Томас Джефферсон
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9)
TO JAMES MADISON
June 2, 1793.
I wrote you on the 27th ult. You have seen in the papers that some privateers have been fitted out in Charleston by French citizens, with their own money, manned by themselves, and regularly commissioned by their nation. They have taken several prizes, and brought them into our ports. Some native citizens had joined them. These are arrested and under prosecution, and orders are sent to all the ports to prevent the equipping privateers by any persons foreign or native. So far is right. But the vessels so equipped at Charleston are ordered to leave the ports of the United States. This I think was not right. Hammand demanded further surrender of the prizes they had taken. This is refused on the principle that by the laws of war the property is transferred to the captors. You will see in a paper I enclose, Dumourier's "Address to his nation, and also Saxe Cobourg." I am glad to see a probability that the constitution of 1791, would be the term at which the combined powers would stop. Consequently, that the re-establishment of that is the worst the French have to fear. I am also glad to see that the combiners adopt the slow process of nibbling at the strong posts on the frontiers. This will give to France a great deal of time. The thing which gives me uneasiness is their internal combustion. This may by famine be rendered extreme. E. R. sets out the day after to-morrow for Virginia. I have no doubt he is charged to bring back a faithful statement of the dispositions of that State. I wish therefore he may fall into hands which will not deceive him. Have you time and the means of impressing Wilson Nicholas (who will be much with E. R.) with the necessity of giving him a strong and perfect understanding of the public mind? Considering that this journey may strengthen his nerves, and dispose him more favorably to the propositions of a treaty between the two republics, knowing that in this moment the division on that question is 4 to 1, and that the last news has no tendency to proselyte any of the majority, I have myself proposed to refer taking up the question till his return. There is too at this time a lowering disposition perceivable both in England and Spain. The former keeps herself aloof, and in a state of incommunication with us, except in the way of demand. The latter has not begun auspiciously with C. and S. at Madrid, and has lately sent 1,500 men to New Orleans, and greatly strengthened her upper posts on the Mississippi. I think it more probable than otherwise that Congress will be convened before the constitutional day. About the last of July this may be known. I should myself wish to keep their meeting off to the beginning of October, if affairs will permit it. The invasion of the Creeks is what will most likely occasion its convocation. You will see Mrs. House's death mentioned in the papers. She extinguished almost like a candle. I have not seen Mrs. Trist since, but I am told she means to give up the house immediately, and that she has suffered great loss in her own fortune by exertions hitherto to support it. Browse is not returned, nor has been heard of for some time. Bartram is extremely anxious to get a large supply of seeds of the Kentucky coffee tree. I told him I would use all my interest with you to obtain it, as I think I heard you say that some neighbors of yours had a large number of trees. Be so good as to take measures for bringing a good quantity, if possible, to Bartram when you come to Congress. Adieu. Yours affectionately.
TO MR. RANDOLPH
Philadelphia, June 2, 1793.
Dear Sir,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of yours of May 16th, with the information always pleasing of your being all well. In addition to the news which you will see in the papers, we now have the certainty of Dumourier's operation. He had proposed an armistice to the Prince of Saxe Cobourg, which was agreed to on condition of his withdrawing his troops from the Netherlands. He did so; it was then agreed that he should march with his army (on whom he thought he could rely) to Paris, and re-establish the constitution of 1791. On which Cobourg stipulated peace on the part of the Emperor and K. of Prussia. Dumourier's army knew nothing of this. He made them believe the deputies sent from the National Assembly were to arrest and carry him to Paris to be tried for his defeat of the 18th to the 22d of March. They considered this as an injury to themselves, and really loved and confided in him. They set out with him, but very soon began to suspect his purpose was to overset the republic, and set up a king. They began to drop off in parties, and at length in a body refused to go further. On this he fled with two regiments of horse, mostly foreigners, to the Austrians. His Saxe Cobourg's address to the French nation prove all this. Hostilities recommenced; and the combiners have determined not to attempt to march to Paris, as the last year, but to take all the strong places on the frontier. This will at least give time to the republic. The first thing to be feared for them is famine. This will infallibly produce anarchy. Indeed, that joined to a draught of soldiers, has already produced some serious insurrections. It is still a comfort to see by the address of Dumourier and Saxe Cobourg that the constitution of 1791 is the worst thing which is to be forced on the French. But even the falling back to that would give wonderful vigor to our monocrats, and unquestionably affect the tone of administering our government. Indeed, I fear that if this summer should prove disastrous to the French, it will damp that energy of republicanism in our new Congress, from which I had hoped so much reformation. We have had here for a considerable time past true winter weather, quite cold enough for white frost. Though that accident has not happened, fires are still kept up, having been intermitted only for short intervals of very hot weather. I have not yet received my model of the threshing mill. I wish it may come in time for the present crop; after so mild a winter as the last we must expect weavil. My love to my dear Martha, and kiss the little ones for me. Adieu my dear Sir. Yours with constant affection.
