The 'Intercepted Letters', a later English publication of great wit and humor, has put them to their proper use by holding them up as butts; for the ridicule and contempt of mankind, yet by such worthless beings is a great nation to be governed, & even made to deify their old king because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his having lost to them a great & flourishing empire, added 900 millions sterling to their debt, for which the fee simple of the whole island would not sell, if offered farm by farm at public auction, and increased their annual taxes from 8. to 70 millions sterling, more than the whole rent-roll of the island. What must be the dreary prospect from the son when such a father is deplored as a national loss. But let us drop these odious beings and pass to those of an higher order, the plants of the field.

(TJ to Madame de Tessé, December 8, 1813.)
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