I enter into all your doubts as to the event of the revolution of South America.  They will succeed against Spain.  But the dangerous enemy is within their own breasts.  Ignorance and superstition will chain their minds and bodies under religious and military despotism.  I do believe it would be better for them to obtain freedom by degrees only; because that would by degrees bring on light and information, and qualify them to take charge of themselves understanding; with more certainty, if, in the mean time, under so much control as may keep them at peace with one another.  Surely, it is our duty to wish them independence and self-government, because they wish it themselves, and they have the right, and we none, to choose for themselves:  and I wish, moreover, that our ideas may be erroneous, and theirs prove well-founded.  But these are speculations, my friend, which we may as well deliver over to those who are to see their developement.  We shall only be lookers on, from the clouds above, as now we look down on the labors, the hurry, and bustle of the ants and bees.  Perhaps, in that super-mundane region, we may be amused with seeing the fallacy of our own guesses, and even the nothingness of those labors which have filled and agitated our own time here.

En attendant, with sincere affections to Mrs. Adams and yourself, I salute you both cordially.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXLIV.—­TO JOHN ADAMS, November 13, 1818

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, November 13, 1818.

The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding.  Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure.  The same trials have taught me that, for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicine.  I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love, and never lose again.  God bless you, and support you under your heavy affliction.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CXLV.—­TO ROBERT WALSH, December 4, 1818

TO ROBERT WALSH.

Monticello, December 4, 1818.

Dear Sir,