CXI. TO MR. PINCKNEY, June 11, 1792
TO MR. PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, June 11, 1792.
Dear Sir, I have already had the honor of delivering to you your commission as Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at the court of London, and have now that of enclosing your letter of credence to the King, sealed, and a copy of it open for your own information. Mr. Adams, your predecessor, seemed to understand, on his being presented to that court, that a letter was expected for the Queen also. You will be pleased to inform yourself whether the custom of that court requires this from us; and to enable you to comply with it, if it should, I enclose a letter sealed for the Queen, and a copy of it open for your own information. Should its delivery not be requisite you will be so good as to return it, as we do not wish to set a precedent which may bind us hereafter to a single unnecessary ceremony. To you, Sir, it will be unnecessary to undertake a general delineation of the duties of the office to which you are appointed. I shall therefore only express a desire that they be constantly exercised in that spirit of sincere friendship which we bear to the English nation, and that in all transactions with the minister, his good dispositions be conciliated by whatever in language or attentions may tend to that effect. With respect to their government, or policy, as concerning themselves or other nations, we wish not to intermeddle in word or deed, and that it be not understood that our government permits itself to entertain either a will or an opinion on the subject.
I particularly recommend to you, as the most important of your charges, the patronage of our commerce, and its liberation from embarrassments in all the British dominions; but most especially in the West Indies. Our Consuls in Great Britain and Ireland are under general instructions to correspond with you, as you will perceive by the copy of a circular letter lately written to them, and now enclosed. From them you may often receive interesting information. Mr. Joshua Johnson is Consul for us at London, James Maury, at Liverpool, Elias Vanderhorst, at Bristol, Thomas Auldjo, Vice-Consul at Pool (resident at Cowes), and William Knox, Consul at Dublin. The jurisdiction of each is exclusive and independent, and extends to all places within the same allegiance nearer to him than to the residence of any other Consul or Vice-Consul of the United States. The settlement of their accounts from time to time, and the payment of them, are referred to you, and in this, the act respecting Consuls and any other laws made, or to be made, are to be your guide. Charges which these do not authorize, you will be pleased not to allow. These accounts are to be settled up to the first day of July in every year and to be transmitted to the Secretary of State.
The peculiar custom in England, of impressing seamen on every appearance of war, will occasionally expose our seamen to peculiar oppressions and vexations. These will require your most active exertions and protection, which we know cannot be effectual without incurring considerable expense; and as no law has as yet provided for this, we think it fairer to take the risk of it on the executive than to leave it on your shoulders. You will, therefore, with all due economy, and on the best vouchers the nature of the case will admit, meet those expenses, transmitting an account of them to the Secretary of State, to be communicated to the legislature. It will be expedient that you take proper opportunities in the mean time, of conferring with the minister on this subject, in order to form some arrangement for the protection of our seamen on those occasions. We entirely reject the mode which was the subject of a conversation between Mr. Morris and him, which was, that our seamen should always carry about them certificates of their citizenship. This is a condition never yet submitted to by any nation, one with which seamen would never have the precaution to comply; the casualties of their calling would expose them to the constant destruction or loss of this paper evidence, and thus, the British government would be armed with legal authority to impress the whole of our seamen. The simplest rule will be, that the vessel being American, shall be evidence that the seamen on board her are such. If they apprehend that our vessels might thus become asylums for the fugitives of their own nation from impress-gangs, the number of men to be protected by a vessel may be limited by her tonnage, and one or two officers only be permitted to enter the vessel in order to examine the numbers on board; but no press-gang should be allowed ever to go on board an American vessel, till after it shall be found that there are more than their stipulated number on board, nor till after the master shall have refused to deliver the supernumeraries (to be named by himself) to the press-officer who has come on board for that purpose; and, even then, the American Consul should be called in. In order to urge a settlement of this point, before a new occasion may arise, it may not be amiss to draw their attention to the peculiar irritation excited on the last occasion, and the difficulty of avoiding our making immediate reprisals on their seamen here. You will be so good as to communicate to me what shall pass on this subject, and it may be made an article of convention, to be entered into either there or here.
You will receive herewith a copy of the journals of the ancient Congress, and of the laws, journals, and reports of the present. Those for the future, with gazettes and other interesting papers, shall be sent you from time to time; and I shall leave you generally to the gazettes, for whatever information is in possession of the public, and shall especially undertake to communicate by letter, such only relative to the business of your mission as the gazetteers cannot give. From you I ask, once or twice a month, a communication of interesting occurrences in England, of the general affairs of Europe, the court gazette, the best paper in the interest of the ministry, and the best of the opposition party, most particularly, that one of each which shall give the best account of the debates of parliament, the parliamentary register annually, and such other political publications as may be important enough to be read by one who can spare little time to read any thing, or which may contain matter proper to be kept and turned to, on interesting subjects and occasions. The English packet is the most certain channel for such epistolary communications as are not very secret, and intermediate occasions by private vessels may be resorted to for secret communications, and for such as would come too expensively burthened with postage, by the packets. You are furnished with a cipher for greater secrecy of communication. To the papers before mentioned, I must desire you to add the Leyden gazette, paper by paper as it comes out, by the first vessel sailing after its receipt.
I enclose you the papers in the case of a Mr. Wilson, ruined by the capture of his vessels after the term limited by the armistice. They will inform you of the circumstances of his case, and where you may find him personally, and I recommend his case to your particular representations to the British court. It is possible that other similar cases may be transmitted to you. You have already received some letters of Mr. Adams’s explanations of the principles of the armistice, and of what had passed between him and the British minister on the subject.
Mr. Greene of Rhode Island will deliver you his papers, and I am to desire that you may patronize his claims so far as shall be just and right, leaving to himself and his agent to follow up the minute details of solicitation, and coming forward yourself only when there shall be proper occasion for you to do so in the name of your nation.
Mr. Cutting has a claim against the government, vouchers for which he is to procure from England. As you are acquainted with the circumstances of it, I have only to desire that you will satisfy yourself as to any facts relative thereto, the evidence of which cannot be transmitted, and that you will communicate the same to me, that justice may be done between the public and the claimant.
We shall have occasion to ask your assistance in procuring a workman or two for our mint; but this shall be the subject of a separate letter after I shall have received more particular explanations from the director of the mint.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXII. TO THOMAS PINCKNEY, June 11, 1792
TO THOMAS PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, June 11, 1792.
Sir,
The letter I have addressed to Admiral Jones, of which you have had the perusal, has informed you of the mission with which the President has thought proper to charge him at Algiers, and how far your agency is desired for conveying to him the several papers, for receiving and paying his drafts to the amount therein permitted, by re-drawing yourself on our bankers in Amsterdam, who are instructed to honor your bills, and by acting as a channel of correspondence between us. It has been some time, however, since we have heard of Admiral Jones. Should any accident have happened to his life, or should you be unable to learn where he is, or should distance, refusal to act, or any other circumstance deprive us of his services on this occasion, or be likely to produce too great a delay, of which you are to be the judge, you will then be pleased to send all the papers confided to you for him, to Mr. Thomas Barclay, our Consul at Morocco, with the letter addressed to him, which is delivered you open, and by which you will perceive that he is, in that event, substituted to every intent and purpose in the place of Admiral Jones. You will be pleased not to pass any of the papers confided to you on this business, through any post-office.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXIII. TO MR. PINCKNEY, June 14, 1792
TO MR. PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, June 14, 1792.
Sir,
The United States being now about to establish a mint, it becomes necessary to ask your assistance in procuring persons to carry on some parts of it; and to enable you to give it, you must be apprized of some facts.
Congress, some time ago, authorized the President to take measures for procuring some artists from any place where they were to be had. It was known that a Mr. Drost, a Swiss, had made an improvement in the method of coining, and some specimens of his coinage were exhibited here, which were superior to any thing we had ever seen. Mr. Short was therefore authorized to engage Drost to come over, to erect the proper machinery, and instruct persons to go on with the coinage; and as he supposed this would require but about a year, we agreed to give him a thousand louis a year and his expenses. The agreement was made, two coining mills, or screws, were ordered by him; but in the end he declined coming. We have reason to believe he was drawn off by the English East India Company, and that he is now at work for them in England. Mr. Bolton had also made a proposition to coin for us in England, which was declined. Since this, the act has been passed for establishing our mint, which authorizes, among other things, the employment of an assayer at fifteen hundred dollars a year, a chief coiner at the same, and an engraver at twelve hundred dollars. But it admits of the employment of one person, both as engraver and chief coiner; this we expect may be done, as we presume that any engraver who has been used to work for a coinage, must be well enough acquainted with all the operations of coinage to direct them; and it is an economy worth attention, if we can have the services performed by one officer instead of two, in which case, it is proposed to give him the salary of the chief coiner, that is to say, fifteen hundred dollars a year. I have therefore to request that you will endeavor, on your arrival in Europe, to engage and send us an assayer of approved skill and well attested integrity, and a chief coiner and engraver, in one person, if possible, acquainted with all the improvements in coining, and particularly those of Drost and Bolton. Their salaries may commence from the day of their sailing for America. If Drost be in England, I think he will feel himself under some obligation to aid you in procuring persons. How far Bolton will do it, seems uncertain. You will doubtless make what you can of the good dispositions of either of these or any other person. Should you find it impracticable to procure an engraver capable of performing the functions of chief coiner also, we must be content that you engage separate characters. Let these persons bring with them all the implements necessary for carrying on the business, except such as you shall think too bulky and easily made here. It would be proper, therefore, that they should consult you as to the necessary implements and their prices, that they may act under your control. The method of your paying for these implements and making reasonable advances to the workmen, shall be the subject of another letter, after the President shall have decided thereon. It should be a part of the agreement of these people, that they will faithfully instruct all persons in their art, whom we shall put under them for that purpose. Your contract with them may be made for any term not exceeding four years.
I have the honor to be, with great respect and much esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. Should you not be able to procure persons of eminent qualifications for their business, in England, it will be proper to open a correspondence with Mr. Morris on the subject, and see whether he cannot get such from France. Next to the obtaining the ablest artists, a very important circumstance is to send them to us as soon as possible. T. J.
CXIV. TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, June 16, 1792
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, June 16, 1792.
Dear Sir,
My last to you was of March the 28th. Yours of April the 6th and 10th came to hand three days ago.
With respect to the particular objects of commerce susceptible of being placed on a better footing, on which you ask my ideas, they will show themselves by the enclosed table of the situation of our commerce with France and England. That with France is stated as it stood at the time I left that country, when the only objects whereon change was still desirable, were those of salted provisions, tobacco and tar, pitch and turpentine. The first was in negotiation when I came away, and was pursued by Mr. Short with prospects of success, till their general tariff so unexpectedly deranged our commerce with them as to other articles. Our commerce with their West Indies had never admitted amelioration during my stay in France. The temper of that period did not allow even the essay, and it was as much as we could do to hold the ground given us by the Marshal de Castries’ Arrêt, admitting us to their colonies with salted provisions, &c. As to both these branches of commerce, to wit, with France and her colonies, we have hoped they would pursue their own proposition of arranging them by treaty, and that we could draw that treaty to this place. There is no other where the dependence of their colonies on our States for their prosperity is so obvious as here, nor where their negotiator would feel it so much. But it would be imprudent to leave to the uncertain issue of such a treaty, the re-establishment of our commerce with France on the footing on which it was in the beginning of their revolution. That treaty may be long on the anvil; in the mean time, we cannot consent to the late innovations, without taking measures to do justice to our own navigation. This object, therefore, is particularly recommended to you, while you will also be availing yourself of every opportunity which may arise, of benefiting our commerce in any other part. I am in hopes you will have found the moment favorable on your arrival in France, when Monsieur Claviere was in the ministry, and the dispositions of the National Assembly favorable to the ministers. Your cipher has not been sent hitherto, because it required a most confidential channel of conveyance. It is now committed to Mr. Pinckney, who also carries the gazettes, laws, and other public papers for you. We have been long without any vessel going to Havre. Some of the Indian tribes have acceded to terms of peace. The greater part, however, still hold off, and oblige us to pursue more vigorous measures for war. I enclose you an extract from a circular letter to our Consuls, by which you will perceive, that those in countries where we have no diplomatic representative, are desired to settle their accounts annually with the Minister of the United States at Paris. This business I must desire you to undertake. The act concerning Consuls will be your guide, and I shall be glad that the 1st of July be the day to which their accounts shall be annually settled and paid, and that they may be forwarded as soon after that as possible to the office of the Secretary of State, to enter into the general account of his department, which it is necessary he should make up always before the meeting of Congress.
I am with great sincere esteem Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
P.S. I have said nothing of our whale-oil, because I believe it is on a better footing since the tariff than before. T. J.
CXV. TO MR. VAN BERCKEL, July 2,1792
TO MR. VAN BERCKEL.
Philadelphia, July 2,1792.
Sir,
It was with extreme concern that I learned from your letter of June the 25th, that a violation of the protection, due to you as the representative of your nation had been committed, by an officer of this State entering your house and serving therein a process on one of your servants. There could be no question but that this was a breach of privilege; the only one was, how it was to be punished. To ascertain this, I referred your letter to the Attorney General, whose answer I have the honor to enclose you. By this you will perceive, that from the circumstance of your servant’s not being registered in the Secretary of State’s office, we cannot avail ourselves of the more certain and effectual proceeding which had been provided by an act of Congress for punishing infractions of the law of nations, that act having thought proper to confine the benefit of its provisions to such domestics only, as should have been registered; We are to proceed, therefore, as if that act had never been made, and the Attorney General’s letter indicates two modes of proceeding. 1. By a warrant before a single magistrate, to recover the money paid by the servant under a process declared void by law. Herein the servant must be the actor, and the government not intermeddle at all. The smallness of the sum to be redemanded will place this cause in the class of those in which no appeal to the higher tribunal is permitted, even in the case of manifest error, so that if the magistrate should err, the government has no means of correcting the error. 2. The second mode of proceeding would be, to indict the officer in the Supreme Court of the United States; with whom it would rest to punish him at their discretion, in proportion to the injury done and the malice from which it proceeded; and it would end in punishment alone, and not in a restitution of the money. In this mode of proceeding, the government of the United States is actor, taking the management of the cause into its own hands, and giving you no other trouble than that of bearing witness to such material facts as may not be otherwise supported. You will be so good as to decide in which of these two ways you would choose the proceeding should be; if the latter, I will immediately take measures for having the offender prosecuted according to law.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXVI. TO MR. PALESKE, August 19,1792
TO MR. PALESKE.
Monticello, August 19,1792.
Sir,
I have received at this place your favor of the 9th instant, wherein you request, that agreeably to the treaty of commerce between the United States and his Prussian Majesty, his Consul General be acknowledged as belonging to a most favored nation; that the privileges and immunities due to a Consul General of the most favored nation be granted to his Consul General, and that commissioners be appointed to regulate, by particular convention the functions of the Consuls and Vice-Consuls of the respective nations.
Treaties of the United States duly made and ratified, as is that with his Prussian Majesty, constitute a part of the law of the land, and need only promulgation to oblige all persons to obey them, and to entitle all to those privileges which such treaties confer. That promulgation having taken place, no other act is necessary or proper on the part of our government, according to our rules of proceeding, to give effect to the treaty. This treaty, however, has not specified the privileges or functions of Consuls; it has only provided that these shall be regulated by particular agreement. To the proposition to proceed as speedily as possible to regulate these functions by a convention, my absence from the seat of government does not allow me to give a definitive answer. I know, in general, that it would be agreeable to our government, on account of the recent changes in its form, to suspend for a while the contracting specific engagements with foreign nations, until something more shall be seen of the direction it will take, and of its mode of operation, in order that our engagements may be so moulded to that, as to insure the exact performance of them, which we are desirous ever to observe. Should this be the sentiment of our government on the present occasion, the friendship of his Prussian Majesty is a sufficient reliance to us for that delay which our affairs might require for the present: and the rather, as his vessels are not yet in the habit of seeking our ports, and for the few cases which may occur for some time, our own laws, copied mostly in this respect from those of a very commercial nation, have made the most material of those provisions which could be admitted into a special convention for the protection of vessels, their crews, and cargoes, coming hither. We shall on this, however, and every other occasion, do every thing we can to manifest our friendship to his Prussian Majesty, and our desire to promote commercial intercourse with his subjects; and of this, we hope, he will be fully assured.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXVII. TO THE PRESIDENT, August 19, 1792
TO THE PRESIDENT.
Monticello, August 19, 1792.
Sir,
I was yesterday honored with yours of the 13th instant, covering the Governor of Vermont’s of July the 16th. I presume it can not now be long before I shall receive his answer to the two letters I wrote him from Philadelphia on the same subject. I now enclose letters received by yesterday’s post from Mr. Hammond, Mr. William Knox, and Mr. Paleske, with answers to the two latter. Should these meet your approbation, you will be so good as to seal and let them go on under the cover to Mr. Taylor, who will have them conveyed according to their address. Should you wish any alteration of them, it shall be made on their being returned. The Prussian treaty is, I believe, within four years of its expiration. I suspect that personal motives alone induce Mr. Paleske to press for a convention, which could hardly be formed and ratified before it would expire; and that his court cannot lay much stress on it. Mr. Hammond’s former explanations of his notification of the 12th of April having been laid before Congress, may perhaps make it proper to communicate to them also his sovereign’s approbation of them.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect respect and attachment, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXVIII. TO M. DE TERNANT, September 27,1792
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, September 27,1792.
Sir,
Your letter of the 2d instant, informing me that the legislative body, on the proposition of the King of the French, had declared war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia, has been duly received, and laid before the President of the United States: and I am authorized to convey to you the expression of the sincere concern we feel, on learning that the French nation, to whose friendship and interests we have the strongest attachments, are now to encounter the evils of war. We offer our prayers to Heaven that its duration may be short, and its course marked with as few as may be of those calamities which render the condition of war so afflicting to humanity; and we add assurances, that during its course we shall continue in the same friendly dispositions, and render all those good offices which shall be consistent with the duties of a neutral nation.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXIX. TO MR. PINCKNEY, October 12,1792
TO MR. PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, October 12,1792.
