Notwithstanding this little diversion, we pay seven or eight millions of dollars annually of our public debt, and shall completely discharge it in twelve years more.  That done, our annual revenue, now thirteen millions of dollars, which by that time will be twenty-five, will pay the expenses of any war we may be forced into, without new taxes or loans.  The spirit of republicanism is now in almost all its ancient vigor, five sixths of the people being with us.  Fourteen of the seventeen States are completely with us, and two of the other three will be in one year.  We have now got back to the ground on which you left us.  I should have retired at the end of the first four years, but that the immense load of tory calumnies which have been manufactured respecting me, and have filled the European market, have obliged me to appeal once more to my country for a justification.  I have no fear but that I shall receive honorable testimony by their verdict on those calumnies.  At the end of the next four years I shall certainly retire.  Age, inclination, and principle all dictate this.  My health, which at one time threatened an unfavorable turn, is now firm.  The acquisition of Louisiana, besides doubling our extent, and trebling our quantity of fertile country, is of incalculable value, as relieving us from the danger of war.  It has enabled us to do a handsome thing for Fayette.  He had received a grant of between eleven and twelve thousand acres north of the Ohio, worth, perhaps, a dollar an acre.  We have obtained permission of Congress to locate it in Louisiana.  Locations can be found adjacent to the city of New Orleans, in the island of New Orleans and in its vicinity, the value of which cannot be calculated.  I hope it will induce him to come over and settle there with his family.  Mr. Livingston having asked leave to return, General Armstrong, his brother-in-law, goes in his place:  he is of the first order of talents.

Remarkable deaths lately, are, Samuel Adams, Edmund Pendleton, Alexander Hamilton, Stephens Thompson Mason, Mann Page, Bellini, and Parson Andrews.  To these I have the inexpressible grief of adding the name of my youngest daughter, who had married a son of Mr. Eppes, and has left two children.  My eldest daughter alone remains to me, and has six children.  This loss has increased my anxiety to retire, while it has dreadfully lessened the comfort of doing it.  Wythe, Dickinson, and Charles Thomson are all living, and are firm republicans.  You informed me formerly of your marriage, and your having a daughter, but have said nothing in you late letters on that subject.  Yet whatever concerns your happiness is sincerely interesting to me, and is a subject of anxiety, retaining, as I do, cordial sentiments of esteem and affection for you.  Accept, I pray you, my sincere assurances of this, with my most friendly salutations.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XV.—­TO MRS. ADAMS, July 22, 1804