Томас Джефферсон
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9)
"It is the system of the English Cabinet which is considered here as the most unaccountable. The commerce of that country is at present in the most prosperous situation, since the balance is in their favor with every part of Europe. They have more to gain by peace and more to apprehend from war, than any other power, and yet they seem determined to risk it. The advantages of their commerce in the Baltic, are certain: those in the Levant, eventual; still they seem determined to sacrifice one, at least for a time, in order to grasp at the other. On the whole, it is regarded as one of those sacrifices of commerce to politics, which France has so often given examples of. Time will show whether Mr. Pitt, or those who condemn him, are in the right."
TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL
Philadelphia, April 11, 1791.
Sir,—I wrote you on the 12th of March, and again on the 17th of the same month; since which, I have received your favor of January the 24th, wherein you refer to copies of two letters, also to a paper No. 1, supposed to be enclosed in that letter; but there was nothing enclosed. You speak particularly of several other letters formerly forwarded, but not a single one was ever received of later date than May the 6th, 1789; and this of January 24th, is all we possess from you since that date. I enclose you a list of letters addressed to you on various subjects, and to which answers were and are naturally expected; and send you again copies of the papers in the case of the Dover Cutter, which has been the subject of so many of those letters, and is the subject of the constant solicitation of the parties here. A final decision on that application, therefore, is earnestly desired. When you consider the repeated references of matters to you from hence, and the total suppression of whatever you have written in answer, you will not be surprised if it had excited a great degree of uneasiness. We had inquired whether private conveyances did not occur, from time to time, from Madrid to Cadiz, where we have vessels almost constantly, and we were assured that such conveyances were frequent. On the whole, Sir, you will be sensible, that under the jealous government with which you reside, the conveyance of intelligence requires as much management as the obtaining it; and I am in hopes that in future, you will be on your guard against those infidelities in that line, under which you and we have so much suffered.
The President is absent on a journey through the southern States, from which he will not return till the end of June; consequently, I could not sooner notify him of your desire to return; but even then, I will take the liberty of saying nothing to him on the subject till I hear further from you. The suppression of your correspondence has, in a considerable degree, withdrawn you from the public sight. I sincerely wish that before your return, you could do something to attract their attention and favor, and render your return pleasing to yourself and profitable to them, by introducing you to new proofs of their confidence. My two last letters to you furnish occasions; that of a co-operation against the British navigation act and the arrangement of our affairs on the Mississippi. The former, if it can be effected, will form a remarkable and memorable epoch in the history and freedom of the ocean. Mr. Short will press it at Paris, and Colonel Humphreys at Lisbon. The latter will show most at first; and as to it, be so good as to observe always, that the right of navigating the Mississippi is considered as so palpable, that the recovery of it will produce no other sensation than that of a gross injustice removed. The extent and freedom of the port for facilitating the use of it, is what will excite the attention and gratification of the public. Colonel Humphreys writes me, that all Mr. Gardoqui's communications, while here, tended to impress the court of Madrid with the idea, that the navigation of the Mississippi was only demanded on our part to quiet our western settlers, and that it was not sincerely desired by the maritime States. This is a most fatal error, and must be completely eradicated and speedily, or Mr. Gardoqui will prove to have been a bad peacemaker. It is true, there were characters whose stations entitled them to credit, and who, from geographical prejudices, did not themselves wish the navigation of the Mississippi to be restored to us, and who believe, perhaps, as is common with mankind, that their opinion was the general opinion. But the sentiments of the great mass of the Union were decidedly otherwise then, and the very persons to whom Mr. Gardoqui alluded, have now come over to the opinion heartily, that the navigation of the Mississippi, in full and unrestrained freedom, is indispensably necessary, and must be obtained by any means it may call for. It will be most unfortunate, indeed, if we cannot convince Spain that we make this demand in earnest, but by acts which will render that conviction too late to prevent evil.
Not knowing how better to convey to you the laws and the gazettes, than by committing them to the patronage of Colonel Humphreys, I now send through that channel the laws of the second and third sessions of Congress, and the newspapers.
I have the honor to be, with great esteem, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO C. CARROLL OF CARROLLTON
Philadelphia, April 15, 1791.
