chapter1f

Also a Commission for Robert [Elliott Coc]ockran to be Marshal of S. Carolina vice Charles B. Cockran resigned

RC (ViU); torn; dated on or before 18 Oct. from list of Commissions in Lb in DNA: RG 59, MPTPC and Madison, Papers (see below); addressed: “The Secretary of State.” Not recorded in SJL.

COMMISSIONERS OF BANKRUPTCY VERMONT: see Stephen R. Bradley to TJ, 13 Sep., for the recommendations of the seven candidates. Madison wrote the appointees on 18 Oct. and enclosed their commissions. DARIUS CHIPMAN returned his to the secretary of state on 6 Dec. 1802, explaining that if he accepted it he would have to resign a state appointment “of some consequence” because Vermont law forbade holding both federal and state appointments (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR, endorsed by TJ: “Chipman Darius to mr Madison resigns as Commr. bkrptcy Seymour Horatio of Middlebury recommended by Israel Smith”; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 4:31). JAMES ELLIOT resigned his commission after being elected to Congress. He wrote Madison on 25 Mch. 1803 and recommended Samuel Elliot, his brother, as his successor (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR; endorsed by TJ: “Elliot James to mr Madison. resigns as Commr. bkrptcy Elliot Samuel to succeed him”).

MARSHAL OF S. CAROLINA: when Charles B. Cochran submitted his resignation to Madison on 4 Oct., he recommended his brother for the position. About the same time, Robert E. Cochran wrote Madison requesting the appointment and enclosing a certificate testifying to his ability to carry out the duties of the office (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR, undated, endorsed by TJ: “Cockran, Robert Elliott. to mr Madison to be Marshal S. Carola v. Charles B. Cockran resigned”; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 3:609). For descriptions of Charles B. Cochran as marshal and efforts early in TJ’s administration to have him removed, see Vol. 33:331-3, 513, 657-8.

After the kind interference on your part which occasioned my release from A Loathsome Prison, I vainly flattered myself with the hope that I should have no further ocation to trouble you on the same subject again, but the Injury I sustained by an unjustifyable out-rage, has been far greater than I was aware of, I find myself incapacitated from following my usual employment, of cours am destitute and friendless in A strange part of the Country and no relation or friends nearer than New Hampshire Having lost my Birth, as Yeoman of the Gun Room, on Board of the United States Frigate Jno. Adams, in which was engaged me by Capt. Tingey previous to my imprisonment To whome I appeal for the truth of my ascertion I have also in my possession The Testimony of Mr. S. Smallwood Cleark of the Navey Yard of my Industry Honesty and Soberness while engaged near twelve months in the service of the United States. Also another Testimoney of Mr. Richard Charles whome I Boarded with five months and acquainted with near one year.—But I am unable to persue my usual labourous occupation & am of course unable to provide in the usual Way for myself & family I am therefore compelled to state these circumstances for your considerations in hopes that their may be within your knowledge some small post obtained which will afford some relief, at least for the present, till A return of my health and Strength,—I Well know the important duties, in which your Excellency is daily imployed, will have little time for attention to claims simular to mine, yet I am equally persuaded that you bestow A proportion of your care on all those objects which come under your notice, however trivial in the eyes of most people Under the impression that I shall so soon as your time and convenciency will permit, & receive attention to this.—

RC (DLC); at head of text: “To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson Esqre. President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received 20 Oct. and so recorded in SJL.

KIND INTERFERENCE ON YOUR PART: see Parsons to TJ, 10, 12 Oct.

I have been expecting by every post to learn from you when I might send on to meet you. I still expect it daily. in the mean time I inclose you 100. Dol. for the expences of yourself, Maria & all your party. mr Randolph would do well to exchange the bills for gold & silver which will be more readily [. . .] on the road. the indisposition I mentioned in my letter by Bowles turned out to be rheumatic. it confined me to the house some days, but is now nearly gone off so that I ride out daily. the hour of the post obliges me to conclude here with my affectionate attachment to mr Randolph & tender love to yourself & the children.

PrC (CSmH); blurred; at foot of text: “Mrs. Randolph”; endorsed by TJ in ink on verso. Enclosure: see TJ to John Barnes of this date.

LETTER BY BOWLES: TJ to Martha Jefferson Randolph, 7 Oct.

Th: Jefferson with his friendly salutations to mr Short sends him by his servant the bundle of papers relative to his affairs which Th:J. had kept with him at the seat of government, because they have been written or recieved there. this with the bundle communicated to him at Monticello contains every thing relative to mr Short’s affairs which are in the hands of Th:J. in this bundle particularly are the assignment of the decree by E. Randolph to mr Short, a mortgage from Th:J. to mr Short, and all the original certificates of the stock of mr Short which were not delivered at Monticello. of the certificates of stock delivered at Monticello & those now sent in the bundle, Th:J. will thank mr Short for a list by way of Voucher of the delivery in the event of mr Short’s death, in which case Th:J. might be called on for proofs of the delivery.—the two last of the letters of Th:J. to mr Short he could not have recieved before he left France.

RC (DLC: Short Papers); endorsed by Short as received at Georgetown on 18 Oct.

While Short was at Georgetown in October and November, he asked Gallatin and Madison if his salary claim against the State Department could be separated from the government’s suit against Edmund RANDOLPH and settled on its own merits. He also volunteered to accept the surety that Randolph had offered him, not in expectation that he would receive payment from Randolph, but as a means of securing that part of the government’s claim against the former secretary of state. Gallatin and Madison agreed that Short’s claim should be paid, and Madison authorized the payment to include not only salary, but also diplomatic outfits, travel expenses, and interest. As part of the payment, in November the Treasury Department transferred to Short 28 shares of eight percent stock, worth a total of $2,800, that had been subscribed at Timothy Pickering’s direction in the expectation that it would ultimately go to Short (Gallatin to Short, 28 Oct., Gallatin to Richard Harrison, 10 Nov., and Short’s list of stock certificates, 16 Apr. 1803, in DLC: Short Papers; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 4:37, 82-3, 86-7, 105-7, 108, 133).

TJ had drawn up a MORTGAGE on his Bedford County lands in 1800 to cover the money he owed Short (Vol. 31:503).

According to a memorandum Short made for his files, the CERTIFICATES that TJ conveyed to him in October 1802 were for “stock which stood in my name on the books at Washington.” The value of the certificates was $11,256.63 in three percent stock; $15,324.18 in “old” six percent stock; $6,000 in deferred stock; and $5,700 in eight percent stock. Short gave TJ a receipt for the certificates, at Georgetown on 20 Oct. (list of stock certificates, 16 Apr. 1803, in DLC: Short Papers).

TWO LAST OF THE LETTERS: probably TJ to Short, 16 and 19 July.

Tench Coxe, Supervisor of the Revenue for the District of Pennsa. July 28. 1802.

John Selman, Commr on Symme’s land Claims (permanent) Augt. Note—Thomas Munroes Commn is dated June 2d. 1802 (permanent).

RC (DLC); undated; in a clerk’s hand, with last three entries in Daniel Brent’s hand; with two emendations, probably by TJ (see notes below); endorsed by TJ as received from the State Department on 18 Oct. and “Commissions issued 1802 July 28.—Oct. 11.”

TJ probably requested the State Department to provide him with a list of the commissions issued while he was away at Monticello. He recorded neither the request nor the receipt of this list in SJL. TJ probably used this list to aid in compiling his chronological list of appointments (see Appendix i). One discrepancy with that list is TJ’s entry of JOSEPH WOOD at 1 Aug., not the 26th as above.

¹ Closing parenthesis supplied by Editors.

² A horizontal stroke was later drawn through this name.

³ A diagonal stroke was drawn through the preceding three names.

Th: Jefferson will be obliged to mr Barnes for 20. Dollars in five dollar bills.

RC (ViU: Edgehill-Randolph Papers); addressed: “Mr Barnes”; endorsed by Barnes; endorsed by TJ: “Barnes John.”

According to TJ’s financial memoranda, on 19 Oct. Barnes sent $15 to the president, who also gave $10 in charity on the same day. The following day, TJ made two additional charitable gifts of $5 each (MB, 2:1084).

A second application For the Expultion of William W. Burrows as before Stated—Lieutt. Colo. Commg. Marines For His Tyrannical Treatmt to a Certain Wm. Barry, on the 15th. August 1802 It being as before Stated to your Excellency Contrary to the Rules and Regulations Concerning the Marine Corps therefore Hope your Honour will as before Stated Banish the aforesaid Wm. W. Burrows out of the Service of the U. States—which Ought to uv been dun Long ago—if your Excellency [. . .] [require shall?] Consider it a grievance therefore Hope and pray as before Stated as a Child petitiong to His Father that you will grant the Petitioners Request I Remain Honoured Sir, your Servt. to Commd.

RC (DLC); top of sheet clipped; at head of text: “To His Excellency Thos. Jefferson Esqr.” Recorded in SJL as a letter of 19 Oct. 1802 received from Washington on 21 Oct. Enclosed in TJ to Robert Smith, 22 Oct.

A SECOND APPLICATION: see Barry to TJ, 5 Oct.

Having understood that a representation has been or is about, to be forwarded to your Excellency upon the subject of removing the Collector & Surveyor of this port, I take the liberty to remind you of the recommendations now in your hands in my favour. Having been honourd with the appointment of Collector of the internal revenue on the dismission of mr. Ten Broeck from that office for delinquency, & haveing exersised that Office but a few months, I hope it will not be deemed, presumptuous in me, to sollicet the Office of Collector, in case that office be vacated; should only the office of surveyor be vacated, I then ask for that appointment.

I considered it superfluous to trouble your Excellency with any further recommendations.

With the highest respect & esteem for Your Character I am Your Excellency’s Obedt. Servt.

RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); at foot of text: “His Excellency Thomas Jefferson Esquire”; endorsed by TJ as received 24 Oct. and “to be Collector & Surveyor of Hudson vice” and so recorded in SJL.

Isaac Dayton (ca. 1753-1825) resided in Hudson, New York. A native of Rhode Island, he had family connections to Elisha and Thomas Jenkins. In 1810, Dayton was the master of a merchant brig (Hudson Northern Whig, 4 Apr. 1809; New York Columbian, 12 June 1810; Providence Rhode-Island American, 22 Mch. 1825).

REPRESENTATION: Thomas Jenkins, Ambrose Spencer, and Alexander Coffin to TJ, 16 Oct.

For the RECOMMENDATIONS that Dayton took to Washington a few months earlier, see Thomas Jenkins to TJ, 7 July.

In March 1803, TJ removed John C. TEN BROECK as surveyor and inspector of customs at Hudson and appointed Dayton in his place. Dayton had previously succeeded Ten Broeck as collector of internal revenue. Federalists declared that the only reason for Ten Broeck’s dismissal from the customs position was politics, the replacement of a Federalist with a Republican. The Hudson Balance called Dayton “the most contemptible of beings” and declared that “no man could be more unfit or undeserving, the office of surveyor and inspector.” The Bee countered by saying that Ten Broeck had deficiencies in his accounts and lost the job “by his own conduct.” Dayton, the Republican paper declared, “paid every farthing of his dues” when his internal revenue collectorship ended. In his record of appointments, TJ classified Ten Broeck’s removal among those necessary “for Misconduct or delinquency,” and next to Ten Broeck’s name he noted “delinqt of old.” The Senate approved Dayton’s appointment as customs surveyor and inspector of the port on 3 Mch. 1803 (Hudson Balance, and Columbian Repository, 22 Mch. 1803; Hudson Bee, 29 Mch. 1803; jep, 1:447; Vol. 33:673; Thomas Jenkins to TJ, 7 July 1802; TJ to the Senate, 1 Mch. 1803).

SHOULD ONLY THE OFFICE OF SURVEYOR BE VACATED: on 12 Nov., Dayton wrote to Samuel Osgood to explain that a prior arrangement, under which Shubael Worth would be recommended for the customs collectorship and Dayton would be recommended for the surveyor’s position, had been altered. Worth had “agreed cheerfully to accept the surveyors office, if the President thought fit to grant me the collectors office,” Dayton wrote. He stated also that he and Worth had agreed on the change before Dayton visited Washington earlier in the year. Dayton asked Osgood to recommend him now for the collector’s position. At the foot of Dayton’s letter, Ambrose Spencer added a note to Osgood, also dated 12 Nov., stating that he was present at the conversation in which Worth said that he would “confine his pretensions & application” to the surveyorship. Osgood, who had already written TJ on Dayton’s behalf, did not write again, but passed along Dayton’s letter with Spencer’s note, which came into TJ’s hands (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR, endorsed by TJ: “Dayton Isaac to Saml Osgood to be Collector” and “Worth Shubael to be Surveyor,” with the latter endorsement canceled; Thomas Jenkins to TJ, 7 July).

I enclose two recommendations for the office of inspector at Smithfield—it should be “surveyor”.

I also enclose as a favorable specimen of Mr Kilty’s official abilities, his report on & analysis of the laws concerning stills; a subject so complex that not one officer of the Treasury understood it well, or had any correct ideas of the proper amendments to be introduced in case the law had continued to exist. I might add to this, every official report he makes to this department: notwithstanding the complexity & difficulties attending the execution of the laws laying internal taxes, he preserved his district in perfect good order. I have mislaid a paper he communicated in relation to the suppression of the inspectors, but recollect that the report I made to you was in a great degree grounded in the opinion Mr. K. had given. His report on the extra-commissions to excise officers will in a few days be acted upon & the results officially communicated to you; as it is shorter than the other paper it is also enclosed.My personal predilections would be for David Stone and Clay; but, although I think them both in many respects superior to Mr Kilty, he is the only person whom I may mention with perfect confidence that he will fulfill the official duties with activity & correctness. The reason why he is the only one is owing to my not having any means of information but what arises from correspondence with the revenue officers in the customs & in the internal taxes dept.—Of all these he is in my opinion the first. The arrangement which I would like best, would be either to have a new additional Auditor, or that Mr Harrison should be removed; for if we had two places to give, we might take talents of different kinds & distribute them properly; but with such an Auditor as Mr Harrison, it is of the highest importance that the other man should be unquestionably what is called a man of business. I wish we had some means of ascertaining the precise rate & species of talents of Clay; he is certainly a good accountant, but with the correctness of his judgment, his method & arrangement in doing business &a. I am totally unacquaintted.

RC (DLC); undated; at foot of text: “Mr Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Treasury Department on 19 Oct. and “Comptroller” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures not found.

OFFCIAL ABILITIES: John Kilty, considered by Gallatin as a candidate for comptroller of the Treasury, was born in London, England, and received part of his education in France. He had settled in Maryland by 1771, while still a minor, and served with the Maryland forces during the Revolutionary War. In 1795, he became supervisor of the revenue for the district of Maryland, an office he held until late 1803 when he was appointed register of the land office for the Western Shore of Maryland. He wrote an account of the history and practices of the land office entitled The Land-Holder’s Assistant, and Land-Office Guide; Being an Exposition of Original Titles, as Derived from the Proprietary Government, and More Recently from the State, of Maryland, published in Baltimore in 1808 (Washington, Papers, Pres. Ser., 13:439-40n; Papenfuse, Maryland Legislature, 2:510; Kilty, Land-Holder’s Assistant, iii-iv, viii). REPORT I MADE TO YOU: see Gallatin’s Report on Collection of Internal Revenues, 28 July 1801.

