What do you think of the present situation of England?  Is not this the great and fatal crush of their funding system, which, like death, has been foreseen by all, but its hour, like that of death, hidden from mortal prescience?  It appears to me that all the circumstances now exist which render recovery desperate.  The interest of the national debt is now equal to such a portion of the profits of all the land and the labor of the island, as not to leave enough for the subsistence of those who labor.  Hence the owners of the land abandon it and retire to other countries, and the laborer has not enough of his earnings left to him to cover his back and to fill his belly.  The local insurrections, now almost general, are of the hungry and the naked, who cannot be quieted but by food and raiment.  But where are the means of feeding and clothing them?  The landholder has nothing of his own to give; he is but the fiduciary of those who have lent him money; the lender is so taxed in his meat, drink, and clothing, that he has but a bare subsistence left.  The landholder, then, must give up his land, or the lender his debt, or they must compromise by giving up each one half.  But will either consent, peaceably, to such an abandonment of property?  Or must it not be settled by civil conflict?  If peaceably compromised, will they agree to risk another ruin under the same government unreformed?  I think not; but I would rather know what you think; because you have lived with John Bull, and know better than I do the character of his herd.  I salute Mrs. Adams and yourself with every sentiment of affectionate cordiality and respect;

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXXXIX.—­TO JOHN ADAMS, TO JOHN ADAMS

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, January 11, 1817.

Dear Sir,

Forty-three volumes read in one year, and twelve of them quarto!  Dear Sir, how I envy you!  Half a dozen octavos in that space of time are as much as I am allowed.  I can read by candlelight only, and stealing long hours from my rest:  nor would that time be indulged to me, could I by that light see to write.  From sunrise to one or two o’clock, and often from dinner to dark, I am drudging at the writing-table.  And all this to answer letters into which neither interest nor inclination on my part enters; and often from persons whose names I have never before heard.  Yet, writing civilly, it is hard to refuse them civil answers.  This is the burthen of my life, a very grievous one indeed, and one which I must get rid of.  Delaplaine lately requested me to give him a line on the subject of his book; meaning, as I well knew, to publish it.  This I constantly refuse; but in this instance yielded, that in saying a word for him, I might say two for myself.  I expressed in it freely my sufferings from this source; hoping it would have the effect of an indirect appeal to the discretion of those, strangers and others, who,