Why can’t they be happy?
Indeed, it is difficult to conceive how so good a people [the French], with so good a King, so well-disposed rulers in general, so genial a climate, so fertile a soil, should be rendered so ineffectual...
View ArticleWhat qualities make a nation admirable?
So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? – Certainly in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections...
View ArticleSorry, but the snuff is stuffed.
I have duly received your favor accompanying that of Mr. Van bram Houckgeete on the subject of a cask of snuff sent by him to Bordeaux. The importation of that article is prohibited by the laws of...
View ArticleShould facts or fears govern us?
For observe, it is not the possibility of danger, which absolves a party from his contract: for that possibility always exists, & in every case. It existed in the present one at the moment of...
View ArticleWhat work do the women do?
The people here [Champagne, France] were ill clothed, and looked ill, and I observed the women performing the heavy labours of husbandry; an unequivocal proof of extreme poverty. In Burgundy and...
View ArticleTravel is not what it used to be!
On the 7th. of May Congress resolved that a Minister Plenipotentiary [Webster’s 7th New Collegiate: “a diplomatic agent invested with full power to transact any business”] should be appointed in...
View ArticleSlippery & double-faced or The Golden Rule?
The Count de Vergennes had the reputation with the diplomatic corps of being wary & slippery in his diplomatic intercourse; and so he might be with those whom he knew to be slippery and...
View ArticleIf you couldn’t live in America, your 2nd choice?
A more benevolent people, I have never known … Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled … Their eminence too in science … the politeness of the general manners, the ease and...
View ArticleLouisiana, here we come. Do-da. Do-da.
With respect to Spain our dispositions are sincerely amicable & even affectionate. we consider her possession of the adjacent country [Louisiana, the land west of the Mississippi River] as most...
View ArticleThis single act changes FRIEND to FOE!
The cession of Louisiana & the Floridas by Spain to France works most sorely on the US … of all nations of any consideration France is the one which hitherto has offered the fewest points on which...
View ArticleLet us do this to avoid war.
I think therefore, that while we do nothing which the first nation on earth [France] would deem crouching, we had better give to all our communications with them a very mild, complaisant, and even...
View ArticleI am the boss. America needs you. You do not have a choice.
… the fever into which the Western mind is thrown by the affair at N. Orleans …threatens to overbear our peace. in this situation we are obliged to call on you for a temporary sacrifice of yourself … I...
View ArticleWhat in the world does plenipotentiary mean?
Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States of America, Greeting: To Reposing especial Trust and Confidence in Your Integrity, Prudence and Ability I have appointed Minister Plenipotentiary...
View ArticleYou have the yellow fever in France!
The account you give of the yellow fever, is entirely agreeable to what we then knew of it … facts appear to have established that it is originated here by a local atmosphere, which is never generated...
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