THE WRITINGS OF



THOMAS JEFFERSON







Definitive Edition



CONTAINING HIS



AUTOBIOGRAPHY, NOTES ON VIRGINIA, PARLIAMENTARY MANUAL, OFFICIAL PAPERS,



MESSAGES AND ADDRESSES, AND OTHER



WRITINGS, OFFICIAL AND PRIVATE,



NOW COLLECTED AND







PUBLISHED IN THEIR ENTIRETY FOR THE FIRST TIME



INCLUDING



ALL OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS, DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT



OF STATE AND PUBLISHED IN 1853 BY ORDER OF THE



JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS







WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS



AND



A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYTICAL INDEX







ALBERT ELLERY BERGH



EDITOR



VOL. XII.







ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF



THE THOMAS JEFFERSON MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION



OF THE UNITED STATES



WASHINGTON, D. C.



1907











COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 



THE THOMAS JEFFERSON MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

















JEFFERSON'S PASSPORTS TO



IMMORTALITY.(1)











Gentlemen of the Jefferson Club:­I have discharged with pleasure the duty which

your kindness assigned me, and we now look upon the bust of him whose genius

and prophetic foresight gave to our country the soil upon which this great city

stands. 



Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph. Amongst his papers, after death, was

found a rough sketch in ink of an obelisk to be made in granite, eight feet in

height, with the inscription: 



Here was buried







THOMAS JEFFERSON,



Author of the Declaration of American Independence,



of



The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom,



and



Father of the University of Virginia.







It is a significant epitaph, and worthy of him who wrote it. Jefferson had been

a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and of the Continental Congress,

Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, 







(1) An address delivered by Hon. George G. Vest before the Jefferson Club of

St. Louis, Mo., October 31, 1895, on the occasion of unveiling a bronze bust of

Thomas Jefferson, by Benjamin Harney. 













ii Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







Secretary of State, Vice-President and President of the United States, but none

of these honors or titles are upon the stone which marked his grave. True to

his convictions, shown by every public and private act, the sworn enemy of

parade, sham and ostentation, the stern old Democrat wanted, living or dead,

none of the tinsel and trappings of heraldic pomp or titular glory. He named

for himself his passports to immortality­the rights of man, religious liberty,

and universal education. 



Jefferson was charged by the enemies who pursued him during life, and assailed

his memory after death, with being a communist who appealed to the ignorant and

poor against the educated and wealthy. He was by birth, lineage, education, and

association, an aristocrat. He had in his veins the blue blood of the

Randolphs, who, as Jefferson tells us in his Autobiography, " trace their

pedigree far back in England and Scotland, to which let every one ascribe the

faith and merit he chooses." Besides, he was born a land and slave owner,

educated at the College of William and Mary, an institution established and

endowed by royalty, and when a student in the old town of Williamsburg, the

first capital of Virginia, was the favorite protege of Francis Fanquier, the

royal governor, at .whose table he was a constant guest. 



Passionately devoted to music, sculpture and painting, an accomplished Greek,

Latin and French scholar, whilst in the higher mathematics, philosophy 

















Jefferson's Passports to Immortality iii







and the sciences, he was without an equal amongst public men, Jefferson was

naturally drawn by such tastes and pursuits away from the people, as they were

then contemptuously called, and to the privileged classes who claimed by

inheritance a monopoly of wealth, education and culture. 



From Monticello, Jefferson went forth to make untiring and relentless war upon

tyranny and oppression in every shape.- For nearly fifty years his form towered

in the front of every battle for civil and religious liberty, and there was not

one single moment in which he ceased to struggle for human rights. It is almost

impossible after so many years, and under circumstances so changed, to realize

the appalling difficulties which confronted the advocates of civil and

religious freedom in the last century, and especially in Virginia. 



New Virginia was then but the gross caricature of old England. The rakehelly

Cavaliers who fought under Prince Rupert were reproduced in an exaggerated form

in the young planters of the province. To primogeniture, entail and the union

of Church and State, had been added the curse of African slavery; and to raise

tobacco, clear more land and buy more slaves, all to be at last squandered in

riotous living, seemed to be the chief end of the Virginia gentleman. 



Loyal to king and church, these fox-hunting, deep-drinking and gallant

Virginians were ready to risk life and limb against any odds, in defence 









iv  Jefferson's Passports to Immortality 







of the divine right of kings, and the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Church of

England. 



From his four years' study of the law, and after mastering completely Coke on

Lyttleton, which he had read and re-read and carefully annotated, Jefferson

stepped into a world of crystallized wrong and robbery, made up from ages of

legal precedent, and sanctified by so-called religion; but not in vain had he

studied the black-letter pages of that sterling old Whig text-book, of which

Jefferson afterwards wrote: 



"Coke Lyttleton was the universal law book of students, and a sounder Whig

never wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the

British Constitution, or in what was called British liberties. 



" Our lawyers were then all Whigs. But when his black-letter text and uncouth

but cunning learning got out of fashion, and the honeyed Mansfieldism of

Blackstone became the student's hornbook, from that moment that profession (the

nursery of our Congress) began to slide into Toryism, and nearly all the young

brood of lawyers are now of that line. They suppose themselves, indeed, to be

Whigs, because they no longer know what Whigism or Republicanism means." 



When, therefore, in 1765, young Jefferson, fresh from Coke Lyttleton, stood at

the door of the lobby of the House of Burgesses, in Williamsburg, and heard

Patrick Henry denounce in burning words 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality v







the Stamp Act and the whole system of kingcraft, the seed fell into ground well

prepared for the truth. 



In 1769 Jefferson entered public life as a member of the House of Burgesses

from his native county of Albemarle. His first measure was to provide for the

gradual emancipation of slaves; but it resulted in utter failure, and is now

only valuable as indicating the settled opinions of Jefferson upon the subject

of slavery, and his fearlessness in grappling with the overwhelming public

sentiment of his State in its favor. 



Whilst a slave owner all his life, Mr. Jefferson was opposed to the institution

and desired its gradual extinction. Like many intelligent men in the

slaveholding States, he deprecated the existence of slavery, but resented the

statement that the people of these States were alone responsible for the evil,

or that those who had originally introduced slaves through their own avarice

had the right to interfere afterwards with the property of the citizens to whom

the slaves had been sold. 



With prophetic vision, Jefferson saw the dreadful panorama of war and

desolation which must accompany the end of slavery, unless peaceful means were

adopted for that purpose. Speaking of gradual emancipation, he says in his

Autobiography, written when he was seventy-seven years old: 



" It was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor

will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it









 vi Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written

in the book of fate than that these people are to be free, nor is it less

certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government." 



One portion of this prediction has been verified, and African slavery has been

drowned in the tears and blood of both North and South. 



At the same time it is not difficult to realize how utterly beyond the

imagination of any mortal man fifty years ago, must have been the idea, not of

emancipation, but that the emancipated slave would grasp the ballot and

participate in the government of the country. 



We know now that the negro race, with its parasitic tendencies and strong local

attachments, will never submit to colonization, and that this philanthropic

dream has vanished before the logic of events. The negro is a component part of

our civilization, and must so remain. 



It is the very irony of history that of all the slaveholding States, Virginia

should have suffered most in defending an institution forced upon her people by

the greed of Old and New England, in opposition to the judgment and wishes of

her most distinguished men. 



As far back as 1770, Virginia had protested against the introduction of African

slaves, but the protest was silenced by the royal edict, and the traffic went

on.









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality vii







In 1776 Jefferson framed with his own hand an indictment of the King of Great

Britain, in the following words: 



" He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred

rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people who never

offended him; captivating them and carrying them into slavery in another

hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. 



" This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of

the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men

should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing

every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. 



"Arid that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die,

he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us and to purchase

that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people on whom he

has obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the

liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the

lives of another. " 



These burning sentences were a part of the Declaration of Independence as

originally written by Jefferson and reported to Congress; but so strong was the

influence of South Carolina, Georgia and New England, in favor of the slave

trade, that the words were stricken out, and the Declaration was adopted as we

now see it. 









viii Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







In 1778, two years later, Virginia made it a felony to import slaves into her

limits, and in 1787, when she gave to the Union the Northwest Territory, the

most princely gift in all " the annals of recorded time," Jefferson prepared

the ordinance, and incorporated in its provisions the condition, "that after

the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor

involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment

of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been

personally guilty." 



Again, in the Convention which framed the Federal Constitution of 1789, when

the question of permitting further importation of slaves was under discussion,

Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said: 



" This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British merchants. The

British Government constantly checked the attempt of Virginia to put a stop to

it. Maryland and Virginia had already prohibited the importation of slaves

expressly, and North Carolina had done the same in substance." 



Declaring then in the strongest terms his opposition to slavery, he concluded

by stating that "he lamented that some of our Eastern brethren had, from a lust

of gain, embarked in this nefarious traffic. " 



Luther Martin, of Maryland, declared the - slave trade " to be inconsistent

with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American

character to have such a feature in the Constitution " 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality ix







In this state of things, Gouverneur Morris, adverting to the circumstance that

the sixth section of the same article, then under consideration, contained a

provision " that no navigation act should pass without the consent of

two-thirds of the members present in each House"­a provision particularly

affecting the interests of the New England States­ suggested that this,

together with the fourth and fifth sections, should be referred to a committee,

in order that a bargain might be formed between the parties out of these

elements of special local interest on the one side and the other. 



The suggestion was adopted, and on the second day afterward the committee

reported, extending the slave trade to 1800, and striking out the provision

requiring a two-thirds vote to enact a navigation law. 



When the report came up in the Convention, General Pinckney, of South Carolina,

moved to extend the slave trade to 1808, and the motion was seconded by Mr.

Gorham, of Massachusetts. 



Mr. Madison earnestly and eloquently opposed the motion, declaring it to be

dishonorable to the American character, but his opposition was in vain. 



Hand in hand, Massachusetts and South Carolina led the- cohorts of slavery, and

the motion prevailed, in all the New England States, with South Carolina,

Georgia, Maryland and North Carolina voting for it, and Virginia, Pennsylvania,

New Jersey and Delaware voting against it. 





x   Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







Luther Martin was a member of the committee to which I have alluded, and in a

letter afterward to the Maryland House of Delegates, says: 



" I found the Eastern States, notwithstanding their aversion to slavery, were

very willing to indulge the Southern States, at least with a temporary liberty

to prosecute the slave trade, provided the Southern States in their turn would

gratify them by laying no restriction on the navigation acts." 



Grand, even in her desolation, Virginia, noblest of ancient or modern

commonwealths, can ,point to this record and hear in contemptuous silence the

taunts and sneers of the political Pharisees, who "mock at her calamity." 



Although Jefferson had failed in his attack on African sl^very, he did not for

a moment relax in his opposition to the arbitrary and oppressive measures of

the British King. 



In 1772 the people of Rhode Island began the Revolution by burning the British

war vessel Gaspé, in Narragansett Bay, and when the ministers of George the

Third claimed the right to transport the persons accused from Rhode Island to

England for trial, Jefferson saw at once that the time had come for joint and

concerted action between all the colonies. To concede this claim as to the

humblest citizen, was to surrender the liberties of all. In the early part of

March, 1772, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Dabney

Carr and Thomas Jefferson met at the Raleigh Tavern, in 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xi







Williamsburg, Virginia, and drew up the famous resolutions pledging Virginia to

stand by Rhode Island, and creating a committee of eleven, whose duty it should

be to correspond with the other colonies, and concert measures for the general

defence. 



It is singular with what pertinacity amidst all the passionate debates and

resolves of this eventful period, Jefferson and his associates still clung to

the idea of loyalty to the king. Not till 1775 did he reluctantly come to the

conclusion that the colonies must separate from the mother country. 



