But your friends will not be as delicate.  I know too well from experience the progress of political controversy, and the exacerbation of spirit into which it degenerates, not to fear for the continuance of your mutual esteem.  One piquing thing said, draws on another, that a third, and always with increasing acrimony, until all restraint is thrown off, and it becomes difficult for yourselves to keep clear of the toils in which your friends will endeavor to interlace you, and to avoid the participation in their passions which they will endeavor to produce.  A candid recollection of what you know of each other will be the true corrective.  With respect to myself, I hope they will spare me.  My longings for retirement are so strong, that I with difficulty encounter the daily drudgeries of my duty.  But my wish for retirement itself is not stronger than that of carrying into it the affections of all my friends.  I have ever viewed Mr. Madison and yourself as two principal pillars of my happiness.  Were either to be withdrawn, I should consider it as among the greatest calamities which could assail my future peace of mind.  I have great confidence that the candor and high understanding of both will guard me against this misfortune, the bare possibility of which has so far weighed on my mind, that I could not be easy without unburthening it.

Accept my respectful salutations for yourself and Mrs. Monroe, and be assured of my constant and sincere friendship.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER LXV.—­TO COLONEL MONROE, March 10, 1808

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Washington, March 10, 1808.

Dear Sir,

*****

From your letter of the 27th ultimo, I perceive that painful impressions have been made on your mind during your late mission, of which I had never entertained a suspicion.  I must, therefore, examine the grounds, because explanations between reasonable men can never but do good. 1.  You consider the mission of Mr. Pinckney as an associate, to have been in some way injurious to you.  Were I to take that measure on myself, I might say in its justification, that it has been the regular and habitual practice of the United States to do this, under every form in which their government has existed.  I need not recapitulate the multiplied instances, because you will readily recollect them.  I went as an adjunct to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, yourself as an adjunct first to Mr. Livingston, and then to Mr. Pinckney, and I really believe there has scarcely been a great occasion which has not produced an extraordinary mission.  Still, however, it is well known, that I was strongly opposed to it in the case of which you complain.  A committee of the Senate called on me with two resolutions of that body on the subject of impressment and spoliations by Great Britain, and requesting that I would demand satisfaction.  After delivering the resolutions,