TO ROBERT WALSH - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 12 (Correspondence and Papers 1816-1826) [1905]
Edition used:
The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 12.
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TO ROBERT WALSH
j. mss.
Monticello, Feb. 6. 20
Dear Sir,
—Continual ill health for 18. months past had nearly ended the business of letter-writing with me. I cannot however but make an effort to thank you for your vindicia Americana against Gr. Britain. The malevolence and impertinence of her critics & writers really called for the rod, and I rejoiced when I heard it was in hands so able to wield it with strength and correctness. Your work will furnish the 1st volume of every future American history; the Ante-revolutionary part especially. The latter part will silence the libellists of the day, who finding refutation impossible, and that men in glass houses should not provoke a war of stones, will be glad of a truce, to hush and be done with it. I wish that, being placed on the vantage ground by these researches and expositions of facts, our own citizens and our antagonists would now bury the hatchet and join in a mutual amnesty. No two nations on earth can be so helpful to each other as friends, nor so hurtful as enemies. And, in spite of their insolence I have ever wished for an honorable and cordial amity with them as a nation. I think the looking glass you have held up to them will now so compleatly humble their pride as to dispose them also to wish and court it.
Here I must lay down my pen with affectionate salutations to you, and on whichever side of the Styx I may be, with cordial wishes for your health, prosperity and happiness.
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