I am applied to by a young man, Mr. Kuhn, to state to you his desire to be appointed Consul at Gibraltar—He is of a very respectable german family in this City, extensively connected with the german interest, and of sound democratic principles—His father is a merchant in large business, and is among the few here who were not to be intimidated from the maintenance of their principles by federal menaces or bank proscriptions—

Mr. Kuhn has established a mercantile house at Gibraltar, and seems to suppose, that a public function would enable him to transact business with more advantage, and as he is well deserving of it, permit me to recommend him—

Allow me, Sir, to congratulate you on the complete triumph of our cause in this City—We had a hard struggle; but it was crowned with the amplest success—Unusual efforts were made by the tories—They even marshaled their young men, who were made runners of to scour the wards, and be at the outposts—Each individual, on whom they had the smallest reliance, had a note sent him by a committee of vigilance, entreating him to attend the poll and to vote for the federal ticket; and to these unusual efforts were added the usual practise of slandering us in mass and in detail—Being defeated after such a mighty exertion they have fallen into a State of debility, from which, they confess, they cannot nor will not again rise, untill we begin “to cut each other’s throats”—

Sitgreaves has not succeeded notwithstanding the divisions among our friends in that district—A letter from a friend of mine in that quarter gives me the agreeable information that the three democratic candidates are elected—So depreciated is federalism in Pennsylvania, that not a federalist will be returned to Congress—

The accounts from Jersey are not of so agreeable a complexion—If they are true, we have retrograded in that State; but as yet we have nothing definitive

You, Sir, are better acquainted with the State of things in the south—We have some apprehensions here that all is not right in that quarter, it would be a relief to us, therefore, to have them dissipated With sentiments of sincere respect & esteem I am, Sir, Your fellow Citizen

RC (DLC); addressed: “Thomas Jefferson Esqr. President of the U.S. Washington” and “Favd. by Mr. Kuhn”; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Oct. and so recorded in SJL, where it is connected by a brace with five other letters received on that date with the notation “Kuhn P. junr. to be Consul at Gibraltar” (see Peter Kuhn, Jr., to TJ, 5 Nov.).

THREE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES: Robert Brown, Frederick Conrad, and Isaac Van Horne were elected in Pennsylvania’s second Congressional district (Michael J. Dubin, United States Congressional Elections, 1788-1997: The Official Results of the Elections of the 1st through 105th Congresses [Jefferson, N.C., 1998], 27).

je prends La Liberté de vous offrir un exemplaire d’un ouvrage que je viens de publier en france, et dont Le Sujet forme La Base de toutes Les Sciences morales. au milieu des importans objets qui vous occupent, je n’ose espérer que vous puissiez prendre Le tems de Lire deux gros volumes: mais j’espere que vous Recevrez avec Bienveillance, Cet hommage Bien Sincere de mon admiration & de mon Respect. je me flatte aussi que vous n’aurez pas oublié Les personnes qui ont eu Le Bonheur de vous voir chez La très Bonne made helvétius, & Chez Le Digne Docteur franklin. nous avons perdu made helvétius; & Le Cit. La Roche & moi, nous occupons sa maison, Legs d’autant plus touchant de Son amitié, que Ses Cendres reposent dans Son jardin. C’est là, Monsieur Le président, que j’ai eu L’avantage de vous voir quelques fois; C’est là, qu’après votre départ pour L’amérique, nous avons Si Souvent parlé de vous avec Cette vénérable amie. que tous Ces Souvenirs vous fassent Recevoir avec quelque intéret, L’hommage des Sentimens tendres et Respectueux que j’ai toujours eu pour vous, & que votre administration vraiment Républicaine me rend encor plus Chers.

Auteuil, near Paris, 28 Vendémiaire Year 11
of the French Republic [i.e. 20 Oct. 1802]

I am taking the liberty of sending you a copy of a work that I have just published in France and whose subject is the foundation of all the moral sciences. Amid the important topics that occupy you, I do not dare hope that you might take time to read two large volumes, but I hope you will accept, with good will, this very sincere sign of my admiration and respect. In addition, I flatter myself in thinking that you have not forgotten those who had the pleasure of seeing you at the homes of dear Madame Helvétius and the worthy Doctor Franklin. We have lost Madame Helvétius; Citizen La Roche and I take care of the house, a legacy of her friendship that is all the more touching because her ashes rest in the garden. That is where I sometimes had the privilege of seeing you, Mister President. That is where this venerable friend and I often talked about you, after your departure for America. May all these memories inspire you to accept with some interest the gift of warm and respectful sentiments that I have always had for you and that your truly republican government renders all the dearer to me.

RC (DLC); at head of text: “À Mr. Thomas jefferson président des états unis d’amérique”; endorsed by TJ (damaged). Recorded in SJL as received 13 May 1803.

Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (1757-1808), a physician and professor, wrote on medicine, public health, medical education, and philosophy. Writing to Charles Willson Peale on 13 Mch. 1808, TJ described Cabanis as the premier physician in France and the author of that country’s best works on medical topics. Before studying medicine, Cabanis was a student poet and secretary to a Polish bishop of noble birth. In the 1780s, he joined the salon of writers and thinkers, including Volney and Condorcet, that Anne Catherine de Ligneville Helvétius sponsored at Auteuil, outside Paris. He responded to the French Revolution with enthusiasm, but fell under suspicion during its most violent period. When Condorcet could not evade execution in 1794, Cabanis helped the mathematician and philosopher arrange his affairs and furnished the poison that Condorcet used to take his own life. The National Institute elected Cabanis a member in December 1795, in the category of moral and political sciences. In 1798, he became a deputy in the Council of Five Hundred. He may have taken part in the planning of the Brumaire coup in 1799, and he certainly promoted the constitutional changes that put Bonaparte into power as first consul. Cabanis promptly became a member of the Sénat. In the Institute, however, he had become affliated with the idéologistes or idéologues, and like them he became alienated from Bonaparte’s regime beginning in 1802. On 13 July 1803, writing to Cabanis in reply to the letter printed above, TJ recalled the circle of friends that used to gather in the “delicious” village of Auteuil in the period before the French Revolution: “in those days how sanguine we were!” (Dictionnaire, 7:752-3; Tulard, Dictionnaire Napoléon, 316-17; dsb; Amable Charles, Comte de Franqueville, Le premier siècle de l’Institut de France, 25 Octobre 1795-25 Octobre 1895, 2 vols. [Paris, 1895-96], 1:120; Vol. 34:439, 441; Vol. 36:481n).

UN OUVRAGE: Cabanis’s Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme, first published in Paris in a two-volume edition in 1802. The book, which was a compilation of a dozen scientific papers that Cabanis wrote in the 1790s, discussed the interrelationship of physiology, environment, and moral philosophy. TJ, impressed by Cabanis’s treatment of the problem of mind and body, later commended the book to Thomas Cooper, John Adams, and Lafayette (Sowerby, No. 1246; DSB). See also the second letter of Robert R. Livingston at 28 Oct. and the first one from Lafayette at 1 Nov.

The Abbé Martin Lefebvre de LA ROCHE had lived in a pavilion on the grounds of Madame Helvétius’s estate at Auteuil for a number of years (Franklin, Papers, 27:590).

On the 12th: September, I had the honor of writing to you, respecting information received of an intended landing, of the French incendiary negroes, on coasts of the Southern States of this Union; from on board the French frigates, which were at New York.

Since that time, a false alarm has been given on Waccamaw neck, in the North Eastern part of this State; which occasioned the marching of troops towards the sea coast. As this news, will no doubt reach you, & may be mistated, I transmit you herewith a report of the same; as taken from the orderly book of Brigadier General Peter Horry, who commands in that part of the State.

RC (PHi: Daniel Parker Papers); at foot of text: “Thomas Jefferson Esq. President of the United States of America”; endorsed by TJ as received 28 Oct. Enclosure: “Statement from Govr. Drayton S. Carolina, relative to the landing of French Negroes, &c,” 20 Oct. 1802, certified by Daniel Huger, private secretary to the governor, that the annexed papers are true copies taken from the orderly book of the Twenty-Fifth Regiment of the Sixth Brigade; according to General Peter Horry’s account, during the afternoon of 10 Oct. Captain Paul Michau delivered Horry a report by Sergeant John Brown, which asserted that “people of colour” were landing on Long Bay near the house of Ensign Peter Nicholson; informed by his officers that Sergeant Brown was of good character and that his report could be trusted, Horry issued an alarm and sent orders mobilizing his militia brigade, directing a battalion toward the coast to “oppose with force of arms” the alleged invasion; the next day, while proceeding up Waccamaw neck with his military escort, Horry was informed by Benjamin Allston, Sr., that “the alarm given was a false one”; Horry questioned Captain Joshua Ward, who denied any fault in the matter, about the false alarm; Horry remained adamant that the officer responsible should be punished, deeming it “shameful, to sport with the feelings of so many men now on their march; & to occasion distress to their families”; Horry placed Ward under arrest and then questioned Sergeant Brown, who admitted his error and explained that he received his information from his brother, Sergeant Percival Pawley; after reviewing the communications in the affair, Horry was “now better satisfied” with Ward’s conduct and released the officer from arrest; Horry then left Allston’s house, gave orders demobilizing his brigade, and returned to Georgetown; Drayton also included copies of several militia communications, including Ward to Horry, 12 Oct., requesting a court of inquiry into his conduct; a summons by Ward to Pawley, dated midnight, 9 Oct., ordering Sergeants Pawley and Brown to call their men and have them “armed & accoutred, & ready to act on the defense”; Ensign Peter Nicholson to Ward, dated “past 9 oClock at night,” 9 Oct., reporting that he had taken into custody “a black french Creole, who can not give any account of himself,” and given the “general report of danger” from the coast, “I fear has come up to my house, to see what reception he will meet with; while his companions are lying in ambush. He is dressed with a sailor’s jacket, & his undercloths are now wet”; Nicholson will keep him under guard, “fearing his Companions if any may attempt a rescue,” and sends his report to Ward by express, “so that no delay may take place & that as much as possible we may be prepared for the worst”; Ward to Horry, 11 Oct., enclosing copies of Nicholson’s letter and Ward’s summons of 9 Oct., and explaining that he had been following Horry’s recent directions to keep his company ready and maintain “a watchful eye on the sea board; apprehending the landing of french negroes from on board frigate”; Ward deemed it unnecessary to forward Nicholson’s report, and was therefore surprised to discover that word of the affair had reached Horry at Georgetown and that “a considerable part of your Brigade have, & are about to march to Long Bay”; Ward enclosed copies of Nicholson’s report and his own summons to Pawley in order to prove “my reason for calling out my company; & the mode by which, they were summoned”; Ward referred Horry to Sergeant Brown for additional information, who would also deliver to him “the negro taken by Mr. Nicholson, subject to your future order: whom I expect you will judge of a very suspicious character” (printed in Howard A. Ohline, “Georgetown, South Carolina: Racial Anxieties and Militant Behavior, 1802,” South Carolina Historical Magazine, 73 [1972], 130-40).

On 20 Oct., in the aftermath of the false alarm over the alleged LANDING, OF THE FRENCH INCENDIARY NEGROES in Georgetown District, South Carolina, Drayton issued orders thanking PETER HORRY and his militia brigade for their “prompt attention to orders received respecting a late threatened danger along the sea-coast.” The governor observed that “Safety is best assured by alertness; and alarms serve to render the soldier more vigilant.” South Carolina was prepared to defend itself, Drayton concluded, “and watches over the welfare of the people” (National Intelligencer, 17 Nov. 1802).

Your name having been connected with the subject of this letter, will, I trust, be considered as some apology for the liberty I take in troubling you with it. Two letters dated in August 1801, signed N Geffroy, and addressed to you, have been published in one of the prints of this place, and charged upon me, on account, as it was said, of “the parity of hands”: Persons desirous of comparing the hand writing of these letters with mine, were invited to examine the originals at the printing office. Many gentlemen of Carolina long in correspondence with me, & others well acquainted with my hand writing, were here at the time, & profiting of the printers invitation, called to examine these letters, & all of them declared their conviction of the writings not being mine.

As a great deal of the most foul and vulgar abuse had repeatedly been addressed to me in the same paper, many persons here thought I should discover an unbecoming condescension by noticing this ridiculous & anonymous attack; the desire however of checking it, impelled me to a publication, & to declare, on oath, that I had been utterly ignorant of the transaction before reading the newspaper announcing it. It was to have been hoped that my solemn denial, supported by the oaths of every person here acquainted with my writing, would have destroyed this calumny: but the Author & Propagator of it, not discouraged by these circumstances, made a tour through this State, & into Massachusetts, and got a number of Persons, who knew nothing of me, who had never seen my writing, and many of whom (I am credibly informed) could neither read nor write, to swear they believed the letters in question were written by me. This contrivance not producing the desired effect, the postmaster, after a lapse of several weeks, was induced to swear that they were delivered by a girl saying she had lived with me, & saying also that I had sent her. His Son, less cautious, swore they were delivered by my Servant. I fortunately procured very ample & respectable countervailing testimony, which completely nullified the depositions of these officious postmasters. As it is probable, Sir, that the Papers of this place may not be received at Washington, I feel it a respect due to you (whose name has been used in this business as authorizing the publication of the letters) no less than to myself, to forward the enclosed documents disproving my having had any agency in the puerile and ridiculous transaction which malice & ignorance have ascribed to me.

Altho’ the mere circumstance of my being a federalist would be quite sufficient, in this season of violent party spirit and jealousy, to make many persons believe, without examination, that I am capable of any thing infamous with which I might be charged in our licentious papers, yet, I feel persuaded, Sir, notwithstanding the declarations of your having authorized the publication of the letters signed Geffroy, that your mind is too much elevated above suspicion and credulity to have for a moment supposed me capable of the deception which has been attempted. Indeed, Sir, I should not have troubled you with this letter, nor taken the liberty of soliciting your perusal of the documents it encloses, were it not for the deposition of the postmaster, which is the only thing like proof of my agency in the folly with which I have been charged, and which is calculated to render impressive the calumnious tale where the infamous characters of the postmaster and his deputy are not known.

RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 29 Oct. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures not found, but see below.

For the TWO LETTERS received by TJ from Nicholas GEFFROY, dated 1 and 7 Aug. 1801, see Vol. 35:3-6. They were printed in the 18 Sep. 1802 edition of the Newport Rhode-Island Republican.

AUTHOR & PROPAGATOR OF IT: Christopher Ellery.

