University of Virginia Library

H

3609. HABEAS CORPUS, Bill of Rights and.—

I like the declaration of rights as far as
it goes, but I should have been for going further.
For instance, the following alterations
and additions would have pleased me: * * * Article 8. “No person shall be held in confinement
more than—days after he shall
have demanded and been refused a writ of
habeas corpus by the judge appointed by law,
nor more than—days after such a writ
shall have been served on the person holding
him in confinement; and no order given on
due examination for his remandment or discharge;
nor more than—hours in any place
at a greater distance than—miles from the
usual residence of some judge authorized to
issue the writ of habeas corpus; nor shall
such writ be suspended for any term exceeding
one year, nor in any place more than—miles distant from the station or encampment
of enemies or of insurgents.”—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iii, 100. Ford ed., v, 112.
(P. Aug. 1789)

3610. HABEAS CORPUS IN ENGLAND.—

Examine the history of England.
See how few of the cases of the suspension
of the habeas corpus law have been worthy
of that suspension. They have been either
real treason, wherein the parties might as
well have been charged at once, or sham
plots, where it was shameful they should
ever have been suspected. Yet for the few
cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus
has done real good, that operation is now
become habitual, and the minds of the nation
almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. ii, 446. Ford ed., v, 46.
(P. July. 1788)

3611. HABEAS CORPUS, Force of.—

I
do not like[in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a bill of rights, providing
clearly and without the aid of sophisms for
* * * the eternal and unremitting force of
the habeas corpus laws.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. ii, 329. Ford ed., iv, 476.
(P. Dec. 1787)

3612. HABEAS CORPUS, Suspension.—

By a declaration of rights, I mean one
which shall stipulate * * * no suspensions
of the habeas corpus * * *.—
To A. Donald. Washington ed. ii, 355.
(P. 1788)

See 818.

3613. HABEAS CORPUS, Suspension.—[continued].

I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new Constitution by nine
States. It is a good canvas, on which some
strokes only want retouching. What these
are, I think, are sufficiently manifested by the
general voice from north to south, which
calls for a bill of rights. It seems pretty generally
understood that this should go to
* * * habeas corpus. * * * Why suspend
the habeas corpus in insurrections and
rebellions? The parties who may be arrested
may be charged instantly with a well defined
crime; of course, the judge will remand
them. If the public safety requires
that the Government should have a man imprisoned
on less probable testimony in those
than in other emergencies, let him be taken
and tried, retaken and retried, while the
necessity continues, only giving him redress
against the Government for damages.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. ii, 445. Ford ed., v, 45.
(P. 1788)

— HAMILTON (Alexander), Accounts of.—

See 36.

3614. HAMILTON (Alexander), Alliance with England.—

Hamilton[at a meeting
of the cabinet] thought that if we were
unequal to the contest[with Spain] ourselves,
it behooved us to provide allies for our aid.
That in this view, two nations could be named,
France and England. France was too intimately
connected with Spain in other points, and of
too great mutual value, ever to separate for
us. * * * England alone, then, remained.
It would not be easy to effect it with her; however,
he was for trying it, and for sounding
them on the proposition of a defensive treaty of
alliance. [229] The President said the remedy
would be worse than the disease.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 124. Ford ed., i, 206.
(Oct. 1792)

3615. HAMILTON (Alexander), Anglo-maniac.—

His mind was really powerful, but
chained by native partialities to everything
English. He had formed exaggerated ideas of
the superior perfection of the English constitution,
the superior wisdom of their government,
and sincerely believed it for the good of this
country to make them its model in everything;
without considering that what might be wise
and good for a nation essentially commercial,
and entangled in complicated intercourse with
numerous and powerful neighbors, might not be
so for one essentially agricultural, and insulated
by nature from the abusive governments
of the old world.—
To William H. Crawford. Washington ed. vii, 6. Ford ed., x, 34.
(M. 1816)

3616. HAMILTON (Alexander), AntiRepublican Colossus.—

Hamilton is really a
Colossus to the anti-republican party. Without
numbers, he is an host within himself. They
have got themselves into a defile where they
might be finished; but too much security on
the republican part will give time to his talents
and indefatigableness to extricate them. We
have had only middling performances to oppose
to him. In truth, when he comes forward, there
is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His
adversaries having begun the attack, he has the
advantage of answering them, and remains unanswered
himself. * * * For God's sake
take up your pen, and give a fundamental
reply to “Curtius” and “Camillus.”—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iv, 121. Ford ed., vii, 32.
(M. Sep. 1795)

3617. HAMILTON (Alexander), Coalescence with Jefferson.—

He[President
Washington] proceeded to express his earnest
wish that Hamilton and myself could coalesce
in the measures of the government, and urged
the general reasons for it which he had done
to me in two former conversations. He said
he had proposed the same thing to Hamilton,
who expressed his readiness, and he thought
our coalition would secure the general acquiescence
of the public. I told him my concurrence
was of much less importance than he
seemed to imagine; that I kept myself aloof
from all cabal and correspondence on the subject
of the government, and saw and spoke
with as few as I could. That as to a coalition
with Mr. Hamilton, if by that was meant that
either was to sacrifice his general system to the
other, it was impossible. We had both, no
doubt, formed our conclusions after the most
mature consideration; and principles conscientiously
adopted, could not be given up on either
side.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 131. Ford ed., i, 215.
(Feb. 1793)

3618. HAMILTON (Alexander), Corruption and.—

Hamilton was indeed a singular
character. Of acute understanding, disinterested,
honest, and honorable in all private
transactions, amiable in society, and duly valuing
virtue in private life, yet so bewitched and
perverted by the British example, as to be under
thorough conviction that corruption was essential
to the government of a nation.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 97. Ford ed., i, 166.
(1818)

3619. HAMILTON (Alexander), Defence of bank.—

In Fenno's newspaper you
will discover Hamilton's pen in defence of the
bank, and daring to call the republican party
a faction.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., vi, 95.
(Pa., 1792)

3620. HAMILTON (Alexander), English mission and.—

I learn by your letters
and Mr. Madison's that a special mission to
England is meditated, and Hamilton the missionary.
A more degrading measure could not
have been proposed. And why is Pinckney to be
recalled? For it is impossible he should remain
after such a testimony that he is not confided
in? I suppose they think him not thorough fraud
enough. I suspect too the mission, besides the
object of placing the aristocracy of this country
under the patronage of that government,
has in view that of withdrawing Hamilton from
the disgrace, and the public execrations which
sooner or later must fall on the man who, partly
by erecting fictitious debt, partly by volunteering
in the payment of the debts of others, who could
have paid them so much more conveniently
themselves, has alienated forever all our ordinary
and easy resources, and will oblige us
hereafter to extraordinary ones for every little
contingency out of the common line; and who
has lately brought the President forward with
manifestations that the business of the Treasury
had got beyond the limits of his comprehension.—
To James Monroe. Ford ed., vi, 504.
(M. April. 1794)

3621. HAMILTON (Alexander), Funding jobbery.—

It is well known that, during
the[Revolutionary] war, the greatest difficulty
we encountered was the want of money or
means to pay our soldiers who fought, or our
farmers, manufacturers and merchants, who furnished
the necessary supplies of food and clothing
for them. After the expedient of paper
money had exhausted itself, certificates of debt
were given to the individual creditors, with assurance
of payment, so soon as the United
States should be able. But the distresses of the
people often obliged them to part with these for
the half, the fifth, and even a tenth of their
value; and speculators had made a trade of
cozening them from the holders by the most
fraudulent practices, and persuasions that they
would never be paid. In the bill for funding
and paying these, Hamilton made no difference
between the original holders and the fraudulent
purchasers of this paper. Great and just repugnance
arose at putting these two classes of
creditors on the same footing, and great exertions
were used to pay the former the full
value, and to the latter, the price only which
they had paid, with interest. But this would
have prevented the game which was to be
played, and for which the minds of greedy
members were already tutored and prepared.
When the trial of strength on these several
efforts had indicated the form in which the bill
would finally pass, this being known within
doors sooner than without, and especially, than
to those who were in distant parts of the Union,
the base scramble began. Couriers and relay
horses by land, and swift-sailing pilot boats by
sea, were flying in all directions. Active partners
and agents were associated and employed
in every State, town and country neighborhood,
and this paper was bought up at five shillings,
and often as low as two shillings in the pound,
before the holder knew that Congress had already
provided for its redemption at par. Immense
sums were thus filched from the poor and
ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those
who had themselves been poor enough before.
Men thus enriched by the dexterity of a
leader, would follow of course the chief who
was leading them to fortune, and become the
zealous instruments of all his enterprises.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 91. Ford ed., i, 160.
(1818)

3622. HAMILTON (Alexander), Giles resolutions and.—

You have for some time
past seen a number of reports from the Sec

retary of the Treasury on enquiries instituted
by the House of Representatives. When these
were all come in, a number of resolutions were
prepared by Mr. Giles, expressing the truths
resulting from the reports. Mr. Giles and
one or two others were sanguine enough to
believe that the palpableness of the truths rendered
a negative of them impossible, and forced
them on. Others contemplating the character
of the present House, one-third of which is
understood to be made up of bank directors
and stock jobbers who would be voting on
the case of their chief; and another third of
persons blindly devoted to that party, of persons
not comprehending the papers, or persons comprehending
them, but too indulgent to pass a
vote of censure, foresaw that the resolutions
would be negatived by a majority of two to
one. Still they thought that the negative of
palpable truth would be of service, as it would
let the public see how desperate and abandoned
were the hands in which their interests were
placed. The vote turned out to be what was
expected, not more than three or four varying
from what had been conceived of them. The
public will see from this the extent of their
danger, and a full representation at the ensuing
session will doubtless find occasion to
revise the decision, and take measures for ensuring
the authority of the laws over the corrupt
maneuvers of the heads of departments
under the pretext of exercising discretion in
opposition to law.—
To T. M. Randolph. Ford ed., vi, 194.
(Pa., 1793)

3623. HAMILTON (Alexander), Honesty.—

Hamilton was honest as a man, but,
as a politician, believing in the necessity of
either force or corruption to govern men.—
To Dr. Benjamin Rush. Washington ed. v, 560. Ford ed., ix, 296.
(M. 1811)

— HAMILTON (Alexander), A Monarchist.—

See Monarchy.

