TO THE BARON DE MOLL, PRIVY COUNSELLOR OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF BAVARIA, SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES FOR THE CLASS OF MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES, AND OF THE AGRONOMIC SOCIETY OF BAVARIA, AT MUNICH
Monticello, July 31, 1814.
Sir,—Within a few days only, I have received the letter which you did me the honor to write on the 22d of July, 1812; a delay which I presume must be ascribed to the interruption of the intercourse of the world by the wars which have lately desolated it by sea and land. Still involved ourselves with a nation possessing almost exclusively the ocean which separates us, I fear the one I have now the honor of addressing you may experience equal delay. I receive with much gratification the diploma of the Agronomic Society of Bavaria, conferring on me the distinction of being honorary member of their society. For this mark of their good will, I pray you to be the channel of communicating to them my respectful thanks. Age and distance will add their obstacles to the services I shall ardently wish to render the society. Yet sincerely devoted to this art, the basis of the subsistence, the comforts and the happiness of man, and sensible of the general interest which all nations have in communicating freely to each other discoveries of new and useful processes and implements in it, I shall with zeal at all times meet the wishes of the society, and especially rejoice in every opportunity which their commands may present of being useful to them. With the homage of my respects to them, be pleased to accept for yourself the assurances of my particular and high consideration.
TO MR. WIRT
Monticello, August 14, 1814.
Dear Sir,—I have been laying under contribution my memory, my private papers, the printed records, gazettes and pamphlets in my possession, to answer the inquiries of your letter of July 27, and I will give you the result as correctly as I can. I kept no copy of the paper I sent you on a former occasion on the same subject, nor do I retain an exact recollection of its contents. But if in that I stated the question on the loan office to have been in 1762, I did it with too slight attention to the date, although not to the fact. I have examined the journals of the House of Burgesses, of 1760-1-2, in my possession, and find no trace of the proceeding in them. By those of 1764, I find that the famous address to the king, and memorials to the Houses of Lords and Commons, on the proposal of the Stamp Act, were of that date; and I know that Mr. Henry was not a member of the legislature when they were passed. I know also, because I was present, that Robinson, (who died in May, 1766,) was in the chair on the question of the loan office. Mr. Henry, then, must have come in between these two epochs, and consequently in 1765. Of this year I have no journals to refresh my memory. The first session was in May, and his first remarkable exhibition there was on the motion for the establishment of an office for lending money on mortgages of real property. I find in Royle's Virginia Gazette, of the 17th of that month this proposition for the loan office brought forward, its advantages detailed, and the plan explained; and it seems to have been done by a borrowing member, from the feeling with which the motives are expressed; and to have been preparatory to the intended motion. This was probably made immediately after that date, and certainly before the 30th, which was the date of Mr. Henry's famous resolutions. I had been intimate with Mr. Henry since the winter of 1759-60, and felt an interest in what concerned him, and I can never forget a particular exclamation of his in the debate in which he electrified his hearers. It had been urged that from certain unhappy circumstances of the colony, men of substantial property had contracted debts, which, if exacted suddenly, must ruin them and their families, but, with a little indulgence of time, might be paid with ease. "What, Sir!" exclaimed Mr. Henry, in animadverting on this, "is it proposed then to reclaim the spendthrift from his dissipation and extravagance, by filling his pockets with money." These expressions are indelibly impressed on my memory. He laid open with so much energy the spirit of favoritism on which the proposition was founded, and the abuses to which it would lead, that it was crushed in its birth. Abortive motions are not always entered on the journals, or rather, they are rarely entered. It is the modern introduction of yeas and nays which has given the means of placing a rejected motion on the journals; and it is likely that the speaker, who, as treasurer, was to be the loan officer, and had the direction of the journals, would choose to omit an entry of the motion in this case. This accounts sufficiently for the absence of any trace of the motion in the journals. There was no suspicion then, (as far, at least, as I know,) that Robinson had used the public money in private loans to his friends, and that the secret object of this scheme was to transfer those debtors to the public, and thus clear his accounts. I have diligently examined the names of the members on the journals of 1764, to see if any were still living to whose memory we might recur on this subject, but I find not a single one now remaining in life.