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 of armed vessels in Charleston, to cruise against nations with whom we were 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, it 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 laws 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.
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, they 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 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 measures 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.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
June 6, 1793.
I cannot but think that to decline the propositions of Mr. Genet on the subject of our debt, without assigning any reason at all, would have a very dry and unpleasant aspect indeed. We are then to examine what are our good reasons for the refusal, which of them maybe spoken out, and which may not. 1st. Want of confidence in the continuance of the present form of government, and consequently that advances to them might commit us with their successors. This cannot be spoken out. 2d. Since they propose to take the debt in produce, it would be better for us that it should be done in moderate masses yearly, than all in one year. This cannot be professed. 3d. When M. de Calonne was Minister of Finance, a Dutch company proposed to buy up the whole of our debt, by dividing it into actions or shares. I think Mr. Claviere, now Minister of Finance, was their agent. It was observed to M. de Calonne, that to create such a mass of American paper, divide it into shares, and let them deluge the market, would depreciate the rest of our paper, and our credit in general; that the credit of a nation was a delicate and important thing, and should not be risked on such an operation. M. de Calonne, sensible of the injury of the operation to us, declined it. In May, 1791, there came, through Mr. Otto, a similar proposition from Schweizer, Jeanneret &Co. We had a communication on the subject from Mr. Short, urging this same reason strongly. It was referred to the Secretary of the Treasury, who, in a letter to yourself, assigned the reasons against it, and these were communicated to Mr. Otto, who acquiesced in them. This objection, then, having been sufficient to decline the proposition twice before, and having been urged to the two preceding forms of government (the ancient and that of 1791), will not be considered as founded in objections to the present form. 4th. The law allows the whole debt to be paid only on condition it can be done on terms advantageous to the United States. The minister foresees this objection, and thinks he answers it by observing the advantage which the payment in produce will occasion. It would be easy to show that this was not the sort of advantage the Legislature meant, but a lower rate of interest. 5th. I cannot but suppose that the Secretary of the Treasury, being much more familiar than I am with the money operations of the Treasury, would, on examination, be able to derive practical objections from them. We pay to France but five per cent. The people of this country would never subscribe their money for less than six. If, to remedy this, obligations at less than five per cent. were offered, and accepted by Genet, he must part with them immediately, at a considerable discount, to indemnify the loss of the one per cent., and at still greater discount to bring them down to par with our present six per cent., so that the operation would be equally disgraceful to us and losing to them, &c., &c.
I think it very material myself to keep alive the friendly sentiments of that country, as far as can be done without risking war or double payment. If the instalments falling due this year can be advanced, without incurring those dangers, I should be for doing it. We now see by the declaration of the Prince of Saxe Cobourg, on the part of Austria and Prussia, that the ultimate point they desire is to restore the constitution of 1791. Were this even to be done before the pay days of this year, there is no doubt in my mind but that that government (as republican as the present, except in the form of its Executive) would confirm an advance so moderate in sum and time. I am sure the nation of France would never suffer their government to go to war with us for such a bagatelle, and the more surely if that bagatelle shall have been granted by us so as to please and not to displease the nation; so as to keep their affections engaged on our side. So that I should have no fear in advancing the instalments of this year at epochs convenient to the Treasury. But at any rate should be for assigning reasons for not changing the form of the debt. These thoughts are very hastily thrown on paper, as will be but too evident.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of sincere attachment and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO JAMES MADISON
June 9, 1793.
