would leave me competently provided. Had
crops and prices for several years been such as to maintain a steady
competition of substantial bidders at market, all would have been safe.
But the long succession of years of stunted crops, of reduced prices,
the general prostration of the farming business, under levies for the
support of manufacturers, &c, with the calamitous fluctuations of
value in our paper medium, have kept agriculture in a state of abject
depression, which has peopled the western States by silently breaking
up those on the Atlantic, and glutted the land-market, while it drew off
its bidders. In such a state of things, property has lost its character
of being a resource for debts. Highland in Bedford, which, in the days
of our plethory, sold readily for from fifty to one hundred dollars the
acre (and such sales were many then), would not now sell for more than
from ten to twenty dollars, or one quarter or one fifth of its former
price. Reflecting on these things, the practice occurred to me, of
selling, on fair valuation, and by way of lottery, often resorted to
before the Revolution to effect large sales, and still in constant usage
in every State for individual as well as corporation purposes. If it is
permitted in my case, my lands here alone, with the mills, he, will pay
every thing, and leave me Monticello and a farm free. If refused, I must
sell every thing here, perhaps considerably in Bedford, move thither
with my family, where I have not even a log hut to put my head into, and
whether ground for burial, will depend on the depredations which,
under the form of sales, shall have been committed on my property. The
question then with me was, _Utrum horum?_ But why afflict you with
these details? Indeed, I cannot tell, unless pains are lessened by
communication with a friend. The friendship which has subsisted between
us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and
pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me through that
long period. And if I remove beyond the reach of attentions to the
University, or beyond the bourne of life itself, as I soon must, it is a
comfort to leave that institution under your care, and an assurance
that it will not be wanting. It has also been a great solace to me, to
believe that you are engaged in vindicating to posterity the course we
have pursued for preserving to them, in all their purity, the blessings
of self-government, which we had