Thus had the Commons of England advanced step by step until the head of Charles

the First rolled from his shoulders before his palace at White Hall, and thus

had the Girondists given place to the Revolution, until Louis the Sixteenth and

Marie Antoinette died beneath the axe of the guillotine. In 1774 the people of

Boston threw into the harbor the famous shipment of tea, and the King of

England retaliated by closing the port. Again, Jefferson and his associates met

at the Raleigh Tavern, and resolved to stand by New England. Massachusetts and

Virginia then stood shoulder to shoulder, and who could have believed that in

less than a century the same States would grapple in deadly conflict? 



On June 21st, 1775, Jefferson took his seat as a member of the Continental

Congress, and in June, 1776, wrote, with his own hand, the Declaration of

American Independence? the most sub-









xii Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







lime enunciation, save one, ever made to the human 



race. 



That "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the

governed," is but a corollary from the divine injunction, "All things

whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 



Together these two great truths embrace all the rights and duties of mankind. 



The Declaration, having been reported to Congress, was debated on the second,

third and fourth days of July, and adopted on the afternoon of the fourth,

every member present signing it, except Mr. Dickinson. 



In after years, Mr. Jefferson related with great humor a ludicrous event

connected with this solemn transaction. Near the hall in which Congress

assembled was a large livery stable, and the weather being extremely warm, the

bloodthirsty and aggressive flies, which swarmed through the open windows,

attacked our patriotic fathers, in abbreviated pants and thin silk stockings,

with such pertinacity as to terminate the debate.  



So near to the sublime is the ridiculous; and so wonderfully do the most

insignificant creatures influence the destiny of man. 



Thirteen States had now sprung into being, with institutions and laws not only

varying as between themselves, but with some utterly opposed to the genius and

spirit of the Declaration of Independence.









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xiii







In none of the colonies were abuses so rife and firmly established as in

Virginia. Primogeniture and entail had created a class of thoughtless elder

brothers and vagabond heirs, who were reckless and self-indulgent to the very

verge of lawlessness. 



The union of Church and State had destroyed the rights of conscience, and a

licentious clergy, so far from " leading the way to Heaven, " were merely

adjuncts to the great houses, where high play and old Madeira rewarded their

complaisant ministry. 



The world, for hundreds of years, had listened to the clanking of chains and

shrieks of martyrs, whilst fire and fagot irradiated the deadly work of

religious bigotry. 



Even the Pilgrims, flying from persecution, " having landed on Pilgrim Rock,

fallen on their knees and then on the aborigines," no sooner found themselves

firmly established in New England, than they began to torture in the name of

God. 



To deny any book of the Old or New Testaments to be the word of God was

punished by fire or by stripes, and blasphemy left the delinquent without his

ears and with his tongue bored by a red-hot iron. Men were pilloried, branded

and executed for non-conformity to the established church, and in but three out

of the thirteen colonies was there religious toleration­Rhode Island, Maryland

and Pennsylvania. 



Mr. Jefferson graphically describes the condition of Virginia: 









xiv Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







" The first settlers of this country were emigrants from England of the English

Church, just at a point of time when it was flushed with complete victory over

the religion of all other persuasions. Possessed, as they became, of the power

of making, administering and executing the laws, they showed equal intolerance

in this country with their Presbyterian brethren who had emigrated to the

northern government. The poor Quakers were flying from persecution in England;

they cast their eyes on these new countries as asylums of civil and religious

freedom, but they found them free only for the reigning sect. 



"General acts of the Virginia Assembly of 1659, 1662 and 1693, had made it

penal in parents to refuse to have their children baptized; had prohibited the

unlawful assembly of Quakers; had made it penal for any master of a vessel to

bring a Quaker into the State; had ordered those already here, and such as

should come thereafter, to be imprisoned until they should abjure the country;

provided a milder punishment for their first and second return, but death for

their third; had inhibited all persons from suffering their meetings in or near

their houses, entertaining them individually, or disposing of books which

supported their tenets. 



" If no executions took place here, as did in New England, it was not owing to

the moderation of the church or spirit of the legislature, as may be inferred

from the law itself, but to historical circumstances that have not been handed

down to us. 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xv







" By our own Act of Assembly of 1705, if a person brought up in the Christian

religion denies the existence of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are

more Gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the

Scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offence by

incapacity to hold any office or employment, ecclesiastical, civil or military;

on the second, by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be

guardian, executor or administrator, and by three years' imprisonment without

bail. 



"A father's right to the custody of his own children being founded in law on

his right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course be severed

from him and put by the authority of the court into more orthodox hands." 



Amidst a storm of opposition and obloquy, such as was never before seen on this

continent, Jefferson resolutely attacked primogeniture, entail, and the union

of Church and State. 



From October the 11th to December the 5th the battle raged daily in the

Virginia Assembly, and resulted in a substantial victory for Jefferson,

although the statute for religious toleration did not finally become a law

until 1786. When nearly eighty years old, Mr. Jefferson spoke of this as the

most terrible contest of his long and stormy career. Against him were arrayed

the wealthy families whose large estates were held by entail, the elder sons

whose patrimonies were taken from them, and 









xvi Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







more than all, the clergy and established church, who resented the statute for

religious toleration as a blasphemous attack upon religion and a personal

outrage upon themselves. Jefferson was denounced as a communist, an atheist, a

foe to all religion, and the bitter enmities engendered by this conflict

harassed him during life and assailed his memory after death. 



No one knew better than Jefferson how unrelenting is religious intolerance, and

how dangerous the charge of infidelity or atheism to a public man; but so true

was he to the rights of conscience, that in his long life, and under all

assaults, he made no reply to his enemies. He absolutely denied the right of

any being, except his Maker, to call in question his religious belief, and thus

he lived and died. 



In a private letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, dated April 21st, 1803, he wrote of

his religious opinions: 



" They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different

from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my

opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to

the genuine precepts of Jesus Himself. I am a Christian in the sense in which

He wished any one to be, sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to

all others, ascribing to Himself every human excellence, and believing He never

claimed any other." 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xvii







To his young grandson, when life had almost faded away, and he could feel upon

his aged brow the breath of eternity, he wrote: 



" This letter will be to you as one from the dead. The writer will be in the

grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your affectionate father has requested

that I would address you something which might possibly have a favorable

influence on the course of life you have to run, and I, too, as a namesake,

feel an interest in that course. 



"Few words will be necessary with good dispositions on your part. Adore God.

Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your

country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of

Providence, so that the life into which you have entered be the portal to one

of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it be permitted to care for

the things of this world, every action of your life will be under my regard." 



If this be atheism or infidelity, what honest man or pure woman will not pray

that the world be filled with unbelief ? 



To Jefferson the doctrines of primogeniture, entail, and an established church

were but part and parcel of the system which gave to certain families the

divine right of governing their fellow men, and against this heresy, with all

its incidents and corollaries, he made untiring and relentless war until the

end of life.









 xviii Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







 To him there was but one creed in matters spiritual or temporal:







"All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." 



In addition to the legislation abolishing primogeniture, entail, and an

established church, Jefferson, at the same session of the Assembly, introduced

and passed a bill fixing the terms upon which foreigners should be admitted as

citizens of Virginia, and this act became the model for the general

naturalization law of the United States. Under a resolution introduced by

himself in October, 1776, he commenced the next summer, in connection with

Edmund Pendleton and George Wythe, a revision of the laws of Virginia, and in

1779, after three years of arduous labor, the work was completed. 



But his great ambition was to establish a system of common schools, which

should place a liberal education within the reach of every child in Virginia,

to create high schools, found a library at Richmond, at a cost of two thousand

pounds a year, and change William and Mary College into a University. With

indefatigable zeal he perfected all the details, but the war absorbed the

entire resources of the commonwealth, and long years of eventful history passed

before he realized any part of his cherished plans. 



On June 1st, 1779, Jefferson was inaugurated Governor of Virginia, succeeding

Patrick Henry, the first executive of the State. From the day of his 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xix







inauguration to the hour when he retired from office, he was overwhelmed with

difficulties, before which an ordinary man would have shrunk appalled and

hopeless. 



Without navy, arms or money, Jefferson was expected to defend an exposed

seaboard, furnish supplies to the Virginia troops in the field, and prevent the

horrors of an Indian war on the western border. 



All that could be done by unflagging energy and the wisest forethought he

accomplished, but in 1780 the storm of war burst with relentless fury upon

Virginia. 



Gates was defeated at Camden, the traitor Arnold sailed up the James, burning

and pillaging on either side, until he captured Richmond, whilst news came that

Washington's army was on the eve of dissolution. 



In 1781 Cornwallis invaded Virginia from the South, and a troop of cavalry

dashed upon Monticello with the hope of capturing Governor Jefferson. Five

minutes before their arrival Jefferson escaped, and his faithful slaves

refused, under bribes and threats, to give information of the route he had

taken. 



As always in the hour of national calamity, a scapegoat was necessary to

appease the popular disquietude, and Jefferson was in this instance the victim.

Conscious of his faithful discharge of duty, he chafed under these assaults as

never before or 









xx Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







after, and although acquitted by the unanimous vote of the Assembly, declared

that he would never accept another public trust, and that, with the close of

the war, his political career had ended. 



Surrounded at Monticello by his family, to whom he was tenderly attached, and

with his books and flowers, Jefferson looked forward to years of quiet

happiness, such as every man, worn with the battle of life, has pictured in his

day dreams of the future. But Providence had destined otherwise. 



In the spring of 1782 death robbed him of a wife whose beauty and

accomplishments gave to Monticello the most charming mistress that ever blessed

a Virginia home, and from a stupor of grief Jefferson awoke, anxious to leave

the scenes which constantly reminded him of his irreparable loss. 



Again he plunged into the vortex of politics, and in 1783 we find him at

Annapolis, ready to take his seat in Congress, to which he had been recently

elected. Again he devoted himself with untiring assiduity to public business,

and, as chairman of the Committee on Coins and Currency, gave to his country

and the world a system of coinage on the decimal basis, the most perfect known

amongst men. 



At the same session he introduced the celebrated ordinance, afterwards enacted

in 1787, by which Virginia gave to the Union the great States of Ohio, Indiana,

Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. 



On May 17th, 1781, Jefferson was appointed Envoy Extraordinary to assist Mr.

Adams and Dr. Frank 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxi







fin, then abroad, in concluding commercial treaties with Great Britain,

Holland, and other governments, on "the footing of the most favored nation,"

and on March 10th, 1785, he succeeded Dr. Franklin as Minister to France. 



Jefferson remained in Europe five years, residing in Paris, and watching with

deepest interest the great drama of the French Revolution. He witnessed the

fall of the Bastile, and the massacre of the Swiss Guards; but, like Charles

James Fox, he saw through the blood and horror the outlines of liberty; and,

unlike Burke, he beheld in the French queen, not only a beautiful and

unfortunate woman, but the reckless, self-indulgent cause of her husband's

ruin. 



" This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, " he wrote forty

years afterwards, " with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense, was

proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager

in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires or perish in

their wreck. 



" Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois

and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the

treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her

opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness and dauntless spirit, led herself

to the guillotine, drew the king on with her, and plunged. the world into

crimes and calamities which









xxii Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







will forever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed that, had

there been no queen, there would have been no revolution; no force would have

been provoked or exercised." 



Like John Knox, in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots, Jefferson could not

appreciate the beauty which looked, without pity, on the starving multitude,

and listened, without emotion, to the cries of her unfortunate people. 



Jefferson looked with contemptuous amazement upon the French court feasting and

dancing at Versailles, while the hungry people roared and surged through the

streets of Paris. 



" Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher 



Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire." 



