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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO WILLIAM SHORT J. MSS. - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 7 (Correspondence 1792-1793) [1905]

Edition used:

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 7

Part of: The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO WILLIAM SHORTJ. MSS.

Philadelphia Mar. 23. 1793.

Dear Sir,—

My last private letter to you was of Jan. 3. Your private letters of Sep. 15. Oct. 22. Nov. 2. Nov. 20. Nov. 30. & Dec. 18. have been received & shall be attended. Particular answers cannot be hazarded by this conveyance. But on one circumstance it is so necessary to put you on your guard that I must take and give you the trouble of applying to our cypher.1Be cautious in your letters to the Secretary of the treasury. He sacrificed you2on a late occasion when called on to explain before the Senate his proceedings relative to the loans in Europe. Instead of extracting such passages of your letters as might relate to them, he gave in the originals in which I am told were strong expressions against the French republicans: and even gave in a correspondence between G. Morris & yourself which scarcely related to the loans at all, merely that a long lre of Morris’s might appear in which he argues as a democrat himself against you as an aristocrat. I have done what I could to lessen the injury this did you, for such sentiments towards the French are extremely grating here, tho’ they are those of Hamilton himself & the monocrats of his cabal. Particular circumstances have obliged me to remain here a little longer: but I certainly retire in the summer or fall. The next Congress will be strongly republican. Adieu.

Tell Mr. Carmichael that I have still but one letter from him.3

[1 ]What follows in italic is in cipher in the original.

[2 ]Here the word “infamously” is struck out.

[3 ]Jefferson has added in pencil: “See hurry of Hs proceedings under the pressure of Congress to place the defence before the screening power as the answer to this base charge. But it is characteristic of its Author.”