Of the parson's cause I remember nothing remarkable. I was at school with Mr. Maury during the years 1758 and 1759, and often heard them inveigh against the iniquity of the act of 1758, called the two-penny act. In 1763, when that cause was decided in Hanover, I was a law-student in Williamsburg, and remember only that it was a subject of much conversation, and of great paper-controversy, in which Camm, and Colonel Bland, were the principal champions.
The disputed election in which Mr. Henry made himself remarkable, must have been that of Dandridge and Littlepage, in 1764, of which, however, I recollect no particulars, although I was still a student in Williamsburg, and paid attention to what was passing in the legislature.
I proceed now to the resolution of 1765. The copies you enclose me, and that inserted by Judge Marshall in his history, and copied verbatim by Burke, are really embarrassing by their differences. 1. That of the four resolutions taken from the records of the House, is the genuine copy of what they passed, as amended by themselves, cannot be doubted. 2. That the copy which Mr. Henry left sealed up, is a true copy of these four resolutions, as reported by the committee, there is no reason to doubt. 3. That Judge Marshall's version of three of these resolutions, (for he has omitted one altogether,) is from an unauthentic source is sufficiently proved by their great variation from the record in diction, although equivalent in sentiment. But what are we to say of Mr. Henry's fifth, and Mr. Marshall's two last, which we may call the sixth and seventh resolutions? The fifth has clearly nothing to justify the debate and proceedings which one of them produced. But the sixth is of that character, and perfectly tallies with the idea impressed on my mind, of that which was expunged. Judge Marshall tells us that two were disagreed to by the House, which may be true. I do not indeed recollect it, but I have no recollection to the contrary. My hypothesis, then, is this, that the two disagreed to were the fifth and seventh. The fifth, because merely tautologous of the third and fourth, and the seventh, because leading to individual persecution, for which no mind was then prepared. And that the sixth was the one passed by the House, by a majority of a single vote, and expunged from the journals the next day. I was standing at the door of communication between the house and lobby during the debates and vote, and well remember, that after the numbers on the division were told, and declared from the chair, Peyton Randolph (then Attorney General) came out at the door where I was standing, and exclaimed, "By God, I would have given one hundred guineas for a single vote." For one vote would have divided the house, and Robinson was in the chair, who he knew would have negatived the resolution. Mr. Henry left town that evening, or the next morning; and Colonel Peter Randolph, then a member of the Council, came to the House of Burgesses about 10 o'clock of the forenoon, and sat at the clerk's table till the House-bell rang, thumbing over the volumes of Journals to find a precedent of expunging a vote of the House, which he said had taken place while he was a member or clerk of the House, I do not recollect which. I stood by him at the end of the table a considerable part of the time, looking on as he turned over the leaves, but I do not recollect whether he found the erasure. In the meantime, some of the timid members, who had voted for the strongest resolution, had become alarmed, and as soon as the House met, a motion was made, and carried, to expunge it from the journals. And here I will observe, that Burke's statement with his opponents, is entirely erroneous. I suppose the original journal was among those destroyed by the British, or its obliterated face might be appealed to. It is a pity this investigation was not made a few years sooner, when some of the members of the day were still living. I think inquiry should be made of Judge Marshall for the source from which he derived his copy of the resolutions. This might throw light on the sixth and seventh, which I verily believe, and especially the sixth, to be genuine in substance. On the whole, I suppose the four resolutions which are on the record, were passed and retained by the House; that the sixth is that which was passed by a single vote and expunged, and the fifth and seventh, the two which Judge Marshall says were disagreed to. That Mr. Henry's copy, then, should not have stated all this, is the remaining difficulty. This copy he probably sealed up long after the transaction, for it was long afterwards that these resolutions, instead of the address and memorials of the preceding year, were looked back to as the commencement of legislative opposition. His own judgment may, at a later date, have approved of the rejection of the sixth and seventh, although not of the fifth, and he may have left and sealed up a copy, in his own handwriting, as approved by his ultimate judgment. This, to be sure, is conjecture, and may rightfully be rejected by any one to whom a more plausible