TO J. MADISON.
Monticello, August 20, 1807.
Your letter to Dayton I think perfectly right, unless, perhaps, the expression of personal sympathy in the first page might be misconstrued, and, coupled with the circumstance that we had not yet instituted a prosecution against him, although possessed of evidence. Poor Yznardi seems to have been worked up into distraction by the persecutions of Meade. I enclose you a letter I have received from him. Also one from Warden, attested by Armstrong, by which you will see that the feuds there are not subsiding.
By yesterday's, or this day's mails, you will have received the information that Bonaparte has annihilated the allied armies. The result will doubtless be peace on the continent, an army despatched through Persia to India, and the main army brought back to their former position on the channel. This will oblige England to withdraw everything home, and leave us an open field. An account, apparently worthy of credit, in the Albany paper, is, that the British are withdrawing all their cannon and magazines from Upper Canada to Quebec, considering the former not tenable, and the latter their only fast-hold.
I salute you with sincere affection.
P. S. I had forgotten to express my opinion that deserters ought never to be enlisted; but I think you may go further and say to Erskine, that if ever such a practise has prevailed, it has been without the knowledge of the Government, and would have been forbidden, if known, and if any examples of it have existed, (which is doubted,) they must have been few, or they would have become known. The case presented from the Chichester, if true, does not prove the contrary, as the persons there said to have been enlisted are believed to have been American citizens, who, whether impressed or enlisted into the British service, were equally right in returning to the duties they owed to their own country.