My visits to this place, considered as a halfway-house, rekindle the desire of bringing myself to your recollection, and afford me at the same time more leisure to do so. I left all your friends at Monticello well, and the happier that mr Randolph had resigned his military commission. at Farmington not so much health: mrs Divers generally indisposed; and mr Divers has been all the winter, and still is kept at home by complicated complaints. we are all too more or less laboring under political fever, and variously affected by the ups and downs of Europe. our warmest zealots see nothing bad but in England, nor salutary but in Bonaparte. others see both good & evil, whichever tyranny prevails. if the recent news be true that Bonaparte has the two emperors and two kings in his possession, and consequently the whole continent of Europe at his nod, this may humble England to give us peace & justice. but that peace will be ground enough with Bonaparte for excluding us from the continent of Europe: besides, once master of the Continent, the conquest of England is inevitable, and with English fleets and French armies, our distance becomes an equivocal security.  if, on the other hand, the allies dethrone Bonaparte, we may have commerce with them in their bottoms; but England, in the insolence of triumph and hatred to us, full-armed, and without other employment or support for her pyratical power, may think us beneath her peace, and view us rather as desirable subjects for the exercise of her military faculties, and for the indulgence of her ambition, her avarice & her vindictive spirit. whichever scale then preponderates gives us both good and evil. if that of Bonaparte, we have peace with England, and exclusion from the rest of the world: if that of the allies, we have war with England, and commerce with them. which commerce however will be so far an amelioration of our present condition. such then is the present crisis, that we know not what to hope or fear; and, only standing to our helm, must abide, with folded arms, the issue of the storm. if George and his Prince regent however afflict us with these anxieties, let us enjoy the comfort and revenge of deriding and despising their individual rottenness. with this view I send, for a place on your book-shelf, from which you can take occasional doses, the famous ‘Book,’ written by Percival. it will confirm the moral truth that, independantly of another world, the wicked have their torment here also. turning from this ghastly subject to the sweeter consolations of friendship be assured that mine remains ever affectionately with you.

Th: Jefferson