After an acquaintance of nearly fifteen years in difficult situations
in America, and various consultations in Europe, I feel a pleasure in
presenting to you this small treatise, in gratitude for your services
to my beloved America, and as a testimony of my esteem for the
virtues, public and private, which I know you to possess.
The only point upon which I could ever discover that we differed was
not as to principles of government, but as to time. For my own part I
think it equally as injurious to good principles to permit them to
linger, as to push them on too fast. That which you suppose
accomplishable in fourteen or fifteen years, I may believe
practicable in a much shorter period. Mankind, as it appears to me,
are always ripe enough to understand their true interest, provided it
be presented clearly to their understanding, and that in a manner not
to create suspicion by anything like self-design, nor offend by
assuming too much. Where we would wish to reform we must not
reproach.
When the American revolution was established I felt a disposition to
sit serenely down and enjoy the calm. It did not appear to me that
any object could afterwards arise great enough to make me quit
tranquility and feel as I had felt before. But when principle, and
not place, is the energetic cause of action, a man, I find, is
everywhere the same.
I am now once more in the public world; and as I have not a right to
contemplate on so many years of remaining life as you have, I have
resolved to labour as fast as I can; and as I am anxious for your aid
and your company, I wish you to hasten your principles and overtake
me.
If you make a campaign the ensuing spring, which it is most probable
there will be no occasion for, I will come and join you. Should the
campaign commence, I hope it will terminate in the extinction of
German despotism, and in establishing the freedom of all Germany.
When France shall be surrounded with revolutions she will be in peace
and safety, and her taxes, as well as those of Germany, will
consequently become less.