With respect to the tour my friends to the north have proposed that I should make in that quarter, I have not made up a final opinion.  The course of life which General Washington had run, civil and military, the services he had rendered, and the space he therefore occupied in the affections of his fellow-citizens, take from his examples the weight of precedents for others, because no others can arrogate to themselves the claims which he had on the public homage.  To myself, therefore, it comes as a new question, to be viewed under all the phases it may present.  I confess, that I am not reconciled to the idea of a chief magistrate parading himself through the several States as an object of public gaze, and in quest of an applause, which, to be valuable, should be purely voluntary.  I had rather acquire silent good will by a faithful discharge of my duties, than owe expressions of it to my putting myself in the way of receiving them.  Were I to make such a tour to Portsmouth or Portland, I must do it to Savannah, perhaps to Orleans and Frankfort.  As I have never yet seen the time when the public business would have permitted me to be so long in a situation in which I could not carry it on, so I have no reason to expect that such a time will come while I remain in office.  A journey to Boston or Portsmouth, after I shall be a private citizen, would much better harmonize with my feelings, as well as duties; and, founded in curiosity, would give no claims to an extension of it.  I should see my friends, too, more at our mutual ease, and be left more exclusively to their society.  However, I end as I began, by declaring I have made up no opinion on the subject, and that I reserve it as a question for future consideration and advice.

In the mean time, and at all times, I salute you with great respect and esteem,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER LIV.—­TO GEORGE HAY, June 20, 1807

TO GEORGE HAY.

Washington, June 20, 1807.

Dear Sir,

Mr. Latrobe now comes on as a witness against Burr.  His presence here is with great inconvenience dispensed with, as one hundred and fifty workmen require his constant directions on various public works of pressing importance.  I hope you will permit him to come away as soon as possible.  How far his testimony will be important as to the prisoner, I know not; but I am desirous that those meetings of Yrujo with Burr and his principal accomplices should come fully out, and judicially, as they will establish the just complaints we have against his nation.