3624. HAMILTON (Alexander), The Republic and.—

I mentioned to[Alexander] Hamilton a letter received from John Adams,
disavowing “Publicola [230] ”, and denying that he
ever entertained a wish to bring this country
under a hereditary Executive, or introduce an
hereditary branch of legislature, &c. Hamilton,
condemning Mr. Adams's writings and most
particularly “Davila [231] ”, as having a tendency
to weaken the present government, declared in
substance as follows: “I own it is my opinion,
though I do not publish it in Dan or Beersheba,
that the present government is not that which
will answer the ends of society, by giving
stability and protection to its rights, and that
it will probably be found expedient to go into
the British form. However, since we have
undertaken the experiment, I am for giving it
a fair course, whatever my expectations may be.
The success, indeed, so far, is greater than I had
expected, and therefore, at present, success
seems more possible than it had done heretofore,
and there are still other and other stages
of improvement which, if the present does not
succeed, may be tried, and ought to be tried before
we give up the republican form altogether;
for that mind must be really depraved, which
would not prefer the equality of political rights,
which is the foundation of pure republicanism,
if it can be obtained consistently with order.
Therefore, whoever by his writings disturbs the
present order of things, is really blamable, however
pure his intentions may be, and he was
sure Mr. Adams's were pure.” This is the
substance of a declaration made in much more
lengthy terms, and which seemed to be more
formal than usual for a private conversation
between two, and as if intended to qualify some
less guarded expressions which had been
dropped on former occasions.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 99. Ford ed., i, 169.
(Aug. 1791)

3625. HAMILTON (Alexander), Subservient to England.—

Hamilton is panicstruck,
if we refuse our breach to every kick
which Great Britain may choose to give it.
He is for proclaiming at once the most abject
principles, such as would invite and merit habitual
insults; and indeed every inch of ground
must be fought in our councils to desperation,
in order to hold up the face of even a sneaking
neutrality, for our votes are generally two and
a half against one and a half. Some propositions
have come from him which would astonish
Mr. Pitt himself with their boldness. If we
preserve even a sneaking neutrality, we shall
be indebted for it to the President, and not to
his counsellors.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. iii, 548. Ford ed., vi. 238.
(Pa., May. 1793)

3626. HAMILTON (Alexander), Treasury management.—

Alexander Hamilton's
[Treasury] system flowed from principles adverse
to liberty, and was calculated to undermine
and demolish the Republic, by creating
an influence of his Department over the members
of the Legislature. I saw this influence
actually produced, and its first fruits to be the
establishment of the great outlines of his project
by the votes of the very persons who, having
swallowed his bait, were laying themselves
out to profit by his plans; and that had these
persons withdrawn, as those interested in a
question ever should, the vote of the disinterested
majority was clearly the reverse of what
they had made it. These were no longer the
votes then of the representatives of the people,
but of deserters from the rights and interests
of the people; and it was impossible to consider
their decisions, which had nothing in view but
to enrich themselves, as the measures of the
fair majority, which ought always to be respected.—
To President Washington. Washington ed. iii, 461. Ford ed., vi, 102.
(M. 1792)

3627. HAMILTON (Alexander), Treasury management.—[continued].

The most prominent
suspicion excited by the Report of the Secretary
of the Treasury of January 3, 1793, is that the
funds raised in Europe, and which ought to
have been applied to the payment of our debts
there, in order to stop interest, have been drawn
over to this country, and lodged in the Bank, to
extend the speculations and increase the profits
of that institution. [232] —
No Address. Ford ed., vi, 165.
(Feb. 1793)

3628. HAMILTON (Alexander), Treasury management.—[further continued].

I do not at all wonder
at the condition in which the finances of the
United States are found. Hamilton's object
from the beginning, was to throw them into
forms which should be utterly undecipherable.
I ever said he did not understand their condition
himself, nor was able to give a clear
view of the excess of our debts beyond our
credits, nor whether we were diminishing or
increasing the debt.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iv, 131. Ford ed., vii, 61.
(M. 1796)

3629. HAMILTON (Alexander), Treasury management.—[further continued] .

Hamilton's financial system
* * * had two objects: first, as a
puzzle, to exclude popular understanding and
inquiry; secondly, as a machine for the corruption
of the Legislature.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 91. Ford ed., i, 160.
(1818)

See Assumption of State Debts and Bank.

3630. HAMILTON (Henry), Cruelties.—

The indiscriminate murder of men, women
and children, with the horrid circumstances
of barbarity practiced by the Indian savages,
was the particular task of Governor Hamilton's
employment; and if anything could have aggravated
the acceptance of such an office, and
have made him personally answerable in a
high degree, it was that eager spirit with which
he is said to have executed it; and which, if
the representations before the[Virginia] Council
are to be credited, seems to have shown that
his own feelings and disposition were in unison
with his employment. [233] —
To Theodorick Bland, Jr. Ford ed., ii, 191.
(W. 1779)

3631. HAPPINESS, Attainment.—

Be
assiduous in learning, take much exercise for
your health, and practice much virtue.
Health, learning and virtue will insure your happiness;
they will give you a quiet conscience,
private esteem and public honor. Beyond
these, we want nothing but physical necessaries,
and they are easily obtained.—
To Peter Carr. Washington ed. ii, 409.
(P. 1788)

3632. HAPPINESS, Conditions of.—

Our
greatest happiness * * * does not depend
on the condition of life in which chance has
placed us, but is always the result of a good
conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom
in all just pursuits.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 389. Ford ed., iii, 253.
(1782)

3633. HAPPINESS, Conjugal love and.—

Conjugal love is the basis of domestic happiness.—
To Mr. Bellini. Washington ed. i, 444.
(1785)

3634. HAPPINESS, Conservators of.—

If anybody thinks that kings, nobles, or priests are good conservators of the public
happiness, send him here[France]. It is
the best school in the world to cure him of
that folly.—
To George Wythe. Washington ed. ii, 7. Ford ed., iv, 268.
(P. 1786)

3635. HAPPINESS, Domestic.—

The
happiest moments of my life have been the
few which I have passed at home in the
bosom of my family.—
To Francis Willis. Ford ed., v, 157.
(N.Y., 1790)

3636. HAPPINESS, Education and.—

In
the present spirit of extending to the great
mass of mankind the blessings of instruction,
I see a prospect of great advancement in the
happiness of the human race.—
To C. C. Blatchly. Washington ed. vii, 263.
(M. 1822)

3637. HAPPINESS, Freedom and.—

My
future solicitude will be * * * to be instrumental
to the happiness and freedom of
all.—
First Inaugural Address.
(1801)

3638. HAPPINESS, Freedom and.—[continued].

The freedom and happiness
of man * * * are the sole objects of
all legitimate government.—
To General Kosciusko. Washington ed. v, 509.
(M. 1810)

3639. HAPPINESS, God and.—

The
Giver of life * * * gave it for happiness
and not for wretchedness.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. i, 319. Ford ed., iii, 59.
(M. 1782)

3640. HAPPINESS, Government and.—

The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree
of happiness possible to the general mass
of those associated under it.—
To M. Van Der Kemp. Washington ed. vi, 45.
(M. 1812)

3641. HAPPINESS, Guardians of.—

For
promoting the public happiness, those persons,
whom nature has endowed with genius and
virtue, should be rendered by liberal education
worthy to receive, and able to guard
the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties
of their fellow citizens; and they should be
called to that charge without regard to wealth,
birth, or other accidental condition or circumstance.—
Diffusion of Knowledge Bill. Ford ed., ii, 221.
(1779)

3642. HAPPINESS, High office and.—

No slave is so remote from happiness as
the minister of a commonwealth.—
To Marquis de Lafayette. Washington ed. i, 312. Ford ed., iii, 49.
(M. 1781)

3643. HAPPINESS, Laws and.—

The
laws which must affect the happiness of
every people must flow from their own habits,
their own feelings, and the resources of their
own minds. No stranger to these could
possibly propose regulations adapted to them.
Every people have their own particular
habits, ways of thinking, manners, &c., which
have grown up with them from their infancy,
are become a part of their nature, and to
which the regulations which are to make
them happy must be accommodated.—
To William Lee. Washington ed. vii, 56.
(M. 1817)

3644. HAPPINESS, Mature.—

The motion
of my blood no longer keeps time with
the tumult of the world. It leads me to seek
for happiness in the lap and love of my
family, in the society of my neighbors and
my books, in the wholesome occupations of
my farm and my affairs, in an interest or
affection in every bud that opens, in every
breath that blows around me, in an entire
freedom of rest, of motion, of thought, owing
account to myself alone of my hours and
actions.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iii, 578. Ford ed., vi, 291.
(June. 1793)

3645. HAPPINESS, No perfect.—

Perfect
happiness, I believe, was never intended
by the Deity to be the lot of one of
His creatures in this world; but that He has
very much put in our power the nearness of
our approaches to it, is what I have stead-fastly
believed.—
To John Page. Washington ed. i, 187. Ford ed., i, 349.
(1763)

3646. HAPPINESS, Peace and.—

The
happiness of mankind is best promoted by the
useful pursuits of peace.—
R. to A. Washington ed. viii, 142.
(1808)

3647. HAPPINESS, Primitive.—

I am
convinced that those societies (as the Indians )
which live without government, enjoy
in their general mass an infinitely greater
degree of happiness than those who live under
the European governments.—
To Edward Carrington. Washington ed. ii, 100. Ford ed., iv, 360.
(P. 1787)

3648. HAPPINESS, Public.—

That people
will be happiest whose laws are best, and
are best administered.—
Diffusion of Knowledge Bill. Ford ed., ii, 221.
(1779)

3649. HAPPINESS, Public approbation and.—

The anxieties you express to administer
to my happiness, do, of themselves, confer that happiness, and the measure will
be complete, if my endeavors to fulfil my
duties in the several public stations to which
I have been called, have obtained for me the
approbation of my country.—
To the Inhabitants of Albemarle County, Va. Washington ed. v, 439. Ford ed., ix, 250.
(M. April. 1809)

3650. HAPPINESS, Public servants and.—

To the sacrifice of time, labor, fortune,
a public servant must count upon adding that of
peace of mind, and even reputation.—
To Dr. James Currie. Washington ed. iv, 132.
(P. 1786)

3651. HAPPINESS, Purchased by bloodshed.—

If the happiness of the mass of
mankind can be secured at the expense of a
little tempest [234] now and then, or even of a
little blood it will be a precious purchase.—
To Ezra Stiles. Washington ed. ii, 77.
(P. 1786)

3652. HAPPINESS, Retrospective.—

My
principal happiness is now in the retrospect of
life.—
To John Page. Washington ed. i, 399.
(P. 1785)

3653. HAPPINESS, Right to.—

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with inherent [235] and inalienable rights;
that among these, are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.—
Declaration of Independence as Drawn by Jefferson.

3654. HAPPINESS, Simple.—

This friend [Dabney Carr] of ours, in a very small house,
with a table, half a dozen chairs, and one or
two servants, is the happiest man in the universe.
* * * He speaks, thinks and
dreams of nothing but his young son. Every
incident in life he so takes as to render it a
source of pleasure. With as much benevolence
as the heart of man will hold, but
with an utter neglect of the costly apparatus
of life, he exhibits to the world a new phenomenon
in philosophy—the Samian sage in
the tub of the cynic.—
To John Page. Washington ed. i, 195. Ford ed., i, 373.
(1770)

3655. HAPPINESS, Tranquillity and.—

It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquillity
and occupation, which give happiness.—
To Mrs. A. S. Marks. D. L. J.135.
(P. 1788)

3656. HAPPINESS, Virtue and.—

Without
virtue, happiness cannot be.—
To Amos J. Cook. Washington ed. vi, 532.
(M. 1816)

3657. HARMONY, Affection and.—

Let
us restore to social intercourse that harmony
and affection without which liberty and
even life itself are but dreary things.—
First Inaugural Address. Washington ed. viii, 2. Ford ed., viii, 2.
(1801)

3658. HARMONY, Blessings of.—

The
evanition of party discussions has harmonized
intercourse, and sweetened society beyond
imagination.—
To Marquis de Lafayette. Washington ed. vii, 67. Ford ed., x, 84.
(M. 1817)

3659. HARMONY vs. DISSENSION.—

I
hope * * * the good sense and patriotism
of the friends of free government of every
shade will spare us the painful, the deplorable
spectacle of brethren sacrificing to small passions
the great, the immortal and immutable
rights of men.—
To John Dickinson. Ford ed., viii, 77.
(W. July. 1801)

3660. HARMONY, Inaugural address and.—

I am made very happy by learning that
the sentiments expressed in my inaugural address
gave general satisfaction, and holds out a
ground on which our fellow citizens can once
more unite. I am the more pleased, because
these sentiments have been, long and radically
mine, and therefore will be pursued honestly
and conscientiously.—
To Dr. Benjamin Rush. Washington ed. iv, 382. Ford ed., viii, 30.
(W. March. 1801)

3661. HARMONY, Inaugural address and.—[continued].

It is with the greatest
satisfaction I learn from all quarters that my
inaugural address is considered as holding out
a ground for conciliation and union. I am
the more pleased with this, because the
opinion therein stated as to the real ground of
difference among us (to wit: the measures
rendered most expedient by the French
enormities), is that which I have long entertained.—
To General Henry Knox. Washington ed. iv, 385. Ford ed., viii, 35.
(W. March. 1801)

