our government has not, as yet, begun to act on the rule of loans & taxation going hand in hand. had any loan taken place in my time, I should have strongly urged a redeeming tax. for the loan which has been made since the last session of Congress, we should now set the example of...

I left all well at Monticello, except Benjamin whose health is very precarious. Lewis is become the favorite of all. his vivacity, his intelligence, & his beauty (for the mark in his forehead is disappearing) make him a perfect pet. you will perceive from these senile...

I brought the inclosed book to this place, the last fall, intending to forward it to you; but having a neighbor here who loves to laugh, I lent it to him to read; he lent it to another, and so it went the rounds of the neighborhood and is returned to me at my Spring visit to this place. I now...

but tho’ an old man, I am but a young gardener.

I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position & calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. no occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, & no culture comparable...

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk, & restorative cordial.

there is a fulness of time when men should go, & not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.

permit me now to render my portion of the general debt of gratitude, by acknolegements in advance for the singular benefaction which is the subject of this letter, to tender my wishes for the continuance of a life so usefully employed, and to add the assurances of my perfect esteem and respect.

I had, with the world, deemed Montesquieu’s a work of much merit; but saw in it, with every thinking man, so much of paradox, of false principle, & misapplied fact, as to render it’s value equivocal on the whole.

His lands adjoining Monticello are said to be about eleven thousand acres. About fifteen hundred acres of cleared land, and a proportion of his negroes are hired out; as his public duties, since he became President, have prevented his engaging in agricultural pursuits ... The garden, though...