to embarrass ourselves with treaties, or to entangle ourselves at
all with the affairs of Europe. The kind offices we receive from that
government are more sensibly felt, as such, than they would be, if
rendered only as due to us by treaty.

Five fine frigates left the Chesapeake the 1st instant for Tripoli,
which, in addition to the force now there, will, I trust, recover the
credit which Commodore Morris's two years' sleep lost us, and for which
he has been broke. I think they will make Tripoli sensible, that they
mistake their interest in choosing war with us; and Tunis also, should
she have declared war, as we expect, and almost wish.

Notwithstanding this little diversion, we pay seven or eight millions of
dollars annually of our public debt, and shall completely discharge
it in twelve years more. That done, our annual revenue, now thirteen
millions of dollars, which by that time will be twenty-five, will pay
the expenses of any war we may be forced into, without new taxes or
loans. The spirit of republicanism is now in almost all its ancient
vigor, five sixths of the people being with us. Fourteen of the
seventeen States are completely with us, and two of the other three will
be in one year. We have now got back to the ground on which you left us.
I should have retired at the end of the first four years, but that the
immense load of tory calumnies which have been manufactured respecting
me, and have filled the European market, have obliged me to appeal once
more to my country for a justification. I have no fear but that I shall
receive honorable testimony by their verdict on those calumnies. At the
end of the next four years I shall certainly retire. Age, inclination,
and principle all dictate this. My health, which at one time threatened
an unfavorable turn, is now firm. The acquisition of Louisiana, besides
doubling our extent, and trebling our quantity of fertile country, is