3662. HARMONY, Incumbent on all.—

The times do certainly render it incumbent
on all good citizens, attached to the rights and
honor of their country, to bury in oblivion
all internal differences, and rally around
the standard of their country in opposition to
the outrages of foreign nations. All attempts
to enfeeble and destroy the exertions of the
General Government, in vindication of our
national rights, or to loosen the bands of
union by alienating the affections of the people,
or opposing the authority of the laws
at so eventful a period, merit the discountenance
of all.—
To Governor Tompkins. Washington ed. viii, 153.
(1809)

3663. HARMONY, Love of country and.—

My earnest prayers to all my friends
[are] to cherish mutual good will, to promote
harmony and conciliation, and above all things
to let the love of our country soar above all
minor passions.—
To John Hollins. Washington ed. v, 597.
(M. 1811)

3664. HARMONY, Measures for.—

The
measures we shall pursue, and propose for
the amelioration of the public affairs, will be
so confessedly salutary as to unite all men
not monarchists in principle.—
To Levi Lincoln. Washington ed. iv, 407. Ford ed., viii, 85.
(M. 1801)

3665. HARMONY, Monarchists and.—

Of the monarchical federalists I have no expectations.
They are incurables, to be taken care of in a mad-house, if necessary, and on
motives of charity.—
To Levi Lincoln. Washington ed. iv, 406. Ford ed., viii, 84.
(M. Aug. 1801)

3666. HARMONY, National.—

The moment
which should convince me that a healing
of the nation into one is impracticable, would
be the last moment of my wishing to remain
where I am.—
To Levi Lincoln. Washington ed. iv, 406. Ford ed., viii, 84.
(M. Aug. 1801)

3667. HARMONY, National.—[continued].

Every wish of my heart
will be completely gratified when that portion
of my fellow citizens which has been misled
as to the character of our measures and principles,
shall, by their salutary effects, be corrected
in their opinions, and joining with
good will the great mass of their fellow citizens,
consolidate an Union, which cannot be
too much cherished.—
Reply to Address. Washington ed. viii, 114.
(1802)

See Second Inaugural Address in Appendix.

3668. HARMONY, In New England.—

In the New England States union will be
slower than elsewhere * * *. But we will
go on attending with the utmost solicitude
to their interests, doing them impartial justice,
and I have no doubt they will in time
do justice to us.—
To Henry Knox. Washington ed. iv, 387. Ford ed., viii, 37.
(W. March. 1801)

3669. HARMONY, Obstacles to.—

[The
federalists] now find themselves with us and
separated from their quondam leaders. If we
can * * * avoid shocking their feelings
by unnecessary acts of severity against their
late friends, they will in a little time cement
and form one mass with us, and by these
means harmony and union be restored to
our country, which would be the greatest
good we could effect. It was a conviction
that these people did not differ from us in
principle, which induced me to define the principles
which I deemed orthodox, and to urge
a reunion on those principles; and I am induced
to hope it has conciliated many. I do
not speak of the desperadoes of the quondam
faction in and out of Congress. These I
consider as incurables, on whom all attentions
would be lost, and therefore will not
be wasted. But my wish is to keep their
flock from returning to them.—
To William B. Giles. Washington ed. iv, 381. Ford ed., viii, 26.
(W. March. 1801)

3670. HARMONY, Obstacles to.—[continued].

I know there is an obstacle
which very possibly may check the confidence
which would otherwise have been more
generally reposed in my observance of these
principles. This obstacle does not arise from
the measures to be pursued, as to which I am
in no fear of giving satisfaction, but from
appointments and disappointments as to office.—
To Dr. Benjamin Rush. Washington ed. iv, 382. Ford ed., viii, 30.
(W. March. 1801)
See Office.

3671. HARMONY, Political and personal.—

I never suffered a political to become
a personal difference. I have been left on
this ground by some friends whom I dearly
loved, but I was never the first to separate.
With some others, of politics different from
mine, I have continued in the warmest friendship
to this day, and to all, and to yourself
particularly, I have ever done moral justice.—
To Timothy Pickering. Washington ed. vii, 210.
(M. 1821)

3672. HARMONY, Political and personal.—[continued].

I feel extraordinary
gratification in addressing this letter to you,
with whom shades of difference in political
sentiment have not prevented the interchange
of good opinion, nor cut off the
friendly offices of society and good correspondence.
This political tolerance is the more
valued by me, who considers social harmony
as the first of human felicities, and the happiest
moments those which are given to the
effusions of the heart.—
To——.
(1798.)
Rayner,p. 545.

3673. HARMONY, Principles and.—

I
hope to see shortly a perfect consolidation, to
effect which, nothing shall be spared on my
part, short of the abandonment of the principles
of our Revolution.—
To John Dickinson. Washington ed. iv, 366. Ford ed., viii, 7.
(W. March. 1801)

3674. HARMONY, Principles and.—[continued].

I hope we shall once
more see harmony restored among our citizens,
and an entire oblivion of past feuds.
Some of the leaders who have most committed
themselves cannot come into this. But I
hope the great body of our fellow citizens will
do it. I will sacrifice everything but principle
to procure it.—
To Samuel Adams. Washington ed. iv, 389. Ford ed., viii, 39.
(W. March. 1801)

3675. HARMONY, Public good.—

The
greatest good we can do our country is to
heal its party divisions, and make them one
people.—
To John Dickinson. Ford ed., viii, 76.
(W. July. 1801)

3676. HARMONY, Restoration of.—

To
restore that harmony which our predecessors
so wickedly made it their object to break up,
to render us again one people, acting as one nation,
should be the object of every man really
a patriot. I am satisfied it can be done, and
I own that the day which should convince
me of the contrary would be the bitterest of
my life.—
To Thomas McKean. Ford ed., viii, 78.
(W. July. 1801)

3677. HARMONY, Sacrifices for.—

I see
the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes
to the opinions of others for the sake
of harmony.—
To Francis Eppes. Ford ed., v, 194.
(N.Y., 1790)

3678. HARTFORD CONVENTION, American maratists.—

I do not say that all
who met at Hartford were under the same
motive of money, nor were those of France.

Some of them are “Outs” and wish to be
“Ins”; some were mere dupes of the agitators,
or of their own party passions, while the Maratists
alone are in the real secret; but they have
very different materials to work on. The yeomanry
of the United States are not the canaille of Paris. We might safely give them leave to
go through the United States recruiting their
ranks, and I am satisfied they could not raise
one single regiment (gambling merchants and
silk-stocking clerks excepted) who would support
them in any effort to separate from the
Union. The cement of this Union is in the
heart-blood of every American. I do not believe
there is on earth a government established
on so immovable a basis. Let them, in any
State, even in Massachusetts itself, raise the
standard of separation, and its citizens will
rise in mass, and do justice themselves on their
own incendiaries.—
To Marquis Lafayette. Washington ed. vi, 425. Ford ed., ix, 509.
(M. 1815)

3679. HARTFORD CONVENTION, Anarchy and.—

The paradox with me is how
any friend to the union of our country can, in
conscience, contribute a cent to the maintenance
of any one who perverts the sanctity of
his desk to the open inculcation of rebellion,
civil war, dissolution of the government, and
the miseries of anarchy.—
To Governor Plumer. Washington ed. vi, 414.
(M. 1815)

3680. HARTFORD CONVENTION, British agitators.—

The troubles in the East have been produced by English agitators, operating
on the selfish spirit of commerce, which
knows no country, and feels no passion or principle
but that of gain.—
To Larkin Smith. Washington ed. v, 441.
(M. April. 1809)

3681. HARTFORD CONVENTION, Contempt for.—

If they could have induced
the government to some effort of suppression,
or even to enter into discussion with them, it
would have given them some importance, have
brought them into some notice. But they have
not been able to make themselves even a subject
of conversation, either of public or private
societies. A silent contempt has been the sole
notice they excite; consoled, indeed, some of
them, by the palpable favors of Philip[England].—
To Marquis Lafayette. Washington ed. vi, 426. Ford ed., ix, 509.
(M. 1815)

3682. HARTFORD CONVENTION, Crime of.—

When England took alarm lest
France, become republican, should recover
energies dangerous to her, she employed emissaries
with means to engage incendiaries and
anarchists in the disorganization of all government
here. These, assuming exaggerated zeal
for republican government and the rights of
the people, crowded their inscriptions into the
Jacobin societies, and overwhelming by their
majorities the honest and enlightened patriots
of the original institution, distorted its objects,
pursued its genuine founders under the name
of Brissotines and Girondists unto death, intrigued
themselves into the municipality of
Paris, controlled by terrorism the proceedings
of the legislature, in which they were faithfully
aided by their constipendaries there, the Dantons
and Marats of the Mountain, murdered
their King, septembrized the nation, and thus
accomplished their stipulated task of demolishing
liberty and government with it.
England now fears the rising force of this republican
nation, and by the same means is endeavoring
to effect the same course of miseries
and destruction here; it is impossible where
one sees like courses of events commence, not
to ascribe them to like causes. We know that
the government of England, maintaining itself
by corruption at home, uses the same means
in other countries of which she has any jealousy,
by subsidizing agitators and traitors
among ourselves to distract and paralyze them.
She sufficiently manifests that she has no
disposition to spare ours. We see in the proceedings
of Massachusetts, symptoms which
plainly indicate such a course, and we know
as far as such practices can ever be dragged
into light, that she has practiced, and with success,
on leading individuals of that State. Nay,
further, we see those individuals acting on
the very plan which our information had
warned us was settled between the parties.
These elements of explanation history cannot
stantly subject to his own will. The crime,
of combining with the oppressors of the earth
to extinguish the last spark of human hope,
that here, at length, will be preserved a model
government, securing to man his rights and
the fruits of his labor, by an organization constantly
subject to his own will. The crime
indeed, if accomplished, would immortalize its
perpetrators, and their names would descend in
history with those of Robespierre and his associates,
as the guardian genii of despotism, and
demons of human liberty.—
To Governor Plumer. Washington ed. vi, 414.
(M. 1815)

3683. HARTFORD CONVENTION, English bribery.—

But the British ministers hoped more in their Hartford convention[than
in the disordered condition of our finances].
Their fears of republican France being now
done, away, they are directed to republican
America, and they are playing the same game
for disorganization here, which they played in
your country. The Marats, the Dantons and
Robespierres of Massachusetts are in the same
pay, under the same orders, and making the
same efforts to anarchise us, that their prototypes
in France did there.—
To Marquis de Lafayette. Washington ed. vi, 425. Ford ed., ix, 508.
(M. 1815)

3684. HARTFORD CONVENTION, Laughing stock.—

No event, more than this,
has shown the placid character of our Constitution.
Under any other, their treasons would
have been punished by the halter. We let them
live as laughing stocks for the world, and
punish them by the torment of eternal contempt.—
To Dr. B. Waterhouse. Ford ed., ix, 532.
(M. 1815)

3685. HARTFORD CONVENTION, Unpopular.—

I do not mean to say that all
who are acting with these men are under the
same motives. I know some of them personally
to be incapable of it. Nor was that the case
with the disorganizers and assassins of Paris.
Delusions there, and party perversions here,
furnish unconscious assistants to the hired
actors in these atrocious scenes. But I have
never entertained one moment's fear on this
subject. The people of this country enjoy too
much happiness to risk it for nothing; and
I have never doubted that whenever the incendiaries
of Massachusetts should venture
openly to raise the standard of separation, its
citizens would rise in mass and do justice
themselves to their own parricides.—
To Governor Plumer. Washington ed. vi, 415.
(M. 1815)

3686. HASTINGS (Warren), Trial of.—

I presume you will remain at London to see the trial of Hastings. Without suffering yourself
to be imposed on by the pomp in which it will
be enveloped, I would recommend to you to
consider and decide for yourself these questions.

