Your kind favor of the 5th. of this month is just now brought to me, & I beg leave to reciprocate to you & your amiable family all 542 your obliging wishes— the latest accounts from the massachusetts assure us of a returning tranquility, altho the spirit of sedition in the County of Worcester was not wholly suppressed— I have no doubt it will all soon subside.

With equal surprize & satisfaction I learnt that the King had determined to call together an assembly of Personages of the first dignity & Authority, from all Parts of this Kingdom— It is one of the most important events of this age, & must have great effect upon the Happiness & Prosperity of your Nation— I shall wait with impatience to see the result, a Little more liberallity in Religion, in Commerce in Letters & in Politicks, would not only augment the felicity of France, but be a good Example to the rest of Europe, & place the Glory of Louis the 16th. in a higher point of view than any King of france ever attained— It gives me pleasure to see that some of my noble friends & acquaintance are to be members of this Illustrious assembly,— I wish I could be a Sylph or a Gnome & flit away to Versailles on a sun-Beam—to hear your August Debates— But I am condemned to dream away my Life, with little satisfaction to myself, and no advantage to any one else— I had rather be an orderly sergt. in the Militia of Massachusetts. employed to push Bayonetts, with the Insurgents against Government. If they are not to be supressed any other Way, We shall soon have an assembly of notables here in London who will be as much more noisy, than yours at Versailles, as I believe they will be less judicious1

Will you be so good as to let me know from time to time, what is communicable—

Yours

Dr Tufts will give you a Strange Book.1 I know not whether, the Sentiments of it, will be approved, by the Men of Sense and Letters in America.— if they are, they will make themselves popular in time. if they are not, our Countrymen have many Miseries yet to go 543 through. if the System attempted to be defended in those Letters, is not the System of the Wisest Men among Us, I shall tremble for the Consequences, and wish myself in any Obscure hole in the World. I am myself, as clearly Satisfied of the infallible Truth of the Doctrine there contained as I am of any Demonstration in Euclid, and if our Countrymen are bent upon any wild Schemes inconsistent with the substance of it, the sooner they remove me, out of their sight the better for I can be of no Service to them, in promoting their Views. I Shall be anxious to know how it is received, and shall be obliged to you to inform me.

I lament that it is so hasty a Production. it is only Since my Return from Holland in September that I began to collect the materials.— But the Disturbances in New England made it necessary to publish immediately in order to do any good. My Friends in Holland were much employed, in Revolutions. in Several Conversations there, I had occasion to mention some Things respecting Government, which some of those Gentlemen wished to see upon Paper. their desire falling in with the Seditious Meetings in the Massachusetts determined me to write.

The Field is vast enough, the Materials are Splendid enough, and the subject is of Weight enough to employ the greatest Scholar of the Age, for Seven Years.— I am no great Scholar and have had but a few Months time. but I hope the Men of Genius & Science in America will pursue the subject to more Advantage.

by the hurry and precipitation, with which the Work was undertaken conducted and compleated, I have been obliged to be too inattentive both to Method and the ornaments of Style, for the present Taste of our Countrymen: for I perceive that Taste and Elegance are the Cry.— This appears to me like establishing Manufactures of Lace, Fringe & Embroidery in a Country before there is any of Silk, Velvet or Cloth.— Our Countrymen are by no means advanced enough in Solid Science and Learning in Mathematicks & Philosophy, in Greek & Latin to devote so much of their Time to Rhetorick. The ignorance of old Mummius, who threatned the Master of the Ship to compell him to replace the Paintings of Apelles if he lost them would become Us much better.2 I am no Ennemy to Elegance. but I Say no Man has a right to think of Elegance, till he has secured Substance—nor then to Seek more of it, than he can afford. That Taste which for its Gratification will commit Knavery & run in debt beyond the Ability to pay, merits execration. That Elegance 544 which devours Honour, Truth and Independency: which Scorns Reputations, and can reconcile itself to ignominy, public or private is a Monster that Hercules ought to destroy.

If the Courts of Justice must be Stopped at the Point of the Bayonet, if the Laws must be trampled under foot to Satisfy Elegance, it is a Dæmon that ought to be sent back to Hell.3

Libertatem, Amicitiam, Fidem, præcipua humani Animi bona.4 These are essential to human Happiness. Finery, of every kind may be dispensed with, untill it can be reconciled to the other.

Yours affectionately