Autograph letter signed by Thomas Jefferson
150. JEFFERSON, Thomas (1743-1826). Autograph letter signed (“Th.Jefferson”) to Tench Cox (1755-1824), Monticello, 1 May 1794.
Two pages, 232 x 188mm (silked); with signed and dated transmittal leaf.
“Spectacles of usurpation and misrule” – Jefferson criticizes Robespierre. While initially supportive of the revolution in France (as U.S. Minister to the Court of Louis XVI, he witnessed the storming of the Bastille), by 1794 Jefferson’s feelings had cooled and his impassioned letter rails against the current state of affairs: “I love, therefore, Mr Clarke’s proposition of cutting off all communication with the nation which has conducted itself so atrociously. This, you will say, may bring on war. If it does, we will meet it like men; but it may not bring on war, & then the experiment will have been a happy one. I believe this war would be vastly more unanimously approved than any one we ever were engaged in; because the aggressions have been so wonton & bare-faced, and so unquestionably against our desire.” Robespierre would be overthrown less than three months later. Tench Coxe was an American political economist and Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789.