-67- 



perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of 

 another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year. 

 Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still 

 devoted to the garden. But though an old man, I am but a young 

 gardener.... -H. a. Washington, ed.. The W riting s of Thomas Jefferson, 6:6 

 (Washington, D. C, Taylor & Maury, 1854). 



JEFFERSON TO JEAN BATISTE SAY, MONTICELLO, MARCH 2, 1815 



The main interest in the following letter is its detailed description 



of the farming in Jefferson's home community, Albemarle County, 



Virginia. A statement of Jefferson's attitude toward the 



growth of manufacturing in the United States as a 



result of the Napoleonic Wars is also included. 



Dear Sir, — Your letter of June 15th came to hand in December, and 

 it is not till the ratification of our peace, that a safe conveyance 

 for an ansv/er could be obtained.... The question proposed in my letter 

 of February 1st, 1804, has since become quite a "question viseuse." 

 I had then persuaded myself that a nation, distant as we are from the 

 contentions of Europe, avoiding all offences to other pov/ers, and not 

 over-hasty in resenting offence from them, doing justice to all, 

 faithfully fulfilling the duties of neutrality, performing all offices 

 of amity, and administering to their interests by the benefits of our 

 commerce, that such a nation, I say, might expect to live in peace, 

 and consider itself merely as a member of the great family of mankind; 

 that in such case it might devote itself to whatever it could best 

 produce, secure of a peaceable exchange of surplus for what could be 

 more advantageously furnished by others, as takes place between one 

 county and another of France. But experience has shown that continued 

 peace depends not merely on our own justice and prudence, but on that 

 of others also; that when forced into war, the interception of ex- 

 changes which must be made across a wide ocean, becomes a powerful 

 v/eapon in the hands of an enemy domineering over that element, and to 

 the other distresses of war adds the want of all those necessaries for 

 which we have permitted ourselves to be dependent on others, even 

 arms and clothing. This fact, therefore, solves the question by 

 reducing it to its ultimate form, whether profit or preservation is 

 the first interest of a State? We are consequently become manufac- 

 turers to a degree incredible to those who do not see it, and who 



