when distributed thro'out the land, and carrying or rather hawking their loans at every man's door they become a real nuisance. They not only furnish the greedy & unskilful with means for their ruinous enterprises; but seduce the mass of the people, into gratifications, beyond their resources; and these gratifications consisting chiefly of imported articles, it follows that the entire country consumes more of them than it can pay for. Hence the balance of trade agst it, hence the demand on the banks for specie to pay it; hence their demands on their debtors and hence the bankruptcies of both. This is the little circle of causes & effects, which shew that the Banks are themselves, the principal authors of the state of things of which they are the victims. A better state of things it is to be hoped will grow out of their ashes.

In the mean time the policy of the great nations with which we have most intercourse, co-operates in augmenting the temporary difficulties experienced. Whether it may not in the end have a more salutary operation for us than for themselves remains to be seen. G. B. is endeavoring to make herself independt of us & of the world for supplies of food. In this she is justified by cogent views of the subject; altho' with her extensive capital & maritime power she w seem in little danger of being unable at any time to supply her deficiency; whilst the tendency of this policy is to contract the range of her commerce, on which she depends for her wealth & power. If agricultural nations cannot sell her the products

of their soil, they cannot buy the products of her looms. They must plough less, and manufacture more. The fall in the price of our Wheat & flour is already reanimating, the manufacturing spirit, and enforcing that of economy. She is endeavoring also to make herself independent of the U. S. for the great article of Cotton wool, by encouraging E. Ind substitutes. If she pays that part of her dominions for its raw material by the return of it in a manufactured State, the loss of our Custom may be balanced, perhaps for a time, overbalanced. But a proportional loss of our Custom great & growing as it is, must be certain. Onehalf of our ability to purchase British manufactures is derived from the Cotton sold to her. The effect of her Ind importations in reducing the demand & the price of that article is already felt, both in the necessity & the advantage of working it up at home.

France too is making herself independent of the U. S. for one of their great Staples. Before our Revolution she consumed, if I rightly remember, ab thirty thousand Hhds of Tob: Her market now receives but a very few thousand & it is said that land eno' is appropriated in France for the culture of the balance. If France means to be a commercial & maritime power this policy does not bespeak wisdom in her Councils. She ought rather to promote an exchange of her superfluous wines & silks, for a foreign article, which not being a necessary of life need not be forced into cultivation at home, which she will rarely if ever be unable to procure

when she pleases from abroad, and which is well adapted by its bulk to employ shipping & marines. The price of this article like that of Cotton has rapidly fallen, & will contribute of course to turn the attention here to the obligation of substituting internal manufactures for imports which the exports will not balance. Neither G. B. nor F. seems sufficiently aware that a self-subsisting system in some nations must produce it in others, and that the result of it in all must be most injurious to those whose prosperity & power depend most on the freedom & extent of the commerce among them.

I find myself very pertinently called off from speculations wch whether just or otherwise cannot be new to you, by a charge from Mrs. M. to present her very affectionate regards to Mrs. Rush, with many thanks for the repetitions of her kind offers. I pray that my respectful ones may be added, and that you will accept for yourself assurances of my great esteem and unvaried friendship.

DEAR SIR I have duly received your letter of the Ist: instant. On recurring to my papers for the information it requests, I find that the speech of Col: Hamilton in the Convention of 1787,1 in the course of which he read a sketch of a plan of Government for the U. States, was delivered on the 18th of June; the subject of debate being a resolution

1 See ante, Vol. III., p. 182.

proposed by Mr. Dickinson "that the Articles of Confederation ought to be revised and amended so as to render the Government of the U. States adequate to the exigencies, the preservation, and the prosperity of the Union." I pray you accept, Sir, assurances of my great consideration and esteem.

TO ROBERT J. EVANS.

MAD. MSS.

MONTPELLIER, June 15, 1819

SIR, I have reca your letter of the 3d instant,1 requesting such hints as may have occurred to me on the subject of an eventual extinguishment of slavery in the U. S.

Not doubting the purity of your views, and relying on the discretion by which they will be regulated, I cannot refuse such a compliance as will at least manifest my respect for the object of your undertaking.

A general emancipation of slaves ought to be 1. gradual. 2. equitable & satisfactory to the individuals immediately concerned. 3. consistent with the existing & durable prejudices of the nation.

That it ought, like remedies for other deeprooted and wide-spread evils, to be gradual, is so obvious that there seems to be no difference of opinion on that point.

To be equitable & satisfactory, the consent of both the Master & the slave should be obtained.

1 Evans wrote that he was convinced the time had arrived for adopting a plan of eventual emancipation.-Mad. MSS. He was the author of certain newspaper articles printed over the name of Benjamin Rush.

That of the Master will require a provision in the plan for compensating a loss of what he held as property guarantied by the laws, and recognised by the Constitution. That of the slave, requires that his condition in a state of freedom, be preferable in his own estimation, to his actual one in a state of bondage.

To be consistent with existing and probably unalterable prejudices in the U. S. the freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by or allotted to a White population. The objections to a thorough incorporation of the two people are, with most of the Whites insuperable; and are admitted by all of them to be very powerful. If the blacks, strongly marked as they are by Physical & lasting peculiarities, be retained amid the Whites, under the degrading privation of equal rights political or social, they must be always dissatisfied with their condition as a change only from one to another species of oppression; always secretly confederated agst the ruling, & privileged class; and always uncontroulled by some of the most cogent motives to moral and respectable conduct. The character of the free blacks, even where their legal condition is least affected by their colour, seems to put these truths beyond question. It is material also that the removal of the blacks be to a distance precluding the jealousies & hostilities to be apprehended from a neighboring people stimulated by the contempt known to be entertained for their peculiar features; to say nothing of their vindictive recollections,