value. Unless one or both of these ideas are acted upon, there will be a surplus in the sinking fund annually of more than five millions of dollars from the year 1819, when the Louisiana debt will be discharged, until the year 1825, besides a general surplus of nearly the same amount if no reduction is made in the revenue by Congress. There is now in the Treasury upwards of six millions, which will probably be increased to nearly eight by the first day of January, 1818. With this amount in the Treasury, we could pay off the whole of the Louisiana debt next year, if the terms of the convention will permit it; but there is no doubt of our right to pay it off during the year 1819.

If, then, we do not involve ourselves in a Spanish war, we shall have a superabundance of revenue, unless we engage extensively in a system of internal improvements. I do not know. whether Mr. Monroe entertains the constitutional scruples which governed Mr. Madison in the rejection of the bill on that subject on the 3d day of March last. That bill, as you observe, was bad enough; so bad that I did not wish it to pass. I presume the subject will be renewed during the next session, and trust that it will assume a form less objectionable than the one rejected by Mr. Madison. If nothing of this kind takes place, the internal taxes will be repealed. Indeed, I am by no means certain that the adoption of an extensive system of internal improvements will save the internal taxes. The sales of the public lands are increasing with a rapidity wholly unexampled. After the present year they may be safely set down at $3,000,000; but until the Yazoo stock is absorbed not more than half that amount will go into the Treasury. The sales in the Alabama Territory during the next year will probably absorb the greatest part of the Mississippi stock. The last payment to the State of Georgia is now ready to be made.

From this view of the Treasury operations you will perceive we are on the brink of the enviable situation which Mr. Jefferson supposed us to be in about the close of his Presidential career, viz., of finding out new objects of expenditure, or of reducing the revenue to that at present authorized by law.

I wish I could say as much in relation to other views which may be taken of the political state of the country. The War

Department is not yet filled. It has been offered to Mr. Lowndes and declined. Mr. Calhoun's answer to the offer which has been made of it to him is daily expected. Should he decline, it will be tendered to Judge Johnston, of the same State, who it is supposed will accept it.

The President's tour through the East has produced something like a political jubilee. They were in the land of steady habits, at least for the time, "all Federalists, all Republicans." If the bondmen and bondwomen were not set free, and individual debts released, a general absolution of political sins seems to have been mutually agreed upon. Whether the parties will not relapse on the approach of their spring elections in Massachusetts can only be determined by the event.

In this world there seems to be nothing free from alloy. Whilst the President is lauded for the good he has done in the East by having softened party asperity and by the apparent reconciliation which for the moment seems to have been effected between materials the most heterogeneous, the restless, the carping, the malevolent men in the Ancient Dominion are ready to denounce him for his apparent acquiescence in the seeming man-worship with which he was venerated by the wise men of the East.

Seriously, I think the President has lost as much as he has gained by this tour, at least in popularity. In health, however, he seems to have been a great gainer.

The papers will give you the result of the Pennsylvania election of governor: it is not considered brilliant. Should that State fall into the hands of the Quids and Feds, De Witt Clinton enters the list this time three years with Mr. Monroe. The change is certainly possible.

Mr. Clay has spent the summer in the city with his family. It is said, and with an air of probability, that the City Gazette, which is now a daily paper, is to be under his control. If this is the fact, the Administration or some of its members must look out against squalls.

Whether the new Secretary of State is aware of the connection which Mr. Clay is supposed to have with this paper, I know not; but it is certainly a fact that he has given to the editor the

publication of the laws. This measure may ward off the blow some time, if any was intended against him.

I presume Mr. Clay, if he has formed this connection, has not definitively arranged his mode of operation. His plan will probably be to assail the strongest as soon as he discovers him. Whether his shafts will be directed against Massachusetts or New York, or elsewhere, will depend upon circumstances yet to be developed.

I wish most sincerely that the present state of political feeling was less auspicious to this kind of adventure. We must, however, content ourselves with things as they are.

