and even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. in short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776. have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the...

I would advise you to cover with tin, instead of shingles. it is the lightest, & most durable cover in the world. we know that it will last 100. years, & how much more we do not know.

I now inclose the drawings you desired. every thing proposed in them is in the plainest style, and will be cheap altho’ requiring skill in the workmanship. without that it will be rendered barbarous in the execution. of one truth I have had great experience that ignorant workmen are always...

how easily we prescribe for others a cure for their difficulties, while we cannot cure our own.

the human mind will some day get back to the freedom it enjoyed 2000 years ago. this country, which has given to the world the example of physical liberty, owes to it that of moral emancipation also. for, as yet, it is but nominal with us.

my greatest grief would be for the fatal effect of such an event on the hopes and happiness of the world. we exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modelled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government. were we to break to pieces,...

a government of reason is better than one of force.

the boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

on my presentation as usual to the King and Queen, at their leveés, it was impossible for any thing to be more ungracious than their notice of mr Adams & myself. I saw at once that the ulcerations in the narrow mind of that mulish being left nothing to be expected on the subject of my...

I had always made it a practice whenever an opportunity occurred of obtaining any information of our country, which might be of use to me in any station public or private, to commit it to writing.