Depositions dated 5 Oct. 1802 by Newport POSTMASTER Jacob Richardson and his son, assistant postmaster Jacob Richardson, Jr., appeared in the Rhode-Island Republican on 9 Oct. Both men testified that two letters addressed to the president were received by the Newport post office in early August 1801 “by a Girl, who said she lived with Mr. Rutledge,” and that the letters appeared to be in Rutledge’s hand, but disguised. The men made similar declarations in August 1801 to Christopher Ellery, who forwarded their testimonials to TJ (Vol. 35:156-7). In a 29 Aug. 1801 letter, the elder Richardson informed Washington publisher Samuel Harrison Smith of the mysterious letters to TJ. “I knew the hand writing,” Richardson claimed, “& suspected they were anonymous Letters, as they were from one of the Presidents greatest enemies.” Richardson also expressed his belief that the South Carolina congressman was “a bad man & I have thought so a long time, & I will never forgive him, for his Scheme of bringing in a third person for President,” referring to Rutledge’s support for Aaron Burr during the contested election of 1800. Richardson’s letter was probably the enclosure mentioned in Smith’s letter to TJ of 4 Oct. 1801 (RC in MHi; Robert K. Ratzlaff, “John Rutledge, Jr., South Carolina Federalist, 1766-1819” [Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1975], 187-9; Vol. 35:387).

COUNTERVAILING TESTIMONY: the 19 Oct. edition of the Newport Mercury, the Federalist counterpart of the Rhode-Island Republican, contained testimonials by Cleland Kinloch of South Carolina and William Moore, Jr., Horace Senter, and Rhody Chappell of Newport, countering claims by the Richardsons that the Geffroy letters had been delivered to the Newport post office by a girl in Rutledge’s employ. Rutledge compiled these and other articles from the Mercury in his defense into a pamphlet entitled A Defence Against Calumny; Or, Haman, in the Shape of Christopher Ellery, Esq. Hung Upon His Own Gallows (Newport, R.I., 1803; Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 4053).

There are two persons in this place who according to the information I have recd., have respectable claims to the office in question. The first of these is Jacob I. Cohen, a Jew but sound in his principles, of fair character & much employed in the business of the corporation. the other is Tarlton W. Pleasants, a brother of the clerk of the h. of Delegates, of equally fair character, and other respectable pretentions. I can give no name for Norfolk at present, but will as soon as I can.I had some expectation of seing you the begining of the next week, having proposed meeting Mr. Prevost at that time at the federal city or near it, who is so kind to come, take charge of and conduct my family to New York. But a late distressing event the death of my sister in Caroline will put it out of my power to proceed further than Fredbg., on acct. of the meeting of the council wh. is on friday in the next week. On my return I may be able to give a name for Norfolk. You will of course recollect to transmit me what the state of the affr. will permit relative to a provision of some place abroad to wh. to transport certain offenders.

RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); endorsed by TJ as received 26 Oct. and so recorded in SJL with notation “T. W. Pleasants to be Commr. bkrptcy Richmd.”

German immigrant JACOB I. COHEN settled in Richmond after the American Revolution and became one of the city’s most prosperous businessmen. TARLTON W. PLEASANTS was the former copublisher of the Petersburg Virginia Gazette. His mercantile firm of Anthony & Pleasants had recently declared bankruptcy. Neither Cohen nor Pleasants received a commission from TJ (Myron Berman, Richmond’s Jewry, 1769-1976: Shabbat in Shockoe [Charlottesville, 1979], 1-11; Brigham, American Newspapers, 2:1134; Richmond Virginia Argus, 15 Sep., 9 Oct. 1802).

CLERK OF THE H. OF DELEGATES: James Pleasants (Vol. 36:577n).

John B. PREVOST, a stepson of Aaron Burr, was the former secretary to Monroe as minister to France (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 4:23; Vol. 33:309, 420).

MY SISTER: Elizabeth Monroe Buckner, wife of William Buckner of Mill Hill in Caroline County (Madison, Papers, Pres. Ser., 5:361).

MS (DLC: TJ Papers, 112:19297); entirely in TJ’s hand; follows, on same sheet, Notes on a Cabinet Meeting of 18 Jan. 1802.

PRESIDENT & CHESAPEAKE: that is, the Constellation and the Chesapeake. The President had returned to the United States in the spring of 1802 under the command of Richard Dale. “I have it in charge from the President,” Robert Smith wrote to Richard V. Morris on 23 Oct., to order the Constellation and Chesapeake back to the United States “without delay.” The enlistments of the crew of the schooner Enterprize were to expire on 15 Feb., but Smith hoped that enough officers and crew would elect to extend their service to allow Morris to keep that vessel in the Mediterranean (ndbw, 2:115, 306-7).

ACCDG TO APPEARANCES WITH MAROCCO: Smith instructed Morris to send the Adams home if “our differences with Morocco” were resolved (same, 306).

Madison wrote to James SIMPSON on 21 Oct., authorizing the consul to draw funds from Morris. Simpson was not to expend more than $20,000, “nor to go as far as that sum, unless it shall produce a firm peace and an express or tacit relinquishment” of Morocco’s demand for “presents at stated periods,” which Madison called “another name only, for tribute.” Simpson was to be “as sparing of expense” as possible, “both from a regard to œconomy, and to the policy of keeping down the hopes and pretensions of these mercenary powers” (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 4:38).

Regarding ABANDONED SEAMEN at Bordeaux, see Gallatin to TJ, 17 Aug.

CONTINGENT FUND: the 1802 appropriations act, passed on 1 May, allocated $20,000 for “defraying the contingent expenses of government” (U.S. Statutes at Large, 2:188).

Mr. Peter Kuhn, junr. having informed me of the object of his present journey to Washington, I pray that I may be permitted to add my testimony to that of some of my most esteemed friends, in his behalf.—

The father of Mr. Kuhn, and myself have been friends from our youth. He has been many years established at Philadelphia, as a prosperous and respectable Merchant; principally engaged in the trade of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. In his political opinions, he has long been distinguished as an uniform and a most decided Republican.—

My removal to this place, more than five years since, has deprived me of an opportunity of much personal acquaintance with Mr. Peter Kuhn, the younger. I find, however, that his private character is very well esteamed, by persons of great worth, among my friends: And my own occasional acquaintance with him, during my residence in Lancaster, has perfectly satisfied me of the rectitude of his political principles; as well as given me a favorable opinion of his general character.—

My brother, the Doctor, passed some time with us, here, on his return from Virginia—We were happy to find him much improved in his health, by the journey.—

With the sincerest wishes for your public and private prosperity, And the highest personal attachment and respect, I have the Honor to be, Dear Sir, Your most obedt. servt.

RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); at foot of text: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Oct. and “Kuhn P. junr. to be Consul at Gibraltar” and so recorded in SJL.

Barton’s BROTHER, Benjamin Smith Barton, traveled to Virginia in the summer to observe and collect samples of the local flora. During the trip he visited the president at Monticello (W. L. McAtee, “Journal of Benjamin Smith Barton on a Visit to Virginia, 1802,” Castanea: The Journal of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Club, 3 [1938], 85-117).

Your’s of the 16th. is recieved. there is nobody here who can give me any information of the law of S.C. Doctr. Tucker, the only person here from that state, having been too long from it to possess the information you wish. I have written for it to Genl. Sumpter at Statesborough, and think we may have an answer in three weeks from this time, which may be communicated to you by the middle of November. in the mean time should any South Carolinian of information pass through here, I shall not fail to make enquiry & communicate the result.

You say in your letter ‘Martha has recovered compleatly.’ it is the first notice I have that she has been unwell, your letter being the only scrip I have recieved from Edgehill or Monticello since I left home. I have been in daily expectation of recieving notice of the day on which you would set out for this place, that I might send horses, or horses & carriage to meet you at Strode’s. The last day’s journey from Brown’s by Fairfax courthouse, tho’ but of 30. miles is so dreadfully hilly, that no horses in the world, after having drawn for three days, would go through it without everlasting baulking. I would advise you by all means to engage Davy Bowles as far as Strode’s or even to Elkrun church, as the road is so difficulte that nobody unacquainted can possibly find it. from Elkrun church the person I should send to meet you may be a safe guide. I must refer you to a former letter for the stages, distances & notes. mr Granger not being here, I am unable to tell you when the Georgia stage will begin to run. if I can in any way aid your views in Georgia, explain it freely, as nothing will gratify me more than to do so. believing that I cannot serve my family more solidly than by clearing the old debts hanging on us, I am straining every nerve to do it; and hope to accomplish it by the time my term of service expires. present my tender love to Martha & the children & accept yourself my affectionate attachment.

RC (DLC); at foot of text: “T M Randolph”; endorsed by Randolph as received 10 Nov., but see Randolph to TJ, 29 Oct. PrC (MHi); endorsed by TJ in ink on verso.

WRITTEN FOR IT: TJ to Thomas Sumter, Sr., 22 Oct.

TJ had enclosed information on the STAGES of the journey between Randolph’s estate at Edgehill and Washington in a letter of 3 June to Martha Jefferson Randolph.

Francis Mitchill of Richmond in Virginia has been recommended for a midshipman’s place by Colo. John Harvie of that place and mr George Divers, gentlemen worthy of all confidence¹. I saw him myself, & found from his own statement that he had proceeded in geometry as far as the 6. first books of Euclid.

William G. Stewart of Philadelphia applies for a place of midshipman. I am personally acquainted with him, but do not know the extent of his education. he is a young man of correct conduct, of an extraordinary mechanical genius good understanding², well disposed, and served in the Philadelphia in her previous cruize under Capt Decatur, and in her last cruize under Capt Barron as master’s mate.

The Complaint of William Barry is referred to the Secretary of the Navy to enquire whether there has been any thing irregular in the proceedings against him.

PrC (DLC). Recorded in SJL with notation “nominations.” Enclosure: William Barry to TJ, 19 Oct.

¹ Preceding five words interlined.

² Preceding two words interlined.

My son in law Thos. M. Randolph has for some time contemplated the establishment of a cotton plantation in Georgia, and proposes to carry thither this fall some portion of his negroes. he has been informed that a law of S. Carolina against the importation of slaves, has been so construed as to prohibit even a citizen of the US. from an innocent passage thro’ the country with his property in that form, and has written to me for information of the fact. but I find nobody here who can give me that information, which is the reason of my troubling you for it. an answer written without delay, will reach me in time for his purpose. he would willingly on entering the state give any security for passing the whole through the state in as few days as the length of road will admit: or to accept of a watch, appointed by the authorities of the state, to attend them through, his object being bona fide to establish them all on a plantation of his own in Georgia.

We are very hard pressed to extend the removals from office considerably in your state. it is against our inclination and we believe that except in the 3. or 4 middle states, removals dissatisfy more republicans than they gratify; and that the slow but effectual method of restoring equilibrium by filling vacancies as they happen, will effect justice in the end with the least disturbance to the tranquility of our country,¹ adding to these removals for delinquency, and for electioneering activity. I pray you to make up an opinion on this question, on the best information you can obtain, & when made up to communicate it to me. I will say to you confidentially that mr D’Oyley is the principal urger of this measure, and has carried his remonstrance so far as to express sentiments of very dubious aspect. a friend of his proposed him for the office of Collector of Charleston. the present incumbent is considered as a meritorious & punctual officer, who had indeed been very violent against the late change but promised an honest acquiescence under it, & I have never heard that he has broke his promise. Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem & high respect.

PrC (MoSHi: Jefferson Papers); at foot of text: “General Sumpter”; endorsed by TJ in ink on verso.

A FRIEND OF HIS: Charles Pinckney had urged that Daniel D’Oyley be appointed collector at Charleston in place of James Simons (Vol. 33:331-3, 514n; Vol. 34:187). PROMISED AN HONEST ACQUIESCENCE: TJ received and kept a letter written by Simons at Charleston to Comptroller John Steele on 30 Sep. 1802. Noting that the general election was being held in South Carolina on 11 and 12 Oct., the Charleston collector observed: “I deem it proper to state to you as my friend, and I do so on my Sacred honor, that I have not, nor will not, take any part whatever, either directly, or indirectly, in it.—I have refused, and shall continue to refuse, all invitations to dine out, until the election is over.” By attending to business and spending time with his family, Simons tried to shield himself from “suspicion and calumny.” By this strict conduct, he confided, he would “put it out of the power of envy itself, to say any thing against me” (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR; endorsed by TJ: “Simonds to mr Steele”).

¹ Remainder of sentence interlined.

The invention mentioned in your letter of the 17th. inst is certainly of great importance to society. by turning to the act of Congress of Feb. 21. 1793. c. 11. you will have all the information it is in the power of any person to give you. the patent fees can be inclosed to the Treasurer, and the other papers to the Secretary of State, and the business be effectually done without your being at the expence of a journey here. the patent would of course be inclosed to you under such address as you shall desire.Accept my best wishes & respects.

PrC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Joseph Coppinger”; endorsed by TJ in ink on verso.

ACT OF CONGRESS OF FEB. 21. 1793: the patent law, “An act to promote the progress of useful Arts; and to repeal the act heretofore made for that purpose,” stipulated a $30 filing fee and required United States citizenship of the patentee (U.S. Statutes at Large, 1:318-23).

Etant actuellement sur mon chemin pour aller M’embarquer, et esperant que vous etiés encore a Monticello; J’avois pris la liberté de m’y presenter pour avoir L’honneur de vous assurer de mes respects, et vous demander La grace de voulloir bien m’accorder un passe-port pour France, et un certifficat de ma résidence en Virginie depuis 1784. avec celui de mon caractere et des malheurs du feu qui m’ont réduits dans une trés grande indigence avec ma femme et huit enfants; oserai-je prendre la liberté de vous supplier, Monsieur de voulloir bien me faire la grace de me les adresser Chés Mr. George Jefferson Mercht a Richmond ou je serai dans peu de Jours.

La dépreciation extraordinaire dans la fortune de Mde. Bellanger, dont j’ai eté plus particulierement informé par mes dernieres lettres de France, presse encore davantage sur ma grande necessité d y aller moi même faire des exertions personnelles sans les quelles il est evident que je ne pourois esperer n’y de faire honneur a mes affaires ici, n’y donner aucune existance a mes enfants. Il m’en coute beaucoup de me séparer de ma famille dans un tems ou sa subsistance est si incertaine, mais les raisonements de Mde. DeRieux ont eté Si persuasifs, quils ont prevalus sur ma grande difficulté a la laisser dans une telle situation, et elle a préferé s’assujettir a touttes les peines de mon absence plutot que de vivre plus longtems dans des incertitudes qui font le malheur de ses jours. Elle est a 4. miles de Lewisburg dans Le County de Green brier avec nos huit Enfants sur une plantation Louée dont mes deux garçons ainés cultivent la terre.

J’ay L’honneur d’etre dans les sentiments du plus profond respect Monsieur Votre trés humble et trés obeissant se[rviteur]

Being en route to embarkation, and hoping you were still at Monticello, I took the liberty of presenting myself there to have the honor of assuring you of my respect and to request that you grant me a passport for France and an attestation of my residence in Virginia since 1784, as well as of my character and of the misfortunes of fire which have reduced me to the greatest indigence, along with my wife and eight children. May I take the liberty of entreating you, Sir, to do me the favor of addressing it to Mr. George Jefferson, merchant in Richmond, where I shall be in a few days?