The glamour of royalty did not seem to affect this stern republican, who

rejected with scorn the divine right of kings. 



In one of his letters he writes thus of the monarchs then occupying the

proudest thrones of earth: 



"While I was in Europe I often amused myself in contemplating the characters of

the then reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis the Sixteenth was a fool, of my

own knowledge, and in despite of the answers made for him at his trial. The

King of Spain was a fool, and of Naples the same. They passed their lives in

hunting, and despatched two couriers a week over one thousand miles to let each

other know what game they had killed the preceding









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxiii







days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of

Portugal, Braganza, was an idiot by nature, and so was the King of Denmark.

Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of government. The King of

Prussia, successor to Frederick the Great, was a mere hog in body as well as in

mind. 



"Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria, were really crazy, and George of

England, you know, was in a straight waistcoat. There remained then none but

old Catherine, who had been too lately picked up to have lost her common sense.





" In this state Bonaparte found Europe, and it was the state of the rulers

which lost it without a struggle. These animals had become without mind and

powerless, and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few generations." 



Every fibre of Jefferson's being sympathized with the unfortunate people whose

sweat and blood had been wrung fro~n them for centuries, to feed these royal

animals, and every hour in Europe added to his hatred of the monarchical

system. 



In February, 1787, he left Paris, and traveled incognito through the fairest

provinces of France, investigating the home life of the people, their houses,

food and modes of agriculture. 



Besides attending to his diplomatic duties and making commercial treaties with

all the principal nations of Europe, Jefferson found time to correspond with

leading scientists upon chemistry, astron 









xxiv Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







omy, geology and natural history. He collected and shipped to the United States

seeds and plants of all kinds suitable to our soil and climate, and procured

for Buffon, the great naturalist, specimens of the animals and birds peculiar

to this continent. 



When in France, he wrote and published his celebrated "Notes on Virginia,"

which attracted universal attention, and passed through several editions. 



Whilst making treaties, writing philosophical essays, and watching the

revolution, this remarkable man invented an improved plough, which was awarded

a medal by the Royal Agricultural Society of the Seine, and was exhibited to

William C. Rives, Minister to France in 1853, as " The Prize Plough of Thomas

Jefferson;" afterwards he invented the revolving chair, now found in so many

offices and households. 



Rice was largely consumed in France, and anxious to know why the American

article was unable to compete successfully with that raised in Southern Europe,

he made a journey across the Alps in 1787, into the rice-growing districts, and

being unable to procure some improved seed rice, which he discovered there, on

account of laws prohibiting its exportation, he filled the pockets of his coat

and overcoat with the best rice, of the best rice-producing district of Italy,

and sent it to Charleston. It came to hand safely, was distributed in

quantities of ten and twelve grains to planters, and being carefully 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxv







tended, furnished South Carolina the best rice in the world. 



After five years of unremitting toil for his country and mankind, Jefferson was

compelled to give some attention to his private affairs, and left Paris in

October, 1789, with his two daughters, expecting to return within a year. On

November 17, 1789, he landed safely at Norfolk, and found an invitation from

Washington to become Secretary of State. 



With reluctance, but acting under a sense of public obligation, he accepted the

office, and entered upon its duties. 



Accustomed, as Jefferson must have been, to the uncertainty of political events

and the mutations of public sentiment, he was profoundly astonished to find

that a powerful party~had come into existence in the United States, which

distrusted the people, and favored a strong, if not monarchical government. At

the head of this party was the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. 



It was not possible that harmony, nor any relation except that of antagonism,

should exist between Jefferson and Hamilton. They were both men of great

ability, positive convictions, and with views utterly irreconcilable as to the

government. 



Jefferson was the incarnate principle of Democracy, pure and simple, without

alloy. Hamilton h~d no sympathy with the people or popular government. 



Notwithstanding the great authority of Wash-









xxvi Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







ington, and the influence which his character exercised upon all who approached

him, there soon occurred an open rupture between the Secretary of State and the

Secretary of the Treasury. 



In February, 1792, Jefferson mentioned to the President his intention to retire

from the Cabinet, and, when pressed for his reasons, frankly stated that it was

impossible for Colonel Hamilton and himself to continue together in the

administration, and that now a proposition had been brought forward, the

decision of which must definitely determine " whether we live under a limited

or unlimited government. " 



" To what proposition do you allude ? " asked the President. 



" To that, " replied Jefferson, " in the report of manufactures (by Hamilton),

which, under color of giving bounties for the encouragement of particular

manufactures, meant to establish the doctrine that the Constitution, in giving

power to Congress to provide for the general welfare, permitted Congress to

take everything under their charge which they should deem for the public

welfare. If this was maintained, then the enumeration of powers in the

Constitution does not at all constitute the limits of their authority." 



If Jefferson should now revisit the earth he would find the same doctrine

advanced even amongst those who claim to be exponents of his principles and

teaching. 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxvii







In the meantime all Europe was preparing to attack France, and the question

presented to Washington's Cabinet was whether the United States should remain

neutral or assist the people who had assisted us in our struggle for

independence. 



On April 22d, 1793, the proclamation for neutrality was issued, and on the same

day Citizen Genet arrived in a French frigate as Minister to the United States

from the French Republic. 



He was received with such tumultuous acclamation as was never before or since

given to any ambassador or visitor to our shores. Public meetings, banquets,

oratory and music evidenced the deep feeling of the American people for the

cause of France. A storm of indignation burst upon Washington and his Cabinet

for refusing to give immediate assistance to our allies of the War for

Independence, then struggling against the combined despotism of Europe, led by

England. 



It is impossible for us to realize now the popular excitement of those eventful

days, or the clamor raised about the government; but Washington and his Cabinet

stood firm, and the result justified the wisdom of their course. 



Jefferson's correspondence with Genet and the English Minister, afterwards

published by order of Congress, stands to-day and will forever remain the most

wonderful exhibition of learning, skill and moderation to be found in the

annals of diplomacy. 



Jefferson retired from Washington's Cabinet on









 xxviii Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







January the 1st, 1794, the acknowledged leader of the Republican party, and

with the compliments and plaudits of his countrymen. Even his enemies were

forced to admit that his correspondence with Genet had exhibited the highest

order of ability, and had shown him to be both patriot and statesman. 



In 1796 he was called from Monticello to become Vice-President, Mr. Adams

having received in the Electoral College seventy-one votes and Mr. Jefferson

sixty-eight, which resulted, as the Constitution then provided, in making the

former President and the latter Vice-President of the United States. 



To the duties of this office he brought the same industry and learning as to

every other position. 



When a young lawyer, beginning his public career as a member of the Virginia

House of Burgesses, he had adopted the practice of noting down in a small

leather-bound volume rules and precedents in parliamentary law, and upon this

as a basis he now prepared his " Manual of Parliamentary Practice," the highest

authority in legislative proceedings known to the civilized world. 



In the meantime the Federalists and Republicans were marshaling their forces

for the Presidential contest of I 800. The conservative and mediatory influence

of Washington had been withdrawn, and party spirit raged untrammeled. 



The press was in the hands of the Federalists, and Jefferson the mark at which

all their arrows 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxix







were aimed. He was pictured as an atheist, libertine, a monster in human form.

One of the favorite charges against him was that he was an ally of Napoleon

Bonaparte, the Corsican tyrant. The political preacher had already appeared in

the Presidential canvass, and although not so alliterative as in modern times,

was equally as sensational. 



The great preacher then in New York was Dr. John Mason, and he was shocked

beyond measure to find from the " Notes on Virginia" that Jefferson had doubts

as to there having been a universal deluge. Some days before the election Dr.

Mason published a pamphlet entitled, " The Voice of Warning to Christians on

the Ensuing Election," in which he exclaimed: "Christians! It is thus that a

man whom you are expected to elevate to the chief magistracy insults yourself

and your Bible." 



We can imagine what sort of partisan this reverend politician must have been

when we learn that in one of his sermons he paused and with uplifted hands and

eyes burst into prayer: 



" Send us, if Thou wilt, murrain upon our cattle, a famine upon our land,

cleanness of teeth in our borders; send us pestilence to waste our cities; send

us, if it pleases Thee, the sword to bathe itself in the blood of our sons, but

spare us, Lord God Most Merciful, spare us that curse­most dreadful of all

curses­an alliance with Napoleon Bonaparte." 



As he uttered these words the blood gushed from his nostrils, but putting his

handkerchief to his









xxx Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







face he then waved it aloft as if a bloody banner in the coming contest. 



Through all this scandal and vituperation, temporal and ecclesiastical, the

people, as they always do, discerned the true issue, and the Republicans were

successful. Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three votes in the

Electoral College to sixty-five for Adams, sixty-four for Pinckney, and one for

Jay; and after some weeks of great excitement the House of Representatives

ratified the will of the people by making Jefferson President and Burr

Vice-President. The alien and sedition laws had done their work, and the first

Republican administration assumed control of the government. 



The new President rode to the Capitol on horseback, hitched his steed to the

palings, and quietly took the oath of office. There was no procession, no

inaugural ball, no show and parade. Right or wrong, this was Jefferson's idea

of a Republic, and the commencement of a Republican administration. 



During the administrations of Washington and Adams the absurd custom of

Congress being opened by the President with a personal address had been

adopted, in imitation of the English system, but Jefferson quietly transmitted

his message in writing, and such has been the custom ever since. 



He also refused to hold weekly levees, where a mob of sweating and

uncomfortable people, in tawdry finery, torture each other and the President

until life becomes a burden, but this travesty on 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxxi







common sense has since returned to plague the Chief Executive and disgust the

sensible public. 



Jefferson sought to simplify the, government and relieve it from the display

and extravagance by which monarchy aimed to dazzle the people and conceal the

outrages inflicted upon them. 



The trinity of his political faith was a strict construction of the

Constitution, economy in expenditures, and honest men in office. 



His inaugural on March the 4th, 1801, should be treasured with Washington's

Farewell Address. 



" Equal and exact justice to men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or

political, peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling

alliances with none; the support of the State Governments in all their rights,

as the most competent administration for our domestic concerns, and the surest

bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the General

Government in its whole constitutional vigor as the sheet anchor of our peace

at home, and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the

people­a mild and safe corrective of abuses, which are lopped by the sword of

revolution, when peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in

the decision of the majority, the vital principle of republics from which there

is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate source of

despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the

first moments of 









xxxii Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the

military authority; economy in the public expense that labor may be lightly

burdened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public

faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the

diffusing of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public

reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of persons under the

protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected." 



The first important act of Mr. Jefferson's administration was to dispatch three

frigates and one sloop of our small navy to the Mediterranean, for the purpose

of overaweing the Algerine pirates and terminating their daring attacks upon

American commerce. 



When Minister to France, he had been annoyed and irritated by the fact that the

United States and other nations were compelled to pay tribute to these

buccaneers. One bill sent to Mr. Jefferson for the ransom of an American crew

was as follows: 



For three captains, $6,000 each, $18,000; for two mates, $4,000 each, $8,000;

for two passengers, $4,000 each, $8,000; for fourteen seamen, $1,400 each,

$19,600; total, $53,600. 



Jefferson was determined that this national disgrace should be obliterated, and

history shows how well and thoroughly the gallant Decatur carried out the

instructions of his chief. 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxxiii







The most splendid achievement of Jefferson's administration, however, was the

acquisition by purchase from Napoleon of the Louisiana Territory, which

extended our limits from ocean to ocean and gave us the mouth of the

Mississippi. 



When the treaty was signed at Paris, Mr. Livingstone, one of the Commissioners,

said: 



" We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives. The

treaty which we have just signed has not been obtained by art nor dictated by

force. It will change vast solitudes into flourishing districts, and from this

day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank. * *

* The instruments which we have just signed will cause no tears to be shed.