Dear Sir,
Your favor of August the 7th came to hand on the 6th instant, and gave me the first certain information of your safe arrival. Mr. Otto, being about to sail for London, furnishes me with an opportunity of sending the newspapers for yourself and Mr Barclay, and I avail myself of it, chiefly for this purpose, as my late return from Virginia and the vacation of Congress furnish little new and important for your information. With respect to the Indian war, the summer has been chiefly employed on our part in endeavoring to persuade them to peace, in an abstinence from all offensive operations, in order to give those endeavors a fairer chance, and in preparation for activity the ensuing season, if they fail. I believe we may say these endeavors have all failed, or probably will do so. The year has been rather a favorable one for our agriculture. The crops of small grain were generally good. Early frosts have a good deal shortened those of tobacco and Indian corn, yet not so as to endanger distress. From the south my information is less certain, but from that quarter you will be informed through other channels. I have a pleasure in noting this circumstance to you, because the difference between a plentiful and a scanty crop more than counterpoises the expenses of any campaign. Five or six plentiful years successively, as we have had, have most sensibly ameliorated the condition of our country, and uniform laws of commerce, introduced by our new government, have enabled us to draw the whole benefits of our agriculture.
I enclose you the copy of a letter from Messrs. Blow and Milhaddo, merchants of Virginia, complaining of the taking away of their sailors on the coast of Africa, by the commander of a British armed vessel. So many instances of this kind have happened, that it is quite necessary that their government should explain themselves on the subject, and be led to disavow and punish such conduct. I leave to your discretion to endeavor to obtain this satisfaction by such friendly discussions as may be most likely to produce the desired effect, and secure to our commerce that protection against British violence, which it has never experienced from any other nation. No law forbids the seaman of any country to engage in time of peace on board a foreign vessel: no law authorizes such seaman to break his contract, nor the armed vessels of his nation to interpose force for his rescue. I shall be happy to hear soon, that Mr. B. has gone on the service on which he was ordered.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXX. TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT, October 14,1792
TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT.
Philadelphia, October 14,1792.
Gentlemen,
Since my letters of March the 18th and April the 24th (which have been retarded so unfortunately), another subject of conference-and convention with Spain has occurred. You know that the frontiers of her provinces, as well as of our States, are inhabited by Indians holding justly the right of occupation, and leaving to Spain and to us only the claim of excluding other nations from among them, and of becoming ourselves the purchasers of such portions of land, from time to time, as they choose to sell. We have thought that the dictates of interest as well as humanity enjoined mutual endeavors with those Indians to live in peace with both nations, and we have scrupulously observed that conduct. Our agent with the Indians bordering on the territories of Spain has a standing instruction to use his best endeavors to prevent them from committing acts of hostility against the Spanish settlements. But whatever may have been the conduct or orders of the government of Spain, that of their officers in our neighborhood has been indisputably unfriendly and hostile to us. The papers enclosed will demonstrate this to you. That the Baron de Carondelet, their chief Governor at New Orleans, has excited the Indians to war on us, that he has furnished them with abundance of arms and ammunition, and promised them whatever more shall be necessary, I have from the mouth of him who had it from his own mouth. In short, that he is the sole source of a great and serious war now burst out upon us, and from Indians who, we know, were in peaceable dispositions towards us till prevailed on by him to commence the war, there remains scarcely room to doubt. It has become necessary that we understand the real policy of Spain in this point. You will, therefore, be pleased to extract from the enclosed papers such facts as you think proper to be communicated to that court, and enter into friendly but serious expostulations on the conduct of their officers; for we have equal evidence against the commandants of other posts in West Florida, though, they being subordinate to Carondelet, we name him as the source. If they disavow his conduct, we must naturally look to their treatment of him as the sole evidence of their sincerity. But we must look further. It is a general rule, that no nation has a right to keep an agent within the limits of another, without the consent of that other, and we are satisfied it would be best for both Spain and us, to abstain from having agents or other persons in our employ or pay among the savages inhabiting our respective territories, whether as subjects or independent. You are, therefore, desired to propose and press a stipulation to that effect. Should they absolutely decline it, it may be proper to let them perceive that, as the right of keeping agents exists on both sides or on neither, it will rest with us to reciprocate their own measures. We confidently hope that these proceedings are unauthorized by the government of Spain, and, in this hope, we continue in the dispositions formerly expressed to you, of living on terms of the best friendship and harmony with that country, of making their interests in our neighborhood our own, and of giving them every proof of this, except the abandonment of those essential rights which you are instructed to insist on.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Gentlemen, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXI. TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, October 15, 1792
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, October 15, 1792.
Sir,
I have received your favor of July the 10th, No. 4, but no other number preceding or subsequent. I fear, therefore, that some miscarriage has taken place. The present goes to Bordeaux under cover to Mr. Fenwick, who I hope will be able to give it a safe conveyance to you. I observe that you say in your letter, that ‘the marine department is to treat with you for supplies to St. Domingo.’ I presume you mean ‘supplies of money,’ and not that our government is to furnish supplies of provisions, &c. specifically, or employ others to do it, this being a business into which they could not enter. The payment of money here, to be employed by their own agents in purchasing the produce of our soil, is a desirable thing. We are informed by the public papers, that the late constitution of France, formally notified to us, is suspended, and a new convention called. During the time of this suspension, and while no legitimate government exists, we apprehend we cannot continue the payments of our debt to France, because there is no person authorized to receive it and to give us an unobjectionable acquittal. You are therefore desired to consider the payment as suspended, until further orders. Should circumstances oblige you to mention this (which it is better to avoid if you can), do it with such solid reasons as will occur to yourself, and accompany it with the most friendly declarations that the suspension does not proceed from any wish in us to delay the payment, the contrary being our wish, nor from any desire to embarrass or oppose the settlement of their government in that way in which their nation shall desire it; but from our anxiety to pay this debt justly and honorably, and to the persons really authorized by the nation (to whom we owe it) to receive it for their use. Nor shall the suspension be continued one moment after we can see our way clear out of the difficulty into which their situation has thrown us. That they may speedily obtain liberty, peace, and tranquillity, is our sincere prayer.
*****
I have the honor to be, with great respect and esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXII. TO M. DE TERNANT, October 16,1792
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, October 16,1792.
Sir,
I am to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th instant, proposing a stipulation for the abolition of the practice of privateering in times of war. The benevolence of this proposition is worthy of the nation from which it comes, and our sentiments on it have been declared in the treaty to which you are pleased to refer, as well as in some others which have been proposed. There are in those treaties some other principles which would probably meet the approbation of your government, as flowing from the same desire to lessen the occasions and the calamities of war. On all of these, as well as on those amendments to our treaty of commerce which might better its conditions with both nations, and which the National Assembly of France has likewise brought into view on a former occasion, we are ready to enter into negotiation with you, only proposing to take the whole into consideration at once. And while contemplating provisions which look to the event of war, we are happy in feeling a conviction that it is yet at a great distance from us, and in believing that the sentiments of sincere friendship which we bear to the nation of France are reciprocated on their part. Of these our dispositions, be so good as to assure them on this and all other occasions; and to accept yourself those sentiments of esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.
Th: Jefferson.
CXXIII. TO MESSRS. VIAR AND JAUDENES, November 1, 1792
TO MESSRS. VIAR AND JAUDENES, Commissioners of Spain
Philadelphia, November 1, 1792.
Gentlemen,
I have now to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of October the 29th, which I have duly laid before the President of the United States: and in answer thereto, I cannot but observe that some parts of its contents were truly unexpected. On what foundation it can be supposed that we have menaced the Creek nation with destruction during the present autumn, or at any other time, is entirely inconceivable. Our endeavors, on the contrary, to keep them at peace, have been earnest, persevering, and notorious, and no expense has been spared which might attain that object. With the same views to peace, we have suspended, now more than a twelvemonth, the marking a boundary between them and us, which had been fairly, freely, and solemnly established with the chiefs whom they had deputed to treat with us on that subject: we have suspended it, I say, in the constant hope, that taking time to consider it in the councils of their nation, and recognising the justice and reciprocity of its conditions, they would at length freely concur in carrying it into execution. We agree with you, that the interests which either of us have in the proceedings of the other with this nation of Indians, is a proper subject of discussion at the negotiations to be opened at Madrid, and shall accordingly give the same in charge to our commissioners there. In the mean time, we shall continue sincerely to cultivate the peace and prosperity of all the parties, being constant in the opinion, that this conduct, reciprocally observed, will most increase the happiness of all.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of great esteem and respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXIV. TO THE PRESIDENT, November 2,1792
TO THE PRESIDENT.
Philadelphia, November 2,1792.
Sir,
The letter of October the 29th, from Messrs. Viar and Jaudenes, not expressing the principle on which their government interests itself between the United States and the Creeks, I thought it of importance to have it ascertained. I therefore called on those Gentlemen, and entered into explanations with them. They assured me, in our conversation, that supposing all question of boundary to be out of the case, they did not imagine their government would think themselves authorized to take under their protection any nations of Indians living within limits confessed to be ours; and they presumed that any interference of theirs, with respect to the Creeks, could only arise out of the question of disputed territory, now existing between us: that, on this account, some part of our treaty with the Creeks had given dissatisfaction. They said, however, that they were speaking from their own sentiments only, having no instructions which would authorize them to declare those of their court: but that they expected an answer to their letters covering mine of July the 9th (erroneously cited by them as of the 11th), from which they would probably know the sentiments of their court. They accorded entirely in the opinion, that it would be better that the two nations should mutually endeavor to preserve each the peace of the other, as well as their own, with the neighboring tribes of Indians.
I shall avail myself of the opportunity by a vessel which is to sail in a few days, of sending proper information and instructions to our commissioners on the subject of the late, as well as of future interferences of the Spanish officers to our prejudice with the Indians, and for the establishment of common rules of conduct for the two nations.
I have the honor to be, with the most perfect respect and attachment, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXV. TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT, November 3, 1792
TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT.
Philadelphia, November 3, 1792.
Gentlemen,
I wrote you on the 14th of last month; since which some other incidents and documents have occurred, bearing relation to the subject of that letter. I therefore now enclose you a duplicate of that letter.
Copy of a letter from the Governor of Georgia, with the deposition it covered of a Mr. Hull, and an original passport signed by Olivier, wherein he styles himself Commissary for his Catholic Majesty with the Creeks.
Copy of a letter from Messrs. Viar and Jaudenes to myself, dated October the 29th, with that of the extract of a letter of September the 24th, from the Baron de Carondelet to them.
Copy of my answer of No. 1, to them, and copy of a letter from myself, to the President, stating a conversation with those gentlemen.
From those papers you will find that we have been constantly endeavoring, by every possible means, to keep peace with the Creeks; that in order to do this, we have even suspended and still suspend the running a fair boundary between them and us, as agreed on by themselves, and having for its object the precise definition of their and our lands, so as to prevent encroachment on either side, and that we have constantly endeavored to keep them at peace with the Spanish settlements also: that Spain on the contrary, or at least the officers of her governments, since the arrival of the Baron de Carondelet, have undertaken to keep an agent among the Creeks, have excited them and the other southern Indians to commence a war against us, have furnished them with arms and ammunition for the express purpose of carrying on that war, and prevented the Creeks from running the boundary which would have removed the cause of difference from between us. Messrs. Viar and Jaudenes explain the ground of interference on the fact of the Spanish claim to that territory, and on an article in our treaty with the Creeks, putting themselves under our protection. But besides that you already know the nullity of their pretended claim to the territory, they had themselves set the example of endeavoring to strengthen that claim by the treaty mentioned in the letter of the Baron de Carondelet, and by the employment of an agent among them. The establishment of our boundary, committed to you, will, of course, remove the grounds of all future pretence to interfere with the Indians within our territory, and it was to such only that the treaty of New York stipulated protection: for we take for granted, that Spain will be ready to agree to the principle, that neither party has a right to stipulate protection or interference with the Indian nations inhabiting the territory of the other. But it is extremely material also, with sincerity and good faith, to patronize the peace of each other with the neighboring savages. We are quite disposed to believe that the late wicked excitements to war have proceeded from the Baron de Carondelet himself, without authority from his court. But if so, have we not reason to expect the removal of such an officer from our neighborhood, as an evidence of the disavowal of his proceedings? He has produced against us a serious war. He says in his letter, indeed, that he has suspended it. But this he has not done, nor possibly can he do it. The Indians are more easily engaged in a war than withdrawn from it. They have made the attack in force on our frontiers, whether with or without his consent, and will oblige us to a severe punishment of their aggression. We trust that you will be able to settle principles of a friendly concert between us and Spain, with respect to the neighboring Indians: and if not, that you will endeavor to apprize us of what we may expect, that we may no longer be tied up by principles, which, in that case, would be inconsistent with duty and self-preservation.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of perfect esteem and respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXVI. TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, November 7, 1792
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, November 7, 1792.
Dear Sir,
My last to you was of the 15th of October; since which I have received your Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7. Though mine went by a conveyance directly to Bordeaux, and may therefore probably get safe to you, yet I think it proper, lest it should miscarry, to repeat to you the following paragraph from it.
I am perfectly sensible that your situation must, ere this reaches you, have been delicate and difficult; and though the occasion is probably over, and your part taken of necessity, so that instructions now would be too late, yet I think it just to express our sentiments on the subject, as a sanction of what you have probably done. Whenever the scene became personally dangerous to you, it was proper you should leave it, as well from personal as public motives. But what degree of danger should be awaited, to what distance or place you should retire, are circumstances which must rest with your own discretion, it being impossible to prescribe them from hence. With what kind of government you may do business, is another question. It accords with our principles to acknowledge any government to be rightful, which is formed by the will of the nation substantially declared. The late government was of this kind, and was accordingly acknowledged by all the branches of ours. So, any alteration of it which shall be made by the will of the nation substantially declared, will doubtless be acknowledged in like manner. With such a government every hind of business may be done. But there are some matters which I conceive might be transacted with a government de facto; such, for instance, as the reforming the unfriendly restrictions on our commerce and navigation. Such cases you will readily distinguish as they occur. With respect to this particular reformation of their regulations, we cannot be too pressing for its attainment, as every day’s continuance gives it additional firmness, and endangers its taking root in their habits and constitution; and indeed, I think they should be told, as soon as they are in a condition to act, that if they do not revoke the late innovations, we must lay additional and equivalent burthens on French ships, by name. Your conduct in the case of M. de Bonne Carrere is approved entirely. We think it of great consequence to the friendship of the two nations, to have a minister here, in whose dispositions we have confidence. Congress assembled the day before yesterday. I enclose you a paper containing the President’s speech, whereby you will see the chief objects of the present session. Your difficulties as to the settlements of our accounts with France and as, to the payment of the foreign officers, will have been removed by the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, of which, for fear it should have miscarried, I now enclose you a duplicate. Should a conveyance for the present letter offer to any port of France directly, your newspapers will accompany it. Otherwise, I shall send it through Mr. Pinckney, and retain the newspapers as usual, for a direct conveyance.
I am, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXVII. TO M. DE TERNANT, November 20, 1792
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, November 20, 1792.
Sir,
Your letter on the subject of further supplies to the colony of St. Domingo has been duly received and considered. When the distresses of that colony first broke forth, we thought we could not better evidence our friendship to that and to the mother country also, than to step in to its relief, on your application, without waiting a formal authorization from the National Assembly. As the case was unforeseen, so it was unprovided for on their part, and we did what we doubted not they would have desired us to do, had there been time to make the application, and what we presumed they would sanction as soon as known to them. We have now been going on more than a twelvemonth, in making advances for the relief of the colony, without having, as yet, received any such sanction; for the decree of four millions of livres in aid of the colony, besides the circuitous and informal manner by which we became acquainted with it, describes and applies to operations very different from those which have actually taken place. The wants of the colony appear likely to continue, and their reliance on our supplies to become habitual. We feel every disposition to continue our efforts for administering to those wants; but that cautious attention to forms which would have been unfriendly in the first moment, becomes a duty to ourselves, when the business assumes the appearance of long continuance, and respectful also to the National Assembly itself, who have a right to prescribe the line of an interference so materially interesting to the mother country and the colony.
By the estimate you were pleased to deliver me, we perceive that there will be wanting, to carry the colony through the month of December, between thirty and forty thousand dollars, in addition to the sums before engaged to you. I am authorized to inform you, that the sum of forty thousand dollars shall be paid to your orders at the Treasury of the United States, and to assure you, that we feel no abatement in our dispositions to contribute these aids from time to time, as they shall be wanting, for the necessary subsistence of the colony: but the want of express approbation from the national legislature must ere long produce a presumption that they contemplate perhaps other modes of relieving the colony, and dictate to us the propriety of doing only what they shall have regularly and previously sanctioned. Their decree, before mentioned, contemplates purchases made in the United States only. In this they might probably have in view, as well to keep the business of providing supplies under a single direction, as that these supplies should be bought where they can be had cheapest, and where the same sum will consequently effect the greatest, measure of relief to the colony. It is our wish, as undoubtedly it must be yours, that the monies we furnish be applied strictly in the line they prescribe. We understand, however, that there are in the hands of our citizens, some bills drawn by the administration of the colony, for articles of subsistence delivered there. It seems just, that such of them should be paid as were received before fide bonâ notice that that mode of supply was not bottomed on the funds furnished to you by the United States, and we recommend them to you accordingly.
I have the the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXVIII. TO MR. RUTHERFORD, December 25, 1792
TO MR. RUTHERFORD.
Philadelphia, December 25, 1792.
Sir,
I have considered with all the attention which the shortness of the time would permit, the two motions which you were pleased to put into my hands yesterday afternoon, on the subject of weights and measures, now under reference to a committee of the Senate, and will take the liberty of making a few observations thereon.
The first, I presume, is intended as a basis for the adoption of that alternative of the report on measures and weights, which proposed retaining the present system, and fixing its several parts by a reference to a rod vibrating seconds, under the circumstances therein explained: and to fulfil its object, I think the resolutions there proposed should be followed by this; ‘that the standard by which the said measures of length, surface, and capacity shall be fixed, shall be an uniform cylindrical rod of iron, of such length, as in latitude forty-five degrees, in the level of the ocean, and in a cellar or other place of uniform natural temperature, shall perform its vibrations in small and equal arcs, in one second of mean time, and that rain-water be the substance, to some definite mass of which the said weights shall be referred.’ Without this, the committee employed to prepare a bill on those resolutions, would be uninstructed as to the principle by which the Senate mean to fix their measures of length, and the substance by which they will fix their weights.
The second motion is a middle proposition between the first and the last alternatives in the report. It agrees with the first in some of the present measures and weights, and with the last, in compounding and dividing them decimally. If this should be thought best, I take the liberty of proposing the following alterations of these resolutions.
