Orange Letters for the years 1773 thru 1807

Orange, VA - 28 April 1773

Friendship, like all truth, delights in plainness and simplicity, and it is the counterfeit alone that needs ornament and ostentation.

Orange, VA - 6 September 1773

If I did not love you too well to scold at you, I should begin this with upbraiding your silence, contrary to your express promise and my earnest solicitations.

Orange, VA - 10 March 1784

I have perused, with both pleasure and edification, your observ.ions on the demand made by the Executive of South Carolina of a citizen of this State.

Orange, VA - 16 March 1784

Another question which several times during my serv.e in Congress exercised their deliberations was, whether seven States could revoke a Commission for a Treaty issued by nine States, at any time before the faith of the Confederacy should be pledged

Orange, VA - 25 April 1784

Will it not be good policy to suspend further Treaties of Commerce till measures shall have taken place in America which may correct the idea in Europe of impotency in the federal Government in matters of Commerce?

Orange, VA - 20 August 1784

The act which produces most agitation and discussion is that which restrains foreign trade to enumerated ports.

Orange, VA - 10 March 1785

I learn from an intelligent person lately from Kentucky, that the Convention there produced nothing but a statement of grievances

Orange, VA - 20 March 1785

Nature has given the use of the Mississippi to those who may settle on its waters, as she gave to the United States their independence.

Orange, VA - 21 March 1785

He has probably already mentioned to you the advances which Kentucky was said to be making towards an independent Government.

Orange, VA - 12 April 1785

The appointment of Mr. Adams to the Court of Great Britain is a circumstance which does not contradict my expectations.

Orange, VA - 27 April 1785

I thank you much for your attention to my literary wants.

Orange, VA - 28 April 1785

I hear frequent complaints of the disorders of our coin, and the want of uniformity in the denominations of the States.

Orange, VA - 29 May 1785

It is fortunate that the variant ideas have been so easily accommodated touching the mode of surveying and selling the territorial fund.

Orange, VA - 21 June 1785

Finding from a letter of Mr. Mazzei that you have never been furnished with a copy of the Bill for establishing the Christian Religion in this State, I now inclose one, regretting that I had taken it for granted that you must have been supplied throu

Orange, VA - 11 July 1785

I agree perfectly with you in thinking it the interest of this country to embrace the first decent opportunity of parting with Kentucky, and to refuse with firmness to part with any more of our settlements beyond the Alleghany.

Orange, VA - 26 July 1785

I have a letter from the Marquis, but dated as far back as March. It was accompanied with a Copy of a French memorial to the Emperor, which seems to have stifled the War in its birth

Orange, VA - 7 August 1785

Much, indeed, is it to be wished, as I conceive, that no regulations of trade, that is to say, no restrictions on imposts whatever, were necessary.

Orange, VA - 20 August 1785

The machinations of Great Britain, with regard to commerce, have produced much distress and noise in the Northern States, particularly in Boston, from whence the alarm has spread to New York and Philadelphia.

Orange, VA - 23 August 1785

I do not smile at the idea of transplanting myself into your wilderness. Such a change of my abode is not, indeed, probable, yet I have no local partialities which can keep me from any place which promises the greatest real advantages.

Orange, VA - 18 March 1786

Since I have been at home I have had leisure to review the literary cargo, for which I am so much indebted to your friendship. The collection is perfectly to my mind.

Orange, VA - 19 March 1786

The Question of policy, you say, is whether it will be better to correct the vices of the Confederation by recommendation gradually as it moves along, or by a Convention.

Orange, VA - 19 March 1786

The step taken by New Jersey was certainly a rash one, and will furnish fresh pretexts to unwilling States for withholding their contributions.

Orange, VA - 12 May 1786

Your notes having got into print in France, will inevitably be translated back and published in that form, not only in England but in America, unless you give out the original.

Orange, VA - 13 May 1786

I think, with you, that it would have an odd appearance for two Conventions to be sitting at the same time with powers in part concurrent.

Orange, VA - 4 June 1786

I expected I should by this time have been on the journey which promises the pleasure of taking you by the hand in New York.

Orange, VA - 21 June 1786

I cannot, however, forbear in the mean time expressing my amazement that a thought should be entertained of surrendering the Mississippi, and of guarantying the possessions of Spain in America.

Orange, VA - 10 April 1788

Having seen a part only of the names returned for the Convention, and being unacquainted with the political characters of many of them, I am a very incompetent prophet of the fate of the Constitution.

Orange, VA - 10 April 1788

I view the amendments of Massachusetts pretty nearly in the same light that you do. They were meant for the people at large, not for the minority in the Convention.

Orange, VA - 22 April 1788

The proposed Constitution still engrosses the public attention. The elections for the Convention here are but just over and promulged.

Orange, VA - 2 January 1789

Being informed that reports prevail not only that I am opposed to any amendments whatever to the new federal Constitution, but that I have ceased to be a friend to the rights of conscience...

Orange, VA - 14 January 1789

I fear, from the vague accounts which circulate, that the federal Candidates are likely to stand in the way of each other.

Orange, VA - 20 November 1789

A day or two after I got to Philadelphia I fell in with Mr. Morris. He broke the subject of the residence of Congress, and made observ.ions which betrayed his dislike of the upshot of the business at N. York

Orange, VA - 5 December 1789

Since my last I have been furnished with the inclosed copy of the letter from the Senators of this State to its Legislature. It is well calculated to keep alive the disaffection to the Government

Orange, VA - 12 June 1792

I have from Kentucky down to the 8th May. Little depredations from the savages continue to be complained of. The people, however, are chiefly occupied with the approaching distribution of the new offices.

Orange, VA - 21 June 1792

The questions which it presents for consideration are 1st . At what time a notification of your purpose to retire will be most convenient?

Orange, VA - 13 September 1792

That I wished and recommended Mr. Freneau to be appointed to his present Clerkship is certain. But the Department of State was not the only, nor, as I recollect, the first one, to which I mentioned his name and character.

Orange, VA - 12 April 1793

The refusal of Dunlap in the case you mention confirms the idea of a combined influence against the freedom of the press.

Orange, VA - 8 May 1793

I anxiously wish that the reception of Genet may testify what I believe to be the real affections of the people. It is the more desirable, as a seasonable plum after the bitter pills which it seems must be administered.

Orange, VA - 27 May 1793

I feel for your situation, but you must bear it. Every consideration, private as well as public, requires a further sacrifice of your longings for the repose of Monticello.

Orange, VA - 13 June 1793

I observ. that the newspapers continue to criticise the President's proclamation, and I find that some of the criticisms excite the attention of dispassionate and judicious individuals here.

Orange, VA - 17 June 1793

I fell in two days ago with French Strother, who was returning circuitously from RICHMOND. He had seen W. C. Nicholas on his way, and spoke of him as among the decided friends of the French cause.

Orange, VA - 19 June 1793

It is mortifying to the real friends of the President that his fame and his influence should have been unnecessarily made to depend in any degree on political events in a foreign quarter of the Globe

Orange, VA - 24 October 1793

I now lose not a moment in complying with its request; tho' I foresee it cannot reach you before you will have left Mount Vernon

Orange, VA - 29 October 1793

I send the little balance of tea due to Mrs. Monroe, which I intended, but failed, to procure before my late trip.

Orange, VA - 26 August 1807

The country news consists of the ravages made by the late deluges of rain. Almost all the mill-dams have been swept away, with all the wheat and hay in low situations.