They prepare ages of happiness for innumerable generations of human creatures. 



"The Mississippi and Missouri will see them succeed one another and multiply,

truly worthy of the regard and care of Providence, in the bosom of equality,

under just laws, freed from the errors of superstition and bad government." 



" If to the dead it be permitted to care for the things of this world," with

what satisfaction must the spirit of Jefferson to-day look down upon this vast

domain acquired by his patriotic foresight; a land of plenty, filled with happy

homes, and temples devoted to education, science and art. 



After acquiring Louisiana, including the vast region stretching to the Pacific,

Mr. Jefferson's next









xxxiv Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







object was to ascertain the nature and resources of these possessions, and for

this purpose the expedition of Lewis and Clarke left St. Louis in 1805, came up

the Missouri, and for two years, four months, and ten days was lost to

civilization, and exposed to danger and hardships, the recital of which equals

the stories of romance. 



Not many months after the acquisition of Louisiana, intelligence reached the

President of the treasonable design of Aaron Burr to seize upon the mouth of

the Mississippi, invade Mexico, and establish a southwestern empire. After the

death of Hamilton, Burr had served out his term as Vice-President, presiding at

the impeachment trial of Judge Chase, and then finding his public career ended,

his restless ambition had conceived the scheme which ruined Blennerhassett, and

made himself an outcast and wanderer. 



Party rancor attempted at the time to make Burr a martyr and Jefferson a

tyrant, but impartial history has long since entered the judgment that the

President was right, and that Burr was guilty of the designs attributed to him.





The latter part of Jefferson's second term was clouded with the prospect of war

with England, and with the distress caused by the embargo, which he enforced to

the end of his administration, in the hope of averting an expensive and ruinous

conflict of arms. 



In 1809, with the country four times greater in resources and territory than in

I 800, his second 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxxv







term as President closed, and after forty-four years' public service he

transferred the government to his friend, James Madison, and went back to

Monticello, and to the labor of love, which had been amongst the dreams of his

early ambition. His whole energies were now devoted to establishing the

University of Virginia, upon a system singularly illustrative of that equality

and liberty which formed the leading characteristic of Jefferson's life and

opinions. The University differs from other American colleges in these

particulars: There is no president, and all the professors are of equal rank

except that one of them is elected chairman of the faculty. The University is

simply a group of schools, and the student himself chooses the studies he

elects to pursue. Unlike other institutions, there is no rule requiring a

student to attend religious exercises, but his conduct in this regard is

governed entirely by his own sense of right. 



The ruling idea in every detail is an absence of coercion, and an appeal to

manhood and conscience. 



Jefferson lived seventeen years after the close of his public career, and his

last hours were embittered by the pressure of debts which he was unable to

satisfy. His splendid library, a portion of it left him by George Wythe, was

sold to the United States, and he was finally compelled to ask the legislature

of Virginia to authorize him to dispose of his lands by lottery, in order to

meet the harassing liabilities pressing upon him.









xxxvi Jefferson's Passports to Immortality







Although an exact man, Jefferson practiced the hospitality which prevailed in

Virginia everywhere at that time, and he had never learned the modern methods

by which a public officer can in a few years become a millionaire upon a small

salary. When he left Washington City he was forced to borrow ten thousand

dollars to pay debts contracted for household expenses, and whilst we may

deprecate the style of living which necessitated such outlay, we must admire

the integrity that procured the money to meet the debt by a mortgage upon

Monticello, rather than by a raid upon the public treasury. 



On July the 4th, 1826, as the accentuating cannon and the glad acclaim of a

free people saluted the birthday of American Independence, Jefferson's life

ended peacefully and serenely at Monticello. On the same day at his home in

Massachusetts, John Adams passed away. 



No longer rivals nor political opponents, they met together the last enemy of

all our race. 



Gentlemen of the Jefferson Club, you have taken the name and are pledged to the

principles of him who established the Democratic party. No responsibility can

be greater, for the defeat of these principles and the destruction of the

organization based upon them, means the end of free institutions upon this

continent. 



The Democratic party holds that there should be no partnership between the

government and any individual or class, but that all the benefits and 









Jefferson's Passports to Immortality xxxvii







burdens of the government should be equally and justly distributed, every

citizen being protected in life, liberty and property, and made the architect

of his own fortune. 



It holds that all property should be taxed in proportion to the protection

received from the government; and it does not believe in the system under which

a capitalist pays no more upon his hundreds of millions to support the national

government, than does the poorest citizen who must in war risk life and limb to

protect these millions. 



The Democratic party is national, not sectional, and cannot exist on one issue.

It is coexistent with the whole Union and with the autonomy of our government. 



You may believe in the single gold standard and I in the free coinage of silver

at the ratio of 16 to 1, but if we are Jeffersonian Democrats, there is no

other political home for us than the old party which has existed for a hundred

years in peace and war, sunshine and shadow, in every township, county, and

State of the entire Union. 



No greater calamity could come to this country or the world than the disruption

of the great organization which was founded by the author of the Declaration of

American- Independence. 



Upon the canvas of the past, Washington and Jefferson stand forth the central

figures in our struggle for independence. The character of the former was so

rounded and justly proportioned, that xxxviii Jefferson's Passports to

Immortality







so long as our country lives, or a single community of Americans can be found,

Washington will be " First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of

his countrymen." 



To Washington we are more indebted than to any one man for national existence;

but what availed the heroism of Bunker Hill, the sufferings of Valley Forge, or

the triumph of Yorktown, if the government they established had been but an

imitation of the monarchy from which we had separated? 



To Jefferson we owe eternal gratitude for his sublime confidence in popular

government, and his unfaltering courage in defending at all times and in all

places, the great truth, that "All governments derive their just powers from

the consent of the governed." 



The love of liberty is found not in palaces, but with the poor and oppressed.

It flutters in the heart of the caged bird, and sighs with the worn and wasted

prisoner in his dungeon. It has gone with martyrs to the stake, and kissed

their burning lips as the tortured spirit winged its flight to God! 



In the temple of this deity Jefferson was high priest! 



For myself, I worship no mortal man living or dead; but if I could kneel at

such a shrine, it would he with uncovered head and loving heart at the grave of

Thomas Jefferson. 











        (signed) George Graham Vest 







        CONTENTS.















JEFFERSON'S PASSPORTS TO IMMORTALITY.  By            Hon.George Graham Vest.,

Ex-Senator from Missouri...







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826        1-441







To Albert Gallatin, March 2 , 1808        1



To His Excellency Governor James Sullivan,



March 3, 1808                2



To Colonel James Monroe, March 10, 1808        3



To Richard M. Johnson, March 10, 1808        9



To James Madison, March 11,  1808        11



To Governor William H. Cabell, March 13, 1808.        12



To Albert Gallatin, March 17, 1808        12



To W. C. Nicholas, March 20, 1808        14



To Doctor Caspar Wistar, March 20, 1808        15



To the Democratic Citizens of the County of



Adams, Pennsylvania, March 20, 1808        17



To Albert Gallatin, March 23, 1808        18



To Monsieur La Vavasseur, March 23, 1808        19



To Levi Lincoln, March 23, 1808        20



To Albert Gallatin, March 26, 1808        22



To Charles Pinckney, March 30, 1808        22



To Albert Gallatin, March 31, 1808        24



To Robert Smith, April 1, 1808        26



To Albert Gallatin, April 2, 1808        26



To Albert Gallatin, April 8, 1808        27



To John Jacob Astor, April 13, 1808        28



To Albert Gallatin, April 14, 1808                                            

29







 



        xl                        Contents







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.        PAGE



To Albert Gallatin, April 19, 1808                29



To Albert Gallatin, April 19, 1808                30



To Albert Gallatin, April 22, 1808                31



To Albert Gallatin, April 23, 1808                32



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), April 23, 1808        34



To Albert Gallatin, April 23, 1808                35



To Caesar A. Rodney, April 24, 1808                36



To Colonel William A. Washington, April 24,1808        37



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), April 30, 1808        38



To General Henry Dearborn, April 29, 1808                 40



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), April 30, 1808        40



To  William Lyman, April 30, 1808                41



To  General John Armstrong, May 2, 1808                43



To  General Thaddeus Kosciusko, May 2, 1808        44



To  Robert Smith, May 3, 1808                46



To  Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, May 4, 1808..        47



To ---, May 5, 1808                49



To the Governors of New Orleans, Georgia, South



Carolina, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, May 6, 1808        51



To Albert Gallatin, May 6, 1808                52



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), May12, 1808        54



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), May 15, 1808        56



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), May 17, 1808        56



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), May 19, 1808        58







 



Contents        xli







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.        PAGE



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Galla-



tin), May 20, 1808                59



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), May 20, 1808        61



To General Benjamin Smith, May 20, 1808        61



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), May 24, 1808        62



To General Henry Dearborn, May 25, 1808        63



To Mr. Leiper, May 25, 1808                65



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), May 27, 1808        66



To James Bowdoin, May 29, 1808                68



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), May 31, 1808        70



To the Secretary of the Navy (Jacob Crowninshield), June 15, 1808        71



To  Shelton Gilliam, June 19, 1808                73



To  Christopher Colles, June 19, 1808        74



To  James Pemberton, June 21, 1808                74



To  Walter Franklin, June 22, 1808                 75



To  Doctor Thomas Leib, June 23, 1808        76



To  General James Wilkinson, June 24, 1808                                     

                      8



To  Colonel Daniel C. Brent, June 24, 1808        78



To  Albert Gallatin, July 4, 1808                79



To  His Excellency Governor W. C. C. Claiborne,



July 9, 1808                80



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), July 12, 1808        81



To Monsieur De La Cepede, July 14 1808        83



To Monsieur Sylvestre, July 15 1808                88



To Monsieur Lasteyrie, July 15, 1808



        To the Secretary of the Navy (Jacob Crowninshield), July 16, 1808      

 93







 



xlii                      Contents







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.        PAGE







To Robert Smith, of the War Office, July 16, 1808        94



To His Excellency Governor James Sullivan, July 16, 1808        95



To His Excellency Governor W. C. C. Claiborne, July 17, 1808        96



To Governor Meriwether Lewis, July 17, 1808        99



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), July 18, 1808        101



To His Excellency Governor Charles Pinckney, July 18, 1808        102



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), July 25, 1808        106



To William B. Bibb, July 28, 1808                107



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), July 29, 1808        109



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), July 29, 1808        111



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), August 5, 1808        113



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), August 6, 1808        116



To Messrs. Kerr, Moore and Williams, Commissioners of the Western Road, August

6, 1808 ...                117



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), August 6, 1808        118



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), August 9, 1808        119



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), August 9, 1808        120



        To the Secretary of the Navy (Jacob Crowninshield), August g, 1808     

  121



To Albert Gallatin, August II, 1808                121



        To the Secretary of the Navy (Jacob Crowninshield), August 12, 1808    

   123







 



Contents        xiiii







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.        PAGE











To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), August 12, 1808        125



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), August 12, 1808        126



To His Excellency Governor James Sullivan, Aug.12, 1808        127



To Robert Fulton, August 15, 1808                130



To Israel Smith, August 15, 1808                131



To His Excellency Governor Daniel D. Tompkins,August 15, 1808        131



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), August 15, 1808        133



To Governor W. C. C. Claiborne, August 1 6, 1808        135



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), August 19, 1808        136



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), August 20, 1808        139



To Governor Meriwether Lewis, August 2 1, 1808.        141



To the Honorable Levi Lincoln, August 22, 1808.        145



To Governor Meriwether Lewis, August 24, 1808.        147



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), August 25, 1808        149



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), August 26, 1808        149