If his offense is to be decided by the law of the land, why is he not tried in that
court in which his fellow-citizens are tried, that
is, the King's Bench? If he is cited before another
court that he may be judged, not according
to the law of the land, but by the
discretion of his judges, is he not disfranchised
of his most precious right, the benefit of the
laws of his country in common with his other
fellow-citizens? I think you will find on investigating
this subject that every solid argument
is against the extraordinary court, and
that every one in its favor is specious only. It
is a transfer from a judicature of learning and
integrity to one, the greatness of which is both
illiterate and unprincipled. Yet such is the
force of prejudice with some, and of the want
of reflection in others, that many of our constitutions
have copied this absurdity, without
suspecting it to be one.—
To William Rutledge. Washington ed. ii, 349. Ford ed., v, 4.
(P. 1788)

3687. HAWKINS (Benjamin), Influence with Indians.—

Towards the attainment
of our two objects of peace and lands, it is essential that our agent acquire that sort
of influence over the Indians which rests on
confidence. In this respect, I suppose, that
no man has ever obtained more influence than
Colonel Hawkins. Towards the preservation
of peace, he is omnipotent; in the encouragement
he is indefatigable and successful.—
To General Andrew Jackson. Washington ed. iv, 464.
(W. 1803)

3688. HEALTH vs. LEARNING.—

Health must not be sacrificed to learning. A
strong body makes the mind strong.—
To Peter Carr. Washington ed. i, 397.
(P. 1785)

3689. HEALTH vs. LEARNING.—[continued].

Knowledge indeed is a
desirable possession, * * * but health is
more so.—
To T. M. Randolph, Jr. Ford ed., iv, 293.
(P. 1786)

3690. HEALTH vs. LEARNING.—[further continued].

Health is worth more
than learning.—
To John Garland Jefferson, Ford ed., v, 181.
(N.Y., 1790)

3691. HEALTH, Morality and.—

Health
is the first requisite after morality.—
To Peter Carr. Washington ed. ii, 241. Ford ed., iv, 433.
(P. 1787)

3692. HEALTH, Unhappiness without.—

Without health there is no happiness. An
attention to health, then, should take place of
every other object. The time necessary to
secure this by active exercises, should be devoted
to it in preference to every other pursuit.
I know the difficulty with which a studious
man tears himself from his studies, at
any given moment of the day; but his happiness,
and that of his family depend on it. The
most uninformed mind, with a healthy body,
is happier than the wisest valetudinarian.—
To T. M. Randolph, Jr. Washington ed. ii, 177. Ford ed., iv, 406.
(P. 1787)

3693. HEAVEN, Blessings of.—

Retiring
from the charge of their affairs, I carry with
me the consolation of a firm persuasion that
Heaven has in store for our beloved country
long ages to come of prosperity and happiness.—
Eighth Annual Message. Washington ed. viii, 111. Ford ed., ix, 225.
(Nov. 1808)

3694. HENRY (Patrick), Ambitious.—

Your character of Patrick Henry is precisely
agreeable to the idea I had formed of him. I
take him to be of unmeasured ambition.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., iv, 35.
(P. 1785)

3695. HENRY (Patrick), Apostate.—

His apostasy must be unaccountable to those
who do not know all the recesses of his heart.—
To Archibald Stuart. Ford ed., vii, 378.
(M. May. 1799)

3696. HENRY (Patrick), Avaricious.—

Mr. Henry's ravenous avarice was the only passion
paramount to his love of popularity.—
To William Wirt. Ford ed., ix, 339.
(M. 1812)

3697. HENRY (Patrick), Brilliant but illogical.—

In ordinary business[in the House
of Burgesses] he was a very inefficient member.
He could not draw a bill on the most
simple subject which would bear legal criticism,
or even the ordinary criticism which looks to
correctness of style and ideas, for indeed there
was no accuracy of idea in his head. His
imagination was copious, poetical, sublime, but
vague also. He said the strongest things in
the finest language, but without logic, without
arrangement, desultorily.—
To William Wirt. Ford ed., ix, 341.
(M. 1812)

3698. HENRY (Patrick), Declined office.—

The office of Secretary of State was
offered to P. H.[Patrick Henry] in order to
draw him over, and gain some popularity; but
not till there was a moral certainty that he
would not accept it.—
To James Monroe. Ford ed., vii, 59.
(M. March. 1796)

3699. HENRY (Patrick), Declined office.—[continued].

Most assiduous court is
paid to Patrick Henry. He has been offered
everything which they knew he would not accept.
Some impression is thought to be made,
but we do not believe it is radical. If they
thought they could count upon him, they would
run him for their Vice-President; their first
object being to produce a schism in this State.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. iv, 148. Ford ed., vii, 89.
(M. July. 1796)

3700. HENRY (Patrick), Early manhood.—

You ask some account of Mr. Henry's
mind, information and manners in 1759-60,
when I first became acquainted with him. We
met at Nathan Dandridges, in Hanover, about
the Christmas of that winter, and passed perhaps
a fortnight together at the revelries of the
neighborhood and season. His manners had
something of the coarseness of the society he
had frequented; his passion was fiddling, dancing
and pleasantry. He excelled in the last
and it attached every one to him. The occasion
perhaps, as much as his idle disposition,
prevented his engaging in any conversation
which might give the measure either of his
mind or information. Opportunity was not
wanting, because Mr. John Campbell was there,
who had married Mrs. Spotswood, the sister
of Colonel Dandridge. He was a man of
science, and often introduced conversations on
scientific subjects. Mr. Henry had a little before
broke up his store, or rather it had broken
him up and within three months after he came
to Williamsburg for his license, and told me, I
think, he had read law not more than six
weeks.—
To William Wirt. Washington ed. vi, 487. Ford ed., ix, 475.
(M. 1815)

3701. HENRY (Patrick), Eloquence.—

When the famous resolutions of 1765, against
the Stamp Act, were proposed, I was yet a
student of law in Williamsburg. I attended the
debate, however, at the door of the lobby of
the House of Burgesses and heard the splendid
display of Mr. Henry's talents as a popular
orator. They were great, indeed; such as I

have never heard from any other man. He appeared
to me to speak as Homer wrote. [236] —
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 4. Ford ed., i, 6.
(1821)

3702. HENRY (Patrick), Eloquence.—[continued].

Another of the great occasions
on which he exhibited examples of eloquence
such as probably had never been exceeded,
was on the question of adopting the
new Constitution in 1788. To this he was
most violently opposed.
To William Wirt. Ford ed., ix, 344.
(M., 1811)

3703. HENRY (Patrick), Foe of Constitution.—

Henry is the avowed foe of the new
Constitution. He stands higher in public estimation [
in Virginia] than he ever did, yet he
was so often in the minority in the present
assembly that he has quitted it, never more to
return, unless an opportunity offers to overturn
the new Constitution.—
To William Short. Ford ed., v, 136.
(Dec. 1789)

3704. HENRY (Patrick), Force of oratory.—

Mr. Henry's first remarkable exhibition [
in the House of Burgesses] was on the
motion for the establishment of an office for
lending money on mortgages of real property.
* * * 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?” * * * 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.—
To William Wirt. Washington ed. vi, 364. Ford ed., ix, 466.
(M. 1814)

3705. HENRY (Patrick), Gerrymandering.—

Mr. Henry is omnipotent in Virginia.
Mr. Madison was left out as a Senator
by eight or nine votes; and Henry has so
modelled the districts for Representatives, as to
tack Orange to counties where himself has
great influence, that Madison may not be elected
into the lower Federal House, which was
the place he had wished to serve in, and not the
Senate.—
To William Short. Washington ed. ii, 574. Ford ed., v, 70.
(P. 1789)

3706. HENRY (Patrick), Influence.—

I
have understood that Mr. Henry has always
been opposed[to a new constitution for Virginia];
and I confess that I consider his talents
and influence such as that, were it decided that
we should call a convention for the purpose of
amending, I should fear he might induce that
convention either to fix the thing as at present,
or change it for the worse. Would it not,
therefore, be well that means should be adopted
for coming at his ideas of the changes he would
agree to, and for communicating to him those
which we should propose? Perhaps he might
find ours not so distant from his, but that some
mutual sacrifices might bring them together.—
To Archibald Stuart. Washington ed. iii, 314. Ford ed., v, 408.
(Pa., 1791)

3707. HENRY (Patrick), Innate love of liberty.—

No man ever more undervalued
chartered titles than himself. He drew all natural
rights from a purer source—the feelings of
his own breast.—
To William Wirt. Ford ed., x, 60.
(M. 1816)

3708. HENRY (Patrick), Intrigue.—

Our Legislature is filled with too great a mass
of talents and principle to be now swayed by
Mr. Henry. He will experience mortifications
to which he has been hitherto a stranger. Still,
I fear something from his intriguing and
cajoling talents, for which he is still more remarkable
than for his eloquence. As to the
effect of his name among the people, I have
found it crumble like a dried leaf, the moment
they become satisfied of his apostasy.—
To Tench Coxe. Ford ed., vii, 381.
(M. May. 1799)

3709. HENRY (Patrick), Literary indolence.—

He was the laziest man in reading
I ever knew.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 8. Ford ed., i, 13.
(1821)

3710. HENRY (Patrick), Mysterious.—

Henry, as usual, is involved in mystery. Should
the popular tide run strongly in either direction
he will fall in with it. Should it not, he will
have a struggle between his enmity to the
Lees, and his enmity to everything which May
give influence to Congress.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., iii, 318.
(T. May. 1783)

3711. HENRY (Patrick), Philips case.—

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 telon and robber. Against
this I believe Philips urged the same plea;
he was overruled and found guilty.—
To William Wirt. Washington ed. vi, 369. Ford ed., ix, 470.
(M. 1814)

3712. HENRY (Patrick), Political alertness.—

The people of Virginia are beginning
to call for a new constitution for their State.
This symptom of their wishes will probably
bring over Mr. Henry to the proposition. He
has been the great obstacle to it hitherto; but
you know he is always alive to catch the first
sensation of the popular breeze, that he May
take the lead of that which in truth leads him.—
To William Short. Ford ed., vi, 122.
(Pa., 17921792)gt;

3713. HENRY (Patrick), Political fall.—

[Alexander] Hamilton * * * became his idol,
and, abandoning the republican advocates of
the Constitution, the Federal Government on
federal principles became his political creed. *
* * His apostasy sunk him to nothing in the
estimation of his country. He lost at once all

that influence which federalism had hoped, by
cajoling him, to transfer with him to itself,
and a man who through a long and active life
had been the idol of his country beyond any one
that ever lived, descended to the grave with
less than its indifference, and verified the
saying of the philosopher, that no man must be
called happy till he is dead.—
To William Wirt. Ford ed., ix, 344.
(M. 1811)

3714. HENRY (Patrick), Speculator.—

The States of Virginia and North Carolina are
peculiarly dissatisfied with the assumption of
the State debts by the General Government.
I believe, however, that it is harped on by many
to mask their disaffection to the Government
on other grounds. Its great foe in Virginia
is an implacable one. He avows it himself,
but does not avow all his motives for it. The
measures and tone of the Government threaten
abortion to some of his speculations; most particularly
to that of the Yazoo territory. But
it is too well nerved to be overawed by individual
opposition.—
To Gouverneur Morris. Washington ed. iii, 198. Ford ed., v, 250.
(Pa., 1790)

3715. HENRY (Patrick), Virginia Constitution.—

While Mr. Henry lives another
bad constitution would be formed and forever
on us.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., iv, 16.
(P. Dec. 1784)

— HEREDITARY OFFICERS.—

See Government.

