Burr is in London, and is giving out to his friends that that government offers him two millions of dollars the moment he can raise an ensign of rebellion as big as an handkerchief.  Some of his partisans will believe this, because they wish it.  But those who know him best will not believe it the more because he says it.  For myself, even in his most flattering periods of the conspiracy, I never entertained one moment’s fear.  My long and intimate knowledge of my countrymen satisfied and satisfies me, that, let there ever be occasion to display the banners of the law, and the world will see how few and pitiful are those who shall array themselves in opposition.  I as little fear foreign invasion.  I have indeed thought it a duty to be prepared to meet even the most powerful, that of a Bonaparte, for instance, by the only means competent, that of a classification of the militia, and placing the junior classes at the public disposal:  but the lesson he receives in Spain extirpates all apprehensions from my mind.  If, in a peninsula, the neck of which is adjacent to him, and at his command, where he can march any army without the possibility of interception or obstruction from any foreign power, he finds it necessary to begin with an army of three hundred thousand men, to subdue a nation of five millions, brutalized by ignorance, and enervated by long peace, and should find constant reinforcements of thousands after thousands necessary to effect at last a conquest as doubtful as deprecated, what numbers would be necessary against eight millions of free Americans, spread over such an extent of country as would wear him down by mere marching, by want of food, autumnal diseases, &c.?  How would they be brought, and how reinforced, across an ocean of three thousand miles, in possession of a bitter enemy, whose peace, like the repose of a dog, is never more than momentary?  And for what?  For nothing but hard blows.  If the Orleanese Creoles would but contemplate these truths, they would cling to the American Union, soul and body, as their first affection, and we should be as safe there as we are every where else.  I have no doubt of their attachment to us in preference of the English.

I salute you with sincere friendship and respect.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER LXXII.—­TO LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR LINCOLN, November 13, 1808

TO LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR LINCOLN.

Washington, November 13, 1808.

Dear Sir,

I enclose you a petition from Nantucket, and refer it for your decision.  Our opinion here is, that that place has been so deeply concerned in smuggling, that if it wants, it is because it has illegally sent away what it ought to have retained for its own consumption.  Be so good as to bear in mind that I have asked the favor of you to see that your State encounters no real want, while, at the same time, where applications are made merely to cover fraud, no facilities towards