TO JAMES MONROE - 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 JAMES MONROE
j. mss.
Monticello Feb. 22. 26
Dear Sir,
—Your favor of the 13th was received yesterday. Your use of my letter with the alterns subsequently proposed, needs no apology. And it will be a gratifn to me if it can be of any service to you. I learn with sincere affliction the difficulties with which you have still to struggle. Mine are considble, but the single permission given me by the legislature of such a mode of sale as ensures a fair value for what I must sell, will leave me still a competent provision. If sold under the hammer it must have been for whatever the bidder would gratuitously offer. For such a piece of property for example as my mills there could not have been two bona fide bidders in the state. A Virginia estate managed rigorously well yields a comfortable subsistence to it’s owner living on it, but nothing more. But it runs him in debt annually if at a distance from him, if he is absent, if he is unskilful as I am, if short crops reduce him to deal on credit, and most assuredly if thunder struck from the hand of a friend as I was. Altho’ all these causes conspired against me, and should have put me on my guard I had no suspicions until my grandson undertook the management of my estate and developed to me the state of my affairs, fortunately while yet retrievable in a comfortable degree. I hope you will still find yours so, and with sincere wishes that they may prove so to be. I salute you with constant frdshp, and respect.
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