GOUVERNEUR MORRIS TO JAY. - John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, vol. 3 (1782-1793) [1891]
Edition used:
The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston, A.M. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890-93). Vol. 3 (1782-1793).
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GOUVERNEUR MORRIS TO JAY.
Philadelphia, 10th January, 1784.
Dear Jay:
I write to acknowledge your letter of the 24th September. Being uncertain where you are, and consequently what course this letter may take, and through what hands it will pass, I shall not say so much as I otherwise might. I will direct to the care of Dr. Franklin.
Your attachment to America, when removed from it, is the old story of travellers; but when it comes from one in whose feelings we feel an interest, decies repetita placebit. Of your health you speak despondingly, yet you say your spirits are good. Believe me, my friend, good spirits will both make and preserve good health. I mean to extend the observation generally, but not universally. Whatever lot betides us, I wish you at least one happy year, and I hope that Heaven will do you the justice to grant a long succession of them. Make my good wishes acceptable to Mrs. Jay, and present me tenderly to your children.
I was lately in New-York, and have the pleasure to tell you that all your friends were well. Things there are now in that kind of ferment which was rationally to have been expected; and I think the superior advantages of our constitution will now appear in the repressing of those turbulent spirits who wish for confusion, because that in the regular order of things they can only fill a subordinate sphere.
This country has never yet been known to Europe, and God knows whether it ever will be so. To England it is less known than to any other part of Europe; because they constantly view it through a medium either of prejudice or of faction. True it is, that the general government wants energy; and equally true it is that this want will eventually be supplied. A national spirit is the natural result of national existence; and although some of the present generation may feel colonial oppositions of opinion, that generation will die away, and give place to a race of Americans. On this occasion, as on others, Great Britain is our best friend; and by seizing the critical moment when we were about to divide, she has shown clearly the dreadful consequences of division. You will find that the States are coming into resolutions on the subject of commerce; which, if they had been proposed by Congress on the plain reason of the thing, would have been rejected with resentment, and perhaps contempt.
With respect to our taste for luxury, do not grieve about it. Luxury is not so bad a thing as it is often supposed to be; and if it were, still we must follow the course of things, and turn to advantage what exists, since we have not the power to annihilate or create. The very definition of luxury is as difficult as the suppression of it.
Do not condemn us till you see us. Do not ask the British to take off their foolish restrictions. Let them alone and they will be obliged to do it themselves. While the present regulation exists, it does us more of political good than it can possibly do of commercial evil. Adieu.
Believe me always yours,
Gouverneur Morris.
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