2nd. For ‘metal’ substitute ‘iron.’ The object is to have one determinate standard. But the different metals having different degrees of expansibility, there would be as many different standards as there are metals, were that generic term to be used. A specific one seems preferable, and ‘iron ‘the best, because the least variable by expansion.
3rd. I should think it better to omit the chain of 66 feet, because it introduces a series which is not decimal, viz. 1. 66. 80. and because it is absolutely useless. As a measure of length, it is unknown to the mass of our citizens; and if retained for the purpose of superficial measure, the foot will supply its place, and fix the acre as in the fourth resolution.
4th. For the same reason I propose to omit the words ‘or shall be ten chains in length and one in breadth.’
5th. This resolution would stand better, if it omitted the words ‘shall be one foot square, and one foot and twenty cents of a foot deep, and,’ because the second description is perfect, and too plain to need explanation. Or if the first expression be preferred, the second may be omitted, as perfectly tautologous.
6th. I propose to leave out the words ‘shall be equal to the pound avoirdupois now in use, and,’ for the reasons suggested on the second resolution, to wit, that our object is, to have one determinate standard. The pound avoirdupois now in use, is an indefinite thing. The committee of parliament reported variations among the standard weights of the exchequer. Different persons weighing the cubic foot of water have made it, some more and some less than one thousand ounces avoirdupois; according as their weights had been tested by the lighter or heavier standard weights of the exchequer. If the pound now in use be declared a standard, as well as the weight of sixteen thousand cubic cents of a foot in water, it may hereafter, perhaps, be insisted that these two definitions are different, and that being of equal authority, either may be used, and so the standard pound be rendered as uncertain as at present.
7th. For the same reasons I propose to omit the words ‘equal to seven grains troy.’ The true ratio between the avoirdupois and troy weights, is a very contested one. The equation of seven thousand grains troy to the pound avoirdupois, is only one of several opinions, and is indebted perhaps to its integral form for its prevalence. The introduction either of the troy or avoirdupois weight into the definition of our unit, will throw that unit under the uncertainties now enveloping the troy and avoirdupois weights.
When the House of Representatives were pleased to refer to me the subject of weights and measures, I was uninformed as to the hypothesis on which I was to take it up; to wit, whether on that, that our citizens would not approve of any material change in the present system, or on the other, that they were ripe for a complete reformation. I therefore proposed plans for each alternative. In contemplating these, I had occasion to examine well all the middle ground between the two, and among others which presented themselves to my mind, was the plan of establishing one of the known weights and measures as the unit in each class; to wit, in the measures of lines, of surfaces, and of solids, and in weights, and to compound and divide them decimally. In the measure of weights, I had thought of the ounce as the best unit, because, calling it the thousandth part of a cubic foot of water, it fell into the decimal series, formed a happy link of connection with the system of measures on the one side, and of coins on the other, by admitting an equality with the dollar, without changing the value of that or its alloy materially. But on the whole, I abandon this middle proposition, on the supposition that if our fellow-citizens were ripe for advancing so great a length towards reformation, as to retain only four known points of the very numerous series to which they were habituated, to wit, the foot, the acre, the bushel, and the ounce, abandoning all the multiples and subdivisions of them, or recurring for their value to the tables which would be formed, they would probably be ripe for taking the whole step, giving up these four points also, and making the reformation complete; and the rather, as in the present series and the one to be proposed, there would be so many points of very near approximation, as, aided in the same manner by tables, would not increase their difficulties, perhaps, indeed, would lessen them by the greater simplicity of the links by which the several members of the system are connected together. Perhaps, however, I was wrong in this supposition. The representatives of the people in Congress are alone competent to judge of the general disposition of the people, and to what precise point of reformation they are ready to go. On this, therefore, I do not presume to give an opinion, nor to pronounce between the comparative expediency of the three propositions; but shall be ready to give whatever aid I can to any of them which shall be adopted by the legislature.
I have the honor to be, with perfect respect, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXIX. TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, January 2, 1793
TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
Philadelphia, January 2, 1793.
Sir,
According to the resolution of the House of Representatives, of the 31st of December, delivered to me yesterday, I have the honor to lay before you a list of the several persons employed in my office, with the salaries allowed to each, as follows:
Dollars. George Taylor, jr. (of New York), chief clerk, his salary fixed by law,................................................. 800
Jacob Blackwell (of New York), clerk,......................... 500
George Pfeiffer (of Pennsylvania), clerk,..................... 500
Philip Freneau (of New York), clerk for foreign languages,.... 250
Sampson Crosby (of Massachusetts), messenger and office-keeper,................................................ 250
The act of Congress of June the 4th, 1790, c. 18, allowed me an additional clerk with the same salary as the chief clerk. After the retirement of the person first appointed, whose services had been particularly desirable, because of his long and intimate acquaintance with the papers of the office, it did not appear necessary to make further use of the indulgence of that law. No new appointment, therefore, has been made.
The clerk for foreign languages has but half the usual salary. I found his clerkship on this establishment when I came into office, and made no change in it, except, that in the time of his predecessor, where translations were required from any language with which he was unacquainted, they were sent to a special translator and paid for by the public. The present clerk is required to defray this expense himself.
I have the honor to be, with the most perfect respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXX. CIRCULAR TO THE MINISTERS, February 13, 1793
Circular to the Ministers of France, the United Netherlands Great Britain, &c.
Philadelphia, February 13, 1793.
Sir,
The House of Representatives having referred to me, to report to them the nature and extent of the privileges and restrictions on the commerce of the United States with foreign nations, I have accordingly prepared a report on that subject. Being particularly anxious that it may be exact in matters of fact, I take the liberty of putting into your hands, privately and informally, an extract of such as relate to our commerce with your nation, in hopes that if you can either enlarge or correct them, you will do me that favor. It is safer to suppress an error in its first conception, than to trust to any after correction; and a confidence in your sincere desire to communicate or to re-establish any truths which may contribute to a perfect understanding between our two nations, has induced me to make the present request. I wish it had been in my power to have done this sooner, and thereby have obtained the benefit of your having more time to contemplate it: but circumstances have retarded the entire completion of the report till the Congress is approaching its end, which will oblige me to give it in within three or four days.
I am, with great and sincere esteem, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
P. S. The report having been prepared before the late diminution of the duties on our tobacco, that circumstance will be noted in the letter which will cover the report. T. J.
France receives favorably our bread-stuff, rice, wood, pot and pearl ashes.
A duty of five, sous the kental, or nearly four and a half centss paid on our tar, pitch, and turpentine. Our whale-oils pay six livres the kental, and are the only whale-oils admitted. Our indigo pays five livres the kental, their own two and a half; but a difference of quality, still more than a difference of duty, prevents its seeking that market.
Salted beef is received freely for re-exportation; but if for home consumption, it pays five livres the kental. Other salted provisions pay that duty in all cases, and salted fish is made lately to pay the prohibitory one, of twenty livres the kental.
Our ships are free to carry thither all foreign goods, which may be carried in their own or any other vessels, except tobaccos not of our own growth: and they participate with theirs the exclusive carriage of our whale-oils.
During their former government, our tobacco was under a monopoly, but paid no duties; and our ships were freely sold in their ports and converted into national bottoms. The first National Assembly took from our ships this privilege. They emancipated tobacco from its monopoly, but subjected it to duties of eighteen livres fifteen sous the kental, carried in their own vessels, and twenty-five livres, carried in ours; a difference more than equal to the freight of the article.
They and their colonies consume what they receive from us.
France, by a standing law, permits her West India possessions to receive directly our vegetables, live provisions, horses, wood, tar, pitch, and turpentine, rice and maize, and prohibits our other bread-stuff: but a suspension of this prohibition having been left to the colonial legislature, in times of scarcity, it was formerly suspended occasionally, but latterly without interruption.
Our fish and salted provisions (except pork) are received in their islands, under a duty of three colonial livres the kental, and our vessels are as free as their own to carry our commodities thither, and to bring away rum and molasses.
*****
The United Netherlands prohibit our pickled beef and pork, meals and bread of all sorts, and lay a prohibitory duty on spirits distilled from grain.
All other of our productions are received on varied duties, which may be reckoned, on a medium, at about three per cent.
They consume but a small proportion of what they receive. The residue is partly forwarded for consumption in the inland parts of Europe, and partly re-shipped to other maritime countries. On the latter portion, they intercept between us and the consumer, so much of the real value as is absorbed by the charges attending an intermediate deposite.
Foreign goods, except some East India articles, are received in the vessels of any nation.
Our ships may be sold and naturalized there, with exceptions of one or two privileges, which scarcely lessen their value.
In the American possessions of the United Netherlands, and Sweden, our vessels and produce are received, subject to duties, not so heavy as to have been complained of.
*****
Great Britain receives our pot and pearl ashes free, while those of other nations pay a duty of two shillings three pence the kental. There is an equal distinction in favor of our bar-iron, of which article, however, we do not produce enough for our own use. Woods are free from us, whilst they pay some small duty from other countries. Indigo and flaxseed are free from all countries. Our tar and pitch pay eleven pence sterling the barrel. From other alien countries they pay about a penny and a third more.
Our tobacco, for their own consumption, pays one shilling three pence sterling the pound, custom and excise, besides heavy expenses of collection: and rice, in the same case, pays seven shillings four pence sterling the hundred weight, which rendering it too dear as an article of common food, it is consequently used in very small quantity.
Our salted fish, and other salted provisions, except bacon, are prohibited. Bacon and whale-oils are under prohibitory duties: so are our grains, meals, and bread, as to internal consumption, unless in times of such scarcity as may raise the price of wheat to fifty shillings sterling the quarter, and other grains and meals in proportion.
Our ships, though purchased and navigated by their own subjects, are not permitted to be used, even in their trade with us.
While the vessels of other nations are secured by standing laws, which cannot be altered but by the concurrent will of the three branches of the British legislature, in carrying thither any produce or manufacture of the country to which they belong, which may be lawfully carried in any vessels, ours, with the same prohibition of what is foreign, are further prohibited by a standing law (12 Car. 2, c. 18, s. 3.) from carrying thither all and any of our domestic productions and manufactures. A subsequent act, indeed, has authorized their executive to permit the carriage of our own productions in our own bottoms, at its sole discretion: and the permission has been given from year to year, by proclamation; but subject every moment to be withdrawn on that single will, in which event, our vessels having any thing on board, stand interdicted from the entry of all British ports. The disadvantage of a tenure which may be so suddenly discontinued, was experienced by our merchants on a late occasion, when an official notification that this law would be strictly enforced, gave them just apprehensions for the fate of their vessels and cargoes despatched or destined to the ports of Great Britain. It was privately believed, indeed, that the order of that court went further than their intention, and so we were, afterwards, officially informed: but the embarrassments of the moment were real and great, and the possibility of their renewal lays our commerce to that country under the same species of discouragement, as to other countries where it is regulated by a single legislator: and the distinction is too remarkable not to be noticed, that our navigation is excluded from the security of fixed laws, while that security is given to the navigation of others.
Our vessels pay in their ports one shilling nine pence sterling per ton, light and trinity dues, more than is paid by British ships, except in the port of London, where they pay the same as British. The greater part of what they receive from us is re-exported to other countries, under the useless charges of an intermediate deposite and double voyage.
From tables published in England, and composed, as is said, from the books of their Custom-Houses, it appears, that of the indigo imported there in the years 1773-4-5, one third was re-exported; and, from a document of authority, we learn that of the rice and tobacco imported there before the war, four fifths were re-exported. We are assured, indeed, that the quantities sent thither for re-exportation since the war are considerably diminished; yet less so than reason and national interest would dictate. The whole of our grain is re-exported, when wheat is below fifty shillings the quarter, and other grains in proportion.
Great Britain admits in her islands our vegetables, live provisions, horses, wood, tar, pitch, and turpentine, rice and bread-stuff, by a proclamation of her executive, limited always to the term of a year, but hitherto renewed from year to year. She prohibits our salted fish and other salted provisions. She does not permit our vessels to carry thither our own produce. Her vessels alone may take it from us, and bring in exchange, rum, molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa-nuts, ginger, and pimento. There are, indeed, some freedoms in the island of Dominica, but under such circumstances as to be little used by us. In the British continental colonies, and in Newfoundland, all our productions are prohibited, and our vessels forbidden to enter their ports. Their Governors, however, in times of distress, have power to permit a temporary importation of certain articles in their own bottoms, but not in ours.
Our citizens cannot reside as merchants or factors within any of the British plantations, this being expressly prohibited by the same statute of 12 Car. 2, c. 18, commonly called their navigation act.
*****
Of our commercial objects, Spain receives favorably our breadstuff, salted fish, wood, ships, tar, pitch, and turpentine. On our meals, however, when re-exported to their colonies, they have lately imposed duties, of from half a dollar to two dollars the barrel, the duties being so proportioned to the current price of their own flour, as that both together are to make the constant sum of nine dollars per barrel.
They do not discourage our rice, pot and pearl ash, salted provisions, or whale-oil; but these articles, being in small demand at their markets, are carried thither but in a small degree. Their demand for rice, however, is increasing. Neither tobacco nor indigo are received there.
Themselves and their colonies are the actual consumers of what they receive from us.
Our navigation is free with the kingdom of Spain, foreign goods being received there in our ships on the same conditions as if carried in their own, or in the vessels of the country of which such goods are the manufacture or produce.
Spain and Portugal refuse to those parts of America which they govern, all direct intercourse with any people but themselves. The commodities in mutual demand between them and their neighbors, must be carried to be exchanged in some port of the dominant country, and the transportation between that and the subject state must be in a domestic bottom.
CXXXI. TO MR. HAMMOND, February 16, 1793
TO MR. HAMMOND.
Philadelphia, February 16, 1793.
I have duly received your letter of yesterday, with the statement of the duties payable on articles imported into Great Britain The object of the report, from which I had communicated some extracts to you, not requiring a minute detail of the several duties on every article, in every country, I had presented both articles and duties in groups, and in general terms, conveying information sufficiently accurate for the object. And I have the satisfaction to find, on re-examining the expressions in the report, that they correspond with your statement as nearly as generals can with particulars. The differences which any nation makes between our commodities and those of other countries, whether favorable or unfavorable to us, were proper to be noted. But they were subordinate to the more important questions, What countries consume most of our produce, exact the lightest duties, and leave to us the most favorable balance?
You seem to think that in the mention made of your official communication of April the 11th, 1792, that the clause in the navigation act (prohibiting our own produce to be carried in our own vessels into the British European dominions) would be strictly enforced in future, and the private belief expressed at the same time, that the intention of that court did not go so far, that the latter terms are not sufficiently accurate. About the fact it is impossible we should differ, because it is a written one. The only difference, then, must be a merely verbal one. For thus stands the fact. In your letter of April the 11th, you say, you have received by a circular despatch from your court, direction to inform this government that it had been determined in future strictly to enforce this clause of the navigation act. This I considered as an official notification. In your answer of April the 12th, to my request of explanation, you say, ‘In answer to your letter of this day, I have the honor of observing that I have no other instructions upon the subject of my communication, than such as are contained in the circular despatch, of which I stated the purport in my letter dated yesterday. I have, however, no difficulty in assuring you, that the result of my personal conviction is, that the determination of his Majesty’s government to enforce the clause of the act, &c. is not intended to militate against the proclamation,’ &c. This personal conviction is expressed in the report as a private belief, in contradistinction of the official declaration. In your letter of yesterday, you chose to call it ‘a formal assurance of your conviction.’ As I am not scrupulous about words when they are once explained, I feel no difficulty in substituting in the report, your own words ‘personal conviction,’ for those of ‘private belief’ which I had thought equivalent. I cannot indeed insert that it was a formal assurance, lest some readers might confound this with an official one, without reflecting that you could not mean to give official assurance that the clause would be enforced, and official assurance, at the same time, of your personal conviction that it would not be enforced.
I had the honor to acknowledge verbally the receipt of your letter of the 3rd of August, when you did me that of making the inquiry verbally about six weeks ago; and I beg leave to assure you, that I am, with due respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXXII. TO M. DE TERNANT, February 17, 1793
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, February 17, 1793.
Sir,
I have duly received your letter of yesterday, and am sensible of your favor in furnishing me with your observations on the statement of the commerce between our two nations, of which I shall avail myself for the good of both. The omission of our participation with your vessels, in the exclusive transportation of our tobacco, was merely that of the copy, as it was expressed in the original draught where the same circumstance respecting our whale-oil was noted: and I am happy that your notice of it has enabled me to reinstate it before the report goes out of my hand. I must candidly acknowledge to you, that I do not foresee the same effect in favor of our navigation, from the late reduction of duties on our tobaccos in France, which you seem to expect. The difference in favor of French vessels is still so great, as, in my opinion, to make it their interest to quit all other branches of the carrying business, to take up this; and as your stock of shipping is not adequate to the carriage of all your exports, the branches which you abandon will be taken up by other nations: so that this difference thrusts us out of the tobacco carriage, to let other nations in to the carriage of other branches of your commerce. I must therefore avail myself of this occasion to express my hope, that your nation will again revise this subject, and place it on more equal grounds. I am happy in concurring with you more perfectly in another sentiment, that as the principles of our governments become more congenial, the links of affection are multiplied between us. It is impossible they should multiply beyond our wishes. Of the sincere interest we take in the happiness and prosperity of your nation, you have had the most unequivocal proofs.
I pray you to accept assurances of sincere attachment to you personally, and of the sentiments of respect and esteem, with which I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXXIII. TO M. DE TERNANT, February 20, 1793
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, February 20, 1793.
Sir,
I have laid before the President of the United States your notification of the 17th instant, in the name of the Provisory Executive Council charged with the administration of your government, that the French nation has constituted itself into a republic. The President receives with great satisfaction this attention of the Executive Council, and the desire they have manifested of making known to us the resolution entered into by the National Convention, even before a definitive regulation of their new establishment could take place. Be assured, Sir, that the government and the citizens of the United States, view with the most sincere pleasure every advance of your nation towards its happiness, an object essentially connected with its liberty, and they consider the union of principles and pursuits between our two countries, as a link which binds still closer their interests and affections. We earnestly wish on our part, that these our natural dispositions may be improved to mutual good, by establishing our commercial intercourse on principles as friendly to natural right and freedom, as are those of our governments.
I am, with sincere esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXXIV. TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, February 20, 1793
TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
Philadelphia, February 20, 1793.
