He is an old Friend with whom I have often had Occasion to labour at many a knotty Problem, and in whose Abilities and Steadiness I always found great Cause to confide.

there has been a lamp called the Cylinder lamp, lately invented here. it gives a light equal as is thought to that of six or eight candles. it requires olive oil, but it’s consumption is not great.

Mr Jeffersons. he looks much afflicted. the last letters, brought him news of the death of one of his daughters: he has a great deal of Sensibility.

Mr Jefferson’s. a man of universal learning & very pleasing manners.

Mr Jefferson, spoke concerning Virginia, a State, which he knows very particularly as it is his native Country. The blacks, he tells me, are very well treated there; and increase in population, more in proportion, than the whites. before the War, he says the negroes, were to the whites, in the...

I beleive the Indian then to be in body & mind equal to the whiteman. I have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so. but it would be hazardous to affirm that, equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so.

I shall be happy to receive your corrections of these ideas as I have found in the course of our joint services that I think right when I think with you.

Southward of the Chesapeak it will find but few readers concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. from the mouth to the head of the Chesapeak, the bulk of the people will approve it in theory, and it will find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice, a minority which...

An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.

nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. this increases the difficulties tenfold, & those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at...

cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. they are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to it’s liberty & interests by the most lasting bands.