3716. HERESY, False religion and.—

Heresy and false religion are withheld from
the cognizance of Federal tribunals.—
Kentucky Resolutions. Washington ed. ix, 466. Ford ed., vii, 295.
(1798)

3717. HERESY, Political.—

Establish
principles and examples which * * * [shall] fence us against future heresies,
preached now, to be practiced hereafter.—
To Colonel Innes. Washington ed. iii, 224. Ford ed., v, 300.
(1791)

3718. HERSCHEL (Sir William), Theories of.—

Herschel's volcano in the moon you
have doubtless heard of, and placed among the
other vagaries of a head, which seems not organized
for sound induction. The wildness of
the theories hitherto proposed by him, on his
own discoveries, seems to authorize us to consider
his merit as that of a good optician only.—
To Rev. James Madison. Washington ed. ii, 429.
(P. 1788)

3719. HESSIANS, Employment of.—

His Britannic Majesty, in order to destroy our freedom and happiness, * * * commenced
against us a cruel and unprovoked war, and
unable to engage Britons sufficient to execute
his sanguinary measures, * * * applied for aid
to foreign princes who were in the habit of
selling the blood of their people for money,
and from them * * * procured and transported
hither, a considerable number of foreigners.—
Proclamation. Ford ed., ii, 445.
(1781)
See Army (deserters), and Immigration.

3720. HISTORY, Ancient vs. Modern.—

I feel a much greater interest in knowing what
passed two or three thousand years ago than in
what is passing now. I read nothing, therefore,
but of the heroes of Troy, of the wars of
Lacedæmon and Athens, of Pompey and Cæsar,
and of Augustus, too, the Bonaparte and parricide
scoundrel of that day.—
To Nathaniel Macon. Washington ed. vii, 111. Ford ed., x, 120.
(M. 1819)

3721. HISTORY, Ancient vs. Modern.—[continued].

I am happier while reading
the history of ancient than of modern times.
The total banishment of all moral principle
from the code which governs the intercourse
of nations, the melancholy reflection that after
the mean, wicked and cowardly cunning of the
cabinets of the age of Machiavelli had given
place to the integrity and good faith which
dignified the succeeding one of a Chatham
and Turgot, that this is to be swept away again
by the daring profligacy and avowed destitution
of all moral principle of a Cartouche and a
Blackbeard, sicken my soul unto death. I
turn from the contemplation with loathing, and
take refuge in the histories of other times,
where, if they also furnished their Tarquins,
their Catalines and Caligulas, their stories are
handed to us under the brand of a Livy, a Sallust
and a Tacitus, and we are comforted with
the reflection that the condemnation of all succeeding
generations has confirmed the sentence
of the historian, and consigned their memories
to everlasting infamy, a solace we cannot have
with the Georges and Napoleons but by anticipation.—
To William Duane. Washington ed. vi, 109.
(M. April. 1813)

3722. HISTORY, Authors and compilers.—

In all cases, I prefer original authors to
compilers. For a course of ancient history,
therefore[in the University of Virginia], of
Greece and Rome especially, I should advise
the usual suite of Herodotus, Thucydides,
Xenophon, Diodorus, Livy, Cæsar, Suetonius,
Tacitus and Dion, in their originals if understood,
and in translations, if not. For its continuation
to the final destruction of the Empire
we must then be content with Gibbon, a
compiler, and with Segur, for a judicious recapitulation
of the whole. After this general
course, there are a number of particular histories
filling up the chasms, which may be read
at leisure in the progress of life. Such is
Arrian, Q. Curtius, Polybius, Sallust, Plutarch,
Dionysius, Halicarnassus, Micasi, &c. The
ancient Universal History should be on our
shelves as a book of general reference, the
most learned and most faithful perhaps that
ever was written. Its style is very plain but
perspicuous.—
To——. Washington ed. vii, 411.
(M. 1825)

3723. HISTORY, Bad government and.—

History, in general, only informs us what
bad government is.—
To John Narvell. Washington ed. v, 91. Ford ed., ix, 72.
(W. 1807)

3724. HISTORY, Genuine.—

A morsel of
genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always
valuable.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 82.
(P.F.,,
18171817)gt;

3725. HISTORY, False.—

Man is fed with
fables through life, leaves it in the belief he
knows something of what has been passing,
when in truth he has known nothing but what
has passed under his own eye.—
To Thomas Cooper. Ford ed., x, 286.
(M. 1823)

3726. HISTORY, Lawyers and.—

History,
especially, is necessary to form a lawyer.—
To John Garland Jefferson. Ford ed., v, 180.
(N.Y., 1790)

3727. HISTORY, Neglected Material.—

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, 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.—
To William Wirt. Washington ed. vi, 370. Ford ed., ix, 471.
(M. 1814)

3728. HISTORY, Panegyric and.—

You
have certainly practiced vigorously[in the Life
of Patrick Henry] the precept of “de mortius
nil nisi bonum.” This presents a very difficult
question,—whether one only or both sides
of the medal shall be presented. It constitutes,
perhaps, the distinction between panegyric and
history.—
To William Wirt. Ford ed., x, 61.
(P.F.,,
18161816)gt;

3729. HISTORY, Peace and.—

Wars and
contentions, indeed, fill the pages of history
with more matter. But more blessed is that
nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes
nothing for history to say.—
To Count Diodati. Washington ed. v, 62.
(W. 1807)

3730. HISTORY, Private letters and.—

History may distort truth, and will distort it for
a time, by the superior efforts at justification
of those who are conscious of needing it most.
The opening scenes of our present government
will not be seen in their true aspect until the
letters of the day, now held in private hoards,
shall be broken up and laid open to public
view.—
To William Johnson. Washington ed. vii, 292. Ford ed., x, 228.
(M. 1823)

3731. HISTORY, Private letters and.—[continued].

Although I decline all
newspaper controversy, yet when falsehoods
have been advanced, within the knowledge of
no one so much as myself, I have sometimes
deposited a contradiction in the hands of a
friend, which, if worth preservation, may, when
I am no more, nor those whom I might offend,
throw light on history, and recall that into the
path of truth.—
To Martin Van Buren. Washington ed. vii, 372. Ford ed., x, 315.
(M. 1824)

3732. HISTORY, Records of.—

Time and
accident are committing daily havoc on the
originals of the valuable historical and State
papers deposited in our public offices. The
late war has done the work of centuries in this
business. The last cannot be recovered, but let
us save what remains; not by vaults and locks
which fence them from the public eye and use
in consigning them to the waste of time, but
by such a multiplication of copies, as shall
place them beyond the reach of accident.—
To Mr. Hazard. Washington ed. iii, 211.
(Pa., 1791)

3733. HISTORY, Truthful.—

We who
are retired from the business of the world,
are glad to catch a glimpse of truth, here and
there as we can, to guide our path through
the boundless field of fable in which we are
bewildered by public prints, and even by those
calling themselves histories. A word of truth
to us is like the drop of water supplicated
from the tip of Lazarus's finger. It is as an
observation of latitude and longitude to the
mariner long enveloped in clouds, for correcting
the ship's way.—
To John Quincy Adams. Washington ed. vii, 87.
(M. 1817)

3734. HISTORY, Truthful.—[continued].

True history, in which
all will be believed, is preferable to unqualified
panegyric, in which nothing is believed.—
To Joseph Delaplaine. Washington ed. vii, 21. Ford ed., x, 56.
(M. 1816)

3735. HISTORY, Value of.—

The most
effectual means of preventing the perversion of
power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as
practicable, the minds of the people at large,
and more especially to give them knowledge of
those facts, which history exhibits, that possessed
thereby of the experience of other ages
and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition
under all its shapes, and prompt to exert
their natural powers to defeat its purposes.—
Diffusion of Knowledge Bill. Ford ed., ii, 221.
(1779)

3736. HISTORY, Value of.—[continued].

History, by apprising
the people of the past, will enable them to
judge of the future; it will avail them of the
experience of other times and other nations;
it will qualify them as judges of the actions
and designs of men; it will enable them to
know ambition under every disguise it May
assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 390. Ford ed., iii, 254.
(1782)

3737. HISTORY, Writing.—

You say I
must go to writing history. While in public
life I had not time, and now that I am retired,
I am past the time. To write history requires
a whole life of observation, of inquiry, of labor
and correction. Its materials are not to be
found among the ruins of a decayed memory.—
To J. B. Stuart. Washington ed. vii, 65.
(M. 1817)

3738. HISTORY (American), Collecting.—

While I was in Europe, I purchased everything I could lay my hands on which related
to any part of America, and particularly
had a pretty full collection of the English,
French, and Spanish authors on the subject of
Louisiana.—
To William Dunbar. Washington ed. iv, 539.
(W. 1804)

3739. HISTORY (American), Criticisms on.—

It is impossible to read thoroughly
such writings as those of Harper and Otis,
who take a page to say what requires but a
sentence, or rather, who give you whole pages
of what is nothing to the purpose. A cursory
race over the ground is as much as they can
claim. It is easy for them, at this day, to
endeavour to whitewash their party, when the
greater part are dead of those who witnessed
what passed, others old and become indifferent
to the subject, and others indisposed to
take the trouble of answering them. As to Otis,
his attempt is to prove that the sun does not
shine at midday; that that is not a fact which
every one saw. He merits no notice. It is well
known that Harper had little scruple about
facts where detection was not obvious. By
placing in false lights whatever admits it, and
passing over in silence what does not, a plausible
aspect may be presented of anything.—
To William Short. Washington ed. vii, 389. Ford ed., x, 328.
(M. 1825)

3740. HISTORY (American), Inaccuracies.—

Botta * * * has put his own speculations
and reasonings into the mouths of
persons whom he names, but who, you and I
know, never made such speeches. In this he
has followed the example of the ancients, who

made their great men deliver long speeches, all
of them in the same style, and in that of the author
himself. The work is nevertheless a good
one, more judicious, more chaste, more classical,
and more true than the party diatribe of
Marshall. Its greatest fault is in having taken
too much from him.
To John Adams. Washington ed. vi, 489. Ford ed., ix, 527.
(M. 1815)

3741. HISTORY (American), Naval.—

Why omit all mention of the scandalous campaigns
of Commodore Morris? A two years'
command of an effective squadron, with discretionary
instructions, wasted in sailing from port
to port of the Mediterranean, and a single half
day before the port of the enemy against which
he was sent. All this can be seen in the proceedings
of the court on which he was dismissed;
and it is due to the honorable truths
with which the book abounds, to publish those
which are not so.—
To Matthew Carr. Washington ed. vi, 132.
(M. 1813)

3742. HISTORY (American), Preservation of.—

It is the duty of every good citizen
to use all the opportunities which occur to him,
for preserving documents relating to the history
of our country.—
To Hugh P. Taylor. Washington ed. vii, 313.
(M. 1823)

3743. HISTORY (American), Revolutionary.—

On the subject of the history of the
American Revolution, you ask who shall write
it? Who can write it? And who will ever be
able to write it? Nobody; except merely its external
facts; all its councils, designs, and discussions
having been conducted by Congress
with closed doors, and with no members, as
far as I know, having even made notes of
them. These, which are the life and soul of
history, must forever be unknown.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 489. Ford ed., ix, 527.
(M. 1815)

3744. HISTORY (American), Revolutionary.—[continued].

I am now reading Botta's
History of our own Revolution. Bating the
ancient practice which he has adopted of putting
speeches into mouths which never made
them, and fancying motives of action which we
never felt, he has given that history with more
detail, precision and candor, than any writer I
have yet met with. It is, to be sure, compiled
from those writers; but it is a good secretion of
their matter, the pure from the impure, and
presented in a just sense of right in opposition
to usurpation.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 63.
(M. 1817)