Sir,
The House of Representatives, about the close of the session before the last, referred to me the report of a committee on a message from the President of the United States, of the 14th of February, 1791, with directions to report to Congress the nature and extent of the privileges and restrictions of the commercial intercourse of the United States with foreign nations, and measures for its improvement. The report was accordingly prepared during the ensuing recess, ready to be delivered at the next session, that is to say, at the last. It was thought possible at that time, however, that some changes might take place in the existing state of things, which might call for corresponding changes in measures. I took the liberty of mentioning this in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to express an opinion that a suspension of proceedings thereon, for a time, might be expedient, and to propose retaining the report till the present session, unless the House should be pleased to signify their pleasure to the contrary. The changes then contemplated have not taken place, nor, after waiting as long as the term of the session will admit, in order to learn something further on the subject, can any thing definite thereon be now said. If, therefore, the House wishes to proceed on the subject, the report shall be delivered at a moment’s warning. Should they not choose to take it up till their next session, it will be an advantage to be permitted to keep it by me till then, as some farther particulars may perhaps be procured relative to certain parts of our commerce, of which precise information is difficult to obtain. I make this suggestion, however, with the most perfect deference to their will, the first intimation of which shall be obeyed on my part, so as to occasion them no delay.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXXV. TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, March 12,1793
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, March 12,1793.
Dear Sir,
Your Nos. 8 to 13, inclusive, have been duly received. I am sensible that your situation must have been difficult during the transition from the late form of government to the re-establishment of some other legitimate authority, and that you may have been at a loss to determine with whom business might be done. Nevertheless, when principles are well understood, their application is less embarrassing. We surely cannot deny to any nation that right whereon our own government is founded, that every one may govern itself according to whatever form it pleases, and change these forms at its own will; and that it may transact its business with foreign nations through whatever organ it thinks proper, whether King, Convention, Assembly, Committee, President, or any thing else it may choose. The will of the nation is the only thing essential to be regarded. On the dissolution of the late constitution in France, by removing so integral a part of it as the King, the National Assembly, to whom a part only of the public authority had been delegated, appear to have considered themselves as incompetent to transact the affairs of the nation legitimately. They invited their fellow-citizens, therefore, to appoint a National Convention. In conformity with this their idea of the defective state of the national authority, you were desired from hence to suspend further payments of our debts to France till new orders, with an assurance, however, to the acting power, that the suspension should not be continued a moment longer than should be necessary for us to see the re-establishment of some person or body of persons authorized to receive payment and give us a good acquittal; (if you should find it necessary to give any assurance or explanation at all.) In the mean time, we went on paying up the four millions of livres which had been destined by the last constituted authorities to the relief of St. Domingo. Before this was completed, we received information that a National Assembly had met, with full powers to transact the affairs of the nation, and soon afterwards, the minister of France here presented an application for three millions of livres, to be laid out in provisions to be sent to France. Urged by the strongest attachment to that country, and thinking it even providential, that monies lent to us in distress, could be repaid under like circumstances, we had no hesitation to comply with the application, and arrangements are accordingly taken, for furnishing this sum at epochs accommodated to the demand and our means of paying it. We suppose this will rather overpay the instalments and interest due on the loans of eighteen, six, and ten millions, to the end of 1792; and we shall certainly use our utmost endeavors to make punctual payments of the instalments and interest hereafter becoming exigible, and to omit no opportunity of convincing that nation how cordially we wish to serve them. Mutual good offices, mutual affection, and similar principles of government, seem to destine the two nations for the most intimate communion: and I cannot too much press it on you, to improve every opportunity which may occur in the changeable scenes which are passing, and to seize them as they occur, for placing our commerce with that nation and its dependencies, on the freest and most encouraging footing possible. Besides what we have furnished publicly for the relief of St. Domingo, individual merchants of the United States have carried considerable supplies thither, which have been sometimes purchased, sometimes taken by force, and bills given by the administration of the colony on the Minister here, which have been protested for want of funds. We have no doubt that justice will be done to these our citizens, and that without a delay which would be ruinous to them. We wish authority to be given to the Minister of France here to pay the just demands of our citizens, out of the monies he may receive from us.
During the fluctuating state of the assignats of France, I must ask the favor of you to inform me, in every letter, of the rate of exchange between them and coin, this being necessary for the regulation of our Custom-Houses.
Congress closed its session on the 2nd instant. You will see their acts in the newspapers forwarded to you, and the body of them shall be sent as soon as the octavo edition is printed. We are to hold a treaty with the western Indians in the ensuing month of May, but not under very hopeful auspices.
You will perceive by the newspapers, a remarkable fall in the price of our public paper. This is owing chiefly to the extraordinary demand for the produce of our country, and a temporary scarcity of cash to purchase it. The merchants holding public paper are obliged to part with it at any price, to raise money.
I sent you, by the way of London, a dozen plans of the city of Washington in the federal territory, hoping you would have them displayed to public view where they would be most seen by those descriptions of men worthy and likely to be attracted to it. Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and the sea-port towns of Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Marseilles, would be proper places to send some of them. I trust to Mr. Taylor to forward you the newspapers by every direct occasion to France. These are rare at all times, and especially in the winter: and to send them through England would cost too much in postage. To these circumstances, as well, probably, as to some miscarriages, you must ascribe the length of intervals sometimes experienced in the receipt of your papers.
I have the honor to be, with great esteem and respect, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXXVI. TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, March 15, 1793
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, March 15, 1793.
Dear Sir,
The President has seen with satisfaction, that the Ministers of the United States in Europe, while they have avoided an useless commitment of their nation on the subject of the Marquis de la Fayette, have nevertheless shown themselves attentive to his situation. The interest which the President himself, and our citizens in general, take in the welfare of this gentleman, is great and sincere, and will entirely justify all prudent efforts to serve him. I am therefore to desire, that you will avail yourself of every opportunity of sounding the way towards his liberation, of finding out whether those in whose power he is are very tenacious of him, or insinuating through such channels as you shall think suitable, the attentions of the government and people of the United States to this object, and the interest they take in it, and of procuring his liberation by informal solicitations, if possible. But if formal ones be necessary, and the moment should arrive when you shall find that they will be effectual, you are authorized to signify through such channel as you shall find suitable, that our government and nation, faithful in their attachments to this gentleman for the services he has rendered them, feel a lively interest in his welfare, and will view his liberation as a mark of consideration and friendship for the United States, and as a new motive for esteem and a reciprocation of kind offices toward the power to whom they shall be indebted for this act.
A like letter being written to Mr. Pinckney, you will of course take care, that however you may act through different channels, there be still a sufficient degree of concert in your proceedings.
I am, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson
CXXXVII. TO MR. PINCKNEY, March 16, 1793
TO MR. PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, March 16, 1793.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you on the 30th of December, and again a short letter on the 1st of January, since which I have received yours of October the 2nd and 5th, November the 6th and 9th, and December the 13th, 14th, 15th. I now enclose you the Treasurer’s second of exchange for twenty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty guilders, to be employed in the purchase of copper for the mint, from Sweden, or wherever else it can be got on the best terms; the first of exchange having been enclosed in my letter of December the 30th.
I am in hopes you will have been able to enter into proper arrangements with the British Minister for the protection of our seamen from impressment, before the preparations for war shall have produced inconvenience to them. While he regards so minutely the inconveniences to themselves which may result from a due regulation of this practice, it is just he should regard our inconveniences also, from the want of it. His observations in your letter imply merely, that if they should abstain from injuring us, it might be attended with inconvenience to themselves.
You ask, what should be your conduct, in case you should at any time discover negotiations to be going on, which might eventually be interesting to us. The nature of the particular case will point out what measures, on your part, would be the most for our interest, and to your discretion we must refer the taking such measures, without waiting for instructions, where circumstances would not admit of such a delay. A like necessity to act may arise on other occasions. In the changeable scenes, for instance, which are passing in Europe, were a moment to offer when you could obtain any advantage for our commerce, and especially in the American colonies, you are desired to avail us of it to the best advantage, and not to let the occasion slip by for want of previous instruction.
You ask, what encouragements are given to emigrants by the several States. No other than a permission to become citizens, and to participate of the rights of citizens, except as to eligibility to certain offices in the government. The rules, as to these, are not uniform in the states. I have found it absolutely impracticable to obtain, even for my office, a regular transmission of the laws of the several States: consequently, it would be more so to furnish them to our ministers abroad. You will receive by this or the first proper conveyance, those of Congress, passed at their last session.
It is impossible for me to give any authority for the advance of monies to Mr. Wilson. Were we to do it in his case, we should, on the same principles, be obliged to do it in several others wherein foreign nations decline or delay doing justice to our citizens. No law of the United States would cover such an act of the executive; and all we can do legally is, to give him all the aid which our patronage of his claims with the British court can effect.
With respect to the payment of your allowances, as the laws authorize the payment of a given number of dollars to you, and as your duties place you in London, I suppose we are to pay you the dollars there, or other money of equal value, estimated by the par of the metals. Such has, accordingly, been the practice ever since the close of the war. Your powers to draw on our bankers in Holland, will leave you the master of fixing your drafts by this standard.
The transactions of Europe are now so interesting, that I should be obliged to you, every week, to put the Leyden gazettes of the week under cover to me; and put them into such ship’s bag as shall be first coming to any port north of North Carolina.
Mr. Barclay’s death is just made known to us, and measures are taking in consequence of it.
You will perceive by the newspapers, a remarkable fall in the price of our public paper. This is owing chiefly to the extraordinary demand for the produce of our country, and a temporary scarcity of cash to purchase it. The merchants holding public paper are obliged to part with it at any price, to raise money.
I am, with much respect, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXXVIII. TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS, March 21, 1793
TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS.
Philadelphia, March 21, 1793.
Sir,
The death of Admiral Paul Jones first, and afterwards of Mr. Barclay, to whom the mission to Algiers, explained in the enclosed papers, was successively confided, have led the President to desire you to undertake the execution of it in person. These papers, being copies of what had been delivered to them, will serve as your guide. But Mr. Barclay having been also charged with a mission to Morocco, it will be necessary to give you some trouble with respect to that also.
Mr. Nathaniel Cutting, the bearer hereof, is despatched specially, first to receive from Mr. Pinckney in London any papers or information, which his agency in the Algerine business may have enabled him to communicate to you: he will then proceed to deliver the whole to you, and accompany and aid you in the character of secretary.
It is thought necessary that you should, in the first instance, settle Mr. Barclay’s accounts respecting the Morocco mission, which will probably render it necessary that you should go to Gibraltar. The communications you have had with Mr. Barclay in this mission, will assist you in your endeavors at a settlement. You know the sum received by Mr. Barclay on that account, and we wish as exact a statement as can be made of the manner in which it has been laid out, and what part of its proceeds is now on hand. You will be pleased to make an inventory of these proceeds now existing. If they or any part of them can be used for the Algerine mission, we would have you by all means apply them to that use, debiting the Algerine fund and crediting that of Morocco with the amount of such application. If they cannot be so used, then dispose of the perishable articles to the best advantage, and if you can sell those not perishable for what they cost, do so, and what you cannot so sell, deposite in any safe place under your own power. In this last stage of the business, return us an exact account, 1. Of the specific articles remaining on hand for that mission, and their value. 2. Of its cash on hand. 3. Of any money which may be due to or from Mr. Barclay or any other person on account of this mission: and take measures for replacing the clear balance of cash in the hands of Messrs. W. and J. Willincks, and Nicholas and Jacob Van Staphorsts and Hubard.
This matter being settled, you will be pleased to proceed on the mission to Algiers. This you will do by the way of Madrid, if you think any information you can get from Mr. Carmichael or any other, may be equivalent for the trouble, expense, and delay of the journey. If not proceed in whatever other way you please to Algiers.
Proper powers and credentials for you, addressed to that government, are herewith enclosed. The instructions first given to Admiral Paul Jones are so full that no others need be added, except a qualification in one single article, to wit: should that government finally reject peace on the terms in money, to which you are authorized to go, you may offer to make the first payments for peace and that for ransom in naval stores, reserving the right to make the subsequent annual payments in money.
You are to be allowed your travelling expenses, your salary as minister resident in Portugal going on. Those expenses must be debited to the Algerine mission, and not carried into your ordinary account as resident. Mr. Cutting is allowed one hundred dollars a month and his expenses, which, as soon as he joins you, will of course be consolidated with yours. We have made choice of him as particularly qualified to aid, under your direction, in the matters of account, with which he is well acquainted. He receives here an advance of one thousand dollars, by a draft on our bankers in Holland, in whose hands the fund is deposited. This, and all other sums furnished him, to be debited to the Algerine fund. I enclose you a letter to our bankers giving you complete authority over these funds, which you had better send with your first draft, though I send a copy of it from hence by another opportunity.
This business being done, you will be pleased to return to Lisbon, and to keep yourself and us, thereafter, well informed of the transactions in Morocco; and as soon as you shall find that the succession to that government is settled and stable, so that we may know to whom a commissioner may be addressed, be so good as to give us the information, that we may take measures in consequence.
I have the honor to be, with much respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXXXIX. TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS, March 22, 1793
TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS.
Philadelphia, March 22, 1793.
Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letters from No. 60 to 67, inclusive. You cannot be too vigilant against any such treaty as that mentioned in No. 60, which by giving the exclusive supply of wheat to Naples, would altogether debar the United States from it. This would bear so hard on us, that not only an exclusion of their wines from the United States ought to be expected on their part, but every other measure which might open to us a market in any other part of the world, however Portugal might be affected by it. And I must for ever repeat it, that, instead of excluding our wheat, we must continue to hope that they will open their ports to our flour, and that you will continue to use your efforts, on every good occasion, to obtain this without waiting for a treaty.
As there appears at present a probability of a very general war in Europe, you will be pleased to be particularly attentive to preserve for our vessels all the rights of neutrality, and to endeavor that our flag be not usurped by others to procure to themselves the benefits of our neutrality. This usurpation tends to commit us with foreign nations, to subject those vessels truly ours to rigorous scrutinies and delays to distinguish them from counterfeits, and to take the business of transportation out of our hands.
Continue, if you please, your intelligence relative to the affairs of Spain, from whence we learn nothing but through you: to which it will be acceptable that you add any leading events from other countries, as we have several times received important facts through you, even from London, sooner than they have come from London directly.
The letters enclosed for Mr. Carmichael and Mr. Short are of a very secret nature. If you go by Madrid, you will be the bearer of them yourself; if not, it would be better to retain them than to send them by any conveyance which does not command your entire confidence. I have never yet had a letter from Mr. Carmichael but the one you brought from Madrid. A particular circumstance will occasion forbearance yet a little longer.
Captain Cutting will bring you a copy of the laws of the last session of Congress, and of the gazettes to the time of his departure.
Not yet knowing the actual arrival of Mr. Church at Lisbon, I believe it will be safer that I direct letters for you, during your absence, to Messrs. Bulkeley and son, with whom you will leave what directions on the subject you shall think proper.
I am, with great and sincere esteem and respect, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXL. *--TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT, March 23, 1793
TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT.
Philadelphia, March 23, 1793.
Gentlemen,
It is intimated to us in such a way as to attract our attention, that France means to send a strong force early this spring to offer independence to the Spanish American colonies, beginning with those on the Mississippi; and that she will not object to the receiving those on the east side into our confederation. Interesting considerations require, that we should keep ourselves free to act in this case according to circumstances, and consequently, that you should not, by any clause of treaty, bind us to guaranty any of the Spanish colonies against their own independence, nor indeed against any other nation. For when we thought we might guaranty Louisiana, on their ceding the Floridas to us, we apprehended it would be seized by Great Britain, who would thus completely encircle us with her colonies and fleets. This danger is now removed by the concert between Great Britain and Spain; and the times will soon enough give independence, and consequently free commerce to our neighbors, without our risking the involving ourselves in a war for them.
I am, with great respect and esteem, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
** The above meets the approbation of George Washington.
[* This letter was in cipher, but a literal copy of it preserved.]
[** This is in the hand-writing of General Washington.]
CXLI. TO MR. HAMMOND, April 18, 1793
TO MR. HAMMOND.
Philadelphia, April 18, 1793.
Sir,
I have now the honor to enclose you the answer of the Attorney General to my letter covering yours of March the 12th, on the case of Hooper and Pagan, wherein he has stated the proceedings of Pagan for obtaining a writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States, for revisal of the judgment of the inferior court pronounced against him; and, also, his opinion on the merits of the question, had the writ of error been procured, and the merits thereby been brought into question. From this statement you will be able to judge whether Pagan has, bonâ fide, complied with the rule which requires that a foreigner, before he applies for extraordinary interposition, should use his best endeavors to obtain the justice he claims from the ordinary tribunals of the country. You will perceive also, that had the writ been pressed for and obtained, and the substantial justice of Pagan’s claim thereby brought into discussion, substantial justice would have been against him, according to the opinion of the Attorney General, according to the uniform decisions of the courts of the United States, even in the cases of their own citizens, and according to the decision of this very case in the British provincial court, where the evidence was taken and the trial first had. This does not appear then to be one of those cases of gross and palpable wrong, ascribable only to wickedness of the heart, and not to error of the head, in the judges who have decided on it, and founding a claim of national satisfaction. At least, that it is so, remains yet to be demonstrated.
The readiness with which the government of the United States has entered into inquiries concerning the case of Mr. Pagan, even before that case was ripe for their interposition, according to ordinary rules, will, I hope, satisfy you that they would, with equal readiness, have done for the redress of his case whatever the laws and constitution would have permitted them to do, had it appeared in the result that their courts had been guilty of partiality or other gross wrong against Mr. Pagan. On the contrary, it is hoped, that the marked attentions which have been shown to him by the government of Massachusetts, as well as by that of the United States, have evinced, the most scrupulous dispositions to patronize and effectuate his right, had right been on his side.
I have the honor to be, with due respect, Sir, your most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
[The letter of the Attorney General, referred to in the preceding.]
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
Philadelphia, April 12, 1793.
Sir,
You will perceive from the two letters marked A. and B. of which I enclose copies, that the subject of Mr. Pagan has been for some time in my view. The former of those letters being intended for you, and containing a summary of facts, I determined to show it to Mr. Tilghman, who was Pagan’s counsel, before it was sent to you, in order that he might correct any misstatement. This produced the latter letter from him to me; and I have thought it more advisable to forward both of them to you even in the unfinished state of my own, than to reduce the case into a form which might be supposed to be less accurate.
As I do not discover an essential difference between Mr. Tilghman and myself, I shall not discuss any seeming variance, but proceed upon his ideas.
