of our nation chose to declare against this, in such a way as to control the wisdom of the government.  I yielded with others, to avoid a greater evil.  But from that moment, I have seen no system which could keep us entirely aloof from these agents of destruction.  If there be any, I am certain that you, my friends, now charged with the care of us all, will see and pursue it.  I give myself, therefore, no trouble with thinking or puzzling about it.  Being confident in my watchmen, I sleep soundly.  God bless you all, and send you a safe deliverance.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XC.—­TO GOVERNOR LANGDON, March 5, 1810

TO GOVERNOR LANGDON.

Monticello, March 5, 1810.

Your letter, my dear friend, of the 18th ultimo, comes like the refreshing dews of the evening on a thirsty soil.  It recalls antient as well as recent recollections, very dear to my heart.  For five and thirty years we have walked together through a land of tribulations.  Yet these have passed away, and so I trust will those of the present day.  The toryism with which we struggled in ’77, differed but in name from the federalism of ’99, with which we struggled also; and the Anglicism, of 1808, against which we are now struggling, is but the same thing still, in another form.  It is a longing for a King, and an English King, rather than any other.  This is the true source of their sorrows and wailings.

The fear that Bonaparte will come over to us and conquer us also, is too chimerical to be genuine.  Supposing him to have finished Spain and Portugal, he has yet England and Russia to subdue.  The maxim of war was never sounder than in this case, not to leave an enemy in the rear; and especially where an insurrectionary flame is known to be under the embers, merely smothered, and ready to burst at every point.  These two subdued (and surely the Anglomen will not think the conquest of England alone a short work), ancient Greece and Macedonia, the cradle of Alexander, his prototype, and Constantinople, the seat of empire for the world, would glitter more in his eye than our bleak mountains and rugged forests.  Egypt, too, and the golden apples of Mauritania, have for more than half a century fixed the longing eyes of France; and with Syria, you know, he has an old affront to wipe out.  Then come ’Pontus and Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,’ the fine countries on the Euphrates and Tigris, the Oxus and Indus, and all beyond the Hyphasis, which bounded the glories of his Macedonian rival; with the invitations of his new British subjects on the banks of the Ganges, whom, after receiving under his protection the mother country, he cannot refuse to visit.  When all this is done and settled, and nothing of the old world remains unsubdued, he may turn to the new one.  But will he attack us first, from whom he will get but hard knocks, and no money?  Or will he first lay hold of the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru, and the diamonds of Brazil?  A republican Emperor, from his affection to republics, independent of motives of expediency, must grant to ours the Cyclops’ boon of being the last devoured.  While all this is doing, we are to suppose the chapter of accidents read out, and that nothing can happen to cut short or disturb his enterprises.