Dear Sir,—I received last night your favor of the 10th, with Mr. Brown's receipt, and thank you for the trouble you have been so kind as to take in this business.
Our news from the westward is disagreeable. Constant murders committing by the Indians, and their combination threatens to be more and more extensive. I hope we shall give them a thorough drubbing this summer, and then change our tomahawk into a golden chain of friendship. The most economical as well as most humane conduct towards them is to bribe them into peace, and to retain them in peace by eternal bribes. The expedition this year would have served for presents on the most liberal scale for one hundred years; nor shall we otherwise ever get rid of an army, or of our debt. The least rag of Indian depredation will be an excuse to raise troops for those who love to have troops, and for those who think that a public debt is a good thing. Adieu, my dear Sir. Yours affectionately.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Philadelphia, April 17, 1791.
Sir,—I had the honor of addressing you on the 2d, which I supposed would find you at Richmond, and again on the 10th, which I thought would overtake you at Wilmington. The present will probably find you at Charleston.
According to what I mentioned in my letter of the 10th, the Vice-President, Secretaries of the Treasury and War, and myself, met on the 11th. Colonel Hamilton presented a letter from Mr. Short, in which he mentioned that the month of February being one of the periodical months in Amsterdam, when, from the receipt of interest and refunding of capitals, there is much money coming in there, and free to be disposed of, he had put off the opening his loan till then, that it might fill the more rapidly, a circumstance which would excite the presumption of our credit;—that he had every reason to hope it would be filled before it would be possible for him, after his then communication of the conditions, to receive your approbation of them, and orders to open a second; which, however, should be awaited, according to his instructions; but he pressed the expediting the order, that the stoppage of the current in our favor might be as short as possible. We saw that if, under present circumstances, your orders should be awaited, it would add a month to the delay, and we were satisfied, were you present, you would approve the conditions, and order a second loan to be opened. We unanimously, therefore, advised an immediate order, on condition the terms of the second loan should not be worse than those of the first.
General Knox expressed an apprehension that the Six Nations might be induced to join our enemies, there being some suspicious circumstances; and he wished to send Colonel Pickering to confirm them in their neutrality. This, he observed, would occasion an expense of about two thousand dollars, as the Indians were never to be met empty handed. We thought the mission advisable. As to myself, I hope we shall give the Indians a thorough drubbing this summer, and I should think it better afterwards to take up the plan of liberal and repeated presents to them. This would be much the cheapest in the end, and would save all the blood which is now spilt: in time, too, it would produce a spirit of peace and friendship between us. The expense of a single expedition would last very long for presents. I mentioned to the gentlemen, the idea of suggesting through Colonel Beckwith our knowledge of the conduct of the British officers in furnishing the Indians with arms and ammunition, and our dissatisfaction. Colonel Hamilton said that Beckwith had been with him on the subject, and had assured him they had given them nothing more than the annual presents, and at the annual period. It was thought proper, however, that he should be made sensible that this had attracted the notice of government. I thought it the more material, lest, having been himself the first to speak of it, he might suppose his excuses satisfactory, and that therefore they might repeat the annual present this year. As Beckwith lodges in the same house with Mr. Madison, I have desired the latter to find some occasion of representing to Beckwith that, though an annual present of arms and ammunition be an innocent thing in time of peace, it is not so in time of war; that it is contrary to the laws of neutrality for a neutral power to furnish military implements to either party at war, and that if their subjects should do it on private account, such furniture might be seized as contraband: to reason with him on the subject, as from himself, but so as to let him see that government thought as himself did.
You knew, I think, before you left us, that the British Parliament had a bill before them for allowing wheat, imported in British bottoms, to be warehoused rent free. In order further to circumscribe the carrying business of the United States, they now refuse to consider as an American bottom any vessel not built here. By this construction, they take from us the right of defining, by our own laws, what vessels shall be deemed ours and naturalized here; and in the event of a war, in which we should be neutral, they put it out of our power to benefit ourselves of our neutrality, by increasing suddenly by purchase and naturalization our means of carriage. If we are permitted to do this by building only, the war will be over before we can be prepared to take advantage of it. This has been decided by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, in the case of one Green, a merchant of New York; from whom I have received a regular complaint on the subject. I enclose you the copy of a note from Mr. King to Colonel Hamilton, on the subject of the appointment of a British minister to come here. I suspect it, however, to be without foundation.
