Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XXXIII.—­TO MR DIGGES, July 1, 1806

THOMAS JEFFERSON TO MR DIGGES.

Thomas Jefferson salutes Mr. Digges with friendship and respect, and sends him the newspapers received last night.  He is sorry that only the latter part of the particular publication which Mr. Digges wished to see, is in them.  He will be happy to see Mr. Digges and his friends on the fourth of July, and to join in congratulations on the return of the day which divorced us from the follies and crimes of Europe, from a dollar in the pound at least of six hundred millions sterling, and from all the ruin of Mr. Pitt’s administration.  We, too, shall encounter follies; but if great, they will be short, if long, they will be light:  and the vigor of our country will get the better of them.  Mr. Pitt’s follies have been great, long, and inflicted on a body emaciated with age, and exhausted by excesses beyond its power to bear.  July 1, 1806.

LETTER XXXIV.—­TO MR. BIDWELL, July 5, 1806

TO MR. BIDWELL.

Washington, July 5, 1806.

Sir,

Your favor of June the 21st has been duly received.  We have not as yet heard from General Skinner on the subject of his office.  Three persons are proposed on the most respectable recommendations, and under circumstances of such equality as renders it difficult to decide between them.  But it shall be done impartially.  I sincerely congratulate you on the triumph of republicanism in Massachusetts.  The Hydra of Federalism has now lost all its heads but two.  Connecticut I think will soon follow Massachusetts.  Delaware will probably remain what it ever has been, a mere county of England, conquered indeed, and held under by force, but always disposed to counter-revolution.  I speak of its majority only.

Our information from London continues to give us hopes of an accommodation there on both the points of ’accustomed commerce and impressment.’  In this there must probably be some mutual concession, because we cannot expect to obtain every thing and yield nothing.  But I hope it will be such an one as may be accepted.  The arrival of the Hornet in France is so recently known, that it will yet be some time before we learn our prospects there.  Notwithstanding the efforts made here, and made professedly to assassinate that negotiation in embryo, if the good sense of Bonaparte should prevail over his temper, the present state of things in Europe may induce him to require of Spain, that she should do us justice at least.  That he should require her to sell us East Florida, we have no right to insist:  yet there are not wanting considerations which may induce him to wish a permanent foundation for peace laid between us.  In this treaty, whatever it shall be, our old enemies the federalists, and their new friends, will find enough