The extraordinary depreciation of Madame Bellanger’s fortune, of which I have been specifically informed in my most recent letters from France, makes it all the more urgent for me to go in person to undertake the personal efforts without which it is clear that I could never hope to do justice to my business here or provide for my children. It is painful for me to leave my family at a time when their survival is so uncertain, but Madame Derieux’s arguments were persuasive enough to overcome my great difficulty in leaving her in such a situation. She preferred to assume all the burdens of my absence rather than continue to live in the uncertainty that causes her daily unhappiness. She is four miles from Lewisburg in Greenbrier County with our eight children on a rented plantation, cultivated by my two eldest sons.

With my deepest respect, Sir, I have the honor of being your very humble and obedient servant.

RC (DLC); torn; addressed: “Ths. Jefferson Esqr President of the U. States Washington City”; franked; postmarked 25 Oct.; endorsed by TJ as received 27 Oct. and so recorded in SJL.

MALHEURS DU FEU: in 1796, Derieux and his family lost all their possessions when an ordinary they occupied and ran as a “wet store” in Goochland County burned down. Derieux had previously encountered serious financial setbacks, and the fire left him without assets. TJ and others provided aid and set him up on a leased farm in western Virginia, but Derieux continued to struggle to make a living (Vol. 28:58-60, 370-1; Vol. 29:123, 125n, 141; Vol. 30:29; Vol. 31:544).

Derieux’s aunt, Madame Plumard de BELLANGER, had died in France. When TJ called on her in 1787, she intended to make some provision for her nephew in her will, but she lost patience with him and stopped sending money in 1795. He received only a modest inheritance from her estate (Vol. 12:125-6; Vol. 19:603; Vol. 28:370-1; Vol. 29:164; Vol. 31:544, 545n; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 5:320).

MDE. DERIEUX: Derieux’s wife, Maria Margarita Martin Derieux, was Philip Mazzei’s stepdaughter (Vol. 31:545).

I am conscious that little attention on ordinary occasions are due to annonomous writers, yet the importance of the subject, aided by a belief that the writers name if known would add little (if any) weight to the Arguments proposed, induced the adoption of the present mode without the fear of incurring Censure, because I am sensible truth will never be disagreeable to you in whatever manner it shall be conveyed—If the subject should be deemed by you unworthy of your further Notice, I retain too exalted a sense of your character to believe any Name, however high on the list of fame would divert you from the Strict line of your duty.—Under these impressions I approach the Threshold of the organ of a Government, founded on the purest principles of Justice, an organ faithfull to the cause of humanity in general and the distressed in particular—I say Sir, I approach You in behalf of James McGurk now under the dreadfull sentence of death, in doing which, let me be permitted to believe that the subject is not one of the least which occupies daily your time and care, let me be permitted to hope that your decision on this important case will be favourable to humanity, finally let me be permitted to hope that the infliction of a sanguinary punishment will be averted.—Your penetration and sound Judgment, has I am persuaded long since taught you to contemn the savage Cruelty of Laws founded during the Ages of Gothic ignorance & barbarity, Laws which in this Age of reason and experience ought to be expunged from the Codes of Civilized nations—The Crime of which this unhappy man is convicted is confessedly of the first Magnitude, Murder, by the Most eminent civilians has long since been defined, to give a definition here, would be both superfluous and Presumptuous—I shall content myself, with merely stating facts, by which with the force of your own Judgment you will readily perceive that his crime has been mistaken.—from the Testimony of every Witness it appears that death was occasioned by a-buse and ill-treatment at various times yet from no one Witness nor from their Testimony Collectively can there be found a single circumstance which would lead to a belief that the death occasioned was intended, in his most unguarded moments, when rage had full and unrestrained controll of his mind, such a Wish or such an intention never escaped him—How widely different is a death thus occasioned from one premeditated and intended, the latter alone constitutes the Horrid Crime of Murder, the former assumes both in Law & equity a milder term, and it follows of course a different Punishment.—It is not denyed but that punishment severe and exemplary is due to the offense, and it is by no means contended that his ignorance as to the extent and consequences of his cruelty should be plead in Justification.—yet I shall ever hold it absurd to say that his punishment ought to be equal to that inflicted for a Crime committed intentionally and with malice aforethought.—If therefore from any cause Whatever, it has been neglected by those whose duty it is to guard by equal Laws the rights of the Citizen & thereby has placed him who commits a Crime by accident, on the same footing with him who commits a Crime intentionally, the Organ of the Constitution wisely placed to correct errors of the kind, is doubly bound to prevent the evill, he is bound to interfere for the preservation of the injured rights of the Citizen, and he is equally bound to use his endeavours to cause the enacting of Laws more congenial to reason & Common sense, Laws in which crimes are recognised in their various grades and punishments prescribed adequate to their extent.—

It is not a novell thing to deny the right of any human authority to deprive a fellow creature of Life on any pretence whatever, the folly cruelty and injustice of such a measure, has by many able and wise men been often and fully proven, both from reason & its ablest coadjutor Religion—nay so powerfull and unanswerable are the arguments in favour of the principle, that the most strenious advocates for sanguinary Punishments, have been obliged to excuse themselves for a continuation of the Horid practice, with alledging, that others are detered from the Commission of similar Offenses, this poor attempt at a Justification, like all others in support of any cause opposed to Humanity & sound reason, will be found futile and untenable.—for let me ask, does the frequent and sanguinary Punishments in Europe, lessen the number or limit the extended catalogue of Crimes? rather let me ask if they are not Multiplyed.—Permit me to claim for a moment your attention to the Penal Code of Pennsylvania, the Mildness of which, was considered by some of the first characters of that State as the production of a few Visionary Philanthropists, and misguided Legislators, and for some time were treated as such, till at length reason dawned, and what was considered folly and Weakness after being submitted to a fair trial the wisest of her citizens, acknowledged with a Candor that will ever do them honor, their ignorance of human nature, they saw at once, that violent and oppressive Laws had numerous victims, and it was found to be a Melancholly truth, that the more sanguinary the punishments, the more numerous & attrocious were the Crimes.—Murders of the most agravated nature were committed in the streets of their most populous Cities, under the Rigid system—while similar crimes under their present code are scarcely known, and it is a fact which will be recorded to the praise of Pennsylvania in the fair page of faithfull history, that Ten Executions has not taken place in the whole state for Ten Years last past.—Ignorance alone will inquire the cause.—

After having thus far trespassed on your time, I hope you still have patience to travell with me onward to the point. After denying the Policy and proving the injustice and Cruelty of inflicting death for any Crime, after admitting the unhappy McGurk deserved punishment, let us see if his Sufferings already are to be disregarded, let us examine them and I am pursuaded little more if any thing is due to society— On the 15th. day of January last the unhappy man was committed to the Jail of this City—. Am I to expose to the World the situation of this place, am I to tell the Chief Magistrate of the United States what a confinement he has endured.—ye Religious, ye humane and benevolent inhabitants of Washington have ye subjected yourselves to the just reproaches of insulted humanity—ye have—the extreeme sufferings of a human being imperiously demand it—the violated rights of humanity require it—the unhappy prisoner is now numbering the 10th. Month of his sufferings and at this moment confined in a Room scarcely seven feet square, loaded with near 60 images

of Irons—his Ears assailed every hour of the day, nay momently with the most obscene expressions and horid Imprications & his small appartment where he breaths a little air, covered with filth issuing from an adjoining apartment* (fill’d with Criminals and runaway Slaves) under these disadvantages & under an accumulation of poignant distress, he has to prepare for the great and awfull change, with Death staring him in the face, its terrors momently increased as with hasty strides it approaches his dreary Cell.—Where is the man who views this picture, the faithfull representation of the original whose heart does not relent, is there a man so callous to the dictates of Humanity, that does not pity,—that does not forgive—Parents Brothers, Kindred and friends, of ever rank and station in life let me call to your recollection, that the victims destined to drink the very dregs of the bitter cup of affliction is as uncertain as death itself; no case ever called more loudly for the exercise of this unerring rule, “—do to others as you would wish others do unto you,” than the present.—Were I to address myself in such terms to the ignorant and thoughtless I should receive their well deserved ridicule. but in addressing the Chief Magistrate of the United States I feel a confidence that they will be duly appreciated.—the truths here unfolded and exposed to view will be regarded—the attempt to save a fellow Creature from a Horrid & violent death by the unering rules of Reason & candor, deserves and will receive due attention—no subscription have been asked for, or raised to aid in deceiving the President, no Quibbles have been resorted to in support of this Cause, Justice and humanity Pleads—Under these impressions I have volunteered my humble efforts, they are feeble indeed yet still may aid in prolonging the days of McGurk.—they may afford the means of our beholding him a good Citizen and a reformed man,—Will the Sacrifice on the Alter erected by Ignorance and dedicated to false prejudices obtain more—It will not.—and I am pursuaded should the sufferings of this unhappy man be made known, and sufficiently promulgated there will be found few indeed who would resist the pleasing Satisfaction of eagerly embracing the opportunity of remitting the cruell sentence—To Conclude— Thursday next is the day appointed; the period is fast approaching and before this reaches you another day will be taken from the few that now remains—Let not the clamors of the Idle and disolute. (who had rather witness the dreadfull scene of an Execution than be the bearers of a Pardon) be heard by you, let the Still voice of reason, still retain her influence over your mind, and I feel assured that the issue will be favourable to cause of humanity—

With a well founded hope that you will Pardon me for the trouble I shall give you, I wish you every blessing which it is possible for the good and virtuous to enjoy and with sincerity subscribe myself your,

RC (DNA: RG 59, GPR); at head of text: “To The Pressident of the United States”; endorsed by TJ “Anon.” and “Mc.Gurk’s case,” and so recorded in SJL with 26 Oct. as date of receipt; also endorsed by TJ “Woodward”; with clerk’s endorsement for TJ’s 21 Aug. stay of execution to 28 Oct.

Deeming it “the wish of every good government to reclaim rather than to destroy,” the PENNSYLVANIA legislature reduced the number of capital crimes in 1786, and, by a statute of 1794, divided the crime of murder into two degrees. Under the 1794 law, first degree murder had to involve premeditation or be committed in conjunction with another serious offense, and was the only crime punishable by death. During the nineteenth century, other states followed Pennsylvania’s example in reforming their systems of punishment (David Brion Davis, “The Movement to Abolish Capital Punishment in America, 1787-1861,” American Historical Review, 63 [1957], 23-46; James T. Mitchell and Henry Flanders, comp., The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, 16 vols., [Harrisburg, Pa., 1896-1911], 12:280-90; 15:174-81).

VOLUNTEERED MY HUMBLE EFFORTS: although the letter printed above is not in Augustus B. Woodward’s handwriting, TJ’s endorsement associated Woodward with the document. Some of the phrasing used by “Friend” is similar to wording in documents that Woodward composed. For example, Woodward’s letter to TJ of 16 Aug., the petition of Woodward and others printed at that date, a letter from Woodward to the editors of the Washington Federalist, and “Friend” all described James McGurk as “unhappy.” The petition and “Friend” said that McGurk was “loaded” with irons, mentioned “humble” efforts to aid the condemned man, referred to “rigid” penal systems, and argued that McGurk’s killing of his wife was not “premeditated and intended” (“Friend”) or “premeditated and intentional” (the petition). In the Washington Federalist, Woodward advanced an argument against capital punishment that foreshadowed the reasoning of “Friend” in the letter above. In that discussion, Woodward, like “Friend,” called the death penalty “sanguinary” and pointed to Pennsylvania as a model of reform. In a second piece for the newspaper, Woodward argued that the president must be able to grant clemency “unbiassed by clamor and dissention,” a sentiment echoed by “Friend” at the end of the letter printed above (Washington Federalist, 1, 8 Sep.).

* It is not to be understood by any means that fault is to be attached to the keeper of the prison, his attempts are earnestly directed to every thing that under existing circumstances can make the objects under his care comfortable, his kindness & attention cannot be exceeded—

I enclose some recommendations for the appointt. of surveyor at Smithfield near Norfolk. I had, some days ago, transmitted to you two others, but, whether they were for any of the persons now mentioned, I do not recollect—

Is it not time to decide what answer shall be given to Mr Steele? I wait to write to him on the subject of closing his official transactions, until I shall have heard in what manner you intend writing to him—

P.S. Mr Steele has written to Mr Rawn his principal clerk that he had resigned; & the fact is now made public—

I also enclose letters announcing that — Clarke appd. Survr. at Tombstone N.C. would not accept & recommending Jehu Nichols—As this gentleman is recommended by Mr Stone in whose district Tombstone lies, & the Collector approves, I do not believe that better recommendations need be expected—

RC (DLC); partially dated; at foot of text: “Mr Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Treasury Department on 23 Oct. and “Comptroller. Surveyor & Inspector Tombstone. Surveyor Smithfield” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) Samuel Tredwell to John Steele, collector’s office at Edenton, 11 Sep. 1802, informing the comptroller that he has received the commission for James Clark as surveyor at Tombstone sent on 15 July; he has written Clark several times but has not received an answer; he understands that Clark has been elected to represent Bertie County in the North Carolina General Assembly; Judge David Stone, upon learning of Clark’s candidacy, spoke to Tredwell “of another Gentleman in case Mr Clark did not accept the Appointment” (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR). (2) Tredwell to Steele, collector’s office at Edenton, 13 Oct., learning that Clark declines to serve as surveyor and inspector at Tombstone, he returns the commissions and instead recommends Jehu Nichols, who lives near the place and is spoken of approvingly by Stone “as a fit person to fill the office” (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR; endorsed by TJ: “Nichols John to be Surveyor & Inspector of the revenue for the port of Tombstone N.C. v. James Clarke decld”). Other enclosures not found.

SOME DAYS AGO: see Gallatin to TJ, 19 Oct.

WHAT ANSWER SHALL BE GIVEN: see John Steele to TJ, 30 Sep., and the enclosed copy of his letter to Gallatin of the same date, received on 14 Oct. by TJ.

John Steele on 14 Oct. wrote David RAWN of his resignation. Rawn, characterized by William Duane as an “Exterminator,” received the letter on 23 Oct. and immediately conferred with Gallatin (Henry M. Wagstaff, ed., The Papers of John Steele, 2 vols. [Raleigh, N.C., 1924], 1:325-7; Gallatin, Papers, 6:354-5).

I have the honor of Sending to you herewith, for your Consideration a Copy of a letter from me to Captain Tingey, and also a Copy of his report to me upon the Several objects therein Submitted to him.

