I fear from an expression in your letter, that the people of Kentucky
think of separating, not only from Virginia (in which they are right),
but also from the confederacy. I own, I should think this a most
calamitous event, and such a one as every good citizen should set
himself against. Our present federal limits are not too large for good
government, nor will the increase of votes in Congress produce any ill
effect. On the contrary, it will drown the little divisions at present
existing there. Our confederacy must be viewed as the nest from which
all America, North and South, is to be peopled. We should take care,
too, not to think it for the interest of that great continent to press
too soon on the Spaniards. Those countries cannot be in better hands. My
fear is, that they are too feeble to hold them till our population
can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece. The
navigation of the Mississippi we must have. This is all we are, as yet,
ready to receive. I have made acquaintance with a very sensible, candid
gentleman here, who was in South America during the revolt which took
place there while our Revolution was going on. He says, that those
disturbances (of which we scarcely heard any thing) cost, on both sides,
an hundred thousand lives.

I have made a particular acquaintance here with Monsieur de Buffon, and
have a great desire to give him the best idea I can of our elk. Perhaps
your situation may enable you to aid me in this. You could not oblige me
more, than by sending me the horns, skeleton, and skin of an elk, were
it possible to procure them. The most desirable form of receiving them
would be to have the skin slit from the under jaw along the belly to the
tail, and down the thighs to the knee, to take the animal out, leaving
the legs and hoofs, the bones of the head, and the horns attached to
the skin. By sewing-up the belly, &c. and stuffing the skin, it would
present the form of the animal. However, as an opportunity of doing this
is scarcely to be expected, I shall be glad to receive them detached,
packed in a box and sent to Richmond, to the care of Dr. Currie. Every
thing of this kind is precious here. And to prevent my adding to your
trouble, I must close my letter with assurances of the esteem and
attachment, with which I am, Dear Sir,

your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLIV.--TO THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE TREASURY, January 26, 1786

TO THE COMMISSIO