3745. HISTORY (English), Distorted.—

Hume's[History], were it faithful, would be
the finest piece of history which has ever been
written by man. Its unfortunate bias may be
partly ascribed to the accident of his having
written it backwards. His maiden work was
the History of the Stuarts. It was a first essay
to try his strength before the public. And
whether as a Scotchman he had really a partiality
for that family, or thought that the lower
their degradation, the more fame he should acquire
by raising them up to some favor, the
object of his work was an apology for them.
He spared nothing, therefore, to wash them
white, and to palliate their misgovernment.
For this purpose he suppressed truths, advanced
falsehoods, forged authorities and falsified
records. All this is proved on him unanswerably
by Brodie. But so bewitching was
his style and manner, that his readers were un-willing
to doubt anything, swallowed everything,
and all England became tories by the magic
of his art. His pen revolutionized the public
sentiment of that country more completely than
the standing armies could ever have done, which
were so much dreaded and deprecated by the
patriots of that day. Having succeeded so eminently
in the acquisition of fortune and fame
by this work, he undertook the history of the
two preceding dynasties, the Plantagenets and
Tudors. It was all important in this second
work, to maintain the thesis of the first, that
“it was the people who encroached on the sovereign,
not the sovereign who usurped on the
rights of the people”. And, again, chapter 53d,
“the grievances under which the English labored [
to wit: whipping, pillorying, cropping,
imprisoning, fining, &c.], when considered in
themselves, without regard to the constitution,
scarcely deserve the name, nor were they either
burthensome on the people's properties, or anywise
shocking to the natural humanity of mankind
”. During the constant wars, civil and
foreign, which prevailed while those two families
occupied the throne, it was not difficult to
find abundant instances of practices the most
despotic, as are wont to occur in times of violence.
To make this second epoch support the
third, therefore, required but a little garbling of
authorities. And it then remained, by a third
work, to make of the whole a complete history
of England on the principles on which he had
advocated that of the Stuarts. This would
comprehend the Saxon and Norman Conquests,
the former exhibiting the genuine form and
political principles of the people constituting
the nation, and founded in the rights of man;
the latter built on conquest and physical force,
not at all affecting moral rights, nor even assented
to by the free will of the vanquished.
The battle of Hastings, indeed, was lost, but
the natural rights of the nation were not staked
on the event of a single battle. Their will
to recover the Saxon constitution continued
unabated, and was at the bottom of all the
unsuccessful insurrections which succeeded in
subsequent times. The victors and vanquished
continued in a state of living hostility, and
the nation may still say, after losing the battle
of Hastings,

The government of a nation may be usurped
by the forcible intrusion of an individual into
the throne. But to conquer its will, so as to
rest the right on that, the only legitimate basis,
requires long acquiescence and cessation of all
opposition. The whig historians of England,
therefore, have always gone back to the Saxon
period for the true principles of their constitution,
while the tories and Hume, their Coryph
æus, date it from the Norman Conquest, and
hence conclude that the continual claim by the
nation of the good old Saxon laws, and the
struggles to recover them, were “ encroachments
of the people on the crown, and not
usurpations of the crown on the people”.—
To——. Washington ed. vii, 412.
(M. 1825)

3746. HISTORY (English), Faithful authors.—

Of England there is as yet no general
history so faithful as Rapin's. He may be
followed by Ludlow, Fox, Belsham, Hume and
Brodie.—
To——. Washington ed. vii, 412.
(M. 1825)

3747. HISTORY (English), Hume's.—

There is no general history of Great Britain which can be recommended. The elegant one
of Hume seems intended to disguise and discredit
the good principles of the government,
and is so plausible and pleasing in its style
and manner, as to instil its errors and heresies

insensibly into the minds of unwary readers.
Baxter has performed a good operation on it.
He has taken the text of Hume as his ground
work, abridging it by the omission of some details
of little interest, and wherever he has
found him endeavoring to mislead, by either
the suppression of a truth, or by giving it a
false coloring, he has changed the text to what
it should be, so that we may properly call it
Hume's history republicanized. He has moreover
continued the history (but indifferently)
from where Hume left it, to the year 1800.
The work is not popular in England, because it
is republican. * * * Adding to this Ludlow's
Memoirs, Mrs. McCauley's and Belknap's
histories, a sufficient view will be presented of
the free principles of the English constitution.—
To John Norvell. Washington ed. v, 91. Ford ed., ix, 72.
(W. 1807)

3748. HISTORY (English), Hume's.—[continued].

Every one knows that
judicious matter and charms of style have rendered
Hume's History the manual of every student.
I remember well the enthusiasm with
which I devoured it when young, and the length
of time, the research and reflection which were
necessary to eradicate the poison it had instilled
into my mind. It was unfortunate that
he first took up the history of the Stuarts, became
their apologist, and advocated all their
enormities. To support his work, when done,
he went back to the Tudors, and so selected
and arranged the materials of their history as
to present their arbitrary acts only, as the genuine
samples of the constitutional power of the
crown, and, still writing backwards, he then
reverted to the early history, and wrote the
Saxon and Norman periods with the same
perverted view. Although all this is known, he
still continues to be put into the hands of all
our young people, and to infect them with the
poison of his own principles of government.
It is this book which has undermined the free
principles of the English government, has
persuaded readers of all classes that there were
usurpations on the legitimate and salutary rights
of the crown, and has spread universal toryism
over the land.—
To William Duane. Washington ed. v, 533.
(M. 1810)

3749. HISTORY (English), Hume's.—[further continued].

This single book[Hume's
History of England] has done more to sap the
free principles of the English constitution than
the largest standing army of which their patriots
have been so jealous. It is like the
portraits of our countryman Wright, whose eye
was so unhappy as to seize all the ugly features
of his subject, and to present them faithfully,
while it was entirely insensible to every lineament
of beauty. So Hume has concentrated, in
his fascinating style, all the arbitrary proceedings
of the English Kings, as true evidences
of the constitution, and glided over its Whig
principles as the unfounded pretensions of
factious demagogues. He even boasts, in his
life written by himself, that of the numerous
alterations suggested by the readers of his work,
he had never adopted one proposed by a Whig.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 46.
(P.F.,,
18161816)gt;

3750. HISTORY (English), Part of American.—

Our laws, language, religion, politics and manners are so deeply laid in English
foundations, that we shall never cease to
consider their history as a part of ours, and to
study ours in that as its origin.—
To William Duane. Washington ed. v, 533.
(M. 1810)

3751. HISTORY (English), Value of.—

As we have employed some of the best materials
of the British constitution in the construction of
our own government, a knowledge of British
history becomes useful to the American politician.—
To John Norvell. Washington ed. v, 91. Ford ed., ix, 72.
(W. 1807)

3752. HISTORY, Roman.—

I have been
* * * delighted with reading a work, the
title of which did not promise much useful
information or amusement—L'Italia Avanti il
Dominis dei Romani dal Micali.” * * * Micali has given the counterpart of the Roman
history for the nations over which they extended
their dominion. For this he has gleaned
up matter from every quarter, and furnished
materials for reflection and digestion to those
who, thinking as they read, have perceived
that there was a great deal of matter behind
the curtain, could that be fully withdrawn.
He certainly gives new ideas of a nation whose
splendor has masked and palliated their barbarous
ambition.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 63.
(M. 1817)

3753. HOGENDORP (Count Van), Ability.—

A very particular acquaintance with M.
de Hogendorp * * * has led me to consider
him as the best informed man of his
age I have ever seen.—
To George Washington. Ford ed., iii, 445.
(A. 1784)

3754. HOLLAND, America and.—

Connected
with Holland by the earliest ties of friendship and maintaining with them uninterrupted
relations of peace and commerce, no
event which interests their welfare can be indifferent
to us. It is, therefore, with great
pleasure, I receive the assurances of your
Majesty that you will continue to cherish these
ancient relations; and we shall, on our part,
endeavor to strengthen your good will by a
faithful observance of justice, and by all the
good offices which occasion shall permit.—
To the King of Holland. Washington ed. v, 47.
(W. 1807)

3755. HOLLAND, Prince of Orange and.—

The treasonable perfidy of the Prince of
Orange, Stadtholder and Captain General of the
United Netherlands, in the war which England
waged against them, for entering into a treaty
of commerce with the United States, is known
to all. As their executive officer, charged with
the conduct of the war, he contrived to baffle
all the measures of the States General, to dislocate
all their military plans, and played false
into the hands of England against his own
country on every possible occasion, confident
in her protection, and in that of the King of
Prussia, brother to his Princess. The States
General, indignant at this patricidal conduct,
applied to France for aid, according to the
stipulations of the treaty concluded with her
in 1785. It was assured to them readily and
in cordial terms. * * * The object of the
Patriots was to establish a representative and
republican government. The majority of the
States General were with them, but the majority
of the populace of the towns was with
the Prince of Orange; and that populace was
played off with great effect by the triumvirate
of[Sir James] Harris, the English ambassador,
afterwards Lord Malmesbury, the Prince of
Orange, a stupid man, and the Princess as
much a man as either of her colleagues, in
audaciousness, in enterprise and in the thirst
of domination. By these the mobs of the
Hague were excited against the members of the
States General; their persons were insulted and
endangered in the streets; the sanctuary of
their houses was violated and the Prince, whose
function and duty it was to repress and punish
these violations of order, took no steps for that
purpose. The States General for their own

protection were, therefore, obliged to place their
militia under the command of a committee.
The Prince filled the courts of London and
Berlin with complaints at this usurpation of
his prerogatives and, forgetting that he was
but the first servant of a republic, marched
his regular troops against the city of Utrecht,
where the States were in session. They were
repulsed by the militia. His interests now became
marshalled with those of the public enemy
and against his own country. The States,
therefore, exercising their rights of sovereignty,
deprived him of all his powers. The
great Frederic had died in August, 1786. He
had never intended to break with France in
support of the Prince of Orange. During the
illness of which he died, he had, through the
Duke of Brunswick, declared to the Marquis
de Lafayette, * * * that he meant not to
support the English interest in Holland; that he
might assure the government of France his only
wish was that some honorable place in the
Constitution should be reserved for the Stadtholder
and his children, and that he would take
no part in the quarrel unless an entire abolition
of the Stadtholderate should be attempted.
But his place was now occupied by Frederic
William, his great nephew, a man of little understanding,
much caprice and very inconsiderate;
and the Princess, his sister, although her
husband was in arms against the legitimate authorities
of the country, attempting to go to
Amsterdam for the purpose of exciting the
mobs of that place, and being refused permission
to pass a military post on the way, he put
the Duke of Brunswick at the head of twenty
thousand men, and made demonstrations of
marching on Holland. The King of France
hereupon declared, by his Chargé des Affaires
in Holland, that if the Prussian troops continued
to menace Holland with an invasion, his
Majesty, in quality of Ally, was determined to
succor that province. In answer to this Eden
gave official information to Count Montmorin,
that England must consider as at an end, its
convention with France relative to giving notice
of its naval armaments and that she was
arming generally. War being now imminent.
Eden, since Lord Auckland, questioned me on
the effect of our treaty with France in the case
of a war, and what might be our dispositions.
I told him frankly and without hesitation that
our dispositions would be neutral, and that I
thought it would be the interest of both these
powers that we should be so; because it would
relieve both from all anxiety as to feeding their
West India islands; that England, too, by suffering
us to remain so, would avoid a heavy
land war on our continent, which might very
much cripple her proceedings elsewhere; that
our treaty, indeed, obliged us to receive into
our ports the armed vessels of France, with
their prizes, and to refuse admission to the
prizes made on her by her enemies that there
was a clause also by which we guaranteed to
France her American possessions, which might
perhaps force us into the war, if these were
attacked. “Then it will be war,” said he,
“for they will assuredly be attacked.” Liston,
at Madrid, about the same time, made the same
inquiries of Carmichael. The government of
France then declared a determination to form
a camp of observation at Givet, commenced
arming her marine, and named the Bailli de
Suffrein their generalissimo on the ocean. She
secretly engaged also in negotiations with Russia,
Austria and Spain to form a quadruple
Alliance. The Duke of Brunswick, having advanced
to the confines of Holland, sent some
of his officers to Givet to reconnoitre the state
of things there, and report them to him. * * * Finding that there was not a single company
there, he boldly entered the country, took
their towns as fast as he presented himself before
them, and advanced on Utrecht. The
States had appointed the Rhingrave of Salm
their Commander-in-Chief, a Prince without
talents, without courage and without principle.
He might have held out in Utrecht for
a considerable time, but he surrendered the
place without firing a gun, literally ran away
and hid himself, so that for months it was not
known what had become of him. Amsterdam
was then attacked and capitulated. In the
meantime the negotiations for the quadruple alliance
were proceeding favorably, but the secrecy
with which they were attempted to be conducted
was penetrated by Fraser, Chargé des
Affaires of England at St. Petersburg, who instantly
notified his court, and gave the alarm
to Prussia. The King saw at once what would
be his situation between the jaws of France,
Austria and Russia. In great dismay he besought
the court of London not to abandon
him, sent Alvensleben to Paris to explain and
soothe, and England, through the Duke of
Dorset and Eden, renewed her conferences for
accommodation. The Archbishop, who shuddered
at the idea of war, and preferred a peaceful
surrender of right to an armed vindication
of it, received them with open arms, entered
into cordial conferences and a declaration and
counter-declaration were cooked up at Versailles
and sent to London for approbation. They
were approved there, reached Paris at one
o'clock of the 27th, and were signed that night
at Versailles. It was said and believed at
Paris that M. de Montmorin literally “pleurait
comme un enfant” when obliged to sign this
counter-declaration, so distressed was he by the
dishonor of sacrificing the Patriots after assurances
so solemn of protection and absolute
encouragement to proceed. The Prince of
Orange was reinstated in all his powers, now
become regal. A great emigration of the Patriots
took place; all were deprived of office,
many exiled, and their property confiscated.
They were received in France and subsisted for
some time on her bounty. Thus fell Holland,
by the treachery of her Chief, from her honorable
independence to become a province of
England; and so, also, her Stadtholder from
the high station of the first citizen of a free
Republic, to be the servile Viceroy of a
foreign sovereign. And this was effected by a
mere scene of bullying and demonstration; not
one of the parties, France, England or Prussia
having ever really meant to encounter actual
war for the interest of the Prince of Orange.
But it had all the effect of a real and decisive
war.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 73. Ford ed., i, 101.
(1821)

