I am much pleased with your land ordinance, and think it improved from the first, in the most material circumstances. I had mistaken the object of the division of the lands among the States. I am sanguine in my expectations of lessening our debts by this fund, and have expressed my expectations to the minister and others here. I see by the public papers, you have adopted the dollar as your money unit. In the arrangement of coins, I proposed, I ought to have inserted a gold coin of five dollars, which, being within two shillings of the value of a guinea, would be very convenient.
The English papers are so incessantly repeating their lies, about the tumults, the anarchy, the bankruptcies, and distresses of America, that these ideas prevail very generally in Europe. At a large table where I dined the other day, a gentleman from Switzerland expressed his apprehensions for the fate of Dr. Franklin, as he said he had been informed, that he would be received with stones by the people, who were generally dissatisfied with the Revolution, and incensed against all those who had assisted in bringing it about. I told him his apprehensions were just, and that the people of America would probably salute Dr. Franklin with the same stones they had thrown at the Marquis Fayette. The reception of the Doctor is an object of very general attention, and will weigh in Europe, as an evidence of the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of America with their Revolution. As you are to be in Williamsburg early in November, this is the last letter I shall write you till about that time.
I am, with very sincere esteem, dear Sir,
your friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER XCIX.—TO CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES, August 29,1785
TO CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES.
Paris, August 29,1785.
Sir,