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your two favors of May 27th and 29th, since the date of my last which was of the 2d instant. In that of the 27th you say you must not make your final exit from public life till it will be marked with justifying circumstances which all good citizens will respect, and to which your friends can appeal. To my fellow-citizens the debt of service has been fully and faithfully paid. I acknowledge that such a debt exists, that a tour of duty, in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly this tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave—not even of a very large portion of it. I have now been in the public service four and twenty years; one half of which has been spent in total occupation with their affairs, and absence from my own. I have served my tour then. No positive engagement, by word or deed, binds me to their further service. No commitment of their interests in any enterprise by me requires that I should see them through it. I am pledged by no act which gives any tribunal a call upon me before I withdraw. Even my enemies do not pretend this. I stand clear then of public right on all points—my friends I have not committed. No circumstances have attended my passage from office to office, which could lead them, and others through them, into deception as to the time I might remain, and particularly they and all have known with what reluctance I engaged and have continued in the present one, and of my uniform determination to return from it at an early day. If the public then has no claim on me, and my friends nothing to justify, the decision will rest on my own feelings alone. There has been a time when these were very different from what they are now; when perhaps the esteem of the world was of higher value in my eye than everything in it. But age, experience and reflection preserving to that only its due value, have set a higher on tranquillity. The motion of my blood no longer keeps time with the tumult of the world. It leads me to seek for happiness in the lap and love of my family, in the society of my neighbors and my books, in the wholesome occupations of my farm and my affairs, in an interest or affection in every bud that opens, in every breath that blows around me, in an entire freedom of rest, of motion, of thought, owing account to myself alone of my hours and actions. What must be the principle of that calculation which should balance against these the circumstances of my present existence—worn down with labors from morning to night, and day to day; knowing them as fruitless to others as they are vexatious to myself, committed singly in desperate and eternal contest against a host who are systematically undermining the public liberty and prosperity, even the rare hours of relaxation sacrificed to the society of persons in the same intentions, of whose hatred I am conscious even in those moments of conviviality when the heart wishes most to open itself to the effusions of friendship and confidence, cut off from my family and friends, my affairs abandoned to chaos and derangement, in short, giving everything I love in exchange for everything I hate, and all this without a single gratification in possession or prospect, in present enjoyment or future wish. Indeed, my dear friend, duty being out of the question, inclination cuts off all argument, and so never let there be more between you and me, on this subject.
I enclose you some papers which have passed on the subject of a new town. You will see by them that the paper Coryphæus is either undaunted or desperate. I believe that the statement enclosed has secured a decision against his proposition. I dined yesterday in a company where Morris and Bingham were, and happened to sit between them. In the course of a conversation after dinner, Morris made one of his warm declarations that after the expiration of his present senatorial term, nothing on earth should ever engage him to serve again in any public capacity. He did this with such solemnity as renders it impossible he should not be in earnest. The President is not well. Little lingering fevers have been hanging about him for a week or ten days, and affected his looks most remarkably. He is also extremely affected by the attacks made and kept up on him in the public papers. I think he feels those things more than any person I ever yet met with. I am sincerely sorry to see them. I remember an observation of yours, made when I first went to New York, that the satellites and sycophants which surrounded him had wound up the ceremonials of the government to a pitch of stateliness which nothing but his personal character could have supported, and which no character after him could ever maintain. It appears now that even his will be insufficient to justify them in the appeal of the times to common sense as the arbiter of everything. Naked he would have been sanctimoniously reverenced; but enveloped in the rags of royalty, they can hardly be torn off without laceration. It is the more unfortunate that this attack is planted on popular ground, on the love of the people to France and its cause, which is universal. Genet mentions freely enough in conversation that France does not wish to involve us in the war by our guarantee. The information from St. Domingo and Martinique is, that those two islands are disposed and able to resist any attack which Great Britain can make on them by land. A blockade would be dangerous, could it be maintained in that climate for any length of time. I delivered to Genet your letter to Roland. As the latter is out of office, he will direct it to the minister of the Interior. I found every syllable of it strictly proper. Your ploughs shall be duly attended to. Have you ever taken notice of Tull's horse-houghing plough? I am persuaded that where you wish your work to be very exact, and our great plough where a less degree will suffice, leave us nothing to wish for from other countries as to ploughs, under our circumstances. I have not yet received my threshing machine. I fear the late, long, and heavy rains must have extended to us, and effected our wheat. Adieu. Yours affectionately.