3756. HOLY ALLIANCE, Despotism.—

What are we to think of this northern triumvirate,
arming their nations to dictate despotisms
to the rest of the world?—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 217.
(M. 1821)

3757. HOLY ALLIANCE, Despotism.—[continued].

With respect to the European
combinations against the rights of
man, I join an honest Irishman of my neighborhood
in his Fourth of July toast: “The
Holy Alliance,—to Hell the whole of them.”—
To Thomas Leiper. Ford ed., x, 298.
(M. 1824)

3758. HOLY ALLIANCE, Napoleon and.—

Had Bonaparte reflected that such is the
moral construction of the world that no
national crime passes unpunished in the long

run, he would not now be in the cage of St.
Helena; and were your present oppressors to
reflect on the same truth, they would spare to
their own countries the penalties on their
present wrongs which will be inflicted on
them in future times. The seeds of hatred
and revenge which they are now sowing with
a large hand will not fail to produce their
fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on
the highway, they suppose the escape of the
moment a final escape, and deem infamy and
future risk countervailed by present gain.—
To M. de Marbois. Washington ed. vii, 76.
(M. 1817)

3759. HOLY ALLIANCE, Policy of.—

During the ascendency of Bonaparte, the word
among the herd of kings, was sauve qui peut. Each shifted for himself, and left his brethren
to squander and do the same as they could.
After the battle of Waterloo and the military
possession of France, they rallied and combined
in common cause, to maintain each
other against any similar and future danger.
And in this alliance, Louis, now avowedly,
and George, secretly but solidly, were of the
contracting parties; and there can be no
doubt that the allies are bound by treaty to
aid England with their armies, should insurrection
take place among her people. The
coquetry she is now playing off between her
people and her allies is perfectly understood
by the latter, and accordingly gives no apprehensions
to France, to whom it is all explained.
The diplomatic correspondence she
is now displaying, these double papers fabricated
merely for exhibition, in which she
makes herself talk of morals and principle, as
if her qualms of conscience would not permit
her to go all lengths with her Holy Allies,
are all to gull her own people. It is a
theatrical farce, in which the five powers are
the actors, England the Tartuffe, and her people
the dupes.—
To President Monroe. Washington ed. vii, 289. Ford ed., x, 258.
(M. June. 1823)
See Alliances and Monroe Doctrine.

3760. HOME, Better than honors.—

In
truth, I wish for neither honors nor offices. I
an happier at home than I can be elsewhere.—
To John Langdon. Washington ed. iv, 164. Ford ed., vii, 112.
(M. 1797)

3761. HOME, Companions.—

Monroe is
buying land almost adjoining me. Short will
do the same. What would I not give[if] you
could fall into the circle. With such a society,
I could once more venture home, and lay myself
up for the residue of life, quitting all its
contentions which grow daily more and more
insupportable. Think of it. To render it
practicable only requires you to think it so.
Life is of no value but as it brings us gratifications.
Among the most valuable of these is
rational society. It informs the mind, sweetens
the temper, cheers our spirits, and promotes
health. There is a little farm of 140 acres
adjoining mine, and within two miles, all of
good land, though old, with a small indifferent
house on it, the whole not worth more than
£250. Such a one might be a farm of experiment,
and support a little table and household.
It is on the road to Orange, and so much nearer
than I am. * * * Once more think of it.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., iii, 406.
(A. 1784)

3762. HOME, Companions.—[continued].

I once hinted to you the
project of seating yourself in the neighborhood
of Monticello, and my sanguine wishes
made me look on your answer as not absolutely
excluding the hope. Monroe is decided in settling
there, and is actually engaged in the endeavor
to purchase. Short is the same. Would
you but make it a “partie quarrée” I should
believe that life had still some happiness in
store for me. Agreeable society is the first essential
in constituting the happiness, and, of
course, the value of our existence. And it is
a circumstance worthy great attention when we
are making first our choice of a residence.
Weigh well the value of this against the difference
in pecuniary interest, and ask yourself
which will add most to the sum of your felicity
through life. I think that, weighing them in
this balance, your decision will be favorable to
all our prayers. Looking back with fondness
to the moment when I am again to be fixed in
my own country, I view the prospect of this
society as inestimable.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., iv, 17.
(P. Dec. 1784)

3763. HOME, in France.—

The domestic
bonds here[France] are absolutely done away,
and where can their compensation be found?
Perhaps they may catch some moments of transport
above the level of the ordinary tranquil
joy we experience, but they are separated by
long intervals, during which all the passions
are at sea without rudder or compass. Yet,
fallacious as the pursuits of happiness are, they
seem on the whole to furnish the most effectual
abstraction from a contemplation of the
hardness of their government.—
To Mrs. Trist. Washington ed. i, 394.
(P. 1785)

3764. HOME, Happy.—

I employ my leisure
moments in repassing often in my mind our
happy domestic society when together at Monticello,
and looking forward to the renewal of it.
No other society gives me now any satisfaction,
as no other is founded in sincere affection.—
To Mary Jefferson Eppes. Ford ed., vii, 405.
(1800)

3765. HOME, Happy.—[continued].

I look forward with hope
to the moment when we are all to be reunited
again.—
To Martha Jefferson Randolph. Ford ed., vii, 416.
(Pa., 1800)

3766. HOME, Happy.—[further continued].

My habits are formed to
those of my own country. I am past the time
of changing them, and am, therefore, less happy
anywhere else than there.—
To Dr. Currie. Washington ed. ii, 220.
(P. 1787)

3767. HOME, No happiness elsewhere.—

Abstracted from home, I know no happiness
in this world.—
To Lieut. de Unger. Washington ed. i, 279. Ford ed., ii, 374.
(R. 1780)

3768. HOME, Independence.—

I am savage
enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and
the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant
pleasures of this gay capital[Paris].—
To Baron Geismer. Washington ed. i, 427.
(P. 1785)

3769. HOME, Longing for.—

I am never a day without wishing to be with you, and more
and more as the fine sunshine comes on, which
was made for all the world but me.—
To Nicholas Lewis. Washington ed. iii, 348. Ford ed., v, 504.
(Pa., 1792)

3770. HOME, Longing for.—[continued].

When I indulge myself
in these[agricultural] speculations, I feel with
redoubled ardor my desire to return home to
the pursuit of them, and to the bosom of my

family, in whose love alone I live or wish to
live, and in that of my neighbors.
To T. M. Randolph. Ford ed., v, 417.
(Pa., Jan. 1792)

3771. HOME, Pleasures of.—

Having no
particular subject for a letter, I find none more
soothing to my mind than to indulge itself in
expressions of the love I bear you, and the
delight with which I recall the various scenes
through which we have passed together in our
wanderings over the world. These reveries alleviate
the toils and inquietudes of my present
situation[Secretary of State] and leave me
always impressed with the desire of being at
home once more, and of exchanging labor, envy,
and malice for ease, domestic occupation, and
domestic love and society; where I may once
more be happy with you, with Mr. Randolph,
and dear little Anne, with whom even Socrates
might ride on a stick without being ridiculous.—
To Martha Jefferson Randolph. Ford ed., v, 422.
(P. 1792)

3772. HONESTY, Common sense and.—

Let common sense and common honesty have
fair play and they will soon set things to
rights.—
To Ezra Stiles. Washington ed. ii, 77.
(P. 1786)

3773. HONESTY, Consciousness of.—

Of you, my neighbors, I may ask, in the face of
the world, “whose ox have I taken, or whom
have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed,
or of whose hand have I received a bribe to
blind mine eyes therewith”? On your verdict
I rest with conscious security.—
To the Inhabitants of Albemarle County, Va. Washington ed. v, 439. Ford ed., ix, 251.
(M. April. 1809)

3774. HONESTY, Examples of.—

It can
give no great claims to any one to manage
honestly and disinterestedly the concerns of
others trusted to him. Abundant examples
of this are always under our eye.—
To Mr. Weaver. Washington ed. v, 88.
(W. 1807)

3775. HONESTY, Government and.—

The whole art of government consists in the
art of being honest.—
Rights of British America. Washington ed. i, 141. Ford ed., i, 446.
(1774)

3776. HONESTY, Individual.—

I know
but one code of morality for men, whether
acting singly or collectively. He who says
I will be a rogue when I act in company with
a hundred others, but an honest man when
I act alone, will be believed in the former
assertion, but not in the latter. I would say
with the poet, “hic niger est, hunc tu Romane
cavato”. If the morality of one man produces
a just line of conduct in him, acting
individually, why should not the morality of
one hundred men produce a just line of conduct
in them, acting together?—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iii, 99. Ford ed., v, 111.
(P. 1789)

3777. HONESTY, Interest and.—

Honesty
and interest are as intimately connected
in the public as in the private code of morality.—
To Mr. Maury. Washington ed. vi, 468.
(M. 1815)

3778. HONESTY, Opportunity and.—

Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.—
To M. De Marbois. Washington ed. vii, 77.
(M. 1817)

3779. HONESTY, Riches and.—

I have
not observed men's honesty to increase with
their riches.—
To Jeremiah Moor. Ford ed., vii, 454.
(M. 1800)

3780. HONESTY, Roguery and.—

Every
country is divided between the parties of honest
men and rogues.—
To William B. Giles. Washington ed. iv, 126.
(1795)

3781. HONESTY, Statesmen and.—

The
man who is dishonest as a statesman, would
be a dishonest man in any station.—
To George Logan. Ford ed., x, 68.
(P.F.,,
18161816)gt;

3782. HONESTY, Wisdom and.—

A wise
man, even if nature has not formed him
honest, will yet act as if he were honest; because
he will find it the most advantageous
and wise part in the long run.—
To James Monroe. Ford ed., iv, 40.
(P. 1785)

3783. HONESTY, Wisdom and.—[continued].

An honest heart being
the first blessing, a knowing head is the
second.—
To Peter Carr. Washington ed. i, 397.
(P. 1785)

3784. HONESTY, Wisdom and.—[further continued].

Honesty is the first chapter
in the book of wisdom.—
To Nathaniel Macon. Washington ed. vii, 112. Ford ed., x, 122.
(M. 1819)

3785. HONOR, False.—

Peace and happiness
are preferable to that false honor which,
by eternal wars, keeps the[European] people
in eternal labor, want and wretchedness.—
To President Madison. Washington ed. vi, 452. Ford ed., ix, 511.
(M. 1815)

3786. HONOR, Infraction.—

As an American,
I cannot help feeling a thorough mortification,
that our Congress should have permitted
an infraction of our public honor; as
a citizen of Virginia, I cannot help hoping
and confiding, that our Supreme Executive,
whose acts will be considered as the acts of
the Commonwealth, estimate that honor too
highly to make its infraction their own act. [237] —
To Governor Patrick Henry. Washington ed. i, 214. Ford ed., ii, 169.
(Alb. 1779)

3787. HONOR, Integrity and.—

When
your mind shall be well improved with
science, nothing will be necessary to place
you in the highest points of view, but to pursue
the interests of your country, the interests
of your friends, and your own interests
also, with the purest integrity, the most chaste
honor. The defect of these virtues can never
be made up by all the other acquirements of
body and mind. Make these, then, your first
object. [238] —
To Peter Carr. Washington ed. i, 395.
(P. 1785)

3788. HONOR, Pledge of.—

And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually
pledge to each other our * * * sacred
honor. [239] —
Declaration of Independence as Drawn by Jefferson.