RC (DLC); in a clerk’s hand, signed by Smith; at foot of text: “The President”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Navy Department on 25 Oct. and “Tingey’s report on Dry dock” and so recorded in SJL. FC (Lb in DNA: RG 45, LSP). Enclosures: (1) Smith to Thomas Tingey, 13 July 1802, explaining that the advantage of having several streams running above the tide in Washington suggests “the practicability of having a dry dock on the principle of a lock,” in which to lay up navy vessels so as to maintain them “in a state of perfect preservation” and save the expense of the “constant repairs” necessary when vessels are laid up in water and exposed to the sun; to determine which stream may be most advantageously used and to enable Congress to decide on the expediency of the project, Smith directs Tingey to examine Young’s Spring, Tiber Creek, and the Potomac and ascertain the following: the highest point to which the tide has risen at the navy yard, points on Young’s Spring and Tiber Creek that are 24 feet above said high water mark, the quantity of water yielded by these streams, and the height of water in the Potomac Canal above the tide water and its distance to the navy yard; Smith requests Tingey to perform these tasks immediately and to report the results to him “for the consideration of the President” (Tr in DLC). (2) Tingey to Smith, 22 Oct. 1802, presenting his report per the secretary’s request, which was prepared with the assistance of Nicholas King; Tingey states that Young’s Spring, more commonly known as Stoddert’s Spring, rises 32 feet 3 inches above the high water mark in the Eastern Branch and discharges 49 cubic yards and 1 foot of water per hour; a canal to carry this water to the navy yard along the bank of the Eastern Branch would of necessity be “so nearly level, as only to allow a current sufficient to overcome slight obstructions, and prevent the water from stagnating”; such a canal would be about 3. miles in length and two or three lesser springs along the route could be employed to overcome any water lost by absorption along the way; the fall and quantity of water from Tiber Creek was ascertained along its route to the mill belonging to the estate of Notley Young; the water in the race below the mill wheel was 29 feet images inches above the high water mark in Tiber Creek and the Potomac, while the water in the race above the wheel measured 46 feet images inches above the high water mark; the volume of water in the Tiber at this mill was images cubic yards, although measured in a dry season; Tingey suggests two possible routes to convey the water: one around the end of Piney Branch thence to Stoddert’s Spring, about 1¾ miles, thence joining the waters of the aforementioned canal to the navy yard; the other route would pass around the head of Piney Branch and then run west along the face of “the Hill” and around the Capitol to the navy yard, a distance of about 4½ miles; the height of the water when high enough to navigate between the great and little falls of the Potomac to the locks on the latter measures 31 feet images inches above the high water in the river; a course from the locks at the lower falls to the navy yard would be 8 miles, assuming the use of aqueducts to cross the stream near Foxall’s furnace, over Rock Creek, and over the Tiber near the Capitol, making the distances images miles from the locks to Rock Creek and thence images miles through the city to the navy yard; Tingey points out that these measurements were taken during a dry season, and consequently the water in the little falls canal was small, “not so high by two feet, as when the Boats pass along it”; allowing for dry seasons, the height of the canal above high water should not be estimated at more than 29 feet for the purposes of this survey; if the waters of Tiber Creek and Stoddert’s Spring are to be used, Tingey recommends creating a large reservoir containing twice the amount of water estimated to be held by the dry docks, so that they may be filled speedily; if such a reservoir were built, it would probably be necessary to purchase Young’s mill and some adjacent ground, with Tingey estimating the cost at about $4,000; Tingey has not yet learned Mr. Carroll’s price for his land on the Eastern Branch convenient for the dry docks, but suggests instead using land in the navy yard west of the warehouses since it is already public property and would not require stopping up any streets and thereby help thwart possible opposition to the scheme; Tingey does not offer a cost estimate for constructing the canals because Smith possesses “superior data for the purpose than any I am capacitated to give” (Tr in same).

The inclosed paper seems intended for the legislative as well as Executive eye; but certainly not to be laid before the former in a regular way. the only irregular one would be in the newspapers. but this must depend on it’s merit and your opinion of it. there are a few just ideas in it, but they are as a few grains of wheat in a bushel of chaff. I know not from what quarter it came, there being no postmark on the cover. do with it as you may think of it worth or want of it.

RC (DLC: J. Henley Smith Papers); addressed: “Mr. Samuel H. Smith Pensylvania avenue”; endorsed by Smith. Enclosure not identified.

Th: Jefferson will be obliged to mr Barnes for thirty dollars either this evening, or by Mr. Lemaire tomorrow morning.—

RC (ViU: Edgehill-Randolph Papers); addressed: “Mr. Barnes”; endorsed by Barnes: “ images J. Dougherty—same Eveng.”

TJ received THIRTY DOLLARS from Barnes later the same day (MB, 2:1084).

I beg leave to transmit to you by my particular friend, and near relation,—Mr Eakin of the War-office the enclosed letter, in which I have taken the liberty to give to you all the information which I possess on the proposed plan of a canal communication between the Delaware & Chesapeake bays. I have done this with a view to suggest the propriety of this subject being taken up by Congress as an important national object;—which is now in the way of being either irretrievably lost, or advantageously accomplished,—& which, I am convinced, that your recommendation would call into the notice it deserves. Mr. Eakin possesses lands in the probable neighborhood of the canal, and with a clear & impartial judgement possesses much information on this subject. On this account, and as a young man of no common merit, I beg leave to recommend him to your polite notice.

RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 20 Nov. and “by Eakin” and so recorded in SJL.

James EAKIN was a cousin of Latrobe’s wife, Mary Elizabeth Latrobe, and had a long career as a clerk in the War Department (Latrobe, Correspondence, 1:177n).

Philadelphia, 27 Mch. 1802. Latrobe takes the liberty to offer ideas on the canal intended to connect the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. He is assured of the practicability of the project and shall not take up TJ’s time proving it. The principal difficulty will be to prevent the jealousies of Baltimore and Philadelphia from resulting in an imperfect or useless work. Baltimore fears that in a few years it will lose its commerce with the western counties of Pennsylvania to Washington, which will accept produce via Conococheague Creek, and to Philadelphia, which by fostering communication with the Susquehanna River can draw produce that now goes to Baltimore. The Susquehanna produce will travel to the Schuylkill River by a canal that must be completed in a few years; by the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, now nearly extended as far as Columbia; and by the river to Havre de Grace. Baltimore anticipates this natural course of things, and by the reluctance of capital to leave an established arena and by the exertions of its leaders, the city may retain its current trade, but Philadelphia and Havre de Grace will enjoy increasing advantages. The interests of Baltimore with respect to the canal are: to prevent its becoming an easy means of water communication between Philadelphia and the Chesapeake; to prevent its becoming a means of conveying Susquehanna produce to Philadelphia; to prevent its assisting the growth of Havre de Grace; and, if possible, to delay or prevent its construction altogether. Baltimore may accomplish this by locating the canal as far down the Chesapeake as possible and by making it suitable only for barges. A prohibitively expensive shifting of cargoes at each end of the canal would then take place, and the proximity of the Delaware end to the ocean would render the canal useless in times of war without a protecting fleet. The interests of Philadelphia are opposite to those of Baltimore, but Latrobe does not think that the canal will benefit his city as much as its merchants believe. The principal convenience to Philadelphia commerce will arise when the price of produce there, less the canal tolls, exceeds that in Baltimore. Then, the Susquehanna produce will go to Philadelphia. His city will also benefit from shorter and safer trips to the Chesapeake. Yet these advantages depend upon making the canal deep enough for sea-faring vessels and cutting it as high up the two bays as possible, at least to Reedy Island on the Delaware end and no lower than Sassafras River on the Chesapeake. Baltimore leaders worry little over the “infant City” of Havre de Grace because of their wealth, the supposed unhealthiness of the place, its lack of convenient wharves, and the difficult navigation of the Susquehanna. But Havre de Grace seems to Latrobe the natural outlet for all produce that passes Columbia. Baltimore merchants already send their ships to Havre to take in produce, and agents for these merchants purchase and store at Havre the cargoes of boats that cannot go further. Havre de Grace has suffered from the impracticability of the Susquehanna. During the last summer, however, Latrobe supervised the clearing of the river below Columbia, and now, “in a modest swell of the river,” an ark may travel from Columbia to Havre in seven hours. $50,000 more would render the river navigable in all seasons. His report on this subject has been laid before the Pennsylvania legislature and published in the Aurora. Rendering the river navigable upwards will be more difficult but less important, as the value of produce exported from western Pennsylvania counties so far exceeds imported commodities in that region as to make land transport affordable. Havre de Grace has all the advantage of the Susquehanna improvements and on its east side has as deep a harbor as does Baltimore. The canal will first render Havre a store house to Philadelphia, as well as to Baltimore. It will grow rich from the trade of the cities to which it is subservient and “set up for itself.” When Havre is thus advanced, the canal will open to her the trade of South Jersey. Her interests, then, coincide with those of Philadelphia and require a deep canal, not below Sassafras. The canal is of immense importance to Delaware in spite of legislation there that retards its execution and taxes its potential profits. Latrobe is sure he need say little that will convince the president of the importance of the canal to the United States. It will unite the most distant states and in war offer safe internal communication. Yet its advantages would be imperfect unless vessels capable of navigating the bays could pass from one end to the other without shifting cargo.

1 June 1802. Latrobe intended to send this letter to TJ in time to have the subject submitted to Congress, but circumstances prevented its completion, and he trusts that TJ will forgive the intrusion during the recess. There are three viable proposals for canal routes and three or four local interests that might affect the outcome with no regard for the public good. The highest of these lines is from the head of Elk River to Christiana Bridge and thence to Wilmington; the second from Bohemia to Drawyer Creek or Appoquiniminck River, the third from Sassafras to Appoquiniminck. Lately a “very amiable and entertaining french Gentleman,” Major Varlé, who “is certainly not as well acquainted with the mathematical science and practical engineering, as with Music,” has published a map of Delaware. A new route for the canal laid down in this map strikes the Delaware at Hamburg. Latrobe cannot form an opinion as to its practicability, but gentlemen of that area have ridiculed the plan, which, wanting a good harbor on Delaware Bay, exists only to enhance the value of the lands of Varlé’s patron. A proposal to cut the canal into the Chester River and thence to Blackbird or Duck Creek would suit the interests of Baltimore but in every other view is inadmissable because of the danger in Delaware Bay, from the enemy and the weather, and because of the circuitous communication with the Susquehanna. Cutting the canal from Elk River to Christiana Bridge would ensure a certain supply of water to the upper levels and an entrance into the Delaware above Reedy Island, which affords a harbor and good shelter to a fleet in case of war. The disadvantages are the risk of soil filling up the water at Frenchtown due to the many rapid streams that flow from the granite ridge, the rough and rocky country through which the canal would pass, and a difficult navigation down the Christina River to the Delaware. He believes that at least two locks at each end will be necessary. The advantages of the route from Bohemia to Drawyer or Appoquiniminck (the former being a branch of the latter) include good water up the Bohemia River, better and lower ground, and a short cut through the marshes to the Delaware that would save a distance of more than ten miles. The disadvantages are a dubious supply of water to the lower level and an entrance into Delaware Bay below Reedy Island. The line from Sassafras to Appoquiniminck is in most respects “Circumstanced as the last” but has an entrance lower down the Chesapeake and is farther from an upper level water supply. If deemed of great importance that the Delaware Bay entrance of the canal be easily defended, it will be best to cut it from Frenchtown to Wilmington. But on no other account ought this line to be favored, as in Latrobe’s view the ground and the distance will make it the most difficult to cut. Bohemia and Sassafras will afford the cheapest and easiest cutting. He now offers his opinion of what should govern the work. The canal should carry eight feet of water, with a lock at each end of not more than eight feet of lift at high tide. If the entrance be made practicable at half tide, the lift on the Delaware at high water should only be five feet. A survey of the middle ground found that its highest elevation is 66 feet, but Latrobe doubts that this elevation extends far. Ravines come up from each bay, and ground low enough to save much digging is available. The stone work required at each end, not the digging, will require the most skill and money. Multiple locks should not be substituted for digging, as the expense in their maintenance and the delays they would cause would prove a persistent loss. He believes that once all the timber is cleared and the earth cut below the strata in which they now lie, the tributaries of the Bohemia, Sassafras, Drawyer, and Appoquiniminck will prove insufficient to maintain the water in the upper level at the necessary height. He proposes, therefore, to cut a shallow canal from the high land about the sources of the Christina to serve as a feeder to the summit level of the grand canal and also as a means of conveying the produce of the country on either side. This canal would have many descending locks and terminate in a large reservoir, but whatever the line chosen for the grand canal, the upper country will have to supply water to the summit level.

24 Oct. 1802. He pleads sickness and other pressing business for the delay in concluding this letter. He hopes the subject itself and his sincere respect for TJ’s opinion permit the intrusion upon the president’s time. He now lays before TJ the reasons for the canal project’s suspension. Under the legislative acts incorporating the canal company, subscriptions were allowed on a fixed day, so that individuals of each of the three states should have an equal chance of influencing the measures of the company. The capital of the company is set at $500,000 in shares of $200 each. By Delaware’s legislation one half must be subscribed before the company can be formed. No subscription has yet been obtained in Baltimore, and in Delaware only 210 shares have been purchased. It was supposed that merchants in Philadelphia would quickly fill the subscription book, but only 216 shares have been put down. Although some feared that Baltimorians would fill up the shares and be able to defeat the work or serve only Baltimore’s interests, this has not happened, and Latrobe finds that only about 500 shares have been purchased, leaving a deficiency of $150,000. The canal now depends on the federal government’s obtaining full control over its execution. If Congress were to authorize the government to “subscribe a commanding number of the deficient shares,” the plan could proceed without the influence of local interests and private speculation, which have “ruined almost all attempts at great public Works in America.” Delaware has also limited its incorporating act to some time in May 1803, unless its subscription mandate is met. Latrobe does not doubt that the subscription would fill rapidly if either Congress or one of the state legislatures, particularly Pennsylvania’s, subscribed largely to the work. But from the Pennsylvania legislature nothing can be expected. He deprecates the choice of representatives in his state and adds that “men of sense seem to be ineligible in the unanimous opinion of the Majority.”

RC (DLC: TJ Papers, 121:20961-6; 127:21886-9); Editors’ summary; 19 p.; endorsed by TJ as received 20 Nov. and “Delaware Canal” and so recorded in SJL. Printed in full in Latrobe, Correspondence, 1:208-19.

Although the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company sold enough shares by May 1803 to begin operations, insufficient funds forced it to suspend work in December 1805. During that period, Latrobe worked as surveyor and then chief engineer for the project and directed construction of a branch canal intended to feed water to the proposed main canal connecting headwaters of the Elk and Christina Rivers (Latrobe, Correspondence, 1:315-16; Ralph D. Gray, The National Waterway: A History of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 1769-1985, 2d ed. [Urbana, Ill., 1989], 14-22).

John Oakley as Justice of the peace for the County of Washington District of Columbia has four Constables to wait on him before Breakfast every day and they having their pockets filled with Warrants Accounts, Blank Supersedeses &c. &c. &c. entertain him so completely throughout the Day that he has not dined 6 times in two Months To Morrow I am engaged in taking Bail from a Colonel for feloniously (so says the deposition) taking a Girl from a General I have pledged myself to Morrow to so many that my Breakfast will resemble a Levee and I shall scarcely extricate myself by Suppertime Ludicrous & improbable as this may appear it is a melancholy fact that I issue & try as many Warrants in a Week as would neatly folded make a smart Octavo—I hope this will be considered as a sufficient apology or I shall be unhappy from the appointment which engrosses all my time—I have enclosed Mr Stoddert’s letter to me respecting the Subscription for the River Potomak. I remain with great Respect Your very hble Servt.