solution may occur; and there I must leave it. The address of 1764 was drawn by Peyton Randolph. Who drew the memorial to the Lords I do not recollect, but Mr. Wythe drew that to the Commons. It was done with so much freedom, that, as he has told me himself, his colleagues of the committee shrank from it as bearing the aspect of treason, and smoothed its features to its present form. He was, indeed, one of the very few, (for I can barely speak of them in the plural number,) of either character, who, from the commencement of the contest, hung our connection with Great Britain on its true hook, that of a common king. His unassuming character, however, made him appear as a follower, while his sound judgment kept him in a line with the freest spirit. By these resolutions, Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands of those who had heretofore guided the proceedings of the House, that is to say, of Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Randolph, Nicholas. These were honest and able men, had begun the opposition on the same grounds, but with a moderation more adapted to their age and experience. Subsequent events favored the bolder spirits of Henry, the Lees, Pages, Mason, &c., with whom I went in all points. Sensible, however, of the importance of unanimity among our constituents, although we often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part, differing nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait somewhat beyond that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and thus consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. By this harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our constituents in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation than, perhaps, existed in any other part of the Union.
I do not remember the topics of Mr. Henry's argument, but those of his opposers were that the same sentiments had been expressed in the address and memorials of the preceding session, to which an answer was expected and not yet received. I well remember the cry of treason, the pause of Mr. Henry at the name of George the III., and the presence of mind with which he closed his sentence, and baffled the charge vociferated. I do not think he took the position in the middle of the floor which you mention. On the contrary, I think I recollect him standing in the very place which he continued afterwards habitually to occupy in the house.
The censure of Mr. E. Randolph on Mr. Henry in the case of Philips, was without foundation. I remember the case, and took my part in it. Philips was a mere robber, who availing himself of the troubles of the times, collected a banditti, retired to the Dismal Swamp, and from thence sallied forth, plundering and maltreating the neighboring inhabitants, and covering himself, without authority, under the name of a British subject. Mr. Henry, then Governor, communicated the case to me. We both thought the best proceeding would be by bill of attainder, unless he delivered himself up for trial within a given time. Philips was afterwards taken; and Mr. Randolph being Attorney General, and apprehending he would plead that he was a British subject, taken in arms, in support of his lawful sovereign, and as a prisoner of war entitled to the protection of the law of nations, he thought the safest proceeding would be to indict him at common law as a felon and robber. Against this I believe Philips urged the same plea: he was overruled and found guilty.
I recollect nothing of a doubt on the re-eligibility of Mr. Henry to the government when his term expired in 1779, nor can I conceive on what ground such a doubt could have been entertained, unless perhaps that his first election in June, 1776, having been before we were nationally declared independent, some might suppose it should not be reckoned as one of the three constitutional elections.
Of the projects for appointing a Dictator there are said to have been two. I know nothing of either but by hearsay. The first was in Williamsburg in December, 1776. The Assembly had the month before appointed Mr. Wythe, Mr. Pendleton, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee, and myself, to revise the whole body of laws, and adapt them to our new form of government. I left the House early in December to prepare to join the Committee at Fredericksburg, the place of our first meeting. What passed, therefore, in the House in December, I know not, and have not the journals of that session to look into. The second proposition was in June, 1781, at the Staunton session of the legislature. No trace of this last motion is entered on the journals of that date, which I have examined. This is a further proof that the silence of the journals is no evidence against the fact of an abortive motion. Among the names of the members found on the journal of the Staunton session, are John Taylor of Caroline, General Andrew Moore, and General Edward Stevens of Culpeper, now living. It would be well to ask information from each of them, that their errors of memory, or of feeling, may be corrected by collation.
