h respect to our western boundary,
your instructions will be your guide. I will only add, as a comment
to them, that we are attached to the retaining the Bay of St. Bernard,
because it was the first establishment of the unfortunate La Sale, was
the cradle of Louisiana, and more incontestibly covered and conveyed to
us by France, under that name, than any other spot in the country. This
will be secured to us by taking for our western boundary the Guadaloupe,
and from its head around the sources of all waters eastward of it,
to the highlands embracing the waters running into the Mississippi.
However, all these things I presume will be settled before you receive
this; and I hope so settled as to give peace and satisfaction to us all.

Our crops of wheat are greater than have ever been known, and are now
nearly secured. A caterpillar gave for a while great alarm, but did
little injury. Of tobacco, not half a crop has been planted for want
of rain; and even this half, with cotton and Indian corn, has yet many
chances to run.

This summer will place our harbors in a situation to maintain peace and
order within them. The next, or certainly the one following that, will
so provide them with gunboats and common batteries, as to be _hors
d'insulte_. Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose is
to provide for defence by all those means to which our resources are
competent.

I salute you with friendship, and assure you of my high respect and
consideration.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XXXVI.--TO W. A. BURWELL, September 17, 1806

TO W. A. BURWELL.

Monticello, September 17, 1806.

Dear Sir,

Yours of August the 7th, from Liberty, never got to my hands till the
9th instant. About the same time, I received the Enquirer in which
Decius was so judiciously answered. The writer of that paper observed,
that the matter of Decius consisted, first of facts; secondly, of
inferences from these facts: that he was not well enough informed to
affirm or deny his facts, and he therefore examines his inferences,
and in a very masterly manner shows that even were his facts true, the
reasonable inferences from them are very different from those drawn by
Decius. But his facts are far from truth, and should be corrected. It
happened that Mr. Madison and General Dearborn were here when I received
your letter. I therefore, with them, took up Decius and read him
deliberately; and our memories aided one another in correcting his b