Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XCVII.--TO GENERAL DEARBORN, August 14, 1811
TO GENERAL DEARBORN.
Poplar Forest, August 14, 1811.
Dear General and Friend,
*****
I am happy to learn that your own health is good, and I hope it will
long continue so. The friends we left behind us have fallen out by the
way. I sincerely lament it, because I sincerely esteem them all, and
because it multiplies schisms where harmony is safety. As far as I have
been able to judge, however, it has made no sensible impression against
the government. Those who were murmuring before are a little louder now;
but the mass of our citizens is firm and unshaken. It furnishes, as an
incident, another proof that they are perfectly equal to the purposes of
self-government, and that we have nothing to fear for its stability. The
spirit, indeed, which manifests itself among the tories of your quarter,
although I believe there is a majority there sufficient to keep it down
in peaceable times, leaves me not without some disquietude. Should the
determination of England, now formally expressed, to take possession of
the ocean, and to suffer no commerce on it but through her ports, force
a war upon us, I foresee a possibility of a separate treaty between
her and your Essex men, on the principles of neutrality and commerce.
Pickering here, and his nephew Williams there, can easily negotiate
this. Such a lure to the quietists in our ranks with you, might recruit
theirs to a majority.
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