To Captain M'Gregor, August 26, 1808                151



To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), August 27, 1808        152



To the Emperor of Russia, August 29, 1808        153



To General James Wilkinson, August 30, 1808 ..        154



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), August 30, 1808        155



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), September 5, 1808        156







 



xliv                    Contents







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.        PAGE







To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), September 5, 1808                    

    57



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), September 6, 1808                   

   158



To William Short, September 6, 1808                                            

                  159



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin),September 9,1808            

   160



To Simeon Theus, September 10, 1808                                            

           162



To the Secretary of State (James Madison), September 13, 1808                  

  165



To the Secretary of the Navy (Jacob Crowninshield), September 16, 1808      

167



To the Secretary of the Treasury (Albert Gallatin), September 20, 1808         

  167



To Albert Gallatin, October 14, 1808                                           

            169



To Robert L. Livingston, October 15, 1808                                      

                 170



To Albert Gallatin, October 16, 1808                                           

            171



To George Blake, October 17, 1808                                              

         172



To Albert Gallatin, October 18, 1808                                           

                            172



To Robert Smith, October 19, 1808                                              

         173



To Albert Gallatin, October 19, 1808                                           

            174



To James Main, October 19, 1808                                                

       174



To Captain Matthew C. Groves, October 19, 1808                                 

        175



To Albert Gallatin, October 21, 1808                                           

            178



To Dr. Thomas Cooper, October 27, 1808                                         

              180



To Doctor James Brown, October 27, 1808                                        

               182



To              , October 28, 1808                                             

            185



To Governor W. C. C. Claiborne, October 29, 1808                               

       186



To Albert Gallatin, November 3, 1808                                           

              187



To General Henry Dearborn, November 5, 1808                                    

         188



To His Excellency Governor Charles Pinckney, November 8, 1808                  

190



To Mr. Letue, November 8, 1808                                                 

        190



 











Contents        xlv











LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.                         PAGE











To His Excellency Governor William H. Cabell,



November 13, 1808                        192



To Albert Gallatin, November 13, 1808                        193



To Lieutenant-Governor Levi Lincoln, November 13, 1808                       

194



To the Hon. Joseph B. Varnum, November 18,1808                            196



To Thomas Jefferson Randolph, November 24,1808                            196



To the Vice-Presidents of the American Philosophical Society, 



November 30, 1808                        202



To Samuel Hawkins (Kingston), November 30, 1808                        203



To Doctor Benjamin Waterhouse, December 1,1808                        204



To Thomas Monroe, December 4, 1808                        206



To Albert Gallatin, December 7, 1808                        208



To Albert Gallatin, December 8, 1808                        210



To Albert Gallatin, December 8, 1808                        211



To Albert Gallatin, December 20, 1808                        211



To Albert Gallatin, December 22, 1808                        212



To Wilson C. Nicholas, December 22, 1808                        213



To Governor William H. Harrison, December 22, 1808                        213



To Joel Barlow, December 25, 1808                        216



To Charles Thomson, December 25, 1808                        217



To Albert Gallatin, December 27, 1808                        218



To Doctor George Logan, December 27, 1808                        219



To Albert Gallatin, December 28, 1808                        220



To Edmund Randolph, December 28, 1808                        221



To December 31, 1808                                223



To Henry Guest, January 4, 1808                        224



To Albert Gallatin, January 9, 1808                        225







xlvi                            Contents







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.        PAGE







To the Secretary of War (Henry Dearborn), January 12, 1808        225



To General Dearborn, January 12, 1808        226



To Doctor William Eustis, January 14, 1808        227



To Thomas C. James, Secretary of the American



Philosophical Society, January 14, 1808        230



To Doctor Mease, January 15, 1808        230



Circular Letter from the Secretary of War, to the



Governors, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, January 17, 1808        232



To Washington Boyd, January 20, 1808        233



To His Excellency Governor John Tyler, January 20, 1809        234



To Colonel David Humphreys, January 20, 1808-                                 

235



To Thomas Leiper, January 21, 1808        236



To Colonel Charles Simms, Collector, January 22, 1809        239



To Colonel James Monroe, January 28, 1808        240



To His Excellency Governor John Sevier, January 31, 1809        243



To M. Amelot De La Croix, Boston, February 3,1808        244



To Captain Armistead T. Mason, February 3, 1808            246



To Captain Armistead T. Mason, February 3, 1808        247



To Thomas Mann Randolph, February 7, 1809 ...        248



To His Excellency Governor John Tyler, February 16, 1808        249



To Benjamin Stoddart, February 18, 1809        249



To John Hollins, February 19, 1808        252



To M. Henri Gregoire, Eveque et Senateur á Paris,February 25, 1808        254



To M. Ruell, Ancien Agent Dipiomatique, Rue



D'Argentine, No. 38, @ Paris, February 25, 1808        256







Contents        xlvii







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.                        PAGE



To Thomas Mann Randolph, February 28, 1808.                        256



To Messrs. Gregg and Leib, Senators of Pennsylvania, 



Mr. Smilie, March 2, 1808                        258



To Monsieur Dupont De Nemours, March 2, 1809                        258



To General John Armstrong, March 5, 1809                        260



To Baron Alexander von Humboldt, March 6, 1808                        263



To William Short, March 8, 1808                        264



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), March 17, 1809                        266



To William M'Andless, March 9, 1809                        268



To the Inhabitants of Albemarle County, in Virginia, April 3, 1809             

       269



To Governor James Jay, April 7, 1808                        270



To Colonel Larkin Smith, April 15, 1808                        271



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), April 19, 1808                        273



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), April 27, 1808                        274



To Horatio G. Spafford, May 14, 1808                        278



To John Wyche, May 19, 1808                        282



To the Honorable judge Woodward, May 27, 1809                        283



To William Lambert, May 28, 1809                        254



To Doctor Elijah Griffith, Philadelphia, May 28,1809                        285



To the Hon. Robert Smith, Secretary of State, June 10, 1809                    

   286



To Wilson C. Nicholas, June 13, 1809                        287



To General Henry Dearborn, June 14, 1808                        291



To Monsieur Dupont De Nemours, June 28, 1809.                        293



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), July 12, 1809                        296



To Skelton Jones, July 28, 1808                        297



To André de Daschkoff, August 12, 1809                        303







         xlviii                     Contents







LETTERS 'WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826- Continued.        PAGE







To the President of the United States (James



Madison), August 17, 1809        304



To John W. Campbell, September 3, 1808        307



To General William Clarke, September 10, 1808.        309



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), September 12, 1808        311



To Doctor B. S. Barton, September 21, 1808        312



To James Fishback, September 27, 1808        314



To Messrs. Bloodgood and Hammond, September 30, 1808        316



To Don Valentine De Foronda, October 4, 1809. .        318



To Joel Barlow, October 8, 1808        321



To Albert Gallatin, October 1 1, 1809        323



To the Chevalier Luis De Onis, November 4, 1809        326



To George Washington Irving, November 23, 1808        326



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), November 26, 1808        328



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), November 30, 1808        330



To Mr. Charles F. Welles, December 3, 1808        333



To the President of the United States (James



Madison), December 7, 1808        334



To  Dr. N. Chapman, December 11, 1809        338



To  W. C. Nicholas, December 16, 1808        340



To  Samuel Kercheval, January 15, 1810        341



To  John Wayles Eppes, January 17, 1810        343



To  Samuel Kercheval, January 19, 1810        345



To  William Baldwin, January 19, 1810        348



To  Thomas T. Hewson, January 21, 1810        348



To  the Honorable Paul Hamilton, January 23,1810        349



To Joel Barlow, January 24, 1810        350



To Gideon Granger, January 24, 1810        352







Contents        xlix







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.                PAGE







To  J. Garland Jefferson, January 25, 1810                353



To  judge David Campbell, January 28, 1810                355



To  Caesar A. Rodney, February 10, 1810                357



To  Rev. Samuel Knox, February 12, 1810                359



To  W. D. G. Worthington, February 24, 1810 .                        361



To  William A. Burwell, February 25, 1810                363



To  General Thaddeus Kosciusko, February 26,1810                365



To Doctor Walter Jones, March 5, 1810                370



To Governor John Langdon, March 5, 1810                373



To  Abbé Salimankis, March 14, 1810                379



To  Robert Fulton, March 17, 1810                380



To G. Voolif, Perpetual Secretary of the First Class



of the Royal Institute of Sciences, of Literature



and of Fine Arts, at Amsterdam, May 2, 1810. .                    381



To His Excellency Governor W. C. C. Claiborne,May 3, 1810                383



To His Excellency Governor W. C. C. Claiborne,May 3, 1810                384



To Messrs. Hugh L. White, Thomas M'Corry,



James Campbell, Robert Craighead, John N.



Gamble, Trustees for the Lottery of East Tennessee College, 



May 6, 1810                        386



To the President of the United States (James Madison), May 13, 1810        389



To Governor John Tyler, May 26, 1810                391



To His Excellency Count Pahlen, Envoy Extraordinary



 and Minister Plenipotentiary of Russia, July 13, 1810                394



To C. G. G. Botta, July 15, 1810                396



To William Lambert, July 16, 1810                397



To General Henry Dearborn, July 16, 1810                398



To judge Thomas Cooper, August 6, 1810                401







         Contents







LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER His RETURN TO THE



UNITED STATES, 1789-1826-Continued.        PAGE



To Colonel William Duane, August 12, 1810        404



To  Albert Gallatin, August 16, 1810        409



To Colonel William Duane, September 16, 1810. .        413



To  J. B. Colvin, September 20, 1810        418



To  the Secretary of State (Robert Smith), September 22, 1810        422



To the Attorney-General of the United States



(Caesar A. Rodney), September 25, 1810        424



To Albert Gallatin, September 27, 1810        427



To Captain Isaac Hillard, October 9, 1810                                      

                431



To Colonel William Duane, November 13, 1810        432



To James Ronaldson, December 3, 1810        435



To David Howell, December 15, 1810        436



To Thomas Law, January 15, 1811        437











        CORRESPONDENCE.







        LETTERS WRITTEN AFTER HIS RETURN



        TO THE UNITED STATES.



        1789-1826.



        (CONTINUED.)







JEFFERSON'S WORKS.











        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







WASHINGTON, March 2, 1808.







        On considering the papers which James Brown sent us, containing a

statement of the parcels of property in and adjacent to New Orleans, to which

the United States claims, we thought it safest to await the report of 'the

commissioners, with their list of the property.  The papers received yesterday

by express from New Orleans, and now enclosed to you, give us a list of the

property, and grounds of claim from the common council of the city.  Having

thus the statement, as it were, from both parties, suppose we may consider the

list as complete.  It would therefore be only losing a year to wait for the

report of the commissioners, and especially as the property is suffering.  What

shall we do?  T here are two questions,-first, which of these parcels do

















 



2        Jefferson's Works







really belong to the United States?  Second, how shall they be disposed of?  On

the first question, I presume Congress will not decide themselves, but either

leave it to the present commissioners, or appoint others of higher standing and

abilities, at least for the future, which is of too much value, and too much

involved in prejudices there, to be safely trusted to the present

commissioners.  On the second question, perhaps Congress might now desire the

Executive, so soon as the titles are decided, to state to them the parcels

which should be kept for the government use, and then give to the city such as

they need, and dispose of the rest as they see best.



        Will you favor me with your ideas what is best to be done? 

Affectionate salutations.







TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR JAMES SULLIVAN.



                WASHINGTON, March 3, 1808.