Colonel Eveleigh died yesterday. Supposing it possible you might desire to appoint his successor as soon as you could decide on one, I enclose you a blank commission; which, when you shall be pleased to fill it up and sign, can be returned for the seal and counter-signature. I enclose you a letter from Mr. Coxe to yourself, on the subject of this appointment, and so much of one to me as related to the same, having torn off a leaf of compliment to lighten and lessen my enclosures to you. Should distributive justice give preference to a successor of the same state with the deceased, I take the liberty of suggesting to you Mr. Hayward, of South Carolina, whom I think you told me you did not know, and of whom you are now on the spot of inquiry. I enclose you also a continuation of the Pennsylvania debates on the bill for federal buildings. After the postponement by the Senate, it was intended to bring on the reconsideration of that vote; but the hurry at winding up their session prevented it. They have not chosen a federal Senator.
I have the honor to be, with the most profound respect and sincere attachment, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Philadelphia, April 24, 1791.
Sir,—I had the honor of addressing you on the 17th. Since which I have received yours of the 13th. I enclose you extracts from letters received from Mr. Short. In one of the 7th of February, Mr. Short informs me that he has received a letter from M. de Montmorin, announcing to him that the King has named Ternant his minister here. The questions on our tobacco and oil have taken unfavorable turns. The former will pay fifty livres the thousand weight less, when carried in French than foreign bottoms. Oil is to pay twelve livres a kental, which amounts to a prohibition of the common oils, the only kind carried there. Tobacco will not feel the effect of these measures till time will be given to bring it to rights. They had only twenty thousand hogsheads in the kingdom in November last, and they consume two thousand hogsheads a month, so that they must immediately come forward and make great purchases, and not having as yet vessels of their own to carry it, they must pay the extra duties on ours. I have been puzzled about the delays required by Mr. Barclay's affairs. He gives me reason to be tolerably assured, that he will go in the first vessel which shall sail after the last day of May. There is no vessel at present whose destination would suit. Believing that even with this, we shall get the business done sooner than through any other channel, I have thought it best not to change the plan. The last Leyden gazettes give us what would have been the first object of the British arms, had the rupture with Spain taken place.
You know that Admiral Cornish had sailed on an unknown destination before the Convention was received in London. Immediately on its receipt, they sent an express after him to Madeira, in hopes of finding him there. He was gone, and had so short a passage, that in twenty-three days he had arrived in Barbadoes, the general rendezvous. All the troops of the islands were collecting there, and General Matthews was on his way from Antigua to take command of the land operations, when he met with the packet-boat which carried the counter-orders. Trinidad was the object of the expedition. Matthews returned to Antigua, and Cornish is arrived in England. This island, at the mouth of the Oronoko, is admirably suited for a lodgment from which all the country up that river, and all the northern coast of South America, Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese, may be suddenly assailed.
Colonel Pickering is now here, and will set out in two or three days to meet the Indians, as mentioned in my last. The intimation to Colonel Beckwith has been given by Mr. Madison. He met it on very different grounds from that on which he had placed it with Colonel Hamilton. He pretended ignorance and even disbelief of the fact; when told that it was out of doubt, he said he was positively sure the distribution of arms had been without the knowledge and against the orders of Lord Dorchester, and of the government. He endeavored to induce a formal communication from me. When he found that could not be effected, he let Mr. Madison perceive that he thought, however informal his character, he had not been sufficiently noticed; said he was in New York before I came into office, and that though he had not been regularly turned over to me, yet I knew his character. In fine, he promised to write to Lord Dorchester the general information we had received, and our sense of it; and he saw that his former apologies to Colonel Hamilton had not been satisfactory to the government. Nothing further from Moose Island, nor the posts on the northern border of New York, nor anything of the last week from the western country.
Arthur Campbell has been here. He is the enemy of P. Henry. He says the Yazoo bargain is like to drop with the consent of the purchasers. He explains it thus: They expected to pay for the lands in public paper at par, which they had bought at half a crown a pound. Since the rise in the value of the public paper, they have gained as much on that as they would have done by investing it in the Yazoo lands; perhaps more, as it puts a large sum of specie at their command, which they can turn to better account. They are, therefore, likely to acquiesce under the determination of the government of Georgia to consider the contract as forfeited by non-payment.
