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company, is very flattering to me. But it is distressing also, inas much as, to deserve it, it obliges me to give my whole opinion. My wishes to see you made perfectly easy, by receiving those just returns of gratitude from our country to which you are entitled, would induce me to be contented with saying, what is a certain truth, that the world would be pleased with seeing them heaped on you, and would consider your receiving them as no derogation from your reputation. But I must own that the declining them will add to that reputation, as it will shew that your motives have been pure and without any alloy. This testimony, however, is not wanting either to those who know you, or who do not. I must therefore repeat, that I think the receiving them will not, in the least, lessen the respect of the world, if from any circumstances they would be convenient to you. The candor of my communi cation will find its justification, I know, with you.
A tolerable certainty of peace leaves little interesting in the way of intelligence. Holland and the Emperor will be quiet. If any thing is brewing, it is between the latter and the Porte. Nothing in prospect as yet from England. We shall bring them, however, to a decision, now that Mr. Adams is received there. I wish much to hear that the canal through the Dismal Swamp is resumed.
I have the honor to be, with the highest respect and esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient,
and most humble servant,
TH: JEFFERSON.
LETTER LXX1I.
TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.
Paris, July 11, 1785.
SIR,
Mr. Houdon s long and desperate illness has retarded, till now, his departure for Virginia. We had hoped, from our first con versations with him, that it would be easy to make our terms, and that the cost of the statue and expense of sending him, would be but about a thousand guineas. But when we came to settle this precisely, he thought himself obliged to ask vastly more ; inso much, that at one moment, we thought our treaty at an end. But unwilling to commit such a work to an inferior hand, we made him an ultimate proposition on our part. He was as much morti-
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