        DEAR SIR,-Your favor of February 8th, covering the resolutions of the

Legislature of Massachusetts, was received in due time.  It is a circumstance

of great satisfaction that the proceedings of the government are approved by

the respectable Legislature of Massachusetts, and especially the late important

measure of the embargo.  The hearty concurrence of the States in that measure,

will have a great effect in Europe.  I derive great personal consolation from

the assurances in your friendly letter, that the electors of Massachusetts

would still

















        Correspondence                    3







have viewed me with favor as a candidate for a third presidential term But the

duty of retirement is so strongly impressed on my mind, that it is impossible

for me to think of that.  If I can carry into retirement the good will of my

fellow-citizens, nothing else will be wanting to my happiness.



        Your letter of February 7th, with a recommendation for Salem, and that

of the 8th recalling it, were both received.  I dare say you have found that

the solicitations for office are the most painful incidents to which an

executive magistrate is exposed.  The ordinary affairs of a nation offer little

difficulty to a person of any experience; but the gift of office is the

dreadful burden which oppresses him.  A person who wishes to make it an engine

of self-elevation, may do wonders with it; but to one who wishes to use it

conscientiously for the public good, without regard to the ties of blood or

friendship, it creates enmities without numbers, many open, but more secret,

and saps the happiness and peace of his life.



        I pray you to accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great

esteem and respect.







        TO COLONEL JAMES MONROE.







                WASHINGTON, March 10, 1808.



        DEAR SIR,-







        From your letter of the 27th ultimo, I perceive that painful

impressions have been made on your

















4               Jefferson's Works







mind during your late mission, of which I had never entertained a suspicion.  I

must, therefore, examine the grounds, because explanations between reasonable

men can never but do good.  1. You consider the mission of Mr. Pinckney as an

associate, to have been in some way injurious to you.  Were I to take that

measure on myself, I might say in its justification, that it has been the

regular and habitual practice of the United States to do this, under every form

in which their government has existed.  I need not recapitulate the multiplied

instances, because you will readily recollect them.  I went as an adjunct to

Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, yourself as an adjunct first to Mr. Livingston, and

then to Mr. Pinckney, and I really believe there has scarcely been a great

occasion which has not produced an extraordinary mission.  Still, however, it

is well known that I was strongly opposed to it in the' case of which you

complain.  A committee of the Senate called on me with two resolutions of that

body, on the subject of impressment and spoliations by Great Britain, and

requesting that I would demand satisfaction.  After delivering the resolutions,

the committee entered into free conversation, and observed, that although the

Senate could not, in form, recommend any extraordinary mission, yet that as

individuals, there was but one sentiment among them on the measure, and they

pressed it.  I was so much averse to it, and gave them so hard an answer, that

they felt it, and spoke, of it, But







Correspondence            5







it did not end here.  The members of the other House took up the subject, and

set upon me individually, and these the best friends to you, as well as myself,

and represented the responsibility which a failure to obtain redress would

throw on us both, pursuing a conduct in opposition to the opinion of nearly

every member of the Legislature.  I found it necessary, at length, to yield my

own opinion to the general use of the national council, and it really seemed to

produce a jubilee among them; not from any want of confidence in you, but from

a belief in the effect which an extraordinary mission would have on the British

mind, by demonstrating the degree of importance which this country attached to

the rights which we considered as infracted.



 2. You complain of the manner in which the treaty was received.  But what was

that manner?  I cannot suppose you to have given a moment's credit to the stuff

which was crowded in all sorts of forms into the public papers, or to the

thousand speeches they put into my mouth, not a word of which I had ever

uttered I was not insensible at the time of the views to mischief, with which

these lies were fabricated.  But my confidence was firm, that neither yourself

nor the British government, equally outraged by them, would believe me capable

of making the editors of newspapers the confidants of my speeches or opinion@. 

The fact was this.  The treaty was communicated to us by Mr. Erskine on the day

Congress was to rise.  Two of the







 



6                Jefferson's Works







Senators inquired of me in the evening, whether it was my purpose to detain

them on account of the treaty.  My answer was, " that it was not: -that the

treaty containing no provision against the impressment of our seamen, and being

accompanied by a kind of protestation of the British ministers, which would

leave that government free to consider it as a treaty or no treaty, according

to their own convenience, I should not give them the trouble of deliberating on

it." This was, substantially, and almost verbally, what I said whenever spoken

to about it, and I never failed when the 'Occasion would admit of it, to

justify yourself and Mr. Pinckney, by expressing my conviction, that it was all

that could be obtained from the British government; that you had told their

commissioners that your government could not be pledged to ratify, because it

was contrary to their instructions; of course, that it should be considered but

as a project; and in this light I stated it publicly in my message to Congress

on the opening of the session.  Not a single article of the treaty was ever

made known beyond the members of the administration, nor would an article of it

be known at this day, but for its publication in the newspapers, as

communicated by somebody from beyond the water, as we have always understood. 

But as to myself, I can solemnly protest, as the most sacred of truths, that I

never, one instant, lost sight of your reputation and favorable standing with

your country, and never omitted







Correspondence          7







to justify your failure to attain our wish, as one which was probably

unattainable.  Reviewing therefore, this whole subject, I cannot doubt you will

become sensible, that your impressions have been without just ground.  I

cannot, indeed, judge what falsehoods may have been written or told you; and

that, under such forms as to command belief.  But you will soon find, my dear

Sir, that so inveterate is the rancor of party spirit among us, that nothing

ought to be credited but what we hear with our own ears.  If you are less on

your guard than we are here, at this moment, the designs of the mischief-makers

will not fail to be accomplished, and brethren and friends will be made

strangers and enemies to each other, without ever having said or thought a

thing amiss of each other.  I presume that the most insidious falsehoods are

daily carried to you, as they are brought to me, to engage us in the passions

of our informers, and stated so positively and plausibly as to make even doubt

a rudeness to the narrator, who, imposed on himself, has no other than the

friendly view of putting us on our guard.  My answer is, invariably, that my

knowledge of your character is better testimony to me of a negative, than any

affirmative which my informant did not hear from yourself with his own ears. 

In fact, when you shall have been a little longer among us, you will find that

little is to be believed which interests the prevailing passions, and happens

beyond the limits of our own senses.  Let us not then, my dear







 



8        Jefferson's Works







friend, embark our happiness and our affections on the ocean of slander, of

falsehood and of malice, on which our credulous friends are floating.  If you

have been made to believe that I ever did, said, or thought a thing unfriendly

to your fame and feelings, you do me injury as causeless as it is afflicting to

me.  In the present contest in which you are concerned, I feel no passion I

take no part, I express no sentiment.  Whichever of my friends is called to the

supreme cares of the nation, I know that they will be wisely and faithfully

administered, and as far as my individual conduct can influence, they shall be

cordially supported For myself I have nothing further to ask of the world, than

to preserve in retirement so much of their esteem as I may have fairly earned,

and to be permitted to pass in tranquillity, in the bosom of my family and

friends, the days which yet remain for me.  Having reached the harbor myself, I

shall view with anxiety (but certainly not with a wish to be in their place)

those who, are still buffeting the storm, uncertain of their fate.  Your voyage

has so far been favorable,, and that it may continue with entire prosperity, is

the sincere prayer of that friendship which I have ever borne you, and of which

I now assure you with the tender of my high respect and affectionate

salutations.







        Correspondence         9







        TO RICHARD M. JOHNSON.



        WASHINGTON, March 10, 1808.



SIR,-I am sure you can too justly estimate my occupations, to need an apology

for this tardy acknowledgment of your favor of February the 27th.  I cannot but

be deeply sensible of the good opinion you are pleased to express of my conduct

in the administration of our government.  This approbation of my

fellow-citizens is the richest reward I can receive. I am conscious of having

always intended to do what was best for them; and never, for a single moment,

to have listened to any personal interest of my own.  It has been a source of

great pain to me, to have met with so many among our opponents, who had not the

liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who

transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political

opinions.  I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political

principles have any decided character, and who has energy enough to give them

effect, must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of

adverse principles.  But I came to the government under circumstances

calculated to generate peculiar acrimony.  I found all its offices in the

possession of a political sect, who wished to transform it ultimately into the'

shape of their darling model, the English government; and in the meantime, to

familiarize the public mind to the change, by administering it on







 



10             Jefferson's Works







        English principles, and in English forms.  The elective interposition

of the people had blown all their designs, and they found themselves and their

fortresses of power and profit put in a moment into the hands of other

trustees.  Lamentations and invective were all that remained to them.  This

last was naturally directed against the agent selected to execute the

multiplied reformations, which their heresies had rendered necessary.  I became

of course the butt of everything which reason, ridicule, malice and falsehood

could supply.  They have concentrated all their hatred on me, till they have

really persuaded themselves, that I am the sole source of all their imaginary

evils.  I hope, therefore, that my retirement will abate some of their

disaffection to the government of their country, and that my successor will

enter on a calmer sea than I did.  He will at least find the vessel of state in

the hands of his friends, and not of his foes.  Federalism is dead, without

even the hope of a day of resurrection.  The quondam leaders, indeed, retain

their rancor and principles; but their followers are amalgamated with us in

sentiment, if not - in name.  If our fellow-citizens, now solidly republican,

will sacrifice favoritism t(--wards men for the preservation of principle, we

may hope that no divisions will again endanger a degeneracy in our government.







        I pray you to accept my salutations, and assurances of great esteem and

respect.







Correspondence               11







TO JAMES MADISON.







        WASHINGTON, March 11, 1808.







        I suppose we must despatch another packet by the 1st of April at

farthest.  I take it to be an universal opinion that war will become preferable

to a continuance of the embargo after a certain time.  Should we not then avail

ourselves of the intervening period to procure a retraction of the obnoxious

decrees peaceably, if possible?  An opening is given us by both parties,

sufficient to form a basis for such a proposition.



        I wish you to consider, therefore, the following course of proceedings

to wit:



        To instruct our ministers at Paris and London, by the next packet, to

propose immediately to both those. powers a declaration on both sides that

these decrees and orders shall no longer be extended to vessels of the United

States, in which case we shall remain faithfully neutral; but, without assuming

the air of menace, to let them both perceive that if they do not withdraw these

orders and decrees, there will arrive a time when our interests will render war

preferable to a continuance of the embargo; that when that time arrives, if one

has withdrawn and the other not, we must declare war against that other; if

neither shall have withdrawn, we must take our choice of enemies between them. 

This it will certainly be our duty to have ascertained by the time Congress

shall meet in the fall







 



12              Jefferson's Works 







        or beginning of winter; so that taking off the embargo, they may decide

whether war must be declared, and against whom.  Affectionate salutations.







        TO GOVERNOR WILLIAM H. CABELL.



        WASHINGTON, March 13, 1808.







        DEAR SIR,-I received last night your favor of the 10th.  There can

certainly be no present objection to the forwarding the letters therein

mentioned, according to their address.



        We have nothing new of importance, except that at the last reading of

an amendatory bill a few days ago, the House of Representatives were surprised

into the insertion of an insidious clause permitting any merchant having

property abroad, on proving it to the executive, to send a ship for it.  We are

already overwhelmed with applications, and there is real danger that the great

object of the embargo in keeping our ships and seamen out of harm's way, will

be defeated; and every vessel and seaman sent out under this pretext, and

placed in the prize of the belligerent tyrants.  I salute you with friendship

and respect.











        TO   ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, March 17, 1808.



        I think it will be impossible to form general rules for carrying into

execution the seventh section of







        Correspondence                         13







        the law of March 12th, without a fuller view of the number and nature

of the cases which are to come under it.  I have waited in expectation the

applications would multiply so as to give one a general view, but I have

received but about half a dozen.  But, indeed, nothing short of a knowledge of

all the cases can enable us to provide for them.  I have been wishing,

therefore, to converse with you on this proposition; to wit, to direct the

collectors to advertise in their respective ports, that all persons desiring

the benefit of that law, must immediately deliver to him a statement of the

place where they have property, its amount, whether cash or goods,







        and what kind of goods, and in whose hands, on oath, but without

exhibiting other proofs till further







        called -on.  These particulars may be stated in a tabular view; for

cash we might authorize vessels to go immediately, but for goods rules must be

framed on a view of all circumstances.