RC (MoSHi: Jefferson Papers); undated; endorsed by TJ as received 24 Oct. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure not found.

John Oakley became revenue inspector and collector for the port of Georgetown in October 1801. John Thomson Mason had described him to TJ as a “very honest upright man, of very good understanding, very eccentrick” but not a good money manager. Oakley and 14 others received a commission dated 27 Apr. 1802 to serve as justices of the peace for Washington County (FC of commission in Lb in DNA: RG 59, MPTPC; JEP, 1:423; Vol. 33:231n, 670; Vol. 35:190; Vol. 36:314, 320; Vol. 37:181).

SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE RIVER POTOMAK: a shallow channel in the Potomac prevented large vessels from loading at Georgetown. Its merchants feared that mudbanks would ruin navigation to their wharves and give Alexandria a competitive edge. Many Georgetown citizens supported public works for the river, including the use of a dredging or mud machine to clear the silt deposits in the channel below Analostan Island. Former secretary of the navy Benjamin Stoddert dreamed that Georgetown would one day rival Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, or Boston as a trading center. In July 1802, TJ paid to see the “Mud-scoop work” and, according to his financial memoranda, on 25 Oct. directed John Barnes to pay Oakley $100 for his subscription for deepening the bed of the Potomac River to Georgetown (MB, 2:1077, 1085: Bryan, National Capital, 1:496-7; John Lauritz Larson, “A Bridge, a Dam, a River: Liberty and Innovation in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic, 7 [1987], 355, 356, 358; TJ to Nathaniel Macon, 17 July 1802).

The duties of my office calling for all my time, I do not find myself at liberty to indulge in pursuits of the nature of that which is the subject of your letter of September 28. I observe that physicians are as far from being agreed as to what is the yellow fever, as what is it’s cure. if the disease which you have so successfully treated be that which all of them would call the yellow fever, and your remedy so certain, I shoud imagine some of the great cities in which it has prevailed & is still prevailing, would be the best scene for exhibiting proofs of your discovery. it’s reality, once established, the advantages derived from it’s practice would in all probability produce satisfactory recompence. but whether in this or in what other way you can best reap the fruits of your discovery, I am not qualified to judge. I do not think an application to Congress could be useful, because they have already as far as their constitutional powers go, done what they thought best for securing to inventors the benefits of their inventions. Accept my best wishes & respects.

PrC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. John Allen. Pepperelboro’.”

Last November I addressed a Pamphlet to you, from Schenectady, near Albany, (N.Y.S.) which I hope you received. As I have followed the Printing-Business in America without much success, thro’ the minds of the people being somewhat contaminated with corrupt speculations; (which is not actuated by a principle of laudable enterprize in honest Industry;) I hoped you would not be displeased if I enquired of you, if it would be practicable to get a place as a writer or copyist under your Government.

RC (DLC); at head of text: “Hon. Thomas Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received 25 Oct. and so recorded in SJL.

Jonathan Brunt (b. 1760), an itinerant printer and bookseller from Beighton, Derby County, England, came to the United States in 1794. His acquaintances feared he was deranged, and they had him committed to New York’s City Hospital in December 1797 for 18 weeks. Over the next several years, his family sought his whereabouts and repeatedly attempted to persuade him to return to England. His Extracts, from Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding and other Writers; containing a Defence of Natural, Judicial, and Constitutional Rights, on the Principles of Morality, Religion, & Equal Justice, against the Private and Public Intrigues of Artificial Society was printed and sold in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1804 and included a short account of the publisher’s difficulties (Sowerby, No. 3320). Brunt traveled widely, including to Canada and some of the southern states and visited TJ at Monticello on 27 Sep. 1807. Beginning in December 1809, TJ occasionally gave him a few dollars in charity (Brunt, Few Particulars of the Life of Jonathan Brunt Junior, Printer & Bookseller, 3d ed. [1797]; Boston Democrat, 17 Dec. 1806; MB, 2:1250, 1270, 1306; RS, 1:403n, 4:168; Brunt to TJ, 30 Nov. 1807).

PAMPHLET: probably Rush’s Extracts, Containing the Evidences of Genuine Patriotism, and the Love of Our Country, printed for Brunt in 1801 by Elihu Phinney in Cooperstown, New York (Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 245).

Having finished all that I undertook, as my department of the Wyoming Controversy for Pennsylvania Lands, I have returned hither. Dr Priestley being desirous of communicating to you extracts from Mr Stone’s letter, I have copied it for him. Passages respecting himself which he would probably have omitted, I have sent you without scruple; for I take for granted that every thing relating to his literary labours will be interesting privately and publicly, to Mr Jefferson and to the World.

You will observe that the measure of prohibiting in France, the introduction of British Newspapers which Mr Stone thought Buonaparte would not venture upon, has been done. You will be somewhat surprized to, that Dr Priestley’s correspondent, considering his veneration for your character, and what he might have known of the simple organization of American governments, should intimate for a moment that the Republicans of France look to England for principles of Liberty! To England where the boldest friends of freedom propose with hesitation as doubtful theories, what America has long regarded and practiced as political axioms established beyond the necessity of farther discussion! To England, where liberty so far as it is known is the mere footstool of Party. The Whigs and the Tories—the Ins and the Outs—the Pittites & the Foxites of that Country are to me equally detestable. All of them equally dread the real Freedom of the Press, but have not the boldness of Buonaparte to lay the ax to the root. They all know how necessary it is for party purposes, and therefore, and therefore only, and to that extent only, does the one party permit, and the other advocate it. That the Whigs and Foxites, are enemies to the genuine principles of liberty appears evident to me from the doctrines on this Subject laid down by Belsham in page 203-205 of his Memoirs of the reign of Geo. 3rd Vol 5. Belsham I consider (tho’ Dr. P. thinks otherwise) is a party-writer and bookcompiler under the Patronage of Fox Sheridan & what is usually called the Whig Party of that Country; & as laying down their Opinions. Thank God, within these Ten Years another party has arisen, the Party of the People. Truth is with it, and it will prevail.

I am clearly of opinion with Mr. Stone that notwithstanding the political errors of the french Governments, and the horrible vices of their rulers, the Cause of Liberty has gained much in that Country. Those who have observed the quiet and gradual but irresistible effects of extended Knowledge by means of the press, will not be terrified at the temporary storms of political Usurpation. I do not think with Paine that men cannot unknow what they have once known; for this has happened in England, as well as in France; and even in this Country: but while the press is free, it will prove but a temporary night of Intellect. Locke wd. not have written as he did if the Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos, the Lex Rex, the Speeches of Falkland, Hampden, Pym &c And the writings of Milton, Sydney and above all of Harrington, had not preceded him: and without him, the morning twilight of 1688 would not have been the harbinger of the day of 1776. I look forward therefore to the ultimate event, with undiminished hope. But we have much yet to learn. We have to learn even in this mildest of Governments, how easy it is to govern too much and how prone the best of rulers, are from the best of principles, to overact their part. Permit me however sincerely to except from this Observation your principles, and your practice. I know that I state your opinions when I say, that wise men have just begun to suspect that the art of Governing, consists in knowing how to govern as little as possible.

I give credit to Mr Stone’s character of Alexander of Russia, sufficiently to wish that you were his correspondent if you be not so. But I cannot help regarding Mr Stone, and even M. de la Harpe, as characters too obscure to become in any degree the vehicles of your Correspondence. Much of what Mr Stone has related of Alexander, is also mentioned by Kotzebue in the 3rd. Vol of his acct. of his Imprisonment in Russia 75, 79, 214. Kotzebue mentions La Harpe also as Alexanders Tutor with great respect 181. Alexander is young. I regard him with fearful hope.—

How very gratifying it is to your friends to hear of the high respect paid to your Character among the best of Men throughout the enlightened World! Almost am I persuaded that your principles are now too habitual, and your Character too fixed, for your practice to be warped, or your Conduct to waver. Almost; for looking at the Buonoparte’s of present and former times, who of us can say he can compleatly trust himself, under every vicissitude of popular favour and popular Ingratitude? My earnest prayer is that you may continue as you have begun: and that Power and prosperity may never tempt you from the honourable path that led you to them; or deprive you of the exquisite Luxury of knowing and feeling, how anxiously you are looked up to, and how sincerely you are beloved by those who love mankind.

RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 6 Nov. and so recorded in SJL.

WYOMING CONTROVERSY: from March 1801 to August 1804, Cooper served as a Luzerne commissioner to settle the ongoing title disputes between Pennsylvania and Connecticut over territory in the Wyoming Valley. Hoping to avoid further violence over these controversies, Cooper favored conciliation and a judicious legal interpretation, which often seemed sympathetic to the Connecticut claimants. He published his opinions on pending amendments to the compromise act of 1799 as Observations on the Wyoming Controversy, Respectfully Submitted to the Legislature of Pennsylvania in Lancaster in March 1802 and gave a copy to William Duane, who printed it in the Philadelphia Aurora on 17 Mch. (Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 2087; Dumas Malone, The Public Life of Thomas Cooper, 1783-1839 [New Haven, 1926], 150-64; Vol. 31:25-6; Vol. 34:300n).

Bonaparte blocked the INTRODUCTION OF BRITISH NEWSPAPERS by ordering French officials not to enforce parts of a treaty that covered postal exchanges with Britain (Grainger, Amiens Truce, 149).

Memoirs of the Reign of George III, by William BELSHAM, first appeared in 1795 as a four-volume edition that described the monarch’s reign to 1793. A fifth edition of the work, published in 1801, added two volumes that carried the narrative to 1799. On the pages cited by Cooper, Belsham, a political moderate, discussed the treason trial of some “overheated partizans of reform” who had followed “the novel and extravagant doctrines of Paine” and sought a reform of Parliament upon “visionary, if not pernicious, principles.” Because the defendants in the trial had participated in associations that were “infected with the leaven of republicanism,” Belsham commended the government’s spying on the radicals and putting a stop to their “rash and seditious conduct.” The narrative of George’s reign was part of a larger series by Belsham, Memoirs of the House of Brunswic-Lunenburg, which TJ considered to be a fundamental work on English history (William Belsham, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 5th ed., 6 vols. [London, 1801], 5:203-5; Sowerby, No. 408; dnb; Vol. 30:595).

Thomas PAINE wrote in The Rights of Man: “The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it. Those who talk of a counter-revolution in France show how little they understand of man. There does not exist in the compass of language, an arrangement of words to express so much as the means of effecting a counter-revolution. The means must be an obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered how to make a man unknow his knowledge, or unthink his thoughts” (Philip S. Foner, ed., The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, 2 vols. [New York, 1945], 1:320).

For the 16th-century Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross, the NIGHT OF INTELLECT was a renunciation of knowledge in preparation for union with God. Writers in the 19th century used the expression to denote situations in which understanding is lacking (Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, trans., The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross [Garden City, N.Y., 1964], 47-8, 52-3, 201; Charles Lamb, Elia: 1823 [Oxford, 1991], 8; Duncan Wu, ed., The Selected Writings of William Hazlitt, 9 vols. [London, 1998], 6:37; Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ed. Paul Schlicke [Oxford, 1990], 500).

VINDICIÆ CONTRA TYRANNOS: a French Huguenot treatise first published in 1579, Vindiciae, contra Tyrannos argued that religious and political covenants gave sovereignty to the people and made government a social compact. Hubert Languet and Philippe du Plessis Mornay have been most often named as probable authors of the tract, which appeared under a pseudonym. TJ owned a copy of the work (Stephanus Junius Brutus, the Celt, Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: or, Concerning the Legitimate Power of a Prince over the People, and of the People over a Prince, ed. George Garnett [Cambridge, Eng., 1994], xix-xlv, lv-lxxvi; J. Wayne Baker, “Faces of Federalism: From Bullinger to Jefferson,” Publius, 30 [2000], 27-30, 37; Sowerby, No. 2324).

LEX REX: Samuel Rutherford, a Puritan theologian, made a case for natural rights, limited government, and resistance to tyranny in Lex, Rex: The Law and the Prince. A Dispute for the Just Prerogative of King and People, published in London in 1644 (Peter Judson Richards, “‘The Law Written in their Hearts’?: Rutherford and Locke on Nature, Government and Resistance,” Journal of Law and Religion, 18 [2002-3], 151-89).

In 1784, on the invitation of Empress Catherine of Russia, Frédéric César de LA HARPE had become a tutor to the czarina’s grandson Alexander (born in 1777) and his younger brother Constantine. La Harpe, who was 29 years old when he began to instruct Alexander, was a native of the Swiss canton of Vaud and had a law degree from the university at Tübingen. He became the dominant influence in Alexander’s education and moral development. Under La Harpe, the young grand duke learned history, Enlightenment principles, and republican political philosophy. In 1793, the government of Bern demanded that Catherine expel La Harpe from Russia for his advocacy of revolutionary change in Switzerland, but La Harpe remained in St. Petersburg as Alexander’s preceptor until the spring of 1795. John Hurford Stone and La Harpe were acquainted (Jean Charles Biaudet and Françoise Nicod, eds., Correspondance de Frédéric-César de La Harpe et Alexandre Ier, 3 vols. [Neuchâtel, 1978-80], 1:10-18; Hartley, Alexander I, 13-16, 26; J. C. F. Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’a nos jours, 46 vols. [Paris, 1855-66], 28:885-7; Jean Charles Biaudet and others, eds., Correspondance de Frédéric-César de La Harpe sous la République Helvétique, 4 vols. [Neuchâtel, 1982-2004], 4:251, 271, 413).

In 1800, officials in Russia arrested the playwright August von kotzebue as he entered the country on a visit. KOTZEBUE, who had lived in Russia for several years in the 1780s and 1790s, was held in Siberia until Emperor Paul allowed him to go to St. Petersburg. Kotzebue, a native of Weimar, later returned to Germany, but he was in the Russian capital when Paul was assassinated in 1801 and Alexander became emperor. On the pages cited by Cooper in the English translation of the playwright’s memoir of his detention, Kotzebue said that Alexander’s subjects “gave themselves up to joy” when he became emperor, that the new monarch’s actions “tended to encourage and confirm” the people’s expectations, that the appearance of a “round hat” in St. Petersburg the day after Paul’s death caused excitement as a signal of changes to come, and that Alexander would be “a powerful stimulus” to progressive action by the nobility. Kotzebue called Alexander’s former tutor “the estimable La Harpe” (August von Kotzebue, The Most Remarkable Year in the Life of Augustus von Kotzebue; Containing an Account of his Exile into Siberia, and of the other Extraordinary Events which Happened to Him in Russia, 3 vols. [London, 1802], 1:11-12, 16, 24-5, 35-6, 87-9; 2:105, 222-9, 237-9; 3:73-5, 79, 181, 214; George S. Williamson, “What Killed August von Kotzebue? The Temptations of Virtue and the Political Theology of German Nationalism, 1789-1819,” Journal of Modern History, 72 [2000], 890-943).