3789. HONOR, Wounded.—

It seems much
the general opinion here[Virginia] that our
honor has been too much wounded not to

require reparation, and to seek it even in war,
if that be necessary.—
To Tench Coxe. Washington ed. iv, 105. Ford ed., vi, 508.
(M. May. 1794)

3790. HONORS, Hostile to happiness.—

There are minds which can be pleased by
honors and preferments; but I see nothing in
them but envy and enmity. It is only necessary
to possess them, to know how little they
contribute to happiness, or rather how hostile
they are to it.—
To A. Donald. Washington ed. ii, 356.
(P. 1788)

3791. HONORS, Political.—

I have seen
enough of political honors to know that they
are but splendid torments.—
To Martha Jefferson Randolph. D. L. J.245.
(Pa., 1797)
See Home.

3792. HONORS, Public approbation.—

It is our happiness that honorable distinctions
flow only from public approbation; and that
finds no object in titled dignitaries and
pageants.—
Reply to Address. Washington ed. viii, 163.
(1809)

3793. HONORS, Undeserved.—

I have
never ceased, nor can I cease to feel that I
am holding honors without yielding requital,
and justly belonging to others.—
To Dr. Robert M. Patterson. Washington ed. vi, 397.
(M. 1814)

3794. HONORS, Undeserved.—[continued].

I cannot be easy in holding,
as a sinecure, an honor [240] so justly due to
the talents and services of others.—
To Dr. Robert M. Patterson. Washington ed. vi, 396.
(M. 1814)

3795. HOPE vs. DESPAIR.—

My theory
has always been, that if we are to dream, the
flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter
than the gloom of despair.—
To M. de Marbois. Washington ed. vii, 77.
(M. 1817)

3796. HOPE vs. DESPAIR.—[continued].

Hope is sweeter than despair.—
To Mrs. Cosway. Washington ed. ii, 41. Ford ed., iv, 321.
(P. 1786)

3797. HOPKINSON (Francis), Genius of.—

He is a man of genius, gentility, and great
merit * * * and as capable of[filling] the
office[of Director, or Master of the Mint], as
any man I know. The appointment would give
general pleasure, because he is generally esteemed.—
To James Monroe. Ford ed., iii, 496.
(Pa., 1784)

3798. HORSES, Arabian.—

The culture
of wheat by enlarging our[Virginia's] pasture,
will render the Arabian horse an article of
very considerable profit. Experience has shown
that ours is the particular climate of America
where he may be raised without degeneracy.
Southwardly the heat of the sun occasions a
deficiency of pasture, and northwardly the
winters are too cold for the short and fine hair,
the particular sensibility and constitution of
that race. Animals transplanted into unfriendly
climates, either change their nature and acquire
new senses against the new difficulties in
which they are placed, or they multiply
poorly
and become extinct. * * * Their patience
of heat without injury, their superior wind, fit
them better in this and the more southern climate
even for the drudgeries of the plough and
wagon. Northwardly they will become an object only to persons of taste and fortune, for
the saddle and light carriages.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 408. Ford ed., iii, 272.
(1782)

3799. HORSES, Effect on man.—

The Europeans
value themselves on having subdued
the horse to the uses of man; but I doubt
whether we have not lost more than we have
gained by the use of this animal. No one
has occasioned so much the degeneracy of
the human body. An Indian goes on foot nearly
as far in a day, for a long journey, as an enfeebled
white does on his horse; and he will
tire the best horses.—
To Peter Carr. Washington ed. i, 398.
(P. 1785)

3800. HORSES, Tax on.—

The proposed
tax on horses, besides its partiality, is infinitely
objectionable as foisting in a direct tax under
the name of an indirect one.—
To T. M. Randolph. Ford ed., vi, 149.
(1792)

3801. HORTICULTURE, American.—

Gardens[are] peculiarly worth the attention of an American[when travelling], because it is
the country of all others where the noblest
gardens may be made without expense. We
have only to cut out the superabundant plants.—
Travelling Hints. Washington ed. ix, 404.
(1788)

3802. HORTICULTURE, English.—

The pleasure gardening in England is the article in
which it surpasses all the earth.—
To John Page. Washington ed. i, 549. Ford ed., iv, 214.
(P. 1786)

3803. HORTICULTURE, Love of.—

I
have often thought that if Heaven had given me
choice of my position and calling, it should
have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered,
and near a good market for the productions
of the garden. No occupation is so delightful
to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture
comparable to that of the garden. * * * 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.—
To C. W. Peale. Washington ed. vi, 6.
(P.F.,,
18111811)gt;

3804. HOSPITALITY, Natural laws of.—

Among the first of the laws of nature is that which bids us to succor those in distress.
For an obedience to this law, Don Blas Gonzalez
[241] appears to have suffered; and we are
satisfied, it is because his case has not been
able to penetrate to his Majesty's ministers,
at least in its true colors. We would not
choose to be committed by a formal solicitation,
but we would wish you to avail yourself of any
good opportunity of introducing the truth to
the ear of the minister, and of satisfying him,
that a redress of this hardship on the governor
would be received here with pleasure, as a
proof of respect to those laws of hospitality
which we would certainly observe in a like case,
as a mark of attention towards us, and of
justice to an individual for whose sufferings we
cannot but feel.—
To William Carmichael. Washington ed. iii, 139. Ford ed., iii, 155.
(N.Y., 1790)

3805. HOSPITALITY, Practice of.—

You
know our practice of placing our guests at their
ease, by showing them we are so ourselves, and
that we follow our necessary vocations, instead
of fatiguing them by hanging unremittingly
on their shoulders.—
To F. W. Gilmer. Washington ed. vii, 5. Ford ed., x, 33.
(M. 1816)

3806. HOSPITALITY, Social.—

Call on
me * * * whenever you come to town, and
if it should be about the hour of three, I shall
rejoice the more. You will find a bad dinner,
a good glass of wine, and a host thankful for
your favor, and desirous of encouraging repe

titions of it without number, form or ceremony.—
To Richard Peters. Ford ed., v, 347.
(Pa., 1791)

3807. HOUDON (Jean Antoine), Ability.—

He is among the foremost, or, perhaps,
the foremost artist in the world.—
To F. Hopkinson. Washington ed. i, 504.
(P. 1786)

3808. HOUDON (Jean Antoine), Life insurance.—

Monsieur Houdon has agreed to go to America to take the figure of General
Washington. In case of his death, between his
departure from Paris and his return to it, we
may lose twenty thousand livres. I ask the
favor of you to enquire what it will cost to
insure that sum on his life, in London, and
to give me as early an answer as possible, that
I may order the insurance if I think the terms
easy enough. He is, I believe, between thirty
and thirty-five years of age, healthy enough,
and will be absent about six months.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. i, 361.
(P. 1785)

3809. HOUDON (Jean Antoine), Statue of Washington.—

M. Houdon is returned[to
Paris] with the necessary moulds and measures
for General Washington's statue. I fear the
expenses of his journey have been considerably
increased by the unlucky accident of his tools,
materials, clothes, &c., not arriving at Havre in
time to go with him to America, so that he
had to supply himself there.—
To Governor Henry. Washington ed. i, 513. Ford ed., iv, 134.
(P. 1786)

3810. HOWE (Lord William), Friendly to America.—

Lord Howe seems to have been
friendly to America, and exceedingly anxious
to prevent a rupture. [242] —
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 110.
(1821)

3811. HOWE (Lord William), Invasion of Virginia.—

What upon earth can Howe
mean by the manœuvre he is now practicing?
There seems to me no object in this country
which can be either of utility or reputation to
his cause. I hope it will prove of a piece with
all the other follies they have committed. The
forming a junction with the northern army up
the Hudson River, or taking possession of
Philadelphia might have been a feather in his
cap, and given them a little reputation in Europe—the former as being the design with
which they came, the latter as being a place of
the first reputation abroad, and the residence of
Congress. Here, he may destroy the little
hamlet of Williamsburg, steal a few slaves, and
lose half his army among the fens and marshes
of our lower country, or by the heat of the
climate.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. i, 207. Ford ed., ii, 134.
(Alb. 1777)

3812. HULL (William), Bravery.—

The
detestable treason of Hull, has excited a deep
anxiety in all breasts. * * * His treachery, like
that of Arnold, cannot be a matter of blame on
our government. His character, as an officer of
skill and bravery, was established on the trials
of the last war, and no previous act of his life
had led to doubt his fidelity.—
To William Duane. Washington ed. vi, 80. Ford ed., ix, 368.
(M. Oct. 1812)

3813. HULL (William), Suspected treason.—

Hull will of course be shot for cowardice
and treachery. [243] —
To President Madison. Ford ed., ix, 370.
(M. Nov. 1812)

3814. HUMBOLDT (Baron von), Esteemed.—

The receipt of your Distributio Geographica Plantarum, with the duty of thanking
you for a work which sheds so much new
and valuable light on botanical science, excites
the desire, also, of presenting myself to your
recollection, and of expressing to you those
sentiments of high admiration and esteem,
which, although long silent, have never slept.—
To F. H. Alexander von Humboldt. Washington ed. vii, 74. Ford ed., x, 88.
(M. 1817)

3815. HUMBOLDT (Baron von), Tribute to.—

We shall bear to you the honorable
testimony that you have deserved well of the
republic of letters. * * * You have wisely located
yourself in the focus of the science of
Europe. I am held by the cords of love to my
family and country, or I should certainly join
you.—
To Baron von Humboldt. Washington ed. v, 435.
(W. 1809)

3816. HUMPHREYS (David), Attacks on.—

Colonel Humphreys is attacked in the
[American] papers for his French airs, for
bad poetry, bad prose, vanity, &c. It is said his
dress, in so gay a style, gives general disgust
against him. * * * He seems fixed with General
Washington. [244] —
To William Short. Washington ed. ii, 574. Ford ed., v, 71.
(P. 1789)

3817. HUMPHREYS (David), Minister.—

The President has nominated you Minister
Resident * * * at the Court of Lisbon,
which was approved by the Senate. You will
consequently receive herewith your commission.—
To David Humphreys. Ford ed., v, 301.
(Pa., 1791)

3818. HUMPHREYS (David), Talents.—

Colonel Humphreys is sensible, prudent, and
honest, and may be firmly relied on, in any
office which requires these talents.—
To Elbridge Gerry. Washington ed. i, 557.
(P. 1786)

3819. HUMPHREYS (David), Talents.—[continued].

He is an excellent man, an able one, and in need of some provision.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. i, 568. Ford ed., iv, 226.
(P. 1786)