To Kosciuszko, on April 13th, 1811, Jefferson in a letter said, "Peace then has been our principle, peace is our interest, and peace has saved to the world this only plant of free and rational government now existing in it. If it can still be preserved, we shall soon see the final extinction of our national debt, and liberation of our revenues for the defence and improvement of our country. * * * Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, &c., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise. * * * And behold! another example of man rising in his might and bursting the chains of his oppressors, and in the same hemisphere, Spanish America is all in revolt. The insurgents are triumphant in many of the States, and will be so in all. But there the danger is that the cruel arts of their oppressors have enchained their minds, have kept them in the ignorance of children, and as incapable of self-government as children. If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else. God send them a safe deliverance."

To John Adams on May 17th, 1818, Jefferson wrote: "I enter into all your doubts as to the event of the revolution of South America. They will succeed against Spain. But the dangerous enemy is within their own breasts. Ignorance and superstition will chain their minds and bodies under religious and military despotism. I do believe it would be better for them to obtain freedom by degrees only; because that would by degrees bring on light and information, and qualify them to take charge of themselves understandingly; with more certainty, if in the meantime under so much control as may keep them at peace with one another."

When Jefferson was in France he sent a long letter, dated May 4th, 1787, to John Jay. In this letter he alluded to a conversation which he had had with a Mexican, who wished to interest him in a proposed revolution in Mexico. He wrote: "I was still more cautious with him than with the Brazilian, mentioning it as my private opinion (unauthorized to say a word on the subject otherwise) that a successful revolution was still in the distance with them; that I feared they must begin by enlightening and emancipating the minds of their people."

Jefferson's highly judicious advice to his Spanish brethren to begin their revolution by "emancipating and enlightening the minds of their people "* was worthy of a great statesman. Who can imagine what happy results would to-day be enjoyed in Cuba and in all South America, and in Spain itself, if all friends of civil liberty had exerted themselves to establish schools and libraries, and had cherished the interests of learning;—and had been friends of religious liberty, without which true civil liberty cannot exist. When Jefferson gave from the fulness of his heart the advice to his Spanish friends to "begin the great revolution in which they were called to engage, " by enlightening and emancipating the minds of their people," the Inquisition was doing a sad work in Spanish America. It held sessions in Mexico, Lima and Carthagena, and anathematized many books. No books, not even periodicals, not printed in the Spanish language, were permitted to go into circulation until examined by the commissioners of the Inquisition-an institution whose history is so awful that one may well shudder as he lifts for an instant the veil under which its bigotry-its innumerable cruelties

* I was once pleased to learn from my bookseller that a book entitled "Our National System of Education," which I had published in 1877, had been bought by some one to send to Cuba.

If

and murders-is permitted in great measure to rest. Monsieur Dupont, in his work entitled "Voyage dans l'Amérique," draws attention to the fact that to sell a forbidden book was punished as a crime. For the first offence a bookseller was banished from the place in which his business had been carried on, and was fined one hundred ducats, and he was forbidden to sell or deal in books of any kind for two years. Should he repeat his "crime," -so-called,—he received a heavier punishment. As the fines were deposited in the coffers of the Inquisition there was a strong temptation on the part of the so-called "Holy Office" to find in books which they examined, heresy, immodesty, or disrespect to the government. a person received a catalogue of books from abroad, he had to send it to the "Holy Office," which was not bound to restore it. Any man's house could be visited by the commissioners of the Inquisition, to search for prohibited books. Although in some lands even the poor man can feel that "his house is his castle," yet over an immense area in America commissioners of the so-called "Holy Office" could enter any house at any hour of the day or night, and search in every nook and corner to see whether there was a book which the wretched people had been forbidden to read. Monsieur Dupont points out that monks and the Romish clergy were allowed to read some of the books condemned by the "Holy Office," but not all. In 1790 the number of books which the people were forbidden to read, and which were placed upon the Spanish Index expurgatorius, numbered at least five thousand four hundred and twenty. The works of at least

* See Mr. Charles Lindsey's interesting work entitled "Rome in Canada. The Ultramontane Struggle for Supremacy over the Civil Authority." Sold by Lovell Brothers, Toronto, 1877, Mr. Lindsey quotes from Mr. Dupont's Travels.

that number of authors were on the forbidden list. If a person was merely punished by the public laws of the land-however cruel and tyrannical they were, he yet escaped much if he was saved from being dragged to the dungeons of the Inquisition!

To a Mr. Coray, who wished to promote the cause of liberty in which the people of Greece were, under very interesting circumstances, engaged, Jefferson wrote a long letter of advice, under date of Oct. 31st, 1823. Alluding to what his correspondent had written respecting the people of Greece, he wrote: "You have certainly begun at the right end towards preparing them for the great object for which they are now contending, by improving their minds and qualifying them for self-government. For this they will owe you lasting honors. Nothing is more likely to forward this object than a study of the fine models of science left by their ancestors, to whom we also are all indebted for the lights which originally led ourselves out of Gothic darkness."

Among Jefferson's correspondents was Lafayette. There was much about Lafayette to make Jefferson love him. Believing that titles of nobility made improper distinctions among men who were created equal, this devoted friend of liberty relinquished the proud title of Marquis. When a young man, although possessed of a splendid fortune, he turned away from the luxurious courts of Europe to give his best efforts to the cause of liberty. Great was the sensation produced in Europe when it was known that Lafayette, a member of one of the most illustrious families of France, had enlisted in the cause of freedom. Congress made him a MajorGeneral, dating his commission from July 1st, 1777. He served on the staff of Washington, who "loved him as if he were his own son." He was at times given important

commands. It is not necessary to here dwell upon Lafayette's great services in the War of Independence and of the honors which he received from the American nation. Suffice it to say that when John Adams and Franklin were arranging terms of peace with Great Britain, Lafayette with twenty-four thousand troops and sixty vessels of the line, was at Cadiz, ready to sail for America, if peace should not be concluded. Partly through the influence of Lafayette, France gave to the American cause-if the estimate of Calonne, the French minister of finance is to be believed,-about twelve hundred millions of francs. It is but just to say, however, that Jefferson, in his Autobiography, declared that Calonne admitted that the United States ought not to be debited with more than forty-five millions of francs.

When a great man is spoken of, it is sometimes interesting to pause for a moment to contemplate his character. From Lafayette's correspondence, some opinion can be formed of his character. On Feb. 22d, 1786, writing to John Adams he said: "In the cause of my brethren, I feel myself warmly interested, and most decidedly side, so far as respects them, against the white part of mankind. Whatever be the complexion of the enslaved, it does not, in my opinion, alter the complexion of the crime which the enslaver commits; a crime much blacker than any African face. It is to me a matter of great anxiety and concern to find that this trade is sometimes perpetrated under the flag of liberty, our dear and noble stripes, to which virtue and glory have been constant standard bearers." On the 10th of May, 1786, Washington, who himself wished the abolition of slavery, wrote from Mount Vernon a letter to Lafayette, in which he said: "The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so con

*"Works of John Adams," vol. viii., p. 376.