Mr. Randolph has proposed an inquiry into certain prosecutions at common law in Connecticut, for libels on the government, and not only himself, but others have stated them with such affected caution, and such hints at the same time, as to leave on every mind the impression that they had been instituted either by my direction, or with my acquiescence, at least.  This has not been denied by my friends, because probably the fact is unknown to them.  I shall state it for their satisfaction, and leave it to be disposed of as they think best.

I had observed in a newspaper (some years ago, I do not recollect the time exactly), some dark hints of a prosecution in Connecticut, but so obscurely hinted, that I paid little attention to it.  Some considerable time after, it was again mentioned, so that I understood that some prosecution was going on in the federal court there, for calumnies uttered from the pulpit against me by a clergyman.  I immediately wrote to Mr. Granger, who, I think, was in Connecticut at the time, stating that I had laid it down as a law to myself, to take no notice of the thousand calumnies issued against me, but to trust my character to my own conduct, and the good sense and candor of my fellow-citizens; that I had found no reason to be dissatisfied with that course, and I was unwilling it should be broke through by others as to any matter concerning me; and I therefore requested him to desire the district attorney to dismiss the prosecution.  Some time after this, 1 heard of subpoenas being served on General Lee, David M. Randolph, and others, as witnesses to attend the trial.  I then, for the first time, conjectured the subject of the libel.  I immediately wrote to Mr. Granger, to require an immediate dismission of the prosecution.  The answer of Mr. Huntington, the district attorney, was, that these subpoenas had been issued by the defendant without his knowledge,