Miscellany
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Jefferson, Thomas
extent: 294105
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 6
subject: verse
subject: feet
subject: government
subject: states
subject: country
subject: fought
subject: bled
subject: cause
subject: jefferson
subject: thomas
subject: miscellany
subject: american
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: jefferson-miscellany-257.txt
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plain html: jefferson-miscellany-257.htm
sort title: Miscellany
full text: MISCELLANY by Thomas Jefferson _Reply to the Representations of Affairs in America by British Newspapers_ [before November 20, 1784] I am an officer lately returned from service & residence in the U.S. of America. I have fought & bled for that country because I thought it's cause just. From the moment of peace to that in which I left it, I have seen it enjoying all the happiness which easy government, order & industry are capable of giving to a people. On my return to my native country what has been my astonishment to find all the public papers of Europe filled with accounts of the anarchy & destractions supposed to exist in that country. I have received serious condolances from all my friends on the bitter fruits of so prosperous a war. These friends I know to be so well disposed towards America that they wished the reverse of what they repeated from the public papers. I have enquired into the source of all this misinformation & have found it not difficult to be traced. The printers on the Continent have not yet got into the habit of taking the American newspapers. Whatever they retail therefore on the subject of America, they take from the English. If your readers will reflect a moment they will recollect that every unfavourable account they have seen of the transactions in America has been taken from the English papers only. Nothing is known in Europe of the situation of the U.S. since the acknowlegement of their independance but thro' the channel of these papers. But these papers have been under the influence of two ruling motives 1. deep-rooted hatred springing from an unsuccesful attempt to injure 2. a fear that their island will be depopulated by the emigration of it's inhabitants to America. Hence no paper comes out without a due charge of paragraphs manufactured by persons employed for that purpose. According to these America is a scene of continued riot & anarchy. Wearied out with contention, it is on the verge of falling again into the lap of Gr. Br. for …