I direct this letter to be forwarded from Charleston to Cambden. The next will be from Petersburg to Taylor's Ferry; and after that, I shall direct to you at Mount Vernon.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most affectionate respect and attachment, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO WILLIAM SHORT
Philadelphia, April 25, 1791.
Dear Sir,—My late letters to you have been of the 8th, 12th, 15th, and 19th of March, yours received and acknowledged are as follows.
* * * * *
I consider the consular convention as securing clearly our right to appoint consuls in the French colonies. The words "Etats du roi," unquestionably extend to all his dominions. If they had been merely synonymous with "la France," why was the alteration made? When I proposed that alteration, I explained my reasons, and it cannot be supposed I would suffer a change of language but for some matter of substance. Again, in the translation, it is "dominions of France." This translation was submitted to M. de Montmorin and M. de Reyneval, with a request that they would note any deviation in it from the original, or otherwise it would be considered as faithful. No part was objected to. M. de Reyneval says, we must decide by the instrument itself, and not by the explanations which took place. It is a rule, where expressions are susceptible of two meanings, to recur to other explanations. Good faith is in favor of this recurrence. However, in the present case, the expression does not admit of two constructions; it is co-extensive with the dominions of the King. I insist on this, only as a reservation of our right, and not with a view to exercise it, if it shall be inconvenient and disagreeable to the government of France. Only two appointments have as yet been made (Mr. Skipwith at Martinique and Guadaloupe, and Mr. Bourne in St. Dominique), and they shall be instructed not to ask a regular Exequatur. We certainly wish to press nothing on our friends which shall be inconvenient. I shall hope that M. de Montmorin will order such attentions to be shown to those gentlemen as the patronage of commerce may call for, and may not be inconvenient to the government. These gentlemen are most pointedly instructed not to intermeddle, by word or deed, with political matters.
My letter of August, 1790, to Mr. Carmichael, was delivered to him by Colonel Humphreys.
The report you mention of the prospect of our captives at Algiers being liberated, has not taken its rise from any authoritative source. Unfortunately for us, there have been so many persons, who (from friendly or charitable motives, or to recommend themselves) have busied themselves about this redemption, as to excite great expectations in the captors, and render our countrymen in fact irredeemable. We have not a single operation on foot for that purpose, but what you know of, and the more all voluntary interpositions are discouraged the better for our unhappy friends whom they are meant to serve.
You know how strongly we desire to pay off our whole debt to France, and that for this purpose we will use our credit as far as it will hold good. You know, also, what may be the probability of our being able to borrow the whole sum. Under these dispositions and prospects, it would grieve us extremely to see our debt pass into the hands of speculators, and be subjected ourselves to the chicaneries and vexations of private avarice. We desire you, therefore, to dissuade the government, as far as you can prudently, from listening to any overtures of that kind, and as to the speculators themselves, whether native or foreign, to inform them, without reserve, that our government condemns their projects, and reserves to itself the right of paying no where but into the treasury of France, according to their contract.
I enclose you a copy of Mr. Grand's note to me, stating the conditions on which Drost would come, and also a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, expressing his ideas as to those terms, with which I agree. We leave to your agency the engaging and sending Mr. Drost as soon as possible, and to your discretion to fix the terms, rendering the allowance for expenses certain, which his first proposition leaves uncertain. Subsistence here costs about one-third of what it does in Paris, to a housekeeper. In a lodging house, the highest price for a room and board is a dollar a day, for the master, and half that for the servant. These facts may enable you to settle the article of expenses reasonably. If Mr. Drost undertakes assaying, I should much rather confide it to him, than to any other person who can be sent. It is the most confidential operation in the whole business of coining. We should expect him to instruct a native in it. I think, too, he should be obliged to continue longer than a year, if it should be necessary for qualifying others to continue his operations. It is not important that he be here till November or December, but extremely desirable then. He may come as much sooner as he pleases.
We address to M. la Motte a small box for you, containing a complete set of the journals of the ancient Congress, the acts of the last session of the federal legislature, and a continuation of the newspapers. I am, with great and sincere esteem, dear Sir, your affectionate friend and humble servant.