        With respect to the constitution of the act, there are cases in the

books where the word " may" has been adjudged equivalent to "shall," but the

term " is authorized, " unless followed by " and required, " was, I think,

never so considered.  On the contrary, I believe it is the very term which

Congress always use toward the executive when they mean to give a power to him,

and leave the use of it to his discretion.



        It is the very phrase on which there is now a difference in the House

of Representatives, on the bill







 



        14                Jefferson's Works







for raising 6,000 regulars, which says "there shall be raised," and some desire

it to say " the President is authorized to raise," leaving him the power with a

discretion to use it or not.  It is to be observed also that the one

construction puts it in the power of individuals to defeat the embargo in a

great measure, while the other leaves a power to combine a due regard to the

object of the law with the interests of individuals.  I like your idea of

proportioning the tonnage of the vessel to the value (in some degree) of the

property, but its bulk must also be taken into consideration.  On the whole, I

should be for giving prompt permission to bring home money, because one vessel

will bring for all those who have cash at the same port; but the bringing

property in other forms, will require a fuller view and digest of rules. 

Affectionate salutations.







        TO W. C. NICHOLAS, ESQ.







        WASHINGTON, March 20, 1808.







DEAR SIR,-Your favor of the 18th is duly received.  Be assured that I value no

act of friendship so highly as the communicating facts to me, 'which I am not

in the way of knowing otherwise, and could not therefore otherwise guard

against.  I have had too many proofs of your friendship not to be sensible of

the kindness of these communications, and to receive them with peculiar

obligation.  The receipt of Mr. Rose's answer has furnished the







        Correspondence'                       15







happiest occasion for me to present to Congress a complete view of the ground

on which we stand with the two principal belligerents, and, with respect to

France, to lay before them, for the public, every 'communication received from

that government since the last session, including those heretofore sent, in

order that they also may be published, and let our constituents see whether

these papers gave just ground for the falsehoods which have been so impudently

advanced.  We shall hope to see you today. Affectionate salutations.











        TO DOCTOR CASPAR WISTAR.







        WASHINGTON, March 20, 1808.







DEAR SIR,-Yours of the 12th is received.  Congress, I think, will rise in about

three weeks,-say about the 11th of April, and I shall leave this five or six

days after, on a visit of some length to Monticello. This illy accords with

your journey to the westward in May; but can you not separate your excursion to

this place from the western journey?  Between Philadelphia and this place is

but two days, and the roads are already fine.  I would propose, therefore, that

you should come a few days before Congress rises ' so as to satisfy that

article of your curiosity.  The bones are spread in a large room, where you can

work at your leisure, undisturbed by any mortal, from morning till night,

taking your breakfast and dinner with us.  It is a







 



16               Jefferson's Works







precious collection, consisting of upwards of three hundred bones, few of them

of the large kinds which are already possessed.  There are four pieces of the

head, one very clear, and distinctly presenting the whole face of the animal. 

The height of his forehead is most remarkable.  In this figure, the indenture

at the eye gives a prominence of six inches to the forehead.  There are four

jaw-bones tolerably entire, with several teeth in them, and some fragments;

three tusks like elephants; one ditto totally different, the largest probably

ever seen, being now from nine to ten feet long, though broken off at both

ends; some ribs; an abundance of teeth studded, and also of those of the

striated or ribbed kind; a fore-leg complete; and then about two hundred small

bones, chiefly of the foot.  This is probably the most valuable part of the

collection, for General Clarke, aware that we had specimens of the larger

bones, has gathered up everything of the small kind.  There is one horn of a

colossal animal.  The bones which came do not correspond exactly with General

Clarke's description; probably there were some omissions of his packers. 

Having sent my books to Monticello, I have nothing here to assist you but the "

Encyclopedie Methodique.  " I hope you will make this a separate excursion; and

come before Congress rises, whenever it best suits you.  I salute you with

friendship and respect.







Correspondence                        17







        TO THE DEMOCRATIC CITIZENS OF THE COUNTY OF ADAMS, PENNSYLVANIA.







        WASHINGTON, March 20, 1808.







I see with pleasure, fellow-citizens, in your address of February 15th, a sound

recurrence to the first principles on which our government is founded; an

examination by that test of the rights we possess, and the wrongs we have

suffered; a just line drawn between a wholesome attention to the conduct of

rulers, and a too ready censure of that conduct on every unfounded rumor;

between the love of peace, and the determination to meet war, when its evils

shall be less intolerable than the wrongs it is meant to correct.  With so just

a view of principles and circumstances, your approbation of my conduct, under

the difficulties which have beset us on every side, is doubly valued by me, and

offers high encouragement to a perseverance in my best endeavors for the

preservation of your peace, so long as it shall be consistent with the

preservation of your rights.  When this ceases to be practicable, I feel entire

confidence in the arduous exertions which you pledge in support of the measures

which may be called for by the exigencies of the times, and in the known

energies and enterprise of our countrymen in whatsoever direction they are

pointed.  If these energies are embodied by an union of will, and by a

confidence in those who direct it, our nation, so favored in its situation, has

nothing to fear from any quarter.  To







 



18              Jefferson's Works







that union of effort may our citizens ever rally, minorities falling cordially,

on the decision of a question, into the ranks of the majority, and bearing

always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the

majority ceases to be the law.  I thank you, fellow-citizens, for the

solicitude you kindly express for my future welfare.  A retirement from the

exercise of my present charge is equally for your good and my own happiness. 

Gratitude for a p St favors, and affectionate concern for the liberty and

prosperity of my fellow-citizens, will cease but with life to animate my

breast.







        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, March 23, 1808.



        It is a maxim of our municipal law, and, I believe,



of universal law, that he who permits the end, permits of course the means,

without which the end cannot be effected.  The law permitting rum, molasses,

and sugar, to be imported from countries which have not packages for them,

would be construed in the most rigorous courts to permit them to be carried. 

They would consider the restriction to ballast and provisions as a restriction

to necessaries, and merely equivalent to a declaration that they shall carry

out nothing for sale.



This is certainly one object of the law, and-the second is to import the

property; and to these objects all constructions of it should be directed.  I

have







        Correspondence                           19







no doubt, therefore, that Messrs.  Low and Wallace, and others, should be

allowed to carry out the necessary and sufficient packages.  But a right to

take  care that the law is not evaded, allows us to prescribe



that kind of package which can be best guarded against fraud.  Boxes ready made

could not, perhaps, be so easily probed, to discover if they contained nothing

for exportation.  Casks filled. with water can be easily sounded from the

bunghole. if you think, therefore, that one kind of package is safer than

another, it may be prescribed; for that nothing for sale shall be exported is

as much the object of the law, as that their property shall be imported. 

Reasonable attention is due to each object.  Affectionate salutations.











        TO MONSIEUR LE VAVASSEUR.







        WASHINGTON, March 23, 1808.







SIR,-I am sensible of the extraordinary ingenuity and merit of the work which

you offer to the acquisition of our government.  It would certainly be an

ornament to any country.  But with such an immense extent of country before us,

wanting common improvement to render it productive, the United States have not

thought the moment as yet arrived when it would be wise in them to divert their

funds to objects less pressing; no law has yet authorized acquisitions of this

character.  The idea of rendering the Greek and Latin languages living, has

certainly







 



20               Jefferson's Works







some captivating points.  The experiment has, I believe, been tried in Europe

as to the Latin language, but with what degree of success I am not precisely

informed.  I suppose it very possible to reform. the language of the modern

Greeks to the ancient standard, and that this may one day take place.  But in

our infant country objects more urgent force themselves on our attention, and

call for the aid of all our means.  These peculiarities of our situation

deprive us of the advantage of availing our country of propositions which, in a

more advanced stage of improvement, might be entitled to consideration.



Permit me to tender my salutations, and assurances of respect











        TO LEVI LINCOLN.







        WASHINGTON, March 23, 1808.



Dear SIR,-Your letter on the subject of Mr. Lee came safely to hand.  You know

our principles render federalists in office safe, if they do not employ their

influence in opposing the government, but only give their own vote according to

their conscience.  And this principle we act on as well with those put in

office by others, as by ourselves.



We have received from your presses a very malevolent and incendiary

denunciation of the administration, bottomed on absolute falsehood from

beginning to end.  The author would merit exemplary punishment for so

flagitious a libel, were not







        Correspondence                       21







tile torment of his own abominable temper punishment sufficient for even as

base a crime as this.  The termination of Mr. Rose's mission, re infects, put

it in my power to communicate to Congress yesterday, everything respecting our

relations with England and France, which will effectually put down Mr.

Pickering, and his worthy coadjutor Mr. Quincy.  Their tempers are so much

alike, and really their persons, as to induce a supposition that they are

related.  The embargo appears to be approved, even by the federalists of every

quarter except yours.  The alternative was between that and war, and in fact,

-it is the last card we have to play, short of war.  But if peace does not take

place in Europe, and if France and England will not consent to withdraw the

operation of their decrees and orders from us, when Congress shall meet in

December, they will have to consider at what point of time the embargo,

continued, becomes a greater evil than war.  I am inclined to believe, we shall

have this summer and autumn to prepare for the defence of our seaport towns,

and hope that in that time, the works of defence will be completed which have

been provided for by the Legislature.  I think Congress will rise within three

weeks.



        I salute you with great affection and respect.







 



        22        Jefferson's Works







                TO ALBERT GALLATIN. WASHINGTON, March 26, 1808.



        Mr. Madison happening to call on me just now, I consulted him on the

subject of Hoffman's letter.  We both think that it would be neither just nor

expedient that the supplies necessary to the existence of the Indians should be

cut off from them; and that if no construction of the embargo law will permit

the passage of their commerce, and if that law could, and did intend to control

the treaty, (the last of which is hardly to be believed,) then an amendment

should be asked of Congress.  I have no copy of the law by me, and indeed am

too unwell for very close exercise of the mind.  Affectionate salutations.











        TO CHARLES PINCKNEY.







        WASHINGTON, March 30, 1808.



        DEAR SIR,-Your letter of the 8th was received on the 25th, and I

proceed to state to you my views of the present state and prospect of foreign

affairs, under the confidence that you will use them for your own government

and opinions only, and by no means let them get out as from me.  With France we

are in no immediate danger of war.  Her future views it is impossible to

estimate.  The immediate danger we are in of a rupture with England, is

postponed for this year.  This is effected by the embargo, as







        Correspondence                     23







        the question was, simply between that and war.  That may go on a

certain time, perhaps through the year, without the loss of their property to

our citizens, but only its remaining unemployed on their hands.  A time would

come, however, when war would be preferable to a continuance of the embargo. 

Of this Congress may have to decide at their next meeting.  In the meantime, we

have good information, that a negotiation for peace between France and England

is commencing through the medium of Austria.  The way for it has been smoothed

by a determination expressed by France (through the Moniteur, which is their

government paper) that herself and her allies will demand from Great Britain no

renunciation of her maritime principles; nor will they renounce theirs. 