You ask if I would have any objection to be quoted as to the fact of rescinding the last of Mr. Henry's resolutions. None at all as to that fact, or its having been passed by a majority of one vote only; the scene being as present to my mind as that in which I am now writing. But I do not affirm, although I believe it was the sixth resolution.
It is truly unfortunate that those engaged in public affairs so rarely make notes of transactions passing within their knowledge. Hence history becomes fable instead of fact. The great outlines may be true, but the incidents and coloring are according to the faith or fancy of the writer. Had Judge Marshall taken half your pains in sifting and scrutinizing facts, he would not have given to the world, as true history, a false copy of a record under his eye. Burke again has copied him, and being a second writer on the spot, doubles the credit of the copy. When writers are so indifferent as to the correctness of facts, the verification of which lies at their elbow, by what measure shall we estimate their relation of things distant, or of those given to us through the obliquities of their own vision? Our records, it is true, in the case under contemplation, were destroyed by the malice and Vandalism of the British military, perhaps of their government, under whose orders they committed so much useless mischief. But printed copies remained, as your examination has proved. Those which were apocryphal, then, ought not to have been hazarded without examination. Should you be able to ascertain the genuineness of the sixth and seventh resolutions, I would ask a line of information, to rectify or to confirm my own impressions respecting them. Ever affectionately yours.
TO THOMAS COOPER
Monticello, August 25, 1814.
Dear Sir,—In my letter of January 16th, I mentioned to you that it had long been in contemplation to get an University established in this State, in which all the branches of science useful to us, and at this day, should be taught in their highest degree, and that this institution should be incorporated with the College and funds of William and Mary. But what are the sciences useful to us, and at this day thought useful to anybody? A glance over Bacon's arbor scientiæ will show the foundation for this question, and how many of his ramifications of science are now lopt off as nugatory. To be prepared for this new establishment, I have taken some pains to ascertain those branches which men of sense, as well as of science, deem worthy of cultivation. To the statements which I have obtained from other sources, I should highly value an addition of one from yourself. You know our country, its pursuits, its faculties, its relations with others, its means of establishing and maintaining an institution of general science, and the spirit of economy with which it requires that these should be administered. Will you then so far contribute to our views as to consider this subject, to make a statement of the branches of science which you think worthy of being taught, as I have before said, at this day, and in this country? But to accommodate them to our economy, it will be necessary further to distribute them into groups, each group comprehending as many branches as one industrious Professor may competently teach, and, as much as may be, a duly associated family, or class, of kindred sciences. The object of this is to bring the whole circle of useful science under the direction of the smallest number of professors possible, and that our means may be so frugally employed as to effect the greatest possible good. We are about to make an effort for the introduction of this institution.
On the subject of patent rights, on which something has passed between us before, you may have noted that the patent board, while it existed, had proposed to reduce their decisions to a system of rules as fast as the cases presented should furnish materials. They had done but little when the business was turned over to the courts of justice, on whom the same duty has now devolved. A rule has occurred to me, which I think would reach many of our cases, and go far towards securing the citizen against the vexation of frivolous patents. It is to consider the invention of any new mechanical power, or of any new combination of the mechanical powers already known, as entitled to an exclusive grant; but that the purchaser of the right to use the invention should be free to apply it to every purpose of which it is susceptible. For instance, the combination of machinery for threshing wheat, should be applicable to the threshing of rye, oats, beans, &c. The spinning machine to everything of which it may be found capable; the chain of buckets, of which we have been possessed thousands of years, we should be free to use for raising water, ore, grains, meals, or anything else we can make it raise. These rights appear sufficiently distinct, and the distinction sound enough, to be adopted by the judges, to whom it could not be better suggested than through the medium of the Emporium, should any future paper of that furnish place for the hint.
Since the change of government in France, I am in hopes the author of the Review of Montesquieu will consent to be named, and perhaps may publish there his original work; not that their press is free, but that the present government will be restrained by public opinion, whereas the late military despotism respected that of the army only. I salute you with friendship and respect.