Bishop Grégoire ... wrote to me also on the doubts I had expressed five or six & twenty years ago, in the Notes on Virginia, as to the grade of understanding of the negroes, & he sent me his book on the literature of the negroes. his credulity has made him gather up every story he could...
these reveries ... leave me always impressed with the desire of being at home once more, and of exchanging labour, envy, and malice, for ease, domestic occupation, & domestic love & society, where I may once more be happy with you, with mr. Randolph, & dear little Anne, with whom even...
The skill & activity of Clarkson are sufficiently manifested allready to make us hope that your affairs in Albemarle will be better conducted than they have ever been. I know it will give you real pleasure to hear that he has a valuable art of governing the slaves which sets aside the...
your account of Clarkson’s conduct gives me great pleasure. my first wish is that the labourers may be well treated, the second that they may enable me to have that treatment continued by making as much as will admit it. the man who can effect both objects is rarely to be found. I wish you would...
I am not afraid to warrant to you any degree of success and consideration you may desire, if you qualify yourself by perseverance in study, and by an invariable determination to do, under all circumstances what reason & rigorous right shall dictate, keeping under absolute subjection all the...
The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties. among these it is an important one to cultivate habits of peace & friendship with our neighbors. to do this we should make provision for rendering the justice we must sometimes require from...
There was a time when I should have ballanced between Mr. Jefferson & Mr. Adams; but I now view the former as a man of sublimated & paradoxical imagination—cherishing notions incompatible with regular and firm government.
you were never more mistaken than in supposing you were too long on the prattle &c. of little Anne. I read it with quite as much pleasure as you write it.
Fryday night I Spent with the Philosophical society. The Meeting was thin: but I was not able to perceive any great superiority to our Academy, except in the President. There are able Men however, and I was agreably entertained. Mr Jefferson was polite enough to accompany me: so you see We are...
good husbandry with us consists in abandoning Indian corn, & tobacco, tending small grain, some red clover, fallowing, & endeavoring to have, while the lands are at rest, a spontaneous cover of white clover. I do not present this as a culture judicious in itself, but as good in comparison...
I never before knew the full value of trees. my house is entirely embosomed in high plane trees, with good grass below, & under them I breakfast, dine, write, read & receive my company. what would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full grown.
I become daily more & more convinced that all the West India islands will remain in the hands of the people of colour, & a total expulsion of the whites sooner or later take place. it is high time we should foresee the bloody scenes which our children certainly, & possibly ourselves ...
to satisfy myself by enquiry from the best farmers of all the circumstances which may decide on the best rotation of crops; for I take that to be the most important of all the questions a farmer has to decide.
Hamilton is ill of the fever as is said. he had two physicians out at his house the night before last. his family think him in danger, & he puts himself so by his excessive alarm. he had been miserable several days before from a firm persuasion he should catch it. a man as timid as he is on...
I am then to be liberated from the hated occupations of politics, & to sink into the bosom of my family, my farm & my books. I have my house to build, my feilds to farm, and to watch for the happiness of those who labor for mine.
Jefferson went off Yesterday, and a good riddance of bad ware. I hope his Temper will be more cool and his Principles more reasonable in Retirement than they have been in office. I am almost tempted...
I am sorry La Motte has put me to the expence of 140lt for a French translation of an English poem, as I make it a rule never to read translations where I can read the original.