establishments for their own time, but no longer; and the present
holders, even where they or their ancestors have purchased, are in
the case of _bonâ fide_ purchasers of what the seller had no right to
convey.

Turn the subject in your mind, my Dear Sir, and particularly as to the
power of contracting debts, and develope it with that cogent logic which
is so peculiarly yours. Your station in the councils of our country
gives you an opportunity of producing it to public consideration, of
forcing it into discussion. At first blush it may be laughed at, as
the dream of a theorist; but examination will prove it to be solid and
salutary. It would furnish matter for a fine preamble to our first
law for appropriating the public revenue: and it will exclude, at the
threshold of our new government, the ruinous and contagious errors of
this quarter of the globe, which have armed despots with means which
nature does not sanction, for binding in chains their fellow-men. We
have already given, in example, one effectual check to the dog of war,
by transferring the power of declaring war from the executive to the
legislative body, from those who are to spend, to those who are to pay.
I should be pleased to see this second obstacle held out by us also,
in the first instance. No nation can make a declaration against the
validity of long contracted debts, so disinterestedly as we, since we
do not owe a shilling which will not be paid, principal and interest, by
the measures you have taken, within the time of our own lives. I write
you no news, because when an occasion occurs, I shall write a separate
letter for that.

I am always, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your affectionate
friend and servant,