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which I had left before his return to it, the delay is easily ac counted for.
I wish you may be rightly informed that the property of Mr. Sprowle is yet unsold. It was advertised so long ago, as to found a presumption that the sale has taken place. In any event you may go safely to Virginia. It is in the London newspapers only, that exist those mobs and riots, which are fabricated to deter strangers from going to America. Your person will be sacredly safe, and free from insult. You can best judge, from the charac ter and qualities of your son, whether he may be an useful coad jutor to you there. I suppose him to have taken side with the British, before our Declaration of Independence ; and, if this was the case, I respect the candor of the measure, though I do not its wisdom. A right to take the side which every man s conscience approves in a civil contest, is too precious a right, and too favora ble to the preservation of liberty, not to be protected by all its well informed friends. The Assembly of Virginia have given sanction to this right in several of their laws, discriminating honora bly, those who took side against us, before the Declaration of In dependence, from those who remained among us, and strove to injure us by their treacheries. I sincerely wish that you, and every other to whom this distinction applies favorably, may find in the Assembly of Virginia, the good effects of that justice and gene rosity, which have dictated to them this discrimination. It is a sentiment which will gain strength in their breasts, in proportion as they can forget the savage cruelties committed on them, and will, I hope, in the end, induce them to restore the property itself, wherever it is unsold, and the price received for it, where it has been actually sold.
I am, Madam,
your very humble servant,
TH: JEFFERSON.
LETTER LXX.
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Paris, July 7, 1785. DEAR SIR,
This will accompany a joint letter enclosing the draft of a treaty, and my private letter of June 23rd, which has waited so long for a private conveyance. We daily expect from the Baron Tim-
