in the first instance, in my being disappointed in former projects. Under that impenetrable veil, Futurity, we know not what is concealed, and the day to arrive is hidden from us. Turning then our thoughts to those cases of despair that lead to suicide, when, "the mind," as you say, "neither sees nor hears, and holds counsel only with itself; when the very idea of consolation would add to the torture, and self destruction is its only aim," what, it may be asked, is the best advice, what the best relief; I answer seek it not in reason, for the mind is at war with reason, and to reason against feelings is as vain as to reason against fire: it serves only to torture the torture, by adding reproach to horror. All reasoning with ourselves in such cases acts upon us like the reason of another person, which, however kindly done, serves but to insult the misery we suffer. If Reason could remove the pain, Reason would have prevented it. If she could not do the one, how is she to perform the other? In all such cases we must look upon Reason as dispossessed of her empire, by a revolt of the mind. She retires herself to a distance to weep, and the ebony sceptre of Despair rules alone. All that Reason can do is to suggest, to hint a thought, to signify a wish, to cast now and then a kind of bewailing look, to hold up, when she can catch the eye, the miniature shaded portrait of Hope; and though dethroned, and can dictate no more, to wait upon us in the humble station of a handmaid.

TO A GENTLEMAN AT NEW YORK.

SIR,

New Rochelle, March 20, 1806.

I WILL inform you of what I know respecting General Miranda, with whom I first became acquainted, at New York, about the year 1783. He is a man of talents and enterprize, a Mexican by birth, and the whole of his life has been a life of adventures.

I went to Europe from New York, in April, 1787, Mr. Jefferson was then minister from America to France, and Mr. Littlepage, a Virginian, (whom John Jay knows,) was agent for the king of Poland, at Paris.

Mr. Littlepage was a young man of extraordinary talents, and I first met with him at Mr. Jefferson's house at dinner. By his intimacy with the king of Poland, to whom also he was chamberlain, be became well acquainted with the plans and projects of the Northern Powers of Europe. He told me of Miranda's getting himself introduced to the Empress Catherine of Russia, and obtaining a sum of money from her, four thousand pounds sterling; but it did not appear to me what the object was for which the money was given; it appeared as a kind of retaining fee. '

After I had published the first part of the "Rights of Man," in England, in the year 1791, I met Miranda at the house of Turnbull and Forbes, merchants, Devonshire square, London. He had been a little time before this in the employ of Mr. Pitt, with respect to the affair of Nootka Sound, but I did not at that time know it; and I will, in the course of this letter, inform you how this connection between Pitt and Miranda ended; for I know it of my own knowledge.

I published the second part of the "Rights of Man," in London, in February, 1792, and I continued in London till I was elected a member of the French Convention, in September of that year; and went from London to Paris to take my seat in the Convention, which was to meet the 20th of that month; I arrived at Paris on the 19th.

After the Convention met, Miranda came to Paris, and was appointed general of the French army, under General Dumourier; but as the affairs of that army went wrong in the beginning of the year 1793, Miranda was suspected, and was brought under arrest

to Paris, to take his trial. He summoned me to appear to his character, and also a Mr. Thomas Christie, connected with the house of Turnbull and Forbes. 1 gave my testimony as I believed, which was, that his leading object was, and had been, the emancipation of his country, Mexico, from the bondage of Spain; for I did not, at that time, know of his engagements with Pitt. Mr. Christie's evidence went to show that Miranda did not come to France as a necessitous adventurer; but believed he came from public spirited motives, and that he had a large sum of money in the hands of Turnbull and Forbes. The house of Turnbull and Forbes was then in a contract to supply Paris with flour. Miranda was acquitted.

A few days after his acquittal he came to see me, and in a few days afterwards I returned his visit. He seemed desirous of satis fying me that he was independent, and that he had money in the hands of Turnbull and Forbes. He did not tell me of his affair with old Catherine of Russia, nor did I tell him that I knew of it. But he entered into conversation with respect to Nootka Sound, and put into my hands several letters of Mr. Pitt's to him on that subject; amongst which was one that I believe he gave me by mistake, for when I had opened it, and was beginning to read it, he put forth his hand and said, "O, that is not the letter I intended;" but as the letter was short, I soon got through it, and then returned it to him without making any remarks upon it.