“I have just recd. my dr. Sir yr interesting communication by Mrs Fenwick, which only serves to heighten my esteem and admiration for your Presidt. We have now two men in the world to whom we look with mingled respect and anxiety. These two men are placed at opposite points of our globe, but their principles, their Sentiments and Conduct appear to be in exact sympathy with each other: The intermediate space is filled up by chiefs of different descriptions of good and evil, tending in general I think rather toward good, but who will not go far astray, when they have two Sentinels such as Jefferson & Alexander to keep them in order.

It might have appeared extraordinary to you, that I shd. put the Autocrat of the Russians and your President in the same line, had I not given you some intimations in former letters of the Character & dispositions of the former. Since I last wrote to you, M. de la Harpe who educated this young man, is return’d from Petersburgh to Paris near which he resides. It wd. be too long to detail to you all that he tells me respecting his pupil, but a few traits will lead you to fill up the picture. In the course of a whole years conversation with the Emperor (for his intercourse was such with him as to be called so) La Harpe never once heard him pronounce the word Subjects or empire. Whenever Alexander talked of the Russians he always called them his Countrymen his fellow citizens (compatriotes, concitoyens) when he talked of Russia it was sa patrie whenever he talked of himself it was his post, his place his charge, as if he had been an elected magistrate. The idea of absolute authority was so far from his mind that in the flow of conversation where all was unpremeditated free & open, no expression intimating it, once strayed from his lips. His uneasy moments were, when the forms & ceremonies of Court recalled to his mind his superiority; at these times he wd. not suffer la Harpe to be a witness of what he called the degradation of mankind; no instances of which so much excited his indignation as what occurred at his own Coronation at Moscow, where he was compelled to submit to such humiliating usages, as were thought natural by his predecessors, but which it is probable he will be careful; if he live long enough to spare those who come after him. Their usages were the accustomed ceremonies of Genuflexion, Prostrations and Adorations exhibited at the Coronation of their Autocrats and which appear from the abhorrence with which he speaks of them to have made a very salutary impression on his mind.

But these impressions are connected with no wild or extravagant notions of Liberty: there is no enthusiasm in any of his movements; and when he is resolved on doing some act of enlarged Beneficence, he is careful to disguise it under antient forms, so as to keep out of sight as much as possible the Idea of Innovation. Thus for instance, Classes of Russians who were incapacitated to possess property; he has contrived to admit into the Cast of Proprietors: this is the blow which Henry 7th struck at the feudal System; on his own territorial possessions, he suffers no Slave or Serf to be bought or sold; he has made it understood, that tho’ he does not mean to infringe on property of any kind, yet that he is personally under no Obligation to follow the barbarous usages of his unenlightened Ancestry. The hint has been taken, and the Gazettes which used to be filled with Columns of this kind of Serf-traffick, are at present perfectly innocent, since no one wishes to be ranked among the class of barbarous descendants. In a convenient season the Emperor will obey the impulse given by the People, and abolish formally an Usage which the enlightened nation of the Russians has already proscribed, the people themselves having taken the initiation in this abolition. This young man you see, is almost as Machiavelian in stealing away Despotism from among his Subjects, as others in Europe are in stealing away Liberty from their fellow Citizens. The powerful sentiment that weighs in his mind is Justice. In this principle he remains unshaken: nothing can seduce him from this point. He bears the most filial and affectionate attachment to his Mother; the Dowager Empress solicited some time since a favour for some one. The Emperor referred her to another day. As my mother Madam says he, you may command every thing that your Son can give, but as a Magistrate I am responsible for every action of my life. In granting your demand, I do an act which I cannot justify, and I am sure you will not urge it further. His Valet de Chambre had been with him from a child; he had Friendship and even Affection for him. The Emperor had one day intimation that some General of his Court had given him money for services rendered or to be rendered him with the Emperor. The man being interrogated owned the Transaction: no atonement could be made: both were banished instantly from the Court, with a suitable provision however for the Domestic.

He is become as one wd. naturally suppose, an object of Adoration to the People of Russia; it is this kind of Sentiment he is much solicitous to correct. You know the Ceremony of prostration whenever the Emperor was met even in his Carriage, which Paul exacted very rigorously. Alexander had made it at first understood that these homages were disagreeable to him, but finding them continued he was compelled to issue a decree to force the People to keep themselves erect, & he has so far succeeded, that he walks now in the Streets, or in the public promenades with his wife, witht. undergoing any farther this kind of molestation: wherever he goes, he is unattended by guards, or by any other than a simple domestic behind his Carriage, or on Horseback into the Country.

He is at this moment earnestly occupied in forming the Mechanism of a free Government, by arranging such an administration as shall become the Vehicle, first of instruction, next of introducing the notions of civil liberty. This is a work of great labour and length of time, and requires both courage & perseverance. He is indefatigable in research, & has auxialiaries as earnest and as active as their Principal. In short this Country unknown half a Century back in the System of European Governments, is rising fast to an elevated seat amongst them, & if it continue as it has begun, its influence will become more preponderant than is suitable to the views of some, who equal Alexander at present in Power, but are infinitely below him in wisdom & in goodness.

Of the present rulers of nations, your President ranks the highest in Alexander’s esteem and affection. He speaks always of Mr Jefferson with high respect as a Man and with great admiration of his Conduct as an Administrator: and did the bounds of a letter permit me, I cd. convince you that this young Emperor is not unworthy of a return of the same Sentiment from your republican chief. I have just mentioned to you that the Emperor is earnest in his researches to form a good administration. I am persuaded that he wd. be highly gratified in receiving some account of the internal administration of the United States; by which I mean the mere machinery, such as the mode of Communication between the President and Ministers—of Ministers with each other—of ministers with their Bureaus of these bureaus with inferior administrations—and by what Channels affairs reach the higher from the lower departments. In such tableau, there is nothing as you will perceive that is political, & if there be no difficulty in procuring it, great service might be rendere’d at little expence. I could ask Joel Barlow, but he I should imagine is not sufficiently instructed in the detail. Yr Ambassador might be better informed, but I never ask any question of Diplomates.

I have kept you long enough you will say in Russia, “let us hear what you have to say of Affairs nearer home.” This is a much more difficult and unpleasing task, for surely never did the Revolution under any of its Phases, present us with any thing so truly ludicrous as the present. For these four Months past, we have been retrograding at so furious a rate, that the most lynx-eyed observer has scarcely been able to keep pace with the motion, & heaven only knows when we shall stop. Within these 2 or 3 Days (10th. August 1802) we have made a kind of pause, having stumbled on something like a new Constitution, if such a name can be given to a string of resolutions said to be explanatory of the late Constitution; & by which we understand just so much, as that it is¹ pretty nearly the inverse, and that all power, legislative, executory, judiciary & administrative is committed to the first consul who settles himself in office for life with the power of naming his Successor. This I am persuaded is only a turn of the wheel which will go round again, for nothing so monstrous so absurd and ridiculous can have any duration. This man in whom we had fixed part of our hopes (for we have learnt to fix them totally on no man) is become an object with us less of indignation, which is too elevated a sentiment, than of contempt. He is got so many more degrees below his place than we thought possible, that we know no longer how to estimate him. The Hero has totally disappeared beneath the Prince, and his vanity has got the better of his pride. More anxious of reigning than governing, while he plays the dictator, he is under the direction of (politically speaking) the most abandoned and perverse of Men. The honours which he had acquired from his glory, has let him totally to forget it, & the egregious flattery that has been poured upon him seems to have altered his Judgement. While he ambitioned being the Pericles of France, his ambition might have been tolerated in favour of the real benefits he contributed to introduce, but wanting to become the Augustus, he has sunk beneath the Usurper.

You will readily suppose that these innovations are not regarded by the people with a favourable eye. All thinking men look on them with abhorrence, but as the press is under the severest restriction, there is no mode of communicating the public Sentiment. The only representation that France has of the public voice, is the English Press, and the only power which Buonaparte is at war with at present, and which perplexes him more than the Coalition, is the English Newspapers. He has made remonstrances in vain to the English Government, which refuses to put the press in England under the same restrictions as Buonaparte has imposed on it in France. Finding no redress from this quarter he has entered the field against them in his official Journal, which a few days since amused the Parisians exceedingly, when they read a Manifesto evidently written by himself, and which by its manner and stile of abuse, seemed to have issued from the Cabinet of some doubly irritated Jacobin. I trust this petulance will go no farther than newspaper discussion, and that his madness will not proceed so far as to light up again the flames of War, an event of which I have no great apprehension, since he must know that such an attempt could not fail of being attended with serious consequences to himself. He seems at present omnipotent but this is only seeming: I have lived long enough here not to be deceived by appearances, & the art or mechanism of Revolutions is so well known from the frequent practice that nothing is stable which is built on violence or power. Who could have predicted, a week before the fall of Robespierre, that this sanguinary chief was so near the scaffold. The late directory was overthrown against all expectations. Our present chief requires only a few men to look him steadily in the face, & such an event may happen when we are least aware of it.

In the mean while the great principles of the Revolution are gaining ground every day. Perhaps this Season of extravagance & folly on the part of our Governors, is as necessary for its purpose as other events that have taken place. A season of enormities is that of enquiry, & tho’ Buonaparte affects to do all par le peuple et pour le peuple, the people are by no means the dupe. They do not as you may suppose behold witht. abhorrence these proceedings; & tho’ the Senate have just declared him consul for life on the vote of upwards of three millions, you may be assured that had the slightest scrutiny taken place not a fiftieth part wd. have acceded to this measure. Never was there a juggle so scandalous from the first to the last carried on by any Government, and never was contempt of all forms and decency more openly avowed or exhibited.

It might be presumed from the audacity with which these acts of despotism are pushed forward, that some understanding had taken place between the french Government and foreign powers as guarantees of these Innovations. This, which is the opinion of many who cannot otherwise account for the Phenomena, I have good reason to believe is by no means the case. It is nothing but the delirium of Ambition the drunkenness of Power, such as sometimes seized the Directory after the events of the 18th. fructidor, and from which the awakening will be terrible for him. Whenever this event takes place the struggle if there be any will only be internal; I am confident that no power whatever will interfere; on the contrary there is not one but will take pleasure in seeing this arrogance humbled. He has just now personally insulted the English Government & in the grossest manner: he has I know personally insulted Russia. The alliance of this last with Prussia is become more intimate, & you know the extent of the friendship of Austria toward France. He has insulted the Army where he has the fewest friends. He has degraded every constituent authority in the state; & notwithstanding his public declarations respecting equality & the people, he scarcely ever dissembles his opinion of such chimæras. You will see by the Senatus consulte organique which he has lately published explanatory of the Constitution and which is diametrically opposite to every principle of it, the measure of his regard for the Laws & Liberties of his country. Admitting that the people have named him consul for life, by what authority does he name his Successor? or take the whole power of the State into his own hands? But this is a² theme that would never finish. Let us escape therefore from the ungrateful Subject.

I have weighed a great deal my dear Sir, all that you say respecting yourself. No selfish motive shall ever induce me to wish you to take any step but such as shall contribute to your happiness. We shd. certainly be abundantly gratified in possessing you, nor are the opinions you have formed respecting yr. welcome here at all founded. The chymists whom you oppose look to you with the greatest reverence; nor are you to believe from the lateness of your nomination to the Institute, that there was any Opposition whatever to your admission. You were not named the first because your nomination was secure, and because as member of the former academies, you had a right. It was a struggle for more uncertain Candidates that caused this delay. As to others, there is no friend of Liberty or of Science here who does not think like Mr Jefferson, so that your objections on this head, are all unfounded. Your health it seems is recovering, nor is yr. age such as to preclude such a Voyage. You are now about 68. This is not with studious men the Season of decay, either corporeal or mental. We have a friend here who is now 85 who has just published a Poem in 3 Vol called Gli Animali parlanti, a severe satire on the modern governments of Europe, and which rivals for its poetical Beauties Ariosto. He is now publishing 3 other 8vo. vols of poetry, which he has just finished, & which display all the richness of imagination of 40 Years. Your friend Mr Lindsay is recovered from a severe illness; he is older than you. Miss Williams has just received a lively letter from him. I trust therefore your health would be no hindrance, could other obstacles be removed.

I am happy to see that you are publishing your Church history. I shd. very willingly sit down to give you farther accounts of the modern state of Religion in this part of the world, but I propose sending you 4 Vols on that Subject written by our friend the late Bp of Blois M. Gregoire. This work will be the history of religion in France since the Revolution, which I think of translating with notes. The Bp you know is very Catholic & very antipapist, but he is also very liberal. you will find with the annotations we shall make, much information on the parts you wish. He is now in England, where he has been recd. with great honour by the Literati and by the Jews of whom he was the official defender here previous to the Revolution. They have evinced their Gratitude by a deputation to present him with their Thanks & a piece of plate worth 100 £.

Your notes on all the books of Scripture cannot fail of being a most valuable work. Mr Russel had already spoken to me about it. The price of printing here is at least 75 per Cent cheaper than in England. If you will send the work when ready we will print it here, and agreeable to the intimations contained in your former letter I will make Mr Russel advance half the expence, and I will undertake the other. He has promised to share with me that of printing the translations of yr works which I am going on with.

I have just received a Deputation from a Body of Christians of rather opposite principles to ours, the Missionary Society in London. These Gentlemen like ourselves are anxious to propagate the Gospel in France, & have proposed to me 6 months since the publication of the new Testament with an introduction of about 250 Pages which they sent me. I return’d it with much erasure and changes, which it seems they have adopted. Their principal is a Mr Bogue of Gosport who superintends an Academy for the education of independent Ministers. The Gentleman who is here & who was a Student under him tells me that yr theological works form at times part of their Lectures. He has given me a very interesting account of the state of Religion in England, and among other things informs me, that the Bishops have agreed to ordain none who do not subscribe to the 39 articles in the sense which they have laid down, which is far from being a liberal one. He assures me also tho’ much allowance is to be made for his professional Attachments, that the Secessions from the Church are growing very alarming to the establishment, and if the facts he related to me are true, there may be some reason. As our house twice a week is somewhat of a Tower of Babel, where people of all Tongues and Professions assemble, We had a visit last evening from one of the Royal Chaplains, Dr Glasse who translated you know the Charactacus of Mason into Greek measure. From his acct. also there appears to be division in the house hold. He inform’d me however that your old Antagonist Dr. Horsley was translated last week to another Bishoprick that I think of St. Asaph with 6000 £ to the great discontent of his Brethren, but it seems that it was the King’s particular pleasure. Horseley’s incredulity in Religion he informs me has become proverbial as his profligacy in morals has become notorious.