It is too obvious to require a diffusive exposition, that the application for a writ of error was not only prudent, but a duty in Pagan. To this Mr. Tilghman explicitly assents, when he says, that he was perfectly ‘satisfied of the prudence of applying for the writ of error, as Pagan could not complain of a defect of justice, until he had tried the writ of error and found that mode ineffectual.’ This remark becomes the more important, as it manifests that the process was not suggested as an expedient for shifting any burthen from the government. Indeed I may with truth add, that the proceedings, taken collectively, appeared to me to present a sufficient intimation of the main question, to serve as a ground of decision.
However, take the case under either aspect; as excluding the consideration of the main question by an omission in the pleadings and record; or as exhibiting it fully to the cognizance of the court.
It never was pretended that a writ of error ought to have been granted, unless the matter was apparent on the record. Whose office was it to make it thus apparent. Of the attorney who managed the pleadings. If, therefore, he has failed to do so, we may presume that he considered the ground untenable, or was guilty of inattention. Either presumption would be fatal to a citizen of the United States; and the condition of a foreigner cannot create a new measure in the administration of justice. It is moreover certain, that those who have been consulted on Pagan’s behalf, as well as others, have seriously doubted whether a cause, which has been pursued to the extent which his had reached before the commencement of our new government, was susceptible of federal relief.
The last observation opens the inquiry, what remedy ought the Supreme Court of the United States to have administered, even if the question had been fairly before them? My opinion is, that the very merits are against Mr. Pagan. In America, the construction of the armistice has been almost universally to compute the places, within which different times were to prevail, by latitude only. Am I misinformed, that such an interpretation has been pressed by our ministers, and not denied by those of London? A second mode has been adopted, by describing a circle, and thereby comprehending longitude as well as latitude: now let either rule be adopted, and the position of the capture in this case will be adverse to Pagan’s pretensions.
But what can be exacted from our government, after repeated trials, before various jurisdictions, none of which can be charged with any symptom of impropriety, and upon a subject, which, to say no more, is at least equipoised? Nothing; and I appeal to the British reasoning on the Silesia loan, as supporting this sentiment, in the following passage. ‘The law of nations, founded upon justice, equity, convenience, and the reason of the thing, and confirmed by long usage, does not allow of reprisals, except in case of violent injuries directed and supported by the State, and justice absolutely denied, in re minime dubid, by all the tribunals, and afterwards by the prince.’ Where the judges are left free, and give sentence according to their consciences, ‘though it should be erroneous, that would be no ground for reprisals. Upon doubtful questions, different men think and judge differently; and all a friend can desire is, that justice should be as impartially administered to him, as it is to the subjects of that prince, in whose courts the matter is tried.’ Under such circumstances, a citizen must acquiesce. So therefore must Pagan; against whom even the court of Nova Scotia, within the dominions of his sovereign, has once decided.
There are many smaller points, arising from the controversy, which might be relied on. But I pass them over, from a hope that the observations already made will induce you to think with me, that government is not bound to interpose farther in the behalf of Pagan. I have the honor, Sir, to be, with respect and esteem, your most obedient servant,
Edmond Randolph.
CXLII. TO MR. PINCKNEY, April 20, 1793
TO MR. PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, April 20, 1793.
Dear Sir,
In a postscript to my letter of the 12th, I acknowledged the receipt of yours of January the 3rd; since which, those of January the 30th and February the 5th have been received by the William Penn.
With respect to our negotiation with Mr. Hammond, it is exactly in the state in which it was when you left America, not one single word having been received in reply to my general answer, of which you had a copy. He says, he waits for instructions, which he pretends to expect from packet to packet. But sometimes the ministers are all in the country, sometimes they are absorbed in negotiations nearer home, sometimes it is the hurry of impending war, or attention to other objects, the stock of which is inexhaustible, and can therefore never fail those who desire nothing but that things shall rest as they are. Perhaps, however, the present times may hasten justice.
We shall be glad to receive the assayer you hope to procure, as soon as possible, for we cannot get one in this country equal to the business in all its parts. With respect to Mr. Droz, we retain the same desire to engage him, but we are forced to require an immediate decision, as the officer employed in the interim, and who does tolerably well, will not continue much longer under an uncertainty of permanent employment. I must therefore desire you to press Mr. Morris to bring Droz to an immediate determination; and we place the matter on this ground with him, that if he is not embarked by the first day of July next, we shall give a permanent commission to the present officer, and be free to receive no other. We are likely to be in very great distress for copper for the mint, and must therefore press your expediting what we desired you to order from Sweden.
You may, on every occasion, give assurances which cannot go beyond the real desires of this country, to preserve a fair neutrality in the present war, on condition that the rights of neutral nations are respected in us, as they have been settled in modern times, either by the express declarations of the powers of Europe, or their adoption of them on particular occasions. From our treaties with France and Holland, and that of England and France, a very clear and simple line of conduct can be marked out for us, and I think we are not unreasonable in expecting that England shall recognise towards us the same principles which she has stipulated to recognise towards France, in a state of neutrality.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXLIII. CIRCULAR TO MORRIS, PINCKNEY, AND SHORT, April 26,1793
CIRCULAR TO MESSRS. MORRIS, PINCKNEY, AND SHORT.
Philadelphia, April 26,1793.
Sir,
The public papers giving us reason to believe that the war is becoming nearly general in Europe, and that it has already involved nations with which we are in daily habits of commerce and friendship, the President has thought it proper to issue the proclamation of which I enclose you a copy, in order to mark out to our citizens the line of conduct they are to pursue. That this intimation, however, might not work to their prejudice, by being produced against them as conclusive evidence of their knowledge of the existence of war and of the nations engaged in it, in any case where they might be drawn into courts of justice for acts done without that knowledge, it has been thought necessary to write to the representatives of the belligerent powers here, the letter of which a copy is also enclosed, reserving to our citizens those immunities to which they are entitled, till authentic information shall be given to our government by the parties at war, and be thus communicated, with due certainty, to our citizens. You will be pleased to present to the government where you reside this proceeding of the President, as a proof of the earnest desire of the United States to preserve peace and friendship with all the belligerent powers, and to express his expectation that they will in return extend a scrupulous and effectual protection to all our citizens, wheresoever they may need it, in pursuing their lawful and peaceable concerns with their subjects, or within their jurisdiction. You will, at the same time, assure them, that the most exact reciprocation of this benefit shall be practised by us towards their subjects, in the like cases.
I have the honor to be, with great esteem and respect. Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXLIV. TO M. DE TERNANT, April 27,1793
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, April 27,1793.
Sir,
Your letter of the 13th instant, asking monies to answer the expenses and salaries of the consular offices of France, has been duly laid before the President, and his directions thereon taken.
I have in consequence to observe to you, that before the new government of France had time to attend to things on this side the Atlantic, and to provide a deposite of money for the purposes here, there appeared a degree of necessity that we, as the friends and debtors of that nation, should keep their affairs from suffering, by furnishing money for urgent purposes. This obliged us to take on ourselves to judge of the purpose, because on the soundness of that, we were to depend for our justification. Hence we furnished monies for their colonies and their agents here, without express authority, judging from the importance and necessity of the case, that they would approve of our interference.
But this kind of necessity is now at an end: the government has established a deposite of money in the hands of their minister here, and we have nothing now to do but to furnish the money, which we are in the course of doing, without looking into the purposes to which it is to be applied. Their Minister is to be the judge of these, and to pay it to whom and for what he pleases.
If it be urged that they have appropriated all the money we are furnishing, to other objects, and that you are not authorized to divert any of it to any other purpose, and therefore that you need a further sum, it may be answered, that it will not lessen the stretch of authority to add an unauthorized payment by us to an unauthorized application by you; and that it seems fitter that their Minister should exercise a discretion over their appropriations, standing as he does in a place of confidence, authority, and responsibility, than we who are strangers and unamenable to them. It is a respect we owe to their authority, to leave to those acting under that the transaction of their affairs, without an intermeddling on our part, which might justly appear officious.
In this light I hope you will view our conduct, and that the consular officers will be sensible, that in referring them to your care, under which the national authority has placed them, we do but con-form ourselves to that authority.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of great respect and esteem, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXLV. TO M. DE TERNANT, May 3,1793
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, May 3,1793.
Sir,
The Minister Plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty has represented to the government of the United States, that on the 25th of April last, the British ship Grange, while lying at anchor in the bay of the Delaware, within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States, was taken possession of by the Embuscade, a frigate of the French republic, has been brought to this port, where she is now detained as prize and the crew as prisoners, and has made a requisition in form, for a restoration of the vessel and liberation of the crew. I have the honor to furnish you with copies of the evidence given in by the British Minister, and to observe, that the United States, being at peace with all parties, cannot see with indifference its territory or jurisdiction violated by either; that the government will therefore proceed to inquire into the facts, and for that purpose will receive with pleasure, and consider with impartiality, any evidence you will be pleased to have them furnished with on the subject: and the President hopes that you will take effectual measures for detaining here the vessel taken, her crew and cargo, to abide the decision which will be made thereon, and which is desired to be without delay.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXLVI. TO MR. PINCKNEY, May 7, 1793
TO MR. PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, May 7, 1793.
Dear Sir,
Since my letter of April the 16th, yours have been received of March the 12th, 12th, 13th, 13th, and 19th. Before the receipt of these, one of which covered the form of your passports, it had been determined here, that passports should be issued in our own ports only, as well to secure us against those collusions which would be fraudulent towards our friends, and would, introduce a competition injurious to our own vessels, as to induce these to remain in our own service, and thereby give to the productions of our own soil the protection of its own flag in its passage to foreign markets. As our citizens are free to purchase and use foreign-built vessels, and these, like all their other lawful property, are entitled to the protection of their government, passports will be issued to them as freely as to home-built vessels. This is strictly within our treaties, the letter of which, as well as their spirit, authorizes passports to all vessels belonging to citizens of the United States. Our laws, indeed, indulge home-built vessels with the payment of a lower tonnage, and to evidence their right to this, permit them alone to take out registers from our own offices, but they do not exclude foreign-built vessels owned by our citizens from any other right. As our home-built vessels are adequate to but a small proportion of our transportation, if we could not suddenly augment the stock of our shipping, our produce would be subject to war-insurance in the vessels of the belligerent powers, though we remain at peace ourselves.
In one of your letters of March the 13th, you express your apprehension that some of the belligerent powers may stop our vessels going with grain to the ports of their enemies, and ask instructions which may meet the question in various points of view, intending, however, in the mean time, to contend for the amplest freedom of neutral nations. Your intention in this is perfectly proper, and coincides with the ideas of our own government in the particular case you put, as in general cases. Such a stoppage to an unblockaded port would be so unequivocal an infringement of the neutral rights, that we cannot conceive it will be attempted. With respect to our conduct, as a neutral nation, it is marked out in our treaties with France and Holland, two of the belligerent powers: and as the duties of neutrality require an equal conduct to both parties, we should, on that ground, act on the same principles towards Great Britain. We presume that this would be satisfactory to her, because of its equality, and because she too has sanctioned the same principles in her treaty with France. Even our seventeenth article with France, which might be disagreeable, as from its nature it is unequal, is adopted exactly by Great Britain in her fortieth article with the same power, and would have laid her, in a like case, under the same unequal obligations against us. We wish then, that it could be arranged with Great Britain, that our treaties with France and Holland, and that of France and Great Britain (which agree in what respects neutral nations), should form the line of conduct for us all, in the present war, in the cases for which they provide. Where they are silent, the general principles of the law of nations must give the rule, as the principles of that law have been liberalized in latter times by the refinement of manners and morals, and evidenced by the declarations, stipulations, and practice of every civilized nation. In our treaty with Prussia, indeed, we have gone ahead of other nations, in doing away restraints on the commerce of peaceful nations, by declaring that nothing shall be contraband. For in truth, in the present improved state of the arts, when every country has such ample means of procuring arms within and without itself, the regulations of contraband answer no other end than to draw other nations into the war. However, as other nations have not given sanction to this improvement, we claim it, at present, with Prussia alone.
You are desired to persevere till you obtain a regulation to guard our vessels from having their hands impressed, and to inhibit the British navy-officers from taking them under the pretext of their being British subjects. There appears but one practicable rule, that the vessel being American, shall be conclusive evidence that the hands are so to a certain number, proportioned to her tonnage. Not more than one or two officers should be permitted to visit a vessel. Mr. Albion Coxe has just arrived.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson,
CXLVII. TO MR. HAMMOND, May 15, 1793
TO MR. HAMMOND.
Philadelphia, May 15, 1793.
Sir,
Your several memorials of the 8th instant have been laid before the President, as had been that of the 2nd, as soon as received. They have been considered with all the attention and the impartiality, which a firm determination to do what is equal and right between all the belligerent powers could inspire.
In one of these, you communicate, on the information of the British Consul at Charleston, that the Consul of France at the same place had condemned, as legal prize, a British vessel, captured by a French frigate, and you justly add, that this judicial act is not warranted by the usage of nations, nor by the stipulations existing between the United States and France. I observe further, that it is not warranted by any law of the land. It is consequently a mere nullity; as such it can be respected in no court, can make no part in the title to the vessel, nor give to the purchaser any other security than what he would have had without it. In short, it is so absolutely nothing, as to give no foundation of just concern to any person interested in the fate of the vessel; and in this point of view, Sir, I am in hopes you will see it. The proceeding, indeed, if the British Consul has been rightly informed (and we have no other information of it), has been an act of disrespect towards the United States, to which its government cannot be inattentive: a just sense of our own rights and duties, and the obviousness of the principle, are a security that no inconveniences will be permitted to arise from repetitions of it.
The purchase of arms and military accoutrements by an agent of the French government, in this country, with an intent to expert them to France, is the subject of another of the memorials. Of this fact we are equally uninformed as of the former. Our citizens have been always free to make, vend, and export arms. It is the constant occupation and livelihood of some of them. To suppress their callings, the only means perhaps of their subsistence, because a war exists in foreign and distant countries, in which we have no concern, would scarcely be expected. It would be hard in principle, and impossible in practice. The law of nations, therefore, respecting the rights of those at peace, does not require from them such an internal derangement in their occupations. It is satisfied with the external penalty pronounced in the President’s proclamation, that of confiscation of such portion of these arms as shall fall into the hands of any of the belligerent powers on their way to the ports of their enemies. To this penalty our citizens are warned that they will be abandoned; and that even private contraventions may work no inequality between the parties at war, the benefits of them will be left equally free and open to all.
The capture of the British ship Grange by the French frigate L’Embuscade has on inquiry been found to have taken place within the bay of Delaware and jurisdiction of the United States, as stated in your memorial of the 2nd instant. The government is, therefore, taking measures for the liberation of the crew and restitution of the ship and cargo.’
It condemns, in the highest degree, the conduct of any of our citizens who may personally engage in committing hostilities at sea against any of the nations, parties to the present war, and will exert all the means with which the laws and constitution have armed them to discover such as offend herein, and bring them to condign punishment. Of these dispositions I am authorized to give assurances to all the parties, without reserve. Our real friendship for them all, our desire to pursue ourselves the path of peace, as the only one leading surely to prosperity, and our wish to preserve the morals of our citizens from being vitiated by courses of lawless plunder and murder, may assure you that our proceedings, in this respect, will be with good faith, fervor, and vigilance. Instructions are consequently given to the proper law officer, to institute such proceedings as the laws will justify, for apprehending and punishing certain individuals of our citizens, suggested to have been concerned in enterprises of this kind, as mentioned in one of your memorials of the 8th instant.
The practice of commissioning, equipping, and manning vessels in our ports, to cruise on any of the belligerent parties, is equally and entirely disapproved; and the government will take effectual measures to prevent a repetition of it. The remaining point in the same memorial is reserved for further consideration.
I trust, Sir, that in the readiness with which the United States have attended to the redress of such wrongs as are committed by their citizens, or within their jurisdiction, you will see proofs of their justice and impartiality to all parties; and that it will insure to their citizens pursuing their lawful business by sea or by land, in all parts of the world, a like efficacious interposition of governing powers to protect them from injury, and redress it, where it has taken place. With such dispositions on both sides, vigilantly and faithfully carried into effect, we may hope that the blessings of peace, on the one part, will be as little impaired, and the evils of war, on the other, as little aggravated, as the nature of things will permit; and that this should be so, is, we trust, the prayer of all.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CXLVIII. *--TO M. DE TERNANT, May 15, 1793
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, May 15, 1793.
Sir,
Having received several memorials from the British Minister on subjects arising out of the present war, I take the liberty of enclosing them to you, and shall add an explanation of the determinations of the government thereon. These will serve to indicate the principles on which it is meant to proceed; and which are to be applied, with impartiality, to the proceedings of both parties. They will form, therefore, as far as they go, a rule of action for them and for us.
In one of these memorials, it is stated, that arms and military accoutrements are now buying up by a French agent in this country, with an intent to export them to France. We have answered, &c.
*****
Another of these memorials complains that the Consul of France at Charleston, has condemned, as legal prize, a British vessel captured by a French frigate, observing that this judicial act is not warranted by the usage of nations nor by the stipulations existing between the United States and France. It is true, &c.
*****
Our information is not perfect on the subject matter of another of these memorials, which states that a vessel has been fitted out at Charleston, manned there, and partly too with citizens of the United States, received a commission there to cruise against nations at peace with us, and has taken and sent a British vessel into this port. Without taking all these facts for granted, we have not hesitated to express our highest disapprobation of the conduct of any of our citizens who may personally engage in committing hostilities at sea against any of the nations, parties to the present war, and to declare, that if the case has happened, or that should it happen, we will exert all the measures with which the laws and constitution have armed us, to discover such offenders and bring them to condign punishment. And that the like conduct shall be observed, should the like enterprises be attempted against your nation, I am authorized to give you the most unreserved assurances.
The capture of the British ship Grange, by the French frigate L’Embuscade, within the Delaware, has been the subject of a former letter to you. On full and mature consideration, the government deems the capture to have been unquestionably within its jurisdiction, and that according to the rules of neutrality and the protection it owes to all persons while within its limits, it is bound to see that the crew be liberated, and the vessel and cargo restored to their former owners. The Attorney General of the United States has made a statement of the grounds of this determination, a copy of which I have the honor to enclose you. I am, in consequence, charged by the President of the United States to express to you his expectation, and at the same time his confidence that you will be pleased to take immediate and effectual measures for having the ship Grange and her cargo restored to the British owners, and the persons taken on board her set at liberty.