1

The dispute with Spain about Nootka Sound was then compro mised; and Pitt compromised with Miranda, for his services, by giving him twelve hundred pounds sterling, for this was the contents of the letter.

Now if it. be true that Miranda brought with him a credit upon certain persons in New York, for sixty thousand pounds sterling, it is not difficult to suppose from what quarter the credit came; for the opening of any proposals between Pitt and M randa was already made by the affair of Nootka Sound.

Miranda was in Paris when Mr. Munroe arrived there as minister; and as Miranda wanted to get acquainted with him, I cautioned Mr. Monroe against him, and told him of the affair of Nootka Sound, and the twelve hundred pounds.

You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter and with my name to it.

THOMAS PAINE.

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THE CAUSE OF THE YELLOW FEVER, AND THE
MEANS OF PREVENTING IT, IN PLACES NOT YET
INFECTED WITH IT, ADDRESSED TO THE BOARD
OF HEALTH IN AMERICA.

A GREAT deal has been written respecting the Yellow Fever. First, with respect to its causes, whether domestic or imported. Secondly, on the mode of treating it.

What I am going to suggest in this essay, is to ascertain some point to begin at, in order to arrive at the cause, and for this purpose some preliminary observations are necessary.

The Yellow Fever always begins in the lowest part of a populous mercantile town near the water, and continues there, without affecting the higher parts. The sphere, or circuit it acts in, is small, and it rages most where large quantities of new ground have been made by banking out the river, for the purpose of making wharfs. The appearance and prevalence of the Yellow Fever in these places, being those where vessels arrive from the West Indies, has caused the belief that the Yellow Fever was imported from thence:. but here are two cases acting in the same place; the one, the condition of the ground at the wharfs, which being new made on the muddy and filthy bottom of the river, is different from the natural condition of the ground in the higher parts of the city, and consequently subject to produce a different kind of effluvia or vapor: the other case, is the arrival of vessels from the West Indies.

In the State of Jersey, neither of these cases has taken place; no shipping arrive there, and consequently there have been no embankments for the purpose of wharfs, and the Yellow Fever has never broke out in Jersey. This, however, does not decide the point, as to the immediate cause of the fever, but it shows that this species of fever is not common to the country in its natural state; and, I believe the same was the case in the West Indies, before embankments began, for the purpose of making wharfs, which always alter the natural condition of the ground; no old history, that I know of, mentions such a disorder as the Yellow Fever.

A person seized with the Yellow Fever in an affected part of the town, and brought into the healthy part, or into the country, and among healthy persons, does not communicate it to the neighborhood, or to those immediately around him; why then are we to suppose it can be brought from the West Indies, a distance of more than a thousand miles, since we see it cannot be carried from one town to another, nor from one part of a town to another, at home? Is it in the air? this question on the case, requires a minute examination. In the first place, the difference between air and wind is the same as between a stream of water and a standing water. A stream of water is water in motion, and wind is air in motion. In a gentle breeze, the whole body of air, as far as the breeze extends, moves at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour; in a high wind, at the rate of seventy, eighty, or an hundred miles an hour: when we see the shadow of a cloud gliding on the surface of the ground, we see the rate at which the air moves, and it must be a good trotting horse that can keep pace with the shadow, even in a gentle breeze; consequently, a body of air, that is in and over any place of the same extent as the affected part of a city may be, will, in the space of an hour, even at the moderate rate I speak of, be moved seven or eight miles to leeward, and its place, in and over the city, will be supplied by a new body of air coming from a healthy part, seven or eight miles distant the contrary way, and then on in continual succession. The disorder, therefore, is not in the air, considered in its natural state, and never stationary. This leads to another consideration of the case.

An impure effluvia, arising from some cause in the ground, in the manner that fermenting liquors produce an effluvia near their surface that is fatal to life, will become mixed with the air contiguous to it, and as fast as that body of air moves off, it will impregnate every succeeding body of air, however pure it may be when it arrives at the place.

The result from this state of the case, is, that the impure air, or vapor, that generates the Yellow Fever, issues from the earth, that is, from the new made earth, or ground raised on the muddy and filthy bottom of the river; and which impregnates every fresh body of air that comes over the place, in like manner as air becomes heated when it approaches or passes over fire, or becomes offensive in smell, when it approaches or passes over a body of corrupt vegetable or animal matter in a state of putrefaction.