Nothing shall be said about them in the treaty, and both sides will be left in

the next war to act on their own.  No doubt the meaning of this is, that all

the Continental powers of Europe will form themselves into an armed neutrality,

to enforce their own principles.  Should peace be made, we shall have safely

rode out the storm in peace and prosperity.  If we-have anything to fear, it

will be after that.  Nothing should be spared from this moment in putting our

militia in the best condition possible, and procuring arms.  I hope, that this

summer, we shall get our whole seaports put into that state of defence, which

Congress has thought proportioned to our circumstances and situation; that is

to say, put hors d'insulte from a mari-







 



        24              Jefferson's Works







time attack, by a moderate squadron.  If armies are combined with their fleets,

then no resource can be provided, but to meet them in the field.  We propose to

raise seven regiments only for the present year, depending always on our

militia for the operations of the first year of war.  On any other plan, we

should be obliged always to keep a large standing army.  Congress will adjourn

in about three weeks.  I hope Captain McComb is getting on well with your

defensive works.  We shall be able by mid-summer, to give you a sufficient

number of gunboats to protect Charleston from any vessel which can cross the

bar; but the militia of the place must be depended on to fill up the complement

of men necessary for action in the moment of an attack, as, we shall man them,

in ordinary, but with their navigating crew of eight or ten good seamen.



        I salute you with great esteem and respect.















        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, March 31, 1808.



        If, on considering the doubts I shall suggest, you shall still think

your draught of a supplementary embargo law sufficient, in its present form, I

shall be satisfied it is so, for I have but one hour in the morning in which I

am capable of thinking, and that is too much crowded with business to give me

time to think.







        Correspondence                   25







        1.        Is not the first paragraph against the Constitution, which

says no preference shall be given to the ports of one State over those of

another?  You might put down those parts as ports of entry, if that could be

made to do.



        2.        Could not your second paragraph be made to answer by making

it say that no clearance shall be furnished to any vessel laden with provisions

or lumber, to go from one port to another of the United States, without special

permission, etc.? In that case we might lay down rules for the necessary

removal of provisions and lumber, inland, which should give no trouble to the

citizens, but refuse licenses for all coasting transportation of those articles

but on such applications from a Governor as may ensure us against any

exportation but for the consumption of his State.  Portsmouth, Boston,

Charleston, and Savannah, are the only ports which cannot be supplied inland. 

I should like to prohibit collections, also, made evidently for clandestine

importation.



        3.        1 would rather strike out the words "in conformity with

treaty" in order to avoid any express recognition at this day of that article

of the British treaty.  It has been so flagrantly abused as to excite the

Indians to war against us, that I should have no hesitation in declaring it

null, as soon as we see means of supplying the Indians ourselves.  I should

have no objections to extend the exception to the Indian furs purchased by our

traders and sent into Canada.  Affectionate salutes.







 



        26        Jefferson's Works







 TO ROBERT SMITH.



        WASHINGTON, April 1, 1808.







        I approve of your letter to Commodore Murray entirely, and in order to

settle what shall be our course for the summer (now that we are tolerably

clear, that no rupture with England is likely to take place during the summer),

I propose, the first day that I can be well enough, for a couple of hours to

ask a meeting of our colleagues to determine these questions:



        Shall the proclamation be renewed or suffered to



expire?



        Shall the harbors of ordinary British resort (say New York, Lynhaven,

and Charleston) be furnished with their full quota of gunboats, with their

navigating crews?



        Shall the residue of the 170 gunboats be distributed among the other

ports, with their navigating crews, or I be laid up or left on their stocks?



        Shall the frigates and Wasp be unmanned?



        Affectionate salutations.







        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.



        WASHINGTON, April 2, 1808.



        SIR,-On the amendments to the embargo law, I



        am perfectly satisfied with whatever you have con-



        eluded on after consideration of the subject.  My



        view was only to suggest for your consideration







        Correspondence                        27







        not having at all made myself acquainted with the details of that law. 

I therefore return you your bill, and wish it to be proposed.  I will this day

nominate Elmer.  The delegates of North Carolina expect daily to receive

information on the subject of a Marshal.  Is the Register's office at New

Orleans vacant?  Claiborne says it is, and strongly recommends Robertson the

Secretary.  He will be found one of the most valuable men we have brought into

the public service for integrity, talents and amiability.  Affectionate

salutations.











        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, April 8, 1808.







        I suppose that Favre can carry his necessary provisions from New

Orleans across the lake in a periagua or some other vessel, which may come

under the exception of vessels under the immediate direction of the President,

and that being an agent of the United States for the transmission of public

intelligence, such a license is perfectly legitimate.  If this were a matter of

doubt, its solution would be to be sought in the intention of the Legislature,

which was to keep our seamen and property from capture, and to starve the

offending nations.  But Favre is our own agent, and we may as well remit

provisions to him as money to our foreign agents.  It appears to me to be so

clearly out of the scope of the prohibitions of the embargo law, and







 



28              Jefferson's Works







within its exceptions, that I should be for allowing



        him to take out his provisions for his family, under the

superintendence of the Collector.  Affectionate salutations.











        TO JOHN JACOB ASTOR.







        WASHINGTON, April       13, 1808.



        Sir,-I have regretted the delay of this answer to your letter of

February 27th, but it has proceeded from circumstances which did not depend on

me.   I learn with great satisfaction the disposition of our merchants to form

into companies for undertaking the Indian trade within our own territories.  I

have been taught to believe it an advantageous one for the individual

adventurers, an I consider it as highly desirable to have that trade centered

in the hands of our own citizens.  The field is immense, and would occupy a

vast extent of capital by different companies engaging in different districts. 

All beyond the Mississippi is ours exclusively, and it will be in our power to

give our own traders great advantages over their foreign competitors on this

side the Mississippi.  You may be assured that in order to get the whole of

this business passed into the hands of our own citizens, and to oust foreign

traders, who so much abuse their privilege by endeavoring to excite the Indians

to war on us, every reasonable patronage and facility in the power of the

Executive will be afforded.  I salute you with respect.







Correspondence                        29







        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, April 14, 1808.



        I should think Mr. Woodside's application to send provisions for the

family of our consul at Madeira, admissible on the same ground as that lately

to Favre, were the necessity as evident, but, I suppose it can hardly be

doubted that England will procure. provisions for that island, and there is

danger of one precedent in our relaxations begetting another till we may get

out of the limits of the law and its object.



        The application for the establishment of a packet on Lake Champlain

cannot be admitted.  Such an establishment is by no means within the

description of those which we have proposed to license; it would give too great

a facility to evade the law, and the







        builder is in no worse situation than the any others in







        who began their vessels before the embargo law, and who will not be

permitted to use them till that is repeated.  Affectionate salutations.







        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, April 19, 1808.



        DEAR SIR,-Sincerely sympathizing in your distress, which much

experience in the same school has taught me to estimate, I could not have been

induced to intrude on it by anything short of the urgency of' the case stated

by Penniman on Lake Champlain.  Messrs.  Robinson and Witherall tell me the

whole of







 



30              Jefferson's Works







        the business will be over early in May, when the fall of the water

renders the rapids impassable for rafts.  They think vessels of any kind

desired, can be had on the Lake at a moment's warning, and guns of 6 lbs. ball,

there also, mounted on them by procurement of the collector, and that the

governor would order any assistance of militia on being written to.  Believing

it important to crush every example of forcible opposition to the law, I

propose to ask the other gentlemen to a consultation immediately, and for their

and my guide have to request any ideas on the subject which you can hastily

give me on paper, for which I would not have troubled you, but from a

confidence that your knowledge of the character and means possessed by the

collector there, and of the local circumstances to be attended to, may enable

us to decide on what @ill be most proper and effectual.  I salute you with

affection.







        P.        S. Return me Penniman's letter if you please, to lay before

the gentlemen.











        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, April 19, 1808.



        We have concluded as follows:



        1st.  That a letter from your department to the collector on Lake

Champlain, shall instruct him to equip and arm what vessels he can and may

think necessary, and luggage as many persons on board







        Correspondence                       31







them as may be necessary, and can be engaged voluntarily by force of arms, or

otherwise, to enforce the law.



        2d. the Secretary of State writes to the Marshal, if the opposition to

the law is too powerful for the collector, to raise his posse, (which, as a

peace officer, he is fully authorized to do on any forcible breach of the

peace,) and to aid in suppressing the insurrection or combination.



        3d. The Secretary at War desires the Governor, if the posse is

inadequate, to publish a proclamation with which he is furnished, and to call

on the militia.  He is further, by a private letter, requested to repair to the

place, and lend the aid of his counsel and authority according to exigencies.



        We have further determined to build two gunboats at Skanesborough. 

Affectionate salutations.







        P.        S. General Dearborn has Penniman's letter to copy for the

Governor.







        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







        WASHINGTON, April 22, 1808.







        Did I lend you the Pennsylvania act permitting our Western road to pass

through that State?  If I did, or if you have a copy of it, I shall be very

glad to see it.  Mr. Hodge gave me notice yesterday that there would be legal

opposition to that road's passing in any other direction than through Washing-



















        32                  Jefferson's Works











ton, their construction being, that if in fact a good road can be got by

Washington, the law obliges me to direct it through that; and they have got a

survey made on which they affirm the fact to be that a good road may be had.  1

know my determination was not to yield to the example of a State's prescribing

the direction of the road; and 1 understood the law as leaving the route

ultimately to me.  If 1 have misconstrued the law, 1 shall be sorry for the

money spent on a misconstruction, but that loss will be a lesser evil to the

United States than a single example of yielding to a State the direction of a

road made at the national expense and for national purposes. if you have not

the law, 1 must write by this day's post to Mr. Moore, to suspend all further

Proceedings till we can see whether we are really at liberty to pursue the

route we have proposed, or must adopt another which shall not enter the State

of Pennsylvania.



        Affectionate salutations.











        TO ALBERT GALLATIN.







                WASHINGTON, April 23, 1808.



        My ideas on the questions relative to the active







letter of Marque stated in your letter of yesterday, are as follows:







        1st.  Letters of Marque have been considered, ever



since the decisions of 1703, to be of a mixed character



'but that the commercial character predominates;



and as a commercial vessel of private property we







        Correspondence                        33







have in some cases since the proclamation of July, considered them as not

included in its restrictions.



  2d.  The law of 1794, June 5th, certainly exempts the enlistment of

foreigners in this country on board the vessels of their sovereign, from the

penalties of that law, and leaves the subject merely under the law of nations. 

By that law the right of enlistment in a neutral country, given to both

belligerents if they can devise equal advantage from it, is no breach of

neutrality, but otherwise becomes questionable.  We may, justly, 1 think,

permit a vessel of either nation to supply its desertions by new engagements;

but we should be cautious as to permitting them to increase their number, to

carry away more than they brought in.



 3d. It is difficult to draw a line between the two cases where the collector

should consult the government, and where the district attorney.  Where a case

is political, rather than legal, or where it a-rises even on a law whose object

is rather political than municipal, the government should be consulted; and

where the district attorney is the proper resort, still it should be on

consultation by the collector, and not by the party interested.  Affectionate

salutations.















 



         34        Jefferson's Works











        TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE        I



        (JAMES MADISON).







        WASHINGTON, April 23, 1808.



        Notes on the British claims in the Mississippi territory.



        1803, March 3d, act of Congress gave to March 31, 1804, to exhibit

their claims on grants.



        1804, March 27, act of Congress gave to November 30, 1804, and allowed

transcripts instead of originals, etc.



        1805, March 2d, act of Congress gave to December 1, 1805, to file their

grants.  And in fact to Jan. 1, 1807, time when the sale might begin.



        1807, December 15, the British claimants memorialize again.



        On no one of the acts did the British claimant take any step towards

specifying his claim or its location, but remained inactive till the time was

expired, and then remonstrated to his government that we had not given them

time sufficient.  And on the last of 1805, instead of having come forward with

his claims, ready to avail himself of the third term which was then to be

asked, and which was granted nominally to December 1, 1805, but in effect to

January