I am persuaded, Sir, you will be sensible, on mature consideration, that in forming these determinations, the government of the United States has listened to nothing but the dictates of immutable justice: they consider the rigorous exercise of that virtue as the surest means of preserving perfect harmony between the United States and the powers at war.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of great respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
[* The parts of this letter which are mere repetitions of what is contained in the preceding, to the British Minister, are omitted.]
CXLIX. TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA, May 21,1793
TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.
Philadelphia, May 21,1793.
Sir,
I have been duly honored with your favor of May the 8th, covering the letter of Mr. Newton, and that of May the 13th, with the letter of the British Consul at Norfolk and the information of Henry Tucker, all of which have been laid before the President.
The putting the several harbors of the United States into a state of defence, having never yet been the subject of deliberation and decision with the legislature, and consequently, the necessary monies not having been appropriated or levied, the President does not find himself in a situation competent to comply with the proposition on the subject of Norfolk.
Mr. Newton supposes, that by the treaties with France and Holland, those powers are authorized to arm vessels within our ports. A careful examination of the treaties will show, however, that no such permission has been stipulated therein. Measures are accordingly taken to correct this error as to the past, and others will be taken to prevent a repetition of it. Proceedings are ordered against Mr. Hooper and other American citizens who have participated in any hostilities against nations at peace with the United States, and circular instructions are given to the District Attorneys of the United States, to institute like prosecutions in all future similar cases. The bringing vessels to, of whatever nation, while within the limits of the protection of the United States, will be pointedly forbidden; the government being firmly determined to enforce a peaceable demeanor among all the parties within those limits, and to deal to all the same impartial measure. I have the honor to be, with the most perfect respect, your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CL. TO MR. VAN BERCKEL, May 29,1793
TO MR. VAN BERCKEL.
Philadelphia, May 29,1793.
Sir,
I am favored with your note of the 22nd instant, stating that under circumstances of invasion and urgent danger, their High Mightinesses, the States General of the United Netherlands, had found it necessary to lay an embargo on all vessels in their ports, and that an American ship, the Hope, being involved in this general order, the master had claimed an exemption under the eighth article of our treaty, which it had been necessary to refuse him.
I have laid this note before the President of the United States, and have it in charge from him to assure you, that the United States having the utmost confidence in the sincerity and good faith with which their High Mightinesses will observe the treaty between the two countries, feel no dissatisfaction at the circumstance mentioned in your note. They are sensible that in human affairs, there are moments of difficulty and necessity, to which it is the office of friendship to accommodate its strict rights.
The President considers the explanation, which their High Mightinesses have instructed you to give of this incident, as a proof of their desire to cultivate harmony and good understanding with these United States, and charges me to assure you that he has nothing more at heart than to convince their High Mightinesses of the same amicable sentiments on the part of this country, and of the certainty with which they may count on its justice and friendship on every occasion.
I have the honor to be, with great respect and esteem, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLI. TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT, May 31, 1793
TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT.
Philadelphia, May 31, 1793.
Gentlemen,
In my letters of October the 14th and November the 3rd, 1792, I communicated to you papers and observations on the conduct of the Spanish officers on our southwestern frontier, and particularly of the Baron de Carondelet, the Governor of New Orleans. These made it evident that he had industriously excited the southern Indians to war against us, and had furnished them with arms and ammunition in abundance, for that express purpose. We placed this under the view of the commissioners of Spain here, who undertook to communicate it to their court, and also to write on the subject to the Baron de Carondelet. They have lately made us communications from both these quarters; the aspect of which, however, is by no means such as to remove the causes of our dissatisfaction. I send you these commmunications, consisting of treaties between Spain, the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees, handed us by express order from their court, a speech of Jiaron de Carondelet to the Cherokees, and a letter from Messrs. de Viar and Jaudenes, covering that speech, and containing in itself very serious matter.
I will first observe to you, that the question stated in that letter to have been proposed to the Cherokees, What part they would take, in the event of a war between the United States and Spain was never proposed by authority from this government. Its instructions to its agents have, on the contrary, been explicitly to cultivate, with good faith, the peace between Spain and the Indians: and from the known prudence and good conduct of Governor Blount, to whom it is imputed, it is not believed to have been proposed by him. This proposition then, you are authorized to disavow to the court of Madrid, in the most unequivocal terms. With respect to the treaties, the speech, and the letter, you will see that they undertake to espouse the concerns of Indians within our limits; to be mediators of boundary between them and us; to guaranty that boundary to them; to support them with their whole power; and hazard to us intimations of acquiescence to avoid disagreeable results. They even propose to extend their intermeddlings to the northern Indians. These are pretensions so totally inconsistent with the usages established among the white nations with respect to Indians living within their several limits, that it is believed no example of them can be produced, in times of peace; and they are presented to us in a manner which we cannot deem friendly. The consequence is, that the Indians, and particularly the Creeks, finding themselves so encouraged, have passed, without the least provocation on our part, from a state of peace, which appeared to be well settled, to that of serious hostility. Their murders and depredations, which, for some months, we were willing to hope were only individual aggressions, now assume the appearance of unequivocal war. Yet such is our desire of courting and cultivating the peace of all our Indian neighbors, that instead of marching at once into their country and taking satisfaction ourselves, we are peaceably requiring punishment of the individual aggressors; and, in the mean time, are holding ourselves entirely on the defensive. But this state of things cannot continue. Our citizens are entitled to effectual protection, and defensive measures are, at the same time, the most expensive and least effectual. If we find then, that peace cannot be obtained by the temperate means we are still pursuing, we must proceed to those which are extreme, and meet all the consequences, of whatever nature, or from whatever quarter, they may be. We have certainly been always desirous to avoid whatever might disturb our harmony with Spain. We should be still more so, at a moment when we see that nation making part of so powerful a confederacy as is formed in Europe, and under particular good understanding with England, our other neighbor. In so delicate a position, therefore, instead of expressing our sense of these things, by way of answer to Messrs. Viar and Jaudenes, the President has thought it better that it should be done to you, and to trust to your discretion the moment, the measure, and the form of communicating it to the court of Madrid. The actual state of Europe at the time you will receive this, the solidity of the confederacy, and especially as between Spain and England, the temper and views of the former, or of both, towards us, the state of your negotiation, are circumstances which will enable you better to decide how far it may be necessary to soften, or even perhaps to suppress, the expressions of our sentiments on this subject. To your discretion, therefore, it is committed by the President, to let the court of Spain see how impossible it is for us to submit with folded arms to be butchered by these savages, and to prepare them to view, with a just eye, the more vigorous measures we must pursue to put an end to their atrocities, if the moderate ones we are now taking should fail of that effect.
Our situation on other accounts and in other quarters is critical. The President is, therefore, constantly anxious to know the state of things with you: and I entreat you to keep him constantly and well informed. Mr. Yznardi, the younger, lately appointed Consul of the United States, at Cadiz, may be a convenient channel of forwarding your letters.
I have the honor to be, with great esteem and respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLII. TO MR. GENET, June 5,1793
TO MR. GENET, Minister Plenipotentiary of France.
Philadelphia, June 5,1793.
Sir,
In my letter of May the 15th, to M. de Ternant, your predecessor, after stating the answer which had been given to the several memorials of the British Minister, of May the 8th, it was observed that a part still remained unanswered of that which respected the fitting out armed vessels in Charleston, to cruise against nations with whom we are at peace.
In a conversation which I had afterwards the honor of holding with you, I observed that one of those armed vessels, the Citizen Genet, had come into this port with a prize: that the President had thereupon taken the case into further consideration, and after mature consultation and deliberation, was of opinion, that the arming and equipping vessels in the ports of the United States to cruise against nations with whom they are at peace, was incompatible with the territorial sovereignty of the United States; that it made them instrumental to the annoyance of those nations, and thereby tended to compromit their peace; and that he thought it necessary as an evidence of good faith to them, as well as a proper reparation to the sovereignty of the country, that the armed vessels of this description should depart from the ports of the United States.
The letter of the 27th instant, with which you have honored me, has been laid before the President, and that part of it which contains your observations on this subject has been particularly attended to. The respect due to whatever comes from you, friendship for the French nation, and justice to all, have induced him to re-examine the subject, and particularly to give your representations thereon the consideration they deservedly claim. After fully weighing again, however, all the principles and circumstances of the case, the result appears still to be, that it is the right of every nation to prohibit acts of sovereignty from being exercised by any other within its limits; and the duty of a neutral nation to prohibit such as would injure one of the warring powers; that the granting military commissions within the United States by any other authority than their own, is an infringement on their sovereignty, and particularly so when granted to their own citizens to lead them to acts contrary to the duties they owe their own country; that the departure of vessels thus illegally equipped from the ports of the United States, will be but an acknowledgment of respect analogous to the breach of it, while it is necessary on their part, as an evidence of their faithful neutrality. On these considerations, Sir, the President thinks that the United States owe it to themselves and to the nations in their friendship, to expect this act of reparation on the part of vessels, marked in their very equipment with offence to the laws of the land, of which the law of nations makes an integral part.
The expressions of friendly sentiments which we have already had the satisfaction of receiving from you, leave no room to doubt that, the conclusion of the President being thus made known to you, these vessels will be permitted to give no further umbrage by their presence in the ports of the United States.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLIII. TO MR. HAMMOND, June 5, 1793
TO MR. HAMMOND.
Philadelphia, June 5, 1793.
Sir,
In the letter which I had the honor of writing you on the 15th of May, in answer to your several memorials of the 8th of that month, I mentioned that the President reserved for further consideration, a part of the one which related to the equipment of two privateers in the port of Charleston. The part alluded to was that wherein you express your confidence that the executive government of the United States would pursue measures for repressing such practices in future, and for restoring to their rightful owners any captures, which such privateers might bring into the ports of the United States.
The President, after a full investigation of this subject and the most mature consideration, has charged me to communicate to you, that the first part of this application is found to be just, and that effectual measures are taken for preventing repetitions of the act therein complained of; but that the latter part, desiring restitution of the prizes, is understood to be inconsistent with the rules which govern such cases, and would, therefore, be unjustifiable towards the other party.
The principal agents in this transaction were French citizens. Being within the United States at the moment a war broke out between their own and another country, they determine to go into its defence; they purchase, arm, and equip a vessel with their own money, man it themselves, receive a regular commission from their nation, depart out of the United States, and then commence hostilities by capturing a vessel, If, under these circumstances, the commission of the captors was valid, the property, according to the laws of war, was by the capture transferred to them, and it would be an aggression on their nation, for the United States to rescue it from them, whether on the high seas or on coming into their ports. If the commission was not valid, and, consequently, the property not transferred by the laws of war to the captors, then the case would have been cognizable in our courts of admiralty, and the owners might have gone thither for redress. So that, on neither supposition, would the executive be justifiable in interposing.
With respect to the United States, the transaction can be in nowise imputed to them. It was in the first moment of the war, in one of their most distant ports, before measures could be provided by the government to meet all the cases which such a state of things was to produce, impossible to have been known, and, therefore, impossible to have been prevented by that government.
The moment it was known, the most energetic orders were sent to every State and port of the Union, to prevent a repetition of the accident. On a suggestion that citizens of the United States had taken part in the act, one, who was designated, was instantly committed to prison, for prosecution; one or two others have been since named, and committed in like manner; and should it appear that there were still others, no measure will be spared to bring them to justice. The President has even gone further. He has required, as a reparation of their breach of respect to the United States, that the vessels so armed and equipped, shall depart from our ports.
You will see, Sir, in these proceedings of the President, unequivocal proofs of the line of strict right which he means to pursue. The measures now mentioned, are taken in justice to the one party; the ulterior measure, of seizing and restoring the prizes, is declined in justice to the other; and the evil, thus early arrested, will be of very limited effects; perhaps, indeed, soon disappear altogether.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLIV. TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, June 13, 1793
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, June 13, 1793,
Dear Sir,
It has long since been observed, that of the three millions of livres given by the court of France to aid us in the commencement of our revolution, one million was unaccounted for by the hands into which it was paid. The date of the payment is fixed to have been the 10th of June, 1776, but to whom it was paid has never been known. Suspicions are, that it was to Beaumarchais; and that with this very money he purchased the supplies furnished us by him, for which large sums have been paid him already, and a further large sum has lately been certified to be due to him as the balance of the account. I enclose you a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury on this subject, with all the papers relative to the same which his office can furnish: and as you are on the spot, I must beg the favor of you to make an immediate and thorough investigation of it. No reasons of State can now exist for covering the transaction longer under mystery.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
[The letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, and other papers, relative to the lost million alluded to in the letter to Mr. Morris.]
LETTERS--RE THE LOST MILLION, June 10, 1793
Treasury Department, June 10, 1793. Sir,
The comptroller of the Treasury has reported to me, that ‘on examining the subsisting contracts between the United States and the government of France and the Farmers General, and a comparison thereof with the foreign accounts and documents transmitted to the Treasury, the following facts appear.
That previous to the treaty of February, 1778, the sum of three millions of livres had been advanced by the government of France to the agents of the United States, under the title of gratuitous, for which no reimbursement was to be made.
That the payments, which composed the before-mentioned sum of three millions of livres, are stated, in a letter of Mr. Durival to Mr. Grand, dated in 1786, to have been made at the following periods:
One million delivered by the Royal Treasury the 10th of June, 1776, and two other millions advanced also by the Royal Treasury in 1777, on four receipts of the Deputies of Congress, of the 17th of January, 3rd of April, 10th of June, and 15th of October of the same year.
In the account of Mr. Ferdinand Grand, banker of the United States, the following sums are credited, viz.
1777.--January 31, .... 500,000 livres. April 26, ...... 500,000 June 4, ........ 1,000,000 July 3, ........ 500,000 October 10, .... 500,000
Amount in the whole, .. 3,000,000 livres.
The Farmers General of France claim a large balance from the United States, on account of one million of livres which they contend was advanced in June, 1777, in consequence of a special contract with Messrs. Franklin and Deane, to be repaid by the delivery of tobacco at certain stipulated prices, and the advance made by the Farmers General is said to be the same money, as is credited by Mr. Grand on the 4th of June, 1777.
After a careful examination of the foreign accounts, it is found that no more than three millions of livres have been credited by any agents of the United States.
An opinion was entertained by the late officers of the Treasury, that the sum claimed by the Farmers General composed a part of the sum supplied as gratuitous aid by the government. Subsequent explanations have however rendered it probable, that, including the claim of the Farmers General, the sum of four millions of livres were in fact received; it is, however, indispensable that it should be known to whom the money was paid.
The most direct mode of obtaining this information will be, to call for copies of the receipts mentioned in Mr. Durival’s letter of 1786, and more particularly, a copy of that said to have been given on the 10th of June, 1776.’
And as explanatory of the transaction, he has sent me the documents herewith transmitted.
The most likely conjecture, in my mind, considering the period of the advance and the circumstances of that period, is, that the unaccounted-for million went into the hands of M. de Beaumarchais. The supplies which he furnished to the United States exceeded his own probable resources, besides the imprudence of having hazarded so much at that stage of our affairs upon our ability to pay. And there were many symptoms, at the time, of his having been secretly put in motion by the government.
It is now become urgent, that the truth of the case should be known. An account has recently passed the auditor’s office, admitting in favor of M. de Beaumarchais a balance of four hundred and twenty-two thousand two hundred and sixty-five dollars and thirteen cents, with a reservation only of the question of the million. If he has received that million, which has been acknowledged as a free gift from the French government, it is unjust that he should be able to establish a claim against the United States for supplies which must have been the proceeds of that sum. If he has never received the million, every, day’s suspension of his claim, after the immense delays heretofore incurred, is a grievous hardship upon him. It concerns materially the interests, and more the justice, the credit, and the character of the United States, that as speedy a solution as possible of the enigma may be obtained.
With a view to this, I have the honor to make you the present communication, that you may be pleased to take such steps as shall appear to you the most proper and efficacious to procure, as speedily as the nature of the case will admit, the requisite explanations. With respect, I have the honor to be, &c.
Alexander Hamilton.
Letter from Mr. Grand to ------ ------
Paris, September 9, 1786.
Dear Sir,
The letter you honored me with, covered the copies of three letters which Mr. Thomson wrote you to obtain an explanation of a million which is not to be found in my accounts. I should have been very much embarrassed in satisfying him and proving that I had not put that million in my pocket, had I not applied to M. Durival, who, as you will see by the answer enclosed, informs me that there was a million paid by the Royal Treasury on the 10th of June, 1776. This is the very million about which Mr. Thomson inquires, as I have kept an account of the other two millions, which were also furnished by the Royal Treasury, viz.:
The million in January and April, 1777; the other in July and October of the same year; as well as that furnished by the Farmers General in June, 1777.
Here then are the three millions, exactly, which were given by the King before the treaty of 1778, and that furnished by the Farmers General. Nothing then remains to be known but who received the first million in June, 1776. It could not be by me, who was not charged with the business of Congress until January, 1777. I therefore requested of M. Durival the copy of the receipt for the one million. You have the answer which he returned to me. I wrote to him again, renewing my request, but as the carrier is just setting off, I cannot wait to give you his answer, but you will receive it in my next, if I receive one. In the mean while, I beg you will receive the assurances of the sentiments of respect, with which I have the honor to be, my Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Grand.
Letter from Mr. Durival to Mr. Grand.
Versailles, August 30, 1786.
Sir,
I have received the letter which you did me the honor to write the 28th of this month, touching the advance of a million, which you say was made by the General Farm to the United States of America, the 3rd of June, 1777. I have no knowledge of that advance. What I have verified is, that the King by the contract of the 25th of February, 1783, has confirmed the gratuitous gift which his Majesty had previously made of the three millions hereafter mentioned, viz:
One million delivered by the Royal Treasury the 10th of June, 1776, and two other millions advanced also by the Royal Treasury in 1777, on four receipts of the Deputies of Congress of the 17th of January, 3rd of April, 10th of June, and 15th of October, of the same year. This explanation will, Sir, resolve your doubt touching the advance of the 3rd of June, 1777. I farther recommend to you, Sir, to confer on this subject with Mr. Gojard, who ought to be better informed than us, who have no knowledge of any advances but those made by the Royal Treasury.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
DU RIVAL.
Postscript from Mr. Grand.
Paris, September 12, 1786.
