FRENCH REVOLUTION.-This ministry which is of the Jacobin party cannot but be favorable to us, as that whole party must be. Indeed notwithstanding the very general abuse of the Jacobins, I begin to consider them as representing the true revolution spirit of the whole nation, and as carrying the nation with them. (To James Madison, 1792. F. VI., 96.)

FRENCH REVOLUTION.-I considered the Jacobins as the same with the Republican patriots and the Feuillants as the monarchical patriots, well known in the early part of the Revolution and but little distant in their views, both having in object the establishment of a free constitution, and differing only on the question whether their chief Executor should be hereditary or not. The Jacobins (as since called) yielded to the Feuillants and tried the experiment of retaining their hereditary Executive. The experiment failed completely, and would have brought on the re-establishment of despotism had it been pursued. The Jacobins saw this, and that the expunging that officer was of absolute necessity. And the nation was with them in opinion.

* * In the struggle which was necessary, many guilty persons fell without the forms of trial, and with them some innocent. These I deplore as much as anybody and shall deplore some of them to the day of my death. But I deplore them as I should have done had they fallen in battle. It was necessary to use the arm of the people, a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree. A few of their cordial friends met at their hands the fate of enemies. But time and truth will rescue and embalm their memories, while their posterity will be enjoying liberty for which they would never have hesitated to offer up their lives. The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half of the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it now is. I have expressed to you my sentiments, because they are really those of 99 in an hundred

of our citizens. The universal feasts and rejoicings which have lately been had on account of the successes of the French shewed the genuine effusion of their hearts. (To William Short, 1793. F. V., 153.)

FRENCH REVOLUTION.-Our news from France continues to be good and to promise a continuance. The event of the revolution there is now little doubted of, even by its enemies. The sensation it has produced here, and the indications of them in the public papers have shown that the form our own government was to take depended much more on the events of France than any body had before imagined. The tide which, after our former relaxed government, took a violent course toward the opposite extreme, and seemed ready to hang everything round with the tassels and baubles of monarchy, is now getting back as we hope to a just means, a government of laws addressed to the reason of the people, and not to their weaknesses. (To T. M. Randolph, 1793. F. VI., 157.)

FRENCH REVOLUTION.-The death of the King of France has not produced as open condemnations from the Monocrats as I expected. I dined the other day in a company where the subject was discussed. I will name the company in the order in which they manifested their partialities; beginning with the warmest Jacobinism and proceeding by shades to the most heartfelt aristocracy. Smith (N. Y.), Coxe, Stewart, T. Shippen, Bingham, Peters, Breck, Meredith, Wolcott. It is certain that the ladies of this city [Philadelphia] of the first circle are all open-mouthed against the murderers of a sovereign, and they generally speak those sentiments which the more cautious husband smothers. (To James Madison, 1793. F. VI., 192.)

French RevolUTION.-The war between France and England seems to be producing an effect not contemplated. All the old spirit of 1776 is rekindling. The newspapers from Boston to Charleston prove this; and even the Monocrat papers are obliged to publish the most furious Philippics against England. A French frigate took a British prize off the capes of Delaware the other day and sent her up here. Upon her coming into sight thousands and thousands of the yeomanry of the city crowded

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and covered the wharves. Never before was such a crowd seen there, and when the British colors were seen reversed and the French flying above them, they burst into peals of exultation. I wish we may be able to repress the spirit of the people within the limits of a fair neutrality. (To James Monroe, 1793. F. VI., 238.)

FRENCH REVOLUTION.—I am happy in a safe occasion of answering you that I continue eternally attached to the principles of your revolution. I hope it will end in the establishment of some firm government friendly to liberty and capable of maintaining it. If it does not, I feel that the zealous apostles of English despotism here will increase the number of its disciples. However, we shall still remain free. Though they may harass our spirits, they cannot make impressions on our center. (To Jean Pierre Brissot, 1793. F. VI., 249.)

FRENCH REVOLUTION.-The French have been guilty of great errors in their conduct toward other nations, not only insulting uselessly all crowned heads, but endeavoring to force liberty on their neighbors, in their own form. They seem to be correcting themselves in the latter point. (To T. M. Randolph, 1793. F. VI., 318.)

FRENCH REVOLUTION.-Your letters give a comfortable view of French affairs, and later events seem to confirm it. Over the foreign powers I am convinced they will triumph completely, and I cannot but hope that that triumph and the consequent disgrace of the invading tyrants is destined, in the order of events, to kindle the wrath of the people of Europe against those who have dared to embroil them in such wickedness, and to bring at length kings, nobles and priests to the scaffold which they have been so long deluging with human blood. I am still warm whenever I think of these scoundrels, though I do it as seldom as I can, preferring infinitely to contemplate the tranquil growth of my lucern and potatoes. (To Tench Coxe, 1794. F. VI., 508.)

FRENEAU. He (Washington) adverted to a piece in Freneau's paper of yesterday; he said he despised all their attacks on him personally, but that there had never been an act of the govern

ment, not meaning the executive line only, but in any line which that paper had not abused. * He was evidently

sore and warm, and I took his intention to be that I should interfere in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk to my office. But I will not do it. His paper has saved our Constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy and has been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known that it has been that paper which has checked the career of the Monocrats, and the President not sensible of the designs of the party has not with his usual good sense and sang froid looked on the efforts and effects of this free press, and seen that though some bad things have passed through it to the public yet the good have preponderated immensely. (Anas, 1793. C. VIII., 145.)

FRIENDSHIP. When languishing under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! How we are penetrated with their assiduities and attentions! How much are we supported by their encouragement and kind offices! When heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet it is to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads and into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a luxury! Friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly. How gay did the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens, rivers, every object wore its loveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it? From the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing because she seemed pleased. Alone the scene would have been dull and insipid; the participation of it with her gave relish. Let the gloomy monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell; let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth. Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the

heart, they would exchange it for all the frigid speculations of their lives. Believe me, then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic which could estimate friendship at nothing. (From a letter to Mrs. Maria Cosway, written in Paris, 1786. F. IV., 319.)

FRIENDSHIP. The way to make friends quarrel is to put them in disputation under the public eye. An experience of near twenty years has taught me that few friendships stand this test, and that public assemblies, where every one is free to act and speak, are the most powerful looseners of the bands of private friendship. (To George Washington, 1784. F. III., 466.)

FUGITIVE DEBTORS.-To remit the fugitive from debt would be to remit him in every case, for in the present state of things it is next to impossible not to owe something. But I see neither injustice nor inconvenience in permitting the fugitive to be sued in our courts. The laws of some countries punishing the unfortunate debtor by perpetual imprisonment, he is right to liberate himself by flight, and it would be wrong to re-imprison him in the country to which he flies. Let all process, therefore, be confined to his property. (From a report on convention with Spain, 1792. F. V., 484.)

GENET. Never in my opinion was so calamitous an appointment made as that of the present Minister of France here. Hotheaded, all imagination, no judgment, passionate, disrespectful and even indecent towards the President in his written as well as verbal communications, talking of appeals from him to Congress, from them to the people, urging the most unreasonable and groundless propositions, and the most dictatorial style. (To James Madison, 1793. F. VI., 339.)

GENET.-Genet has thrown down the gauntlet to the President by the publication of his letter and my answer, and is himself forcing that appeal and risking that disgust which I had so much wished should have been avoided. The indications from different parts of the continent are already sufficient to show that the mass of the Republican interest has no hesitation to disapprove of this intermeddling by a foreigner, and the more readily as his object was evidently, contrary to his professions,