he
validity of long contracted debts, so disinterestedly as we, since we
do not owe a shilling which will not be paid, principal and interest, by
the measures you have taken, within the time of our own lives. I write
you no news, because when an occasion occurs, I shall write a separate
letter for that.

I am always, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your affectionate
friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XII.--TO DR. GEM

THOMAS JEFFERSON TO DR. GEM.

The hurry in which I wrote my letter to Mr. Madison, which is in your
hands, occasioned an inattention to the difference between generations
succeeding each other at fixed epochs, and generations renewed daily
and hourly. It is true that in the former case, the generation when
at twenty-one years of age, may contract a debt for thirty-four
yours, because a majority of them will live so long. But a generation
consisting of all ages, and which legislates by all its members above
the age of twenty-one years, cannot contract for so long a time, because
their majority will be dead much sooner. Buffon gives us a table of
twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four deaths, stating
the ages at which they happened. To draw from these the result I have
occasion for, I suppose a society in which twenty-three thousand nine
hundred and ninety-four persons are born every year, and live to the age
stated in Buffon's table. Then, the following inferences may be drawn.
Such a society will consist constantly of six hundred and seventeen
thousand seven hundred and three persons, of all ages. Of those living
at any one instant of time, one half will be dead in twenty-four years
and eight months. In such a society, ten thousand six hundred and
seventy-five will arrive every year at the age of twenty-one years
complete. It will constantly have three hundred and forty-eight thousand
four hundred and seventeen persons of all ages above twenty-one years,
and the half of those of twenty-one years and upwards living at any one
instant of time, will be dead in eighteen years and eight months, or say
nineteen years.

Then, the contracts, constitutions, and laws of every such society
become void in nineteen years from their date.

LETTER XIII.--TO GENERAL KNOX, September 12,1789

TO GENERAL KNOX.

Paris, September 12,1789.

Sir,

In a letter which I had the honor of writing to the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, some three or four years ago, I informe