I hazard a letter in hopes it may be able to join that of the 9th, at L’Orient, in order to forward to you, Sir, the answer I have just received from Mr. Durival. You will therefore see, Sir, that notwithstanding my entreaty, the Minister himself refuses to give me the copy of the receipts which I asked for. I cannot conceive the reason for this reserve, more especially, since if there has been a million paid, he who received it has kept the account, and must in time be known. I shall hear with pleasure that you have been more fortunate in this respect in America than I have been in France, and repeat to you the assurances of the sentiments of regard, with which I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Grand.
Letter from Mr. Durival to Mr. Grand.
Versailles, September 5, 1786.
I laid before the Count de Vergennes the two letters which you did me the honor, to write, touching the three millions, the free gift of which the King has confirmed in favor of the United States of America.
The Minister, Sir, observed, that this gift has nothing to do with the million which Congress may have received from the General Farm, 1777. Consequently he thinks that the receipt which you desire may be communicated to you, cannot satisfy the object of your view, and that it would be useless to give you the copy which you desire.
I have the honor to be, with perfect attachment, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Durival.
Letter from Mr. Durival to Mr. Grand.
Versailles, September 10, 1786.
I have laid before the Count de Vergennes, as you, Sir, seem to desire, the letter which you did me the honor to write yesterday. The Minister persists in the opinion that the receipt, the copy of which you request, has no relation to the business with which you are entrusted on behalf of Congress, and that this price would be useless in the new point of view in which you have placed it. Indeed, Sir, it is easy for you to prove that the money in question was not delivered by the Royal Treasury into your hands, as you did not begin to be charged with the business of Congress until January, 1777, and the receipt is of the date of the 10th of June, 1776.
I have the honor to be, with perfect attachment, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Durival.
Extract of a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Mr. Grand, banker at Paris, dated Philadelphia, July the 11th, 1786.
‘I send you enclosed some letters that have passed between the Secretary of Congress and me, respecting three millions of livres acknowledged to have been received before the treaty of 1778, as don gratuit, from the King, of which only two millions are found in your accounts; unless the million from the Fanners General be one of the three. I have been assured that all the money received from the King, whether as loan or gift, went through your hands; and as I always looked on the million we had of the Farmers General to be distinct from what we had of the crown, I wonder how I came to sign the contract acknowledging three millions of gift, when in reality there were only two, exclusive of that from the Farmers. And as both you and I examined the project of the contract before I signed it, I am surprised that neither of us took notice of the error. It is possible that the million furnished ostensibly by the Farmers, was in fact a gift of the crown, in which case, as Mr. Thomson observes, they owe us for the two ship-loads of tobacco they received on account of it. I must earnestly request of you to get this,matter explained, that it may stand clear before I die, lest some enemy should afterwards accuse me of having received a million not accounted for.’
Letter from Dr. Franklin to Charles Thomson.
Philadelphia, January 25, 1787.
Dear Friend,
You may remember that in the correspondence between us in June last, on the subject of a million, free gift of the King of France, acknowledged in our contract to have been received, but which did not appear to be accounted for in our banker’s accounts, unless it should be the same with the million said to be received from the Farmers General, I mentioned that an explanation might doubtless be easily obtained, by writing to Mr. Grand or Mr. Jefferson. I know not whether you have accordingly written to either of them. But being desirous that the matter should be speedily cleared up, I wrote myself to Mr. Grand a letter upon it, of which I now enclose a copy with his answer, and several letters from Mr. Durival, who is chef du bureau des fonds (and has under his care la finance des affaires étrangerès). You will see by these letters, that the million in question was delivered to somebody on the 10th of June, 1776, but it does not appear to whom. It is clear that it could not be to Mr. Grand, nor to the commissioners from Congress, for we did not meet in France till the end of December, 1777. That banker was not charged before with our affairs. By the Minister’s refusing him a copy of the receipt, I conjecture it must be money advanced for our use to Mr. Beaumarchais, and that it is a mystère du cabinet, which perhaps should not be further inquired into, unless necessary to guard against more demands than may be just from that agent: for it may well be supposed that if the court furnished him with the means of supplying us, they may not be willing to furnish authentic proofs of such a transaction so early in our dispute with Britain.
Pray tell me, has he dropped his demands, or does he still continue to worry you with them?
I should like to have these original letters returned to me, but you may, if you please, keep copies of them.
It is true, the million in question makes no difference in your accounts with the King of France, it not being mentioned or charged as so much lent and repaid, but stood as freely given. Yet if it was put into the hands of any of our agents or ministers, they ought certainly to account for it. I do not recollect whether Mr. Deane had arrived in France before the 10th of June, 1776, but from his great want of money when I joined him a few months after, I hardly think it could have been paid him.
Possibly Mr. Jefferson may obtain the information, though Mr. Grand could not, and I wish he may be directed to make the inquiry, as I know he would do it directly; I mean, if by Hortales and Co.’ s further demands, or for any other reason, such an inquiry should be thought necessary.
I am ever, my Dear Friend, yours most affectionately,
Benjamin Franklin.
CLV. TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, June 13, 1793
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, June 13, 1793.
Dear Sir,
The insulated state in which France is placed with respect to almost all the world, by the present war, has cut off all means of addressing letters to you through other countries. I embrace the present occasion by a private individual going to France directly, to mention, that since the date of my last public letter, which was April the 24th, and which covered the President’s proclamation of April, I have received your Nos. 17 to 24. M. de Ternary notified us of his recall on the 17th of May, and delivered the letter of the Provisory Executive Council to that effect. I now enclose you the President’s answer to the Council, which you will be pleased to deliver; a copy of it is also enclosed, open, for your, information. Mr. Genet delivered his credentials on the same day on which M. de Ternant took his leave, and was received by the President. He found himself immediately immersed in business, the consequence of this war. The incidents to which that gives daily rise, and the questions respecting chiefly France and England, fill the executive with business, equally delicate difficult, and disagreeable. The course intended to be pursued being that of a strict and impartial neutrality, decisions rendered by the President rigorously on that principle, dissatisfy both parties, and draw complaints from both. That you may have a proper idea of them, I enclose you copies of several memorials and letters, which have passed between the executive and the ministers of those two countries, which will at the same time develope the principles of the proceedings, and enable you to satisfy them in your communications, should it be necessary. I enclose also the answer given to Mr. Genet, on a proposition from him to pay up the whole of the French debt at once. While it will enable you to explain the impracticability of the operation proposed, it may put it in your power to judge of the answer which would be given to any future proposition to that effect, and perhaps to prevent their being brought forward. The bill lately passed in England, prohibiting the business of this country with France from passing through the medium of England, is a temporary embarrassment to our commerce, from the unhappy predicament of its all hanging on the pivot of London. It will be happy for us, should it be continued till our merchants may establish connections in the countries in which our produce is consumed, and to which it should go directly.
Our commissioners have proceeded to the treaty with the northwestern Indians. They write, however, that the treaty will be a month later than was expected. This delay, should it be extended, will endanger our losing the benefit of our preparations for the campaign, and consequently bring on a delicate question, whether these shall be relinquished for the result of a treaty in which we never had any confidence. The Creeks have proceeded in their depredations till they assume the appearance of formal war. It scarcely seems possible to avoid its becoming so. They are so strong and so far from us, as to make very serious addition to our Indian difficulties. It is very probable that some of the circumstances arising out of our affairs with the Indians, or with the belligerent powers of Europe, may occasion the convocation of Congress at an earlier day than that to which its meeting stands at present.
I send you the forms of the passports given here. The one in three columns is that now used; the other having been soon discontinued. It is determined that they shall be given in our own ports only, and to serve but for one voyage. It has also been determined, that they shall be given to all vessels bonâ fide owned by American citizens wholly, whether built here or not. Our property, whether in the form of vessels, cargoes, or any thing else, has a right to pass the seas untouched by any nation, by the law of nations; and no one has a right to ask where a vessel was built, but where is she owned? To the security which the law of nations gives to such vessels against all nations, are added particular stipulations with three of the belligerent powers. Had it not been in our power to enlarge our national stock of shipping suddenly in the present exigency, a great proportion of our produce must have remained on our hands for want of the means of transportation to market. At this time, indeed, a great proportion is in that predicament. The most rigorous measures will be taken to prevent any vessel, not wholly and bonâ fide owned by American citizens, from obtaining our passports. It is much our interest to prevent the competition of other nations from taking from us the benefits we have a right to expect from the neutrality of our flag; and I think we may be very sure that few, if any, will be fraudulently obtained within our ports.
Though our spring has been cold and wet, yet the crops of small grain are as promising as they have ever been seen. The Hessian fly, however, to the north, and the weavil to the south of the Potomac, will probably abridge the quantity. Still it seems very doubtful whether we shall not lose more for want of the means of transportation, and I have no doubt that the ships of Sweden and Denmark would find full employment here.
We shall endeavor to get your newspapers under the care of Major Read, the bearer of this letter.
I have the honor to be, with great respect and esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLVI. TO MR. PINCKNEY, June 14, 1793
TO MR. PINCKNEY.
Philadelphia, June 14, 1793.
My last letters to you have been of the 7th of May and 4th instant. Since the last date, yours of April the 15th has come to hand.
I enclose you several memorials and letters which have passed between the executive and the ministers of France and England. These will develope to you the principles on which we are proceeding between the belligerent powers. The decisions being founded in what is conceived to be rigorous justice, give dissatisfaction to both parties, and produce complaints from both. It is our duty, however, to persevere in them, and to meet the consequences. You will observe that Mr. Hammond proposes to refer to his court the determination of the President, that the prizes taken by the Citoyen Genet, could not be given up. The reasons for this are explained in the papers. Mr. Genet had stated that she was manned by French citizens. Mr. Hammond had not stated the contrary before the decision. Neither produced any proofs. It was therefore supposed that she was manned, principally, with French citizens. After the decision, Mr. Hammond denies the fact, but without producing any proof. I am really unable to say how it was; but I believe it to be certain there were very few Americans. He says, the issuing the commission, Sic. by Mr. Genet within our territory, was an infringement of our sovereignty; therefore, the proceeds of it should be given up to Great Britain. The infringement was a matter between France and us. Had we insisted on any penalty or forfeiture by way of satisfaction to our insulted rights, it would have belonged to us, not to a third party. As between Great Britain and us, considering all the circumstances explained in the papers, we deemed we did enough to satisfy her. We are moreover assured, that it is the standing usage of France, perhaps too of other nations in all wars, to lodge blank commissions with all their foreign consuls, to be given to every vessel of their nation, merchant or armed; without which a merchant vessel would be punished as a pirate, were she to take the smallest thing of the enemy that should fall in her way. Indeed, the place of the delivery of a commission is immaterial. As it may be sent by letter to any one, so it may be delivered by hand to him any where. The place of signature by the Sovereign is the material thing. Were that to be done in any other jurisdiction than his own, it might draw the validity of the act into question. I mention these things, because I think it would be proper, that after considering them and such other circumstances as appear in the papers, or may occur to yourself, you should make it the subject of a conversation with the Minister. Perhaps it may give you an opportunity of touching on another subject. Whenever Mr. Hammond applies to our government on any matter whatever, be it ever so new or difficult, if he does not receive his answer in two or three days or a week, we are goaded with new letters on the subject. Sometimes it is the sailing of the packet, which is made the pretext for forcing us into premature and undigested determinations. You know best how far your applications meet such early attentions, and whether you may with propriety claim a return of them: you can best judge too of the expediency of an intimation, that where despatch is not reciprocal, it may be expedient and justifiable that delay should be so.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLVII. TO MR. GENET, June 17, X
TO MR. GENET.
Philadelphia, June 17, 1793.
Sir,
I shall now have the honor of answering your letter of the 1st instant, and so much of that of the 14th (both of which have been laid before the President) as relates to a vessel armed in the port of New York and about to depart from thence, but stopped by order of the government. And here I beg leave to premise, that the case supposed in your letter, of a vessel arming for her own defence, and to repel unjust aggressions, is not that in question, nor that on which I mean to answer, because not having yet happened, as far as is known to the government, I have no instructions on the subject. The case in question is that of a vessel armed, equipped, and manned in a port of the United States, for the purpose of committing hostilities on nations at peace with the United States.
As soon as it was perceived that such enterprises would be attempted, orders to prevent them were despatched to all the States and ports of the Union. In consequence of these, the Governor of New York, receiving information that a sloop heretofore called the Polly, now the Republican, was fitting out, arming, and manning in the port of New York, for the express and sole purpose of cruising against certain nations with whom we are at peace, that she had taken her guns and ammunition aboard and was on the point of departure, seized the vessel. That the Governor was not mistaken in the previous indications of her object, appears by the subsequent avowal of the citizen Hauterive, Consul of France at that port, who, in a letter to the Governor, reclaims her as ‘Un vaisseau arme, en guerre, et pret a mettre a la voile;’ and describes her object in these expressions; ‘Cet usage étrange de la force publique contre les citoyens d’une nation amie qui se réunissent ici pour aller defendre leur frères,’ &c. and again; ‘Je requiers, monsieur, l’autorité dont vous êtes revêtu, pour faire rendre à des Francois, à des allies, &c. la liberte de voler au secours de leur patrie.’ This transaction being reported to the President, orders were immediately sent to deliver over the vessel, and the persons concerned in the enterprise, to the tribunals of the country; that if the act was of those forbidden by the law, it might be punished; if it was not forbidden, it might be so declared, and all persons apprized of what they might or might not do.
This we have reason to believe is the true state of the case, and it is a repetition of that which was the subject of my letter of the 5th instant, which animadverted, not merely on the single fact of the granting commissions of war by one nation within the territory of another, but on the aggregate of the facts: for it states the opinion of the President to be, ‘that the arming and equipping vessels in the ports of the United States, to cruise against nations with whom they are at peace, was incompatible with the sovereignty of the United States; that it made them instrumental to the annoyance of those nations, and thereby tended to commit their peace.’ And this opinion is still conceived to be not contrary to the principles of natural law, the usage of nations, the engagements which unite the two people, nor the proclamation of the President, as you seem to think.
Surely, not a syllable can be found in the last mentioned instrument permitting the preparation of hostilities in the ports of the United States. Its object was to enjoin on our citizens ‘a friendly conduct towards all the belligerent powers;’ but a preparation of hostilities is the reverse of this.
None of the engagements in our treaties stipulate this permission. The XVIIth article of that of commerce, permits the armed vessels of either party to enter the ports of the other, and to depart with their prizes freely: but the entry of an armed vessel into a port, is one act; the equipping a vessel in that port, arming her, and manning her, is a different one, and not engaged by any article of the treaty.
You think, Sir, that this opinion is also contrary to the law of nature and usage of nations. We are of opinion it is dictated by that law and usage; and this had been very maturely inquired into before it was adopted as a principle of conduct. But we will not assume the exclusive right of saying what that law and usage is. Let us appeal to enlightened and disinterested judges. None is more so than Vattel. He says, L. 3, 8, 104. ‘Tant qu’im peuple neutre veut jouir surement de cet état, il doit montrer en toutes choses une exacte impartialité entre ceux qui se font la guerre. Car s’il favorise l’un au préjudice de l’autre, il ne pourra pas se plaindre, quand celui-ci le traitera comme adhérent et associé de son ennemi. Sa neutralité seroit une neutralité frauduleuse, dont personne ne veut être la dupe. Voyons done en quoi consiste cette impartialité qu’un peuple neutre doit garder.
‘Elle se rapport uniquement à la guerre, et comprend deux choses, 1°. Ne point donner de secours quand on n’y est pas obligé; ne fournir librement ni troupes, ni armes, ni munitions, ni rien de ce qui sert directement à la guerre. Je dis ne point donner de secours, et non pas en donner également; car il seroit absurde qu’un etat secourut en même tems deux ennemis. Et puis il seroit impossible de le faire avec égalite; les mêmes choses, le merae nombre de troupes, la même quantite d’armes, de munitions, &c. fournies en des circonstances differentes, ne forment plus des secours equivalents,’ &c. If the neutral power may not, consistent with its neutrality, furnish men to either party, for their aid in war, as little can either enrol them in the neutral territory by the law of nations. Wolf, S. 1174, says, ‘Puisque Je droit de lever des soldats est un droit de majeste, qui ne peut être viole par une nation étrangere, il n’est pas permis de lever des soldats sur le territoire d’autrui, sans le consentement du maitre du territoire.’ And Vattel, before cited, L. 3, 8, 15. ‘Le droit de lever des soldats appartenant uniquement a la nation, ou au souverain, personne ne peut en envoler en pays etranger sans la permission du soverain: Ceux qui entreprennant d’engager des soldats en pays etranger sans la permission du souverain, et en general quiconque debauche les sujets d’autrui, viole un des droits les plus sacres du prince et de la nation. C’est le crime qu’on appelle plagiat, ou vol d’homme. Il n’est aucun état police qui ne le punisse tres sevérement.’ &c. For I choose to refer you to the passage, rather than follow it through all its developements. The testimony of these, and other writers, on the law and usage of nations, with your own just reflections on them, will satisfy you that the United States, in prohibiting all the belligerent powers from equipping, arming, and manning vessels of war in their ports, have exercised a right and a duty, with justice and with great moderation. By our treaties with several of the belligerent powers, which are a part of the laws of our land we have established a state of peace with them. But without appealing to treaties, we are at peace with them all by the law of nature. For by nature’s law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy. For our citizens then to commit murders and depredations on the members of nations at peace with us, or combine to do it, appeared to the executive, and to those whom they consulted, as much against the laws of the land, as to murder or rob, or combine to murder or rob its own citizens; and as much to require punishment, if done within their limits, where they have a territorial jurisdiction, or on the high seas, where they have a personal jurisdiction, that is to say, one which reaches their own citizens only, this being an appropriate part of each nation on an element where all have a common jurisdiction. So say our laws, as we understand them ourselves. To them the appeal is made; and whether we have construed them well or ill, the constitutional judges will decide. Till that decision shall be obtained, the government of the United States must pursue what they think right with firmness, as is their duty. On the first attempt that was made, the President was desirous of involving in the censures of the law as few as might be. Such of the individuals only, therefore, as were citizens of the United States, were singled out for prosecution. But this second attempt being after full knowledge of what had been done on the first, and indicating a disposition to go on in opposition to the laws, they are to take their course against all persons concerned, whether citizens or aliens; the latter, while within our jurisdiction and enjoying the protection of the laws, being bound to obedience to them, and to avoid disturbances of our peace within, or acts which would commit it without, equally as citizens are.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of great respect, and esteem, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLVIII. TO MR. HAMMOND, June 19, 1793
TO MR. HAMMOND.
Philadelphia, June 19, 1793.
