by this government, it might be thought worth while to transfer it to
the United States, on conditions somewhat like those he has talked of.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and
respect, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XIV.--TO E. RUTLEDGE, September 18, 1789

TO E. RUTLEDGE.

Paris, September 18, 1789.

Dear Sir,

I have duly received your favor by Mr. Cutting, enclosing the paper
from Doctor Trumbull, for which I am very thankful. The conjecture that
inhabitants may have been carried from the coast of Africa to that of
America, by the trade winds, is possible enough; and its probability
would be greatly strengthened by ascertaining a similarity of language,
which I consider as the strongest of all proofs of consanguinity among
nations. Still a question would remain between the red men of the
eastern and western sides of the Atlantic, which is the stock, and which
the shoot. If a fact be true, which I suspect to be true, that there is
a much greater number of radical languages among those of America than
among those of the other hemisphere, it would be a proof of superior
antiquity, which I can conceive no arguments strong enough to overrule.

When I received your letter, the time of my departure was too near to
permit me to obtain information from Constantinople, relative to the
demand and price of rice there. I therefore wrote to a merchant at
Marseilles, concerned in the Levant trade, for the prices current of
rice at Constantinople and at Marseilles for several years past. He has
sent me only the present price at Marseilles, and that of a particular
cargo at Constantinople. I send you a copy of his letter. The Algerines
form an obstacle; but the object of our commerce in the Mediterranean
is so immense, that we ought to surmount that obstacle, and I believe
it could be done by means in our power, and which, instead of fouling us
with the dishonorable and criminal baseness of France and England, will
place us in the road to respect with all the world.

I have obtained, and enclose to you, a state of all the rice imported
into this country in the course of one year, which shows its annual
consumption to be between eighty-one and eighty-two thousand quintals.
I think you may supplant all the other furnishing States, except as to
what is consumed at Marseilles and its neighborhood. In fact, Paris is
the place of main consumption. Ha