e 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. Yet, excluded as they would be from intercourse
with the rest of the Union and of Europe, I scarcely see the gain they
would propose to themselves, even for the moment. The defection would
certainly disconcert the other States, but it could not ultimately
endanger their safety. They are adequate, in all points, to a defensive
war. However, I hope your majority, with the aid it is entitled to, will
save us from this trial, to which I think it possible we are advancing.
The death of George may come to our relief; but I fear the dominion
of the sea is the insanity of the nation itself also. Perhaps, if some
stroke of fortune were to rid us at the same time from the Mammoth of
the land as well as the Leviathan of the ocean, the people of England
might lose their fears, and recover their sober senses again. Tell my
old friend, Governor Gerry, that I gave him glory for the rasping with
which he rubbed down his herd of traitors. Let them have justice
and protection against personal violence, but no favor. Powers and
pre-eminences conferred on them are daggers put into the hands of
assassins, to be plunged into our own bosoms in the moment the thrust
can go home to the heart. Moderation can never reclaim them. They deem
it timidity, and despise without fearing the tameness from which it
flows. Backed by England, they never lose the hope that their day is to
come, when the terrorism of their earlier power is to be merged in the
more gratifying system,of deportation and the guillotine. Being now
_hors de combat_ myself, I resign to others these cares. A long attack
of rheumatism has greatly enfeebled me, and warns me, that they will not
very long be within my ken. But you may have to meet the trial, and in
the focus of its fury. God send you a safe deliverance, a happy issue
out of all afflictions, personal and public, with long life, long
health, and friends as sincerely attached, as yours affectionately,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XCVIII.--TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN RUSH