Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XCI.—­TO GENERAL DEARBORN, July 16,1810

TO GENERAL DEARBORN.

Monticello, July 16,1810.

Dear General and Friend,

Your favor of May the 31st was duly received, and I join in congratulations with you on the resurrection of republican principles in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and the hope that the professors of these principles will not again easily be driven off their ground.  The federalists, during their short-lived ascendancy, have, nevertheless, by forcing us from the embargo, inflicted a wound on our interests which can never be cured, and on our affections which will require time to cicatrize.  I ascribe all this to one pseudo-republican, Story.  He came on (in place of Crowningshield, I believe) and staid only a few days; long enough, however, to get complete hold of Bacon, who giving in to his representations, became panic-struck, and communicated his panic to his colleagues, and they to a majority of the sound members of Congress.  They believed in the alternative of repeal or civil war, and produced the fatal measure of repeal.  This is the immediate parent of all our present evils, and has reduced us to a low standing in the eyes of the world.  I should think that even the federalists themselves must now be made, by their feelings, sensible of their error.  The wealth which the embargo brought home safely, has now been thrown back into the laps of our enemies; and our navigation completely crushed, and by the unwise and unpatriotic conduct of those engaged in it.  Should the orders prove genuine, which are said to have been given against our fisheries, they, too, are gone:  and if not true as yet, they will be true on the first breeze of success which England shall feel:  for it has now been some years, that I am perfectly satisfied her intentions have been to claim the ocean as her conquest, and prohibit any vessel from navigating it, but on such a tribute as may enable her to keep up such a standing navy as will maintain her dominion over it.  She has hauled in, or let herself out, been bold or hesitating, according to occurrences, but has in no situation done any thing which might amount to an acknowledged relinquishment of her intentions.  I have ever been anxious to avoid a war with England, unless forced by a situation more losing than war itself.  But I did believe we could coerce her to justice by peaceable means, and the embargo, evaded as it was, proved it would have coerced her, had it been honestly executed.  The proof she exhibited on that occasion, that she can exercise such an influence in this country, as to control the will of its government and three fourths of its people, and oblige the three fourths to submit to one fourth, is to me the most mortifying circumstance which has occurred since the establishment of our government.  The only prospect I see of lessening that influence, is in her own conduct, and not from