Mr. Clay has announced his determination to bring the recognition of the new state of Buenos Ayres before Congress. He will, I presume, connect his popularity with this question. Although it is strictly of an Executive nature, and seems hardly susceptible of being brought within the legislative competence of Congress, I believe the course contemplated by Mr. Clay will not be unacceptable to a part of the Cabinet at least. For myself, I would rather see the House of Representatives employed upon subjects which are strictly within their constitutional powers. That branch of the Legislature, when headed by turbulent and able men who are adverse to the Executive Magistrate, will be strongly impelled to trench upon the Executive powers.

I do not believe there is any danger of anything of this nature at this moment; but a precedent may be set on this occasion which may in the end do much mischief.

Present my respects to Mrs. Gallatin and the other members of your family, and believe me to be, most sincerely, your friend, &c.

JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN.

MONTICELLO, February 15, 1818.

DEAR SIR,-I take the liberty of putting under the protection of your cover a letter to Cardinal Dugnani at Rome, in the hope that through the nuncio resident at Paris it may find a

sure conveyance to him. In return for this trouble I wish I could give you any news which would interest you, but, withdrawn entirely from all attention to public affairs, I neither know nor inquire what Congress are doing; you will probably know this better than myself from the newspapers, which I have ceased to read in a great degree. A single measure in my own State has interested me much. Our Legislature some time ago appropriated a fund of a million and a half of dollars to a system of general education. After two or three projects proposed and put by, I have ventured to offer one, which, although not adopted, is printed and published for general consideration, to be taken up at the next session. It provides an elementary school in every neighborhood of fifty or sixty families, a college for the languages, mensuration, navigation, and geography within a day's ride of every man's house, and a central university of the sciences for the whole State, of eight, ten, or twelve professors. But it has to encounter ignorance, malice, egotism, fanaticism, religious, political, and local perversities. In one piece of general information, which I am sure will give you pleasure, I can add mine to the testimony of your other correspondents. Federalism is substantially defunct. Opposition to the war, the Hartford Convention, the peace of Ghent, and the battle of Orleans have revolted the body of the people who called themselves Federalists against their leaders, and these have sunk into insignificance or acquiescence under the government. The most signal triumph is in Connecticut, where it was least and last expected. As some tub, however, must always be thrown out to the whale, and a religious one is fittest to recall the priesthood within their proper limits, the questions of Unity and Trinity are now set afloat in the Eastern States, and are occupying there all the vehemence of the genus irritabile vatum. This is food for the fools, amusement to the wise, and quiet to the patriot, while the light of the age will prevent danger from the flame it kindles. The contest, too, must issue in the triumph of common sense over the unintelligible jargon of Gothic fanaticism.

Ever and affectionately yours.

JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN.

MONTICELLO, April 9, 1818.

DEAR SIR,-I avail myself, as usual, of the protection of your cover for my letters: that to Cathalan need only be put into the post-office; but for that for Appleton I must ask the favor of you to adopt the safest course which circumstances offer. You will have seen by the newspapers that there is a decided ascendency of the Republican party in nearly all the States-Connecticut decidedly so; it is thought the elections of this month in Massachusetts will at length arrange that recreant State on the Republican side. Maryland is doubtful, and Delaware only decidedly Anglican; for the term Federalist is nearly laid aside, and the distinction begins to be in name what it always was in fact, that is to say, Anglican and American. There are some turbid appearances in Congress. A quondam colleague of yours, who had acquired some distinction and favor in the public eye, is throwing it away by endeavoring to obtain his end by rallying an opposition to the Administration. This error has already ruined some among us, and will ruin others, who do not perceive that it is the steady abuse of power in other governments which renders that of opposition always the popular party. I imagine you receive the newspapers, and these will give you everything which I know; so I will only add the assurances of my constant affection and respect.

No. 67.

GALLATIN TO J. Q. ADAMS.

PARIS, 27th April, 1818. SIR,-You will see in the Moniteur of yesterday the result of the negotiations respecting the private claims of subjects of the several European powers against France. She is to pay in the whole a gross sum in five per cent. stock of 320,800,000 francs, yielding therefore an annuity of 16,040,000 francs. In my despatch of 16th January last, I had stated 15 millions as the amount which the French government had determined not