You will be desirous no doubt of hearing some thing about the State of Religion here in France. You have seen in the Papers the Concordat both for Catholics and Protestants. They are now by law placed on an equal footing and salaried alike. The protestants feel however the Indignity done to their profession, & have lately held a meeting in Paris & agreed to address the Government on certain points where the interference of the latter seems incompatible with Liberty of Conscience. They have also formed a central Committee of Correspondence with all the protestant churches throughout France. I have very little hopes and few wishes that the Government shd. accede to their Proposals in the first instance, tho’ it is not unlikely from the personal Character of the first Consul, who affects great liberality of Sentiment on these points, that he may in some moment of Caprice accede to a revision. It seems that he has declared himself repeatedly in favour of protestant principles, tho’ the truth is he knows nothing about either. Happily however the Laws give the greatest latitude to all other religious persuasions, and though the Catholic Lutheran and Calvinist are bound by certain articles & Conventions, the Socinian, Anabaptist, Independent, Jew, and others may open any churches at their own expence. In some parts of France the Catholics are very Zealous; in others the Protestants are not less so. On the Rhine the two Communions have joined, and in the South the secession from the Catholic church to the protestant has been and continues very great.

I cannot close this long letter without turning once more to temporal matters, and observing that the cause of Liberty has made some progress in England. Mr W. Smith is elected at Norwich in the room of Mr Wyndham, and Sr. Francis Burdett has turn’d out the Court Candidate for Middlesex. This last the more surprizes me as Sr. Francis informed me here at Paris, where he was loitering till within a week of the Dissolution that he had no intention of going into Parliament, & had made no preparation to canvas. It is singular, but we look toward England for Liberty, as till lately we looked toward France; and the present Government in the late Manifesto written by the Consul, talks of the English Government as either impotent to defend itself or willing to disturb the Social order of Europe.

Tr (DLC: TJ Papers, 108:18571-6); undated, but supplied from contents; in Thomas Cooper’s hand; at head of text: “Copy of a Letter to Dr Priestley.”

John Hurford Stone (1763-1818) met Joseph Priestley in the congregation of religious dissenters led by the radical preacher Richard Price at Hackney in Middlesex. When Talleyrand made a trip to England in 1792, Stone introduced him to Priestley, Charles James Fox, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Later that year Stone moved to Paris, where he was a committed supporter of the French Revolution. He engaged in mercantile and manufacturing ventures and opened a printing house called the Imprimerie Anglaise, or English Press, that issued works by Thomas Paine and Joel Barlow, as well as TJ’s First Inaugural Address as a pamphlet and as a broadside on silk. Although Stone sometimes omitted the name of his establishment from title pages, letters from Volney to TJ of 21 Mch. and 10 May 1803 identify Stone as the publisher of the English translation of Volney’s Ruines made by TJ and Barlow. Stone’s exile from Great Britain became permanent in 1796, when the British government used his correspondence as evidence in an unsuccessful prosecution of his brother William for high treason. In 1798, William Cobbett and others sought to discredit Priestley by publishing an intercepted letter from Stone that praised the actions of France and alluded with favor to a pending invasion of England. In his Letters to the Inhabitants of Northumberland, Priestley sought to explain, rather than deny, the opinions and associations revealed by the intercepted letter. Perhaps the Letters, Priestley explained to TJ, would “give some satisfaction to my suspicious neighbours” (DNB; Madeleine B. Stern, “The English Press in Paris and Its Successors, 1793-1852,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 74 [1980], 307-59; Jenny Graham, “Joseph Priestley in America,” in Isabel Rivers and David L. Wykes, eds., Joseph Priestley, Scientist, Philosopher, and Theologian [Oxford, 2008], 225-7; Copies of Original Letters Recently Written by Persons in Paris to Dr. Priestley in America [Philadelphia, 1798]; Vol. 31:346; Vol. 33:341-2n; Vol. 34:441-2n).

Priestley’s INTERESTING COMMUNICATION to Stone may have been a letter dated only “1802,” perhaps written in the spring of the year. In it, Priestley said that the “continuation” of his General History of the Christian Church was in press. He praised Cooper, lamented the renewal of war in Saint-Domingue, and indicated that he had sent TJ an extract from an earlier letter from Stone. Priestley also enclosed a copy of a letter he had received from TJ, almost certainly that of 21 Mch. 1801, which TJ apologetically called “a long disquisition on politics.” In it, the new president commented at some length, in negative terms, about the recent era of “bigotry in Politics & Religion” in the United States. TJ lauded the Republicans’ success in breaking the stalemate of the stalled presidential selection by “peaceable & legitimate” means and expressed his confidence that America was at the beginning of a new age. In his letter to Stone, Priestley declared that if TJ’s comments should be made public, “I should forfeit his friendship.” Priestley insisted that the letter “may not, on any account, go out of your own hands, or a copy be taken of it, much more that it be not translated and printed.” Priestley, however, was so taken with TJ’s letter that he also sent a copy to his brother-in-law in England, and through some channel, other associates of Stone and Priestley also saw it. TJ’s letter did find its way into print and caused him some political embarrassment, but not until 1813 (John Towill Rutt, Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley, 2 vols. [London, 1831-32], 2:474-7; Vol. 33:393-5).

Although Cooper transcribed the name as “Mrs” FENWICK, Priestley expected his letter to reach Stone “by means of Mr. Fenwick, though he will go to England before he sees France.” The bearer of the letter may have been Joseph Fenwick, the former American consul at Bordeaux. On 28 Apr., he informed Madison from Philadelphia that he would “embark in the May packet for London,” then after about two weeks in England he would go to France to spend a month or two attending to personal business. Fenwick was married, and perhaps Stone received the letter through Mrs. Fenwick (Rutt, Life and Correspondence, 476; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 3:162; Vol. 33:334-5).

RETURN’D FROM PETERSBURGH: Alexander and La Harpe corresponded after the latter’s departure from Russia in 1795. On Alexander’s accession to the throne six years later, the new emperor invited his former teacher, who was living near Paris, to visit St. Petersburg. La Harpe spent ten months in Russia on that trip, returning to France in the spring of 1802 (Biaudet and Nicod, eds., Correspondance de Frédéric-César de La Harpe et Alexandre Ier, 1:19-29).

SA PATRIE: his native land.

ADMIT INTO THE CAST OF PROPRIETORS: a December 1801 decree allowed purchases of land by classes other than nobles, ending a monopoly on landholding by the Russian nobility (Hartley, Alexander I, 46-7).

Alexander’s WIFE was Elizabeth Alekseevna, a princess originally from Baden (same, 15).

SOMETHING LIKE A NEW CONSTITUTION: the sénatus-consulte, approved 5 Aug., that gave Bonaparte power for life (see William Lee to TJ, 10 Aug.).

Bonaparte had placed restrictions on NEWSPAPERS in Paris, suppressing some publications and keeping the remainder under tight control (Tulard, Dictionnaire Napoléon, 1397-8).

ENTERED THE FIELD AGAINST THEM: on 8 Aug., the front page of the Moniteur carried Bonaparte’s MANIFESTO in the form of an unsigned opinion piece. The article accused the Times of London of publishing “invectives” against France, said that disaffected émigré bishops living in England were libeling the church in France, and declared that Britain, in violation of the Amiens treaty, was harboring “brigands” who had tried to undermine order in France and advocated the assassination of the first consul. Questioning a liberty of the press that allowed such treatment of a friendly nation, the author suggested that a country must be responsible for its citizens’ conduct toward other states. Rather than continue a long series of episodes in which France and Britain sought to undermine each other, beginning with Richelieu’s aid to revolution in England, would it not be better to foster strong commercial relations and deny refuge to criminals? The French government was at present more solidly established than Britain’s, the author declared, and the British should not doubt France’s ability to respond. Protecting assassins and insurrectionaries, the article concluded, was beneath Britain’s generosity, civilization, and honor, and failed to protect “l’ordre social européan” (Gazette Nationale ou le Moniteur Universel, 20 Thermidor Year 10). Bonaparte was particularly angry at newspapers published in London by disaffected French émigrés. In August, he lodged a formal protest with the British government, to which Lord Hawkesbury replied that Great Britain “cannot and never will” accede to any demand by a foreign power that could “in the smallest degree” compromise freedom of the press (Grainger, Amiens Truce, 146-9; Thierry Lentz, Le Grand Consulat, 1799-1804 [Paris, 1999], 463).

PAR LE PEUPLE ET POUR LE PEUPLE: by the people and for the people.

INSULTED RUSSIA: at the beginning of his reign, Alexander wanted to ensure the continuation of peace in Europe, reclaim a role for Russia as a mediator of European affairs, and keep his empire independent of both Britain and France. Although Alexander did not entirely trust Bonaparte and Talleyrand, France and Russia signed a treaty of peace in the fall of 1801. In a secret convention, the two nations agreed to coordinate their policies regarding specific places and issues that were important to Russia. They cooperated in 1802 to influence the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire in the reorganization of German states under the Lunéville treaty of 1801. Regarding other areas in which Alexander took an interest, such as Switzerland and the Italian states, Bonaparte informed the Russians of general developments but did not consult them about his policies. In at least one case, that of Sardinia, he let it be known that Russia could expect to play no role (Parry, Consolidated Treaty Series, 56:221-5, 231-7; Hartley, Alexander I, 60-5; Lentz, Grand Consulat, 458-9; Thierry Lentz and others, eds., Napoléon Bonaparte: Correspondance Général, 6 vols. to date [Paris, 2004-], 3:979-80, 1074-5, 1129, 1130).

Alexander, without consulting his advisers, had met with King Frederick William III to establish a friendly relationship with PRUSSIA (Hartley, Alexander I, 65; Henri Troyat, Alexander of Russia: Napoleon’s Conqueror, trans. Joan Pinkham [New York, 1982], 77).

AUSTRIA, which lost both territory and influence to France by the Lunéville treaty and by Bonaparte’s assertion of control over various states in Europe, had almost precipitated war in July by resisting Bonaparte’s arrangement for the disposition of one German bishopric (Grainger, Amiens Truce, 21-2, 115-18).

INSULTED THE ARMY: see TJ to John Brown, 14 Aug.

LATENESS OF YOUR NOMINATION: the National INSTITUTE of France elected Priestley a foreign associate in May 1802. He was the seventh person elected as an associé étranger and the third scientist to be so honored, following Joseph Banks and the British astronomer royal, Nevil Maskelyne. Priestley had been a foreign associate of the Académie Royale des Sciences, one of the FORMER ACADEMIES that preceded the National Institute (Amable Charles, Comte de Franqueville, Le premier siècle de l’Institut de France, 25 Octobre 1795-25 Octobre 1895, 2 vols. [Paris, 1895-96], 2:55-7, 459-61).

GLI ANIMALI PARLANTI: an epic poem in 26 songs of sextuplets, published in Paris in 1802, was written by Italian poet and author Giovanni Battista, who was then 78 years old and died the following year (Giovanni Battista Casti, Gli Animali Parlanti, ed. Luciana Pedroia [Rome, 1987], xi, xxviii).

Priestley’s close friend, the theologian and Unitarian minister Theophilus Lindsey (LINDSAY), was a reluctant dissenter who first hoped to reform the Church of England from within before breaking with it to preside over the Essex Street Chapel, the first Unitarian congregation. He had a paralytic seizure in the spring of 1801 followed by a severe stroke in December but resumed his work in January 1802. He published some of Priestley’s works as well as his own, including Conversations on the Divine Government in 1802 (dnb; Thomas Belsham, Memoirs of the Late Reverend Theophilus Lindsey [London, 1812], 432-3).

Helen Maria WILLIAMS, a British-born bluestocking and author of abolitionist poetry as well as of eight volumes of Letters from France, recounted her travels there beginning in 1790 and continuing through the French Revolution and Reign of Terror. Rumored to have had a close relationship with Stone, who lived with her family during the French Revolution, she counted among her salon friends many other reformers of the day, including Joel Barlow, Frédéric César de La Harpe, and Henri Grégoire (DNB).

CHURCH HISTORY: for Priestley’s four-volume A General History of the Christian Church, from the Fall of the Western Empire to the Present Time, see Priestley to TJ, printed at 12 June (two letters).

William Russell (RUSSEL), a merchant and reformer from Birmingham and a leader in the local Presbyterian-Unitarian congregation, was a close friend, political ally, and patron of Priestley. Russell’s partial inheritance of his father’s interest in the Principio iron company in Maryland prompted him to travel to America in 1795, but he later returned to Europe, settling in France from 1802 to 1814 (dnb; Rivers and Wykes, eds., Joseph Priestley, 205).

David BOGUE, an Independent minister and missionary promoter trained in Scotland; he taught in schools in England before establishing the Gosport Academy in 1789 to educate young men for the Independent ministry. In 1795, he was one of the founding directors of the Missionary Society, later renamed the London Missionary Society, an interdenominational group intent on propagating the gospel rather than ideas of particular church structure and governance. Never traveling much beyond the Continent himself, Bogue trained the society’s prospective overseas missionaries at his Gosport Academy from 1800 until his death. He prepared an Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament in 1802, which was widely translated and appeared as a preface to a French edition of the New Testament (DNB; John Morison, The Fathers and Founders of the London Missionary Society. A Jubilee Memorial, new ed. [London, 1844], 156-217).

George Henry GLASSE, the son of Royal Chaplain Samuel Glasse with whom Stone had him confused, published a Greek translation in 1781 of Caractacus, A Dramatic Poem: Written on the Model of the Ancient Greek Tragedy, written by William Mason and published in London and Dublin in 1759 (Walter Crouch, “Dr. Samuel Glasse, Rector of Wanstead, 1786-1812,” Essex Review, 10 [1901], 141; dnb, 7:1299).

Samuel HORSLEY, an elected fellow of the Royal Society from 1767 to 1784, became an outspoken defender of religious orthodoxy affirming the doctrine of the Trinity and the apostolic succession of the Anglican clergy. He denounced Protestant and Unitarian dissenters, railed against Priestley’s History of the Corruptions of Christianity, vigorously opposed the slave trade, and became bishop of St. Asaph in June 1802. Known for overindulgence in food and wine and nepotism to his daughter-in-law’s family, he ran into debt and died insolvent in 1806 (DNB).

The French government began to develop a policy toward PROTESTANTS several months before the signing of the Concordat with the Catholic Church in July 1801. A law of 8 Apr. 1802 recognized the two major Protestant groups, the LUTHERAN churches, located mainly in Alsace and the Rhine Valley, and the Reformed or CALVINIST congregations found primarily in the south and southwest of France and in scattered pockets elsewhere. The law created a hierarchical organization that aligned more closely to Lutherans’ accustomed practice than to the Calvinists’. The new system was based on consistory churches of 6,000 people living in the same département, a requirement that could not be met by dispersed Reformed Church congregations. Protestants generally considered the law to be a significant step forward. Bonaparte received praise as a protector of religious diversity, likened to the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great (Tulard, Dictionnaire Napoléon, 1415-16).

Britain held a general election for the House of Commons during July, the first general election since 1796. William SMITH and Francis BURDETT, both of whom were denounced by their opponents as radical Jacobins, were members of the previous Parliament, but won seats from larger constituencