The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9)

I now enclose you the act passed by Congress for facilitating the execution of the consular convention with France. In a bill which has passed the House of Representatives for raising moneys for the support of the Indian war, while the duties on every other species of wine are raised from one to three-fourths more than they were, the best wines of France will pay little more than the worst of any other country, to wit, between six and seven cents a bottle; and where this exceeds forty per cent. on their cost, they will pay but the forty per cent. I consider this latter provision as likely to introduce in abundance the cheaper wines of France, and the more so, as the tax on ardent spirits is considerably raised. I hope that these manifestations of friendly dispositions towards that country, will induce them to repeal the very obnoxious laws respecting our commerce, which were passed by the preceding National Assembly. The present session of Congress will pass over, without any other notice of them than the friendly preferences before mentioned. But if these should not produce a retaliation of good on their part, a retaliation of evil must follow on ours. It will be impossible to defer longer than the next session of Congress, some counter regulations for the protection of our navigation and commerce. I must entreat you therefore, to avail yourself of every occasion of friendly remonstrance on this subject. If they wish an equal and cordial treaty with us, we are ready to enter into it. We would wish that this could be the scene of negotiation, from considerations suggested by the nature of our government, which will readily occur to you. Congress will rise on this day sen'night. I enclose you a letter from Mrs. Greene, who asks your aid in getting her son forwarded by the Diligence to London, on his way to America. The letter will explain to you the mode and the means, and the parentage and genius of the young gentleman will insure your aid to him. As this goes by the French packet, I send no newspapers, laws, or other articles of that kind, the postage of which would be high.

I am, with great and sincere esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Philadelphia, May 16, 1792.

Dear Sir,—The day after your departure, I received from a Mr. Green, a merchant now at New York, through a third person, the following communication: "that he had had very late advices from Spain, by way of the Spanish islands, to this effect, that war with France was inevitable, that troops were marching from all quarters of the kingdom to the frontiers, and that fifty sail of the line had been commissioned." This was permitted to be mentioned to me, but, for particular reasons, to no other persons. I suppose the particular reasons were some mercantile speculation founded on the intelligence; perhaps it may be to buy up all our flour. We have London news from the 1st of April, and nothing of this is mentioned. I have a letter from Colonel Humphreys of March 18, which says nothing of it. I am in hopes, therefore, the only effect will be to get us a good price for our flour or fish; this being our look out, while the success of the speculation is that of the adventurer. You will recollect that we had learned the death of the Emperor of Morocco, after a battle in which he was victorious. The brother opposed to him, it seems, was killed in the same action, and the one—Muley Islema—who had been so long in the sanctuary, is proclaimed Emperor. He was the best character of the three, and is likely to be peaceable. This information is from Colonel Humphreys. The Queen of Portugal is still in the same state. Wyllys does not pronounce her curable, though he says there is nothing which indicates the contrary. He has removed from her all her former physicians. Mr. Madison has favored me with some corrections for my letter to Mr. H. It is now in the hands of the Attorney General, and shall then be submitted to Colonel Hamilton. I find that these examinations will retard the delivery of it considerably. However, delay is preferable to error. Mr. Pinckney is engaged in going over such papers of my office as may put him in possession of whatever has passed between us and the court he is going to. I have one hundred olive trees, and some caper plants, arrived here from Marseilles, which I am sending on to Charleston, where, Mr. Pinckney tells me, they have already that number living of those I had before sent them. I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect respect and attachment, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO MESSRS. DE VIAR AND DE JAUDENES

Philadelphia, May 17, 1792.

Gentlemen,—We lately received from Mr. Leagrove, our Indian agent for the Southern Department, a letter, of which the enclosed is an extract, whereby it appeared that a party of the Creek Indians, under the influence of the adventurer Bowles, had meditated some depredations on the Spanish settlements, from which they had been diverted by a friend of our agent, but that their disposition to do injury was, perhaps, not quite extinguished. Sensible how much it is in the power of neighbor nations to contribute to mutual happiness and prosperity, by faithfully using their good offices wherever they can procure the peace and advantage of each other, and feeling a union of interest with Spain in whatever regards the adjacent possessions, we have not hesitated to give general instructions to our agent in that department to cultivate in the Indians the same friendly dispositions towards the Spanish settlements as towards ourselves, and to promote their peace and interest in every case with the same zeal as our own.

I have the honor to enclose you one of those orders, to congratulate you on the intelligence that the leader, who gave occasion to this particular interposition, is no longer in a situation to threaten further danger, and to assure you that, as far as shall depend on us, we will, on every future occasion, sincerely use what influence we may have with the Indians to discountenance and prevent every measure they may meditate against the peace or prosperity of your subjects.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Philadelphia, May 18, 1792.

Dear Sir,—Since I wrote you the day before yesterday, I have received a letter of March 25, from Colonel Humphreys, informing me that the Queen of Portugal was considerably better, as also mentioning the death of the Emperor of Germany. What effect this last event will have on the affairs of Europe, cannot be foreseen, the character of the successor being absolutely unknown. He is twenty-four years of age. One would conjecture that, if he has any dispositions to war, he would think a little time necessary to get his election passed in form, to see if the troubles within his dominions quieted by his father, would be likely to break out or not, &c., and that this would hold him back one campaign. Still, this event renders peace less certain, as the character of his father was so decidedly pacific, that one might count on that. There seems to have been a magnificent story current in London for the three or four last days of March, of the capture of Seringapatam and Tippoo Saib, great slaughter, &c.; but, on the 1st of April, the date of the latest paper which the vessel brings (she is from Glasgow), it had died away to a hum raised by stock jobbers, who wanted to sell out. It did in fact raise East India stock two or three per cent. Still it was not fallen into entire discredit, as appears by some paragraphs, and consequently cannot be decidedly pronounced untrue. Perhaps the contradiction of it was the counter hum of those who wanted to buy in.

I have the honor to be, with great and sincere respect and attachment, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Philadelphia, May 23, 1792.

Dear Sir,—I have determined to make the subject of a letter what for some time past has been a subject of inquietude to my mind, without having found a good occasion of disburthening itself to you in conversation, during the busy scenes which occupied you here. Perhaps, too, you may be able in your present situation, or on the road, to give it more time and reflection than you could do here at any moment.

When you first mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government, though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that, to such a mind as yours, persuasion was idle and impertinent; that before forming your decision you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind on full view of them, and that there could be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk alone, and if the essay should be made while you should be alive and looking on, we should derive confidence from that circumstance, and resource, if it failed. The public mind, too, was calm and confident, and therefore in a favorable state for making the experiment. Had no change of circumstances intervened, I should not, with any hopes of success, have now ventured to propose to you a change of purpose. But the public mind is no longer confident and serene; and that from causes in which you are no ways personally mixed. Though these causes have been hackneyed in the public papers in detail, it may not be amiss, in order to calculate the effect they are capable of producing, to take a view of them in the mass, giving to each the form, real or imaginary, under which they have been presented.

It has been urged, then, that a public debt, greater than we can possibly pay, before other causes of adding new debt to it will occur, has been artificially created by adding together the whole amount of the debtor and creditor sides of accounts, instead of only taking their balances, which could have been paid off in a short time: that this accumulation of debt has taken forever out of our power those easy sources of revenue which, applied to the ordinary necessities and exigencies of government, would have answered them habitually, and covered us from habitual murmurings against taxes and tax-gatherers, reserving extraordinary calls for those extraordinary occasions which would animate the people to meet them: that though the calls for money have been no greater than we must expect generally, for the same or equivalent exigencies, yet we are already obliged to strain the impost till it produces clamor, and will produce evasion and war on our own citizens to collect it, and even to resort to an excise law of odious character with the people, partial in its operation, unproductive unless enforced by arbitrary and vexatious means, and committing the authority of the government in parts where resistance is most probable and coercion least practicable. They cite propositions in Congress, and suspect other projects on foot still to increase the mass of debt. They say, that by borrowing at two-thirds of the interest, we might have paid off the principal in two-thirds of the time; but that from this we are precluded by its being made irredeemable but in small portions and long terms; that this irredeemable quality was given it for the avowed purpose of inviting its transfer to foreign countries. They predict that this transfer of the principal, when completed, will occasion an exportation of three millions of dollars annually for the interest, a drain of coin, of which, as there has been no examples, no calculation can be made of its consequences: that the banishment of our coin will be complicated by the creation of ten millions of paper money, in the form of bank bills now issuing into circulation. They think the ten or twelve per cent. annual profit paid to the lenders of this paper medium taken out of the pockets of the people, who would have had without interest the coin it is banishing: that all the capital employed in paper speculation is barren and useless, producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself, and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture, where it would have produced addition to the common mass: that it nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness, instead of industry and morality: that it has furnished effectual means of corrupting such a portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters, whichever way it is directed: that this corrupt squadron, deciding the voice of the legislature, have manifested their dispositions to get rid of the limitations imposed by the Constitution on the general legislature, limitations, on the faith of which, the States acceded to that instrument: that the ultimate object of all this is to prepare the way for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy, of which the English constitution is to be the model: that this was contemplated by the convention is no secret, because its partisans have made more of it. To effect it then was impracticable, but they are still eager after their object, and are predisposing everything for its ultimate attainment. So many of them have got into the Legislature, that, aided by the corrupt squadron of paper dealers, who are at their devotion, they make a majority in both houses. The republican party, who wish to preserve the government in its present form, are fewer in number; they are fewer even when joined by the two, three, or half dozen anti-federalists, who, though they dare not avow it, are still opposed to any general government; but, being less so to a republican than a monarchical one, they naturally join those whom they think pursuing the lesser evil.

Of all the mischiefs objected to the system of measures before mentioned, none is so afflicting and fatal to every honest hope, as the corruption of the Legislature. As it was the earliest of these measures, it became the instrument for producing the risk, and will be the instrument for producing in future a king, lords and commons, or whatever else those who direct it may choose. Withdrawn such a distance from the eye of their constituents, and these so dispersed as to be inaccessible to public information, and particularly to that of the conduct of their own representatives, they will form the most corrupt government on earth, if the means of their corruption be not prevented. The only hope of safety hangs now on the numerous representation which is to come forward the ensuing year. Some of the new members will be, probably, either in principle or interest, with the present majority; but it is expected that the great mass will form an accession to the republican party. They will not be able to undo all which the two preceding Legislatures, and especially the first, have done. Public faith and right will oppose this. But some parts of the system may be rightfully reformed, a liberation from the rest unremittingly pursued as fast as right will permit, and the door shut in future against similar commitments of the nation. Should the next Legislature take this course, it will draw upon them the whole monarchical and paper interest; but the latter, I think, will not go all lengths with the former, because creditors will never, of their own accord, fly off entirely from their debtors; therefore, this is the alternative least likely to produce convulsion. But should the majority of the new members be still in the same principles with the present, and show that we have nothing to expect but a continuance of the same practices, it is not easy to conjecture what would be the result, nor what means would be resorted to for correction of the evil. True wisdom would direct that they should be temperate and peaceable; but the division of sentiment and interest happens unfortunately to be so geographical, that no mortal can say that what is most wise and temperate would prevail against what is most easy and obvious? I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts. Yet when we consider the mass which opposed the original coalescence; when we consider that it lay chiefly in the Southern quarter; that the Legislature have availed themselves of no occasion of allaying it, but on the contrary, whenever Northern and Southern prejudices have come into conflict, the latter have been sacrificed and the former soothed; that the owers of the debt are in the Southern, and the holders of it in the Northern division; that the anti-federal champions are now strengthened in argument by the fulfillment of their predictions; that this has been brought about by the monarchical federalists themselves, who, having been for the new government merely as a stepping stone to monarchy, have themselves adopted the very constructions of the Constitution, of which, when advocating its acceptance before the tribunal of the people, they declared it unsusceptible; that the republican federalists who espoused the same government for its intrinsic merits, are disarmed of their weapons; that which they denied as prophecy, having now become true history, who can be sure that these things may not proselyte the small number which was wanting to place the majority on the other side? And this is the event at which I tremble, and to prevent which I consider your continuing at the head of affairs as of the last importance. The confidence of the whole Union is centred in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter, into violence and secession. North and South will hang together if they have you to hang on; and if the first correction of a numerous representation should fail in its effect, your presence will give time for trying others, not inconsistent with the union and peace of the States.

I am perfectly aware of the oppression under which your present office lays your mind, and of the ardor with which you pant for domestic life. But there is sometimes an eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims as to control the predelictions of the individual for a particular walk of happiness, and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and the law imposed on you by providence in forming your character, and fashioning the events on which it was to operate; and it is to motives like these, and not to personal anxieties of mine or others who have no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal, and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the aspect of things. Should an honest majority result from the new and enlarged representation; should those acquiesce whose principles or interest they may control, your wishes for retirement would be gratified with less danger, as soon as that shall be manifest, without awaiting the completion of the second period of four years. One or two sessions will determine the crisis; and I cannot but hope that you can resolve to add more to the many years you have already sacrificed to the good of mankind.

The fear of suspicion that any selfish motive of continuance in office may enter into this solicitation on my part, obliges me to declare that no such motive exists. It is a thing of mere indifference to the public whether I retain or relinquish my purpose of closing my tour with the first periodical renovation of the government. I know my own measure too well to suppose that my services contribute anything to the public confidence, or the public utility. Multitudes can fill the office in which you have been pleased to place me, as much to their advantage and satisfaction. I have, therefore, no motive to consult but my own inclination, which is bent irresistibly on the tranquil enjoyment of my family, my farm and my books. I should repose among them, it is true, in far greater security, if I were to know that you remained at the watch; and I hope it will be so. To the inducements urged from a view of our domestic affairs, I will add a bare mention, of what indeed need only to be mentioned, that weighty motives for your continuance are to be found in our foreign affairs. I think it probable that both the Spanish and English negotiations, if not completed before your purpose is known, will be suspended from the moment it is known, and that the latter nation will then use double diligence in fomenting the Indian War. With my wishes for the future, I shall at the same time express my gratitude for the past, at least my portion in it; and beg permission to follow you, whether in public or private life, with those sentiments of sincere attachment and respect, with which I am unalterably, dear Sir, your affectionate friend and humble servant.

MR. JEFFERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES, TO MR. HAMMOND

Philadelphia, May 29, 1792.

Sir,—Your favor of March 5th has been longer unanswered than consisted with my wishes, to forward as much as possible explanations of the several matters it contained. But these matters were very various, and the evidence of them not easily to be obtained, even were it could be obtained at all. It has been a work of time and trouble, to collect from the different States all the acts themselves, of which you had cited the titles, and to investigate the judiciary decisions which were classed with those acts as infractions of the treaty of peace. To these causes of delay may be added the daily duties of my office, necessarily multiplied during the sessions of the Legislature.

Section 1. I can assure you with truth, that we meet you on this occasion, with the sincerest dispositions to remove from between the two countries those obstacles to a cordial friendship, which have arisen from an inexecution of some articles of the treaty of peace. The desire entertained by this country, to be on the best terms with yours, has been constant, and has manifested itself through its different forms of administration, by repeated overtures to enter into such explanations and arrangements as should be right and necessary to bring about a complete execution of the treaty. The same dispositions lead us to wish, that the occasion now presented should not be defeated by useless recapitulations of what had taken place anterior to that instrument. It was with concern, therefore, I observed that you had thought it necessary to go back to the very commencement of the war, and in several parts of your letter to enumerate and comment on all the acts of our different legislatures, passed during the whole course of it, in order to deduce from thence, imputations which your justice would have suppressed, had the whole truth been presented to your view, instead of particular traits, detached from the ground on which they stood. However easy it would be to justify our country, by bringing into view the whole ground, on both sides, to show that legislative warfare began with the British Parliament; that when they levelled at persons or property, it was against entire towns or countries, without discrimination of cause or conduct, while we touched individuals only; naming them man by man, after due consideration of each case, and careful attention not to confound the innocent with the guilty; however advantageously we might compare the distant and tranquil situation of their Legislature with the scenes in the midst of which ours were obliged to legislate; and might then ask, whether the difference of circumstance and situation would not have justified a contrary difference of conduct, and whether the wonder ought to be, that our legislatures had done so much, or so little? we will waive all this, because it would lead to recollections, as unprofitable as unconciliating. The titles of some of your acts, and a single clause of one of them only, shall be thrown among the documents at the end of this letter, No. 1, 2, and with this we will drop forever the curtain on this tragedy!

Sec. 2. We now come together to consider that instrument which was to heal our wounds, and begin a new chapter in our history. The state in which that found things, is to be considered as rightful: so says the law of nations. 6"L'état où les choses se trouvent au moment du traité doit passer pour legitime; et si l'on veut y apporter du changement il faut que le traité en fasse une mention expresse. Par consequent toutes les choses dont le traité ne dit rien, doivent demeurer dans l'etat où elles se trouvent lors de sa conclusion." Vattel, 1. 4, s. 21. 7"De quibus nihil dictum, ea manent quo sunt loco." Wolf, 1222. No alterations then are to be claimed on either side, but those which the treaty has provided. The moment, too, to which it refers, as a rule of conduct for this country at large, was the moment of its notification to the country at large. Vattel, 1. 4, s. 24. 8"Le traité de paix oblige les parties contractantes du moment qu'il est conclu aussitôt qu'il a reçu toute sa forme; et elles doivent procurer incessamment l'execution; mais ce traité n'oblige les sujets que du moment qu'il leur est notifié." And s. 25. "Le traité devient par la publication, une loi pour les sujets, et ils sont obligés de se conformer désormais aux dispositions dont on y est convenu." And another author as pointedly says, 9"Pactio pacis paciscentes statim obligat quam primum perfecta, cum ex pacto veniat obligatio. Subditos vero et milites, quam primum iisdem fuerit publicata; cum de eâ ante publicationem ipsis certo constare non possit." Wolf, s. 1229. It was stipulated, indeed, by the ninth article, that "if, before its arrival in America," any place or territory, belonging to either party, should be conquered by the arms of the other, it should be restored. This was the only case in which transactions, intervening between the signature and publication, were to be nullified.