Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXVI.—TO MR. CUTTING, October 2, 1788
TO MR. CUTTING.
Paris, October 2, 1788.
Dear Sir,
I am now to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of the 16th and 23rd ultimo and to thank you for the intelligence they conveyed. That respecting the case of the interrogatories in Pennsylvania, ought to make noise. So evident a heresy in the common law ought not to be tolerated on the authority of two or three civilians, who happened, unfortunately, to make authority in the courts of England. I hold it essential, in America, to forbid that any English decision which has happened since the accession of Lord Mansfield to the bench, should ever be cited in a court: because, though there have come many good ones from him, yet there is so much sly poison instilled into a great part of them, that it is better to proscribe the whole. Can you inform me what has been done by England on the subject of our wheat and flour? The papers say it is prohibited, even in Hanover. How do their whale-fisheries turn out, this year? I hope a deep wound will be given them in that article soon, and such as will leave us in no danger from their competition.
I am, with very great esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.