I wish I could give better hopes of our southern brethren.  The achievement of their independence of Spain is no longer a question.  But it is a very serious one, what will then become of them.  Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.  They will fall under military despotisms, and become the murderous tools of the ambition of their respective Bonapartes; and whether this will be for their greater happiness, the rule of one only has taught you to judge.  No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see them and all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it.  But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.  As their sincere friend and brother, then, I do believe the best thing for them, would be for themselves to come to an accord with Spain, under the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and the United States, allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority only to keep the peace among them, leaving them otherwise all the powers of self-government, until their experience in them, their emancipation from their priests, and advancement in information, shall prepare them for complete independence.  I exclude England from this confederacy, because her selfish principles render her incapable of honorable patronage or disinterested co-operation:  unless, indeed, what seems now probable, a revolution, should restore to her an honest government, one which will permit the world to live in peace.  Portugal grasping at an extension of her dominion in the south, has lost her great northern province of Pernambuco, and I shall not wonder if Brazil should revolt in mass, and send their royal family back to Portugal, Brazil is more populous, more wealthy, more energetic, and as wise as Portugal.  I have been insensibly led, my dear friend, while writing to you, to indulge in that line of sentiment in which we have been always associated, forgetting that these are matters not belonging to my time.  Not so with you, who have still many years to be a spectator of these events.  That these years may indeed be many and happy, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate friend.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXLII.—­TO ALBERT GALLATIN, June 16, 1817

TO ALBERT GALLATIN.

Monticello, June 16, 1817.

Dear Sir,

The importance that the enclosed letters should safely reach their destination, impels me to avail myself of the protection of your cover.  This is an inconvenience to which your situation exposes you, while it adds to the opportunities of exercising yourself in works of charity.