This is enough for me.  I only needed this knowledge to revive towards him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our lives.  Changing a single word only in Dr. Franklin’s character of him, I knew him to be always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes incorrect and precipitate in his judgments:  and it is known to those who have ever heard me speak of Mr. Adams, that I have ever done him justice myself, and defended him when assailed by others, with the single exception as to his political opinions.  But with a man possessing so many other estimable qualities, why should we be dissocialized by mere differences of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, or any thing else.  His opinions are as honestly formed as my own.  Our different views of the same subject are the result of a difference in our organization and experience.  I never withdrew from the society of any man on this account, although many have done it from me; much less should I do it from one with whom I had gone through, with hand and heart, so many trying scenes.  I wish, therefore, but for an apposite occasion to express to Mr. Adams my unchanged affections for him.  There is an awkwardness which hangs over the resuming a correspondence so long discontinued, unless something could arise which should call for a letter.  Time and chance may perhaps generate such an occasion, of which I shall not be wanting in promptitude to avail myself.  From this fusion of mutual affections, Mrs. Adams is of course separated.  It will only be necessary that I never name her.  In your letters to Mr. Adams, you can, perhaps, suggest my continued cordiality towards him, and knowing this, should an occasion of writing first present itself to him, he will perhaps avail himself of it, as I certainly will, should it first occur to me.  No ground for jealousy now existing, he will certainly give fair play to the natural warmth of his heart.  Perhaps I may open the way in some letter to my old friend Gerry, who I know is in habits of the greatest intimacy with him.

I have thus, my friend, laid open my heart to you, because you were so kind as to take an interest in healing again revolutionary affections, which have ceased in expression only, but not in their existence.  God ever bless you, and preserve you in life and health.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XCIX.—­TO JOHN ADAMS, January 21, 1812

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, January 21, 1812.

Dear Sir,

I thank you beforehand (for they are not yet arrived) for the specimens of homespun you have been so kind as to forward me by post.  I doubt not their excellence, knowing how far you are advanced in these things in your quarter.  Here we do little in the fine way, but in coarse and middling goods a great deal.  Every family in the country is a manufactory within itself, and is very generally able to make within