Sir,
I had the honor to address you a letter on the 29th of May was twelvemonth, on the articles still unexecuted of the treaty of peace between the two nations. The subject was extensive and important, and therefore rendered a certain degree of delay in the reply to be expected. But it has now become such as naturally to generate disquietude. The interest we have in the western posts, the blood and treasure which their detention costs us daily, cannot but produce a corresponding anxiety on our part. Permit me, therefore, to ask when I may expect the honor of a reply to my letter, and to assure you of the sentiments of respect, with which I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLIX. TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT, June 30, 1793
TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT.
Philadelphia, June 30, 1793.
Gentlemen,
I have received from Messrs. Viar and Jaudenes, the representatives of Spain at this place, a letter, which, whether considered in itself, or as the sequel of several others, conveys to us very disagreeable prospects of the temper and views of their court towards us. If this letter is a faithful expression of that temper, we presume it to be the effect of egregious misrepresentations by their agents in America. Revising our own dispositions and proceedings towards that power, we can find in them nothing but those of peace and friendship for them; and conscious that this will be apparent from a true statement of facts, I shall proceed to give you such a one, to be communicated to the court of Madrid. If they find it very different from that conveyed to them by others, they may think it prudent to doubt, and to take and to give time for mutual inquiry and explanation. I shall proceed to give you this statement, beginning it from an early period.
At the commencement of the late war, the United States laid down as a rule of their conduct, to engage the Indian tribes within their neighborhood to remain strictly neutral. They accordingly strongly pressed it on them, urging that it was a family quarrel; with which they had nothing to do, and in which we wished them to take no part: and we strengthened these recommendations by doing them every act of friendship and good neighborhood, which circumstances left in our power. With some, these solicitations prevailed; but the greater part of them suffered themselves to be drawn into the war against us. They waged it in their usual cruel manner, murdering and scalping men, women, and children, indiscriminately, burning their houses, and desolating the country. They put us to vast expense, as well by the constant force we were obliged to keep up in that quarter, as by expeditions of considerable magnitude which we were under the necessity of sending into their country from time to time.
Peace being at length concluded with England, we had it also to conclude with them. They had made war on us without the least provocation or pretence of injury. They had added greatly to the cost of that war. They had insulted our feelings by their savage cruelties. They were by our arms completely subdued and humbled. Under all these circumstances, we had a right to demand substantial satisfaction and indemnification. We used that right, however, with real moderation. Their limits with us under the former government were generally ill defined, questionable, and the frequent cause of war. Sincerely desirous of living in their peace, of cultivating it by every act of justice and friendship, and of rendering them better neighbors by introducing among them some of the most useful arts, it was necessary to begin by a precise definition of boundary. Accordingly, at the treaties held with them, our mutual boundaries were settled; and notwithstanding our just right to concessions adequate to the circumstances of the case, we required such only as were inconsiderable; and for even these, in order that we might place them in a state of perfect conciliation, we paid them a valuable consideration, and granted them annuities in money which have been regularly paid, and were equal to the prices for which they have usually sold their lands.
Sensible, as they were, of the wrong they had done, they expected to make some indemnification, and were, for the most part, satisfied with the mode and measure of it. In one or two instances, where a dissatisfaction was observed to remain as to the boundaries agreed on, or doubts entertained of the authority of those with whom they were agreed, the United States invited the parties to new treaties, and rectified what appeared to be susceptible of it. This was particularly the case with the Creeks. They complained of an inconvenient cession of lands on their part, and by persons not duly representing their nation. They were therefore desired to appoint a proper deputation to revise their treaty; and that there might be no danger of any unfair practices, they were invited to come to the seat of the General Government, and to treat with that directly. They accordingly came. A considerable proportion of what had been ceded, was on the revision yielded back to them, and nothing required in lieu of it: and though they would have been better satisfied to have had the whole restored, yet they had obtained enough to satisfy them well. Their nation, too, would have been satisfied, for they were conscious of their aggression, and of the moderation of the indemnity with which we had been contented. But at that time came among them an adventurer of the name of Bowles, who, acting from an impulse with which we are unacquainted, flattered them with the hope of some foreign interference, which should undo what had been done, and force us to consider the naked grant of their peace as a sufficient satisfaction for their having made war on us. Of this adventurer the Spanish government rid us: but not of his principles, his practices, and his excitements against us. These were more than continued by the officers commanding at New Orleans and Pensacola, and by agents employed by them and bearing their commission. Their proceedings have been the subject of former letters to you, and proofs of these proceedings have been sent to you. Those, with others now sent, establish the facts, that they called assemblies of the southern Indians, openly persuaded them to disavow their treaties, and the limits therein established, promised to support them with all the powers which depended on them, assured them of the protection of their sovereign, gave them arms in great quantities for the avowed purpose of committing hostilities on us, and promised them future supplies to their utmost need. The Chickasaws, the most steady and faithful friends of these States, have remained unshaken by these practices. So also have the Chocktaws, for the most part. The Cherokees have been teazed into some expressions of discontent, delivered only to the Spanish Governors, or their agents; while to us, they have continued to speak the language of peace and friendship. One part of the nation only, settled at Cuckamogga and mixed with banditti and outcasts from the Shawanese and other tribes, acknowledging control from none, and never in a state of peace, have readily engaged in the hostilities against us to which they were encouraged. But what was much more important, great numbers of the Creeks, chiefly their young men, have yielded to these incitements, and have now, for more than a twelvemonth, been committing murders and desolations on our frontiers. Really desirous of living in peace with them, we have redoubled our efforts to produce the same disposition in them. We have borne with their aggressions, forbidden all returns of hostility against them, tied up the hands of our people, insomuch that few instances of retaliation have occurred even from our suffering citizens; we have multiplied our gratifications to them, fed them when starving from the produce of our own fields and labor. No longer ago than the last winter, when they had no other resource against famine and must have perished in great numbers, we carried into their country and distributed among them, gratuitously, ten thousand bushels of corn; and that too, at the same time, when their young men were daily committing murders on helpless women and children, on our frontiers. And though these depredations now involve more considerable parts of the nation, we are still demanding punishment of the guilty individuals, and shall be contented with it. These acts of neighborly kindness and support on our part, have not been confined to the Creeks, though extended to them in much the greatest degree. Like wants among the Chickasaws had induced us to send them also, at first, five hundred bushels of corn, and afterwards, fifteen hundred more. Our language to all the tribes of Indians has constantly been, to live in peace with one another, and in a most especial manner, we have used our endeavors with those in the neighborhood of the Spanish colonies, to be peaceable towards those colonies. I sent you on a former occasion the copy of a letter from the Secretary at War to Mr. Seagrove, one of our agents with the Indians, in that quarter, merely to convey to you the general tenor of the conduct marked out for those agents: and I desired you, in placing before the eyes of the Spanish ministry the very contrary conduct observed by their agents here, to invite them to a reciprocity of good offices with our Indian neighbors, each for the other, and to make our common peace the common object of both nations. I can protest that such have hitherto been the candid and zealous endeavors of this government, and that if its agents have in any instance acted in another way, it has been equally unknown and unauthorized by us, and that, were even probable proofs of it produced, there would be no hesitation to mark them with the disapprobation of the government. We expected the same friendly condescension from the court of Spain, in furnishing you with proofs of the practices of the Governor De Carondelet in particular practices avowed by him, and attempted to be justified in his letter.
In this state of things, in such dispositions towards Spain and towards the Indians, in such a course of proceedings with respect to them, and while negotiations were instituted at Madrid for arranging these and all other matters which might affect our friendship and good understanding, we received from Messrs. de Viar and Jaudenes their letter of May the 25th, which was the subject of mine of May the 31st, to you; and now again we have received that of the 18th instant, a copy of which is enclosed. This letter charges us, and in the most disrespectful style, with:
1. Exciting the Chickasaws to war on the Creeks.
2. Furnishing them with provisions and arms.
3. Aiming at the occupation of a post at the Ecores Amargas.
4. Giving medals and marks of distinction to several Indians.
5. Meddling with the affairs of such as are allies of Spain.
6. Not using efficacious means to prevent these proceedings. I shall make short observations on these charges.
1. Were the first true, it would not be unjustifiable. The Creeks have now a second time commenced against us a wanton and unprovoked war, and the present one in the face of a recent treaty, and of the most friendly and charitable offices on our part. There would be nothing out of the common course of proceeding, then, for us to engage allies, if we needed any for their punishment. But we neither need, nor have sought them. The fact itself is utterly false, and we defy the world to produce a single proof of it. The declaration of war by the Chickasaws, as we are informed was a very sudden thing, produced by the murder of some of their people by a party of Creeks, and produced so instantaneously as to give no body time to interfere, either to promote or prevent a rupture. We had, on the contrary, most particularly exhorted that nation to preserve peace, because in truth we have a most particular friendship for them. This will be evident from a copy of the message of the President to them, among the papers now enclosed.
2. The gift of provisions was but an act of that friendship to them, when in the same distress, which had induced us to give five times as much to the less friendly nation of the Creeks. But we have given arms to them. We believe it is the practice of every white nation to give arms to the neighboring Indians. The agents of Spain have done it abundantly, and we suppose not out of their own pockets, and this for purposes of avowed hostility on us; and they have been liberal in promises of further supplies. We have given a few arms to a very friendly tribe, not to make war on Spain, but to defend themselves from the atrocities of a vastly more numerous and powerful people, and one which by a series of unprovoked and even unrepelled attacks on us, is obliging us to look towards war as the only means left of curbing their insolence.
3. We are aiming, as is pretended, at an establishment on the Mississippi, at the Ecores Amargas. Considering the measures of this nature with which Spain is going on, having, since the proposition to treat with us on the subject, established posts at the Walnut Hills and other places for two hundred miles upwards, it would not have been wonderful if we had taken countervailing measures. But the truth is, we have not done it. We wished to give a fair chance to the negotiation going on, and thought it but common candor to leave things in statu quo, to make no innovation pending the negotiation. In this spirit we forbid, and deterred even by military force, a large association of our citizens, under the name of the Yazoo companies, which had formed to settle themselves at those very Walnut Hills, which Spain has since occupied. And so far are we from meditating the particular establishment so boldly charged in this letter, that we know not what place is meant by the Ecores Amargas. This charge then is false also.
4. Giving medals and marks of distinction to the Indian Chiefs. This is but blindly hinted at in this letter, but was more pointedly complained of in the former. This has been an ancient custom from time immemorial. The medals are considered as complimentary things, as marks of friendship to those who come to see us, or who do us good offices, conciliatory of their good-will towards us, and not designed to produce a contrary disposition towards others. They confer no power, and seem to have taken their origin in the European practice of giving medals or other marks of friendship to the negotiators of treaties and other diplomatic characters, or visitors of distinction. The British government, while it prevailed here, practised the giving medals, gorgets, and bracelets to the savages, invariably. We have continued it, and we did imagine, without pretending to know, that Spain also did it.
5. We meddle with the affairs of Indians in alliance with Spain. We are perfectly at a loss to know what this means. The Indians on our frontier have treaties both with Spain and us. We have endeavored to cultivate their friendship, to merit it by presents, charities, and exhortations to peace with their neighbors, and particularly with the subjects of Spain. We have carried on some little commerce with them, merely to supply their wants. Spain too has made them presents, traded with them, kept agents among them, though their country is within the limits established as ours at the general peace. However, Spain has chosen to have it understood that she has some claim to some parts of that country, and that it must be one of the subjects of our present negotiations. Out of respect for her, then, we have considered her pretensions to the country, though it was impossible to believe them serious, as coloring pretensions to a concern with those Indians on the same ground with our own, and we were willing to let them go on till a treaty should set things to rights between us.
6. Another article of complaint is, that we have not used efficacious means to suppress these practices. But if the charge is false, or the practice justifiable, no suppression is necessary.
And lastly, these gentlemen say, that, on a view of these proceedings of the United States with respect to Spain and the Indians, their allies, they foresee that our peace with Spain is very problematical in future. The principal object of the letter being our supposed excitements of the Chickasaws against the Creeks, and their protection of the latter, are we to understand from this, that if we arm to repulse the attacks of the Creeks on ourselves, it will disturb our peace with Spain? That if we will not fold our arms and let them butcher us without resistance, Spain will consider it as a cause of war? This is, indeed, so serious an intimation, that the President has thought it could no longer be treated with subordinate characters, but that his sentiments should be conveyed to the government of Spain itself, through you.
We love and we value peace: we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we had hoped that our distance and our disposition would have left us free, in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world. We had, with sincere and particular dispositions, courted and cultivated the friendship of Spain. We have made to it great sacrifices of time and interest, and were disposed to believe she would see her interests also in a perfect coalition and good understanding with us. Cherishing still the same sentiments, we have chosen, in the present instance, to ascribe the intimations in this letter to the particular character of the writers, displayed in the peculiarity of the style of their communications, and therefore we have removed the cause from them to their sovereign, in whose justice and love of peace we have confidence. If we are disappointed in this appeal, if we are to be forced into a contrary order of things, our mind is made up. We shall meet it with firmness. The necessity of our position will supersede all appeal to calculation how, as it has done heretofore. We confide in our own strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it. If we cannot otherwise prevail on the Creeks to discontinue their depredations, we will attack them in force. If Spain chooses to consider our defence against savage butchery as a cause of war to her, we must meet her also in war, with regret, but without fear; and we shall be happier, to the last moment, to repair with her to the tribunal of peace and reason.
The President charges you to communicate the contents of this letter to the court of Madrid, with all the temperance and delicacy which the dignity and character of that court render proper; but with all the firmness and self-respect which befit a nation conscious of its rectitude, and settled in its purpose.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLX. TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, July 18,1793
To the Chief Justice and Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Philadelphia, July 18,1793.
Gentlemen,
The war which has taken place among the powers of Europe, produces frequent transactions within our ports and limits, on which questions arise of considerable difficulty, and of greater importance to the peace of the United States. These questions depend for their solution on the construction of our treaties, on the laws of nature and nations, and on the laws of the land; and are often presented under circumstances which do not give a cognizance of them to the tribunals of the country. Yet their decision is so little analogous to the ordinary functions of the executive, as to occasion much embarrassment and difficulty to them. The President would, therefore, be much relieved, if he found himself free to refer questions of this description to the opinions of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, whose knowledge of the subject would secure us against errors dangerous to the peace of the United States, and their authority insure the respect of all parties. He has therefore asked the attendance of such judges as could be collected in time for the occasion, to know, in the first place, their opinions, whether the public may with propriety be availed of their advice on these questions. And if they may, to present, for their advice, the abstract questions which have already occurred, or may soon occur, from which they will themselves strike out such as any circumstances might, in their opinion, forbid them to pronounce on.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of great esteem and respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
CLXI. TO MR. GENET, July 24,1793
TO MR. GENET.
Philadelphia, July 24,1793. Sir,
Your favor of the 9th instant, covering the information of Silvat Ducamp, Pierre Nouvel, Chouquet de Savarence, Gaston de Nogère, and G. Blustier, that being on their passage from the French West Indies to the United States, on board merchant vessels of the United States with slaves and merchandise, of their property, these vessels were stopped by British armed vessels and their property taken out as lawful prize, has been received.
I believe it cannot be doubted, but that by the general law of nations, the goods of a friend found in the vessel of an enemy are free, and the goods of an enemy found in the vessel of a friend are lawful prize. Upon this principle, I presume, the British armed vessels have taken the property of French citzens found in our vessels, in the cases above mentioned, and I confess I should be at a loss on what principle to reclaim it. It is true that sundry nations, desirous of avoiding the inconveniences of having their vessels stopped at sea, ransacked, carried into port, and detained under pretence of having enemy goods aboard, have in many instances introduced by their special treaties another principle between them, that enemy bottoms shall make enemy goods, and friendly bottoms friendly goods; a principle much less embarrassing to commerce, and equal to all parties in point of gain and loss. But this is altogether the effect of particular treaty, controlling in special cases the general principle of the law of nations, and therefore taking effect between such nations only as have so agreed to control it. England has generally determined to adhere to the rigorous principle, having, in no instance, as far as I recollect, agreed to the modification of letting the property of the goods follow that of the vessel, except in the single one of her treaty with France. We have adopted this modification in our treaties with France, the United Netherlands, and Russia; and therefore, as to them, our vessels cover the goods of their enemies, and we lose our goods when in the vessels of their enemies. Accordingly, you will be pleased to recollect, that in the late case of Holland and Mackie, citizens of the United States, who had laden a cargo of flour on board a British vessel, which was taken by the French frigate L’Ambuscade and brought into this port, when I reclaimed the cargo, it was only on the ground that they were ignorant of the declaration of war when it was shipped. You observed, however, that the 14th article of our treaty had provided that ignorance should not be pleaded beyond two months after the declaration of war, which term had elapsed in this case by some days, and finding that to be the truth, though their real ignorance of the declaration was equally true, I declined the reclamation, as it never was in my view to reclaim the cargo, nor apparently in yours to offer to restore it, by questioning the rule established in our treaty, that enemy bottoms make enemy goods. With England, Spain, Portugal, and Austria, we have no treaties: therefore, we have nothing to oppose to their acting according to the general law of nations, that enemy goods are lawful prize, though found in the bottom of a friend. Nor do I see that France can suffer on the whole; for though she loses her goods in our vessels when found therein by England, Spain, Portugal, or Austria, yet she gains our goods when found in the vessels of England, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the United Netherlands, or Prussia: and I believe I may safely affirm that we have more goods afloat in the vessels of these six nations, than France has afloat in our vessels; and consequently, that France is the gainer and we the loser by the principle of our treaty. Indeed, we are losers in every direction of that principle; for when it works in our favor, it is to save the goods of our friends; when it works against us, it is to lose our own; and we shall continue to lose while the rule is only partially established. When we shall have established it with all nations, we shall be in condition neither to gain nor lose, but shall be less exposed to vexatious searches at sea. To this condition we are endeavoring to advance; but as it depends on the will of other nations as well as our own, we can only obtain it when they shall be ready to concur.
I cannot, therefore, but flatter myself, that on revising the cases of Ducamp and others, you will perceive that their losses result from the state of war, which has permitted their enemies to take their goods, though found in our vessels; and consequently, from circumstances over which we have no control.
The rudeness to their persons, practised by their enemies, is certainly not favorable to the character of the latter. We feel for it as much as for the extension of it to our own citizens, their companions, and find in it a motive the more for requiring measures to be taken which may prevent repetitions of it.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.