University of Virginia Library

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Mr. Warville Brissot has just arrived here, and I
seize an opportunity suddenly brought to my knowledge
to thank you for your several favors, and particularly
for the pedometer. Answers to the letters
must be put off for the next opportunity.

My last went off just as a vote was taken in the
Convention of this State which foretold the ratification
of the new Government. The latter act soon followed
and is inclosed. The form of it is remarkable.
I inclose also a circular address to the other States on
the subject of amendments, from which mischiefs
are apprehended. The great danger in the present
crisis is that if another Convention should be soon
assembled it would terminate in discord, or in alterations
of the federal system which would throw back
essential powers into the State Legislatures. The
delay of a few years will assuage the jealousies which
have been artificially created by designing men and
will at the same time point out the faults which really
call for amendment. At present the public mind is
neither sufficiently cool nor sufficiently informed for
so delicate an operation.

The Convention of North Carolina met on the 21st
Ult: Not a word has yet been heard from its deliberations.
Rhode Island has not resumed the subject
since it was referred to & rejected by the people
in their several Towns.

Congress have been employed for several weeks on

the arrangement of times & place for bringing the
new Government into agency.[77] The first has been
agreed on though not definitively, & make it pretty
certain that the first meeting will be held in the third
week in March. The place has been a subject of
much discussion and continues to be uncertain.
Philada as least eccentric of any place capable of
affording due accommodations and a respectable outset
to the Government was the first proposed. The
affirmative votes were N. Hampshire, Connecticut,
Pena., Maryd, Virga., and N. Carolina. Delaware
was present & in favor of that place, but one of its
Delegates wishing to have a question on Wilmington
previous to a final determination divided that State
and negatived the motion. N. York came next in
view, to which was opposed first Lancaster which
failed and then Baltimore, which to the surprise of
every body was carried by seven States. S. Carolina
which had preferred N. York to the two other
more Southern positions unexpectedly concurring in
this. The vote however was soon rescinded, thie
State of S. Carolina receding the Eastern States remonstrating
against, and few seriously urging, the
eligibility of Baltimore. At present the question lies
as it was originally supposed to do, between N. York
& Philada, and nothing can be more uncertain than
the event of it. Rhode Island which alone was disposed
to give the casting vote to N. York, has refused
to give any final vote for arranging & carrying
into effect a system to which that State is opposed,
and both the delegates have returned home.

Col. Carrington tells me [he] has sent you the first
volume of the federalist, and adds the 2d. by this conveyance.
I believe I never have yet mentioned[78] to
you that publication. It was undertaken last fall by Jay,
Hamilton, and, myself. The proposal came from the
two former. The execution was thrown, by the sickness
of Jay, mostly on the two others. Though carried on
in concert, the writers are not mutually answerable for
all the ideas of each other, there being seldom time for
even a perusal of the pieces by any but the writer
before they were wanted at the press, and sometimes
hardly by the writer himself.

I have not a moment for a line to Mazzei. Tell
him I have recd. his books & shall attempt to get them
disposed of. I fear his calculations will not be fulfilled
by the demand for them here in the French
language. His affair with Dorhman stands as it did.
Of his affair with Foster Webb I can say nothing.
I suspect it will turn out badly.