and brought so near to a balance with England that we can turn the scale, then is my epoch for aiming at a navy.  In the mean time, one competent to keep the Barbary States in order is necessary; these being the only smaller powers disposed to quarrel with us.  But I respect too much the weighty opinions of others to be unyielding on this point, and acquiesce with the prayer, ’quod felix faustumque sit’; adding ever a sincere one for your health and happiness.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CIX.—­TO JOHN ADAMS, June 15, 1813

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, June 15, 1813.

Dear Sir,

I wrote you a letter on the 27th of May, which probably would reach you about the 3rd instant, and on the 9th I received yours of the 29th of May.  Of Lindsay’s Memoirs I had never before heard, and scarcely indeed of himself.  It could not, therefore, but be unexpected, that two letters of mine should have any thing to do with his life.  The name of his editor was new to me, and certainly presents itself for the first time under unfavorable circumstances.  Religion, I suppose, is the scope of his book; and that a writer on that subject should usher himself to the world in the very act of the grossest abuse of confidence, by publishing private letters which passed between two friends, with no views to their ever being made public, is an instance of inconsistency as well as of infidelity, of which I would rather be the victim than the author.

By your kind quotation of the dates of my two letters, I have been enabled to turn to them.  They had completely vanished from my memory.  The last is on the subject of religion, and by its publication will gratify the priesthood with new occasion of repeating their comminations against me.  They wish it to be believed, that he can have no religion who advocates its freedom.  This was not the doctrine of Priestley; and I honored him for the example of liberality he set to his order.  The first letter is political.  It recalls to our recollection the gloomy transactions of the times, the doctrines they witnessed, and the sensibilities they excited.  It was a confidential communication of reflections on these from one friend to another, deposited in his bosom, and never meant to trouble the public mind.  Whether the character of the times is justly portrayed or not, posterity will decide.  But on one feature of them, they can never decide, the sensations excited in free yet firm minds by the terrorism of the day.  None can conceive who did not witness them, and they were felt by one party only.  This letter exhibits their side of the medal.  The federalists, no doubt, have presented the other, in their private correspondences, as well as open action.  If these correspondences should ever be laid open to the public eye, they will probably be found not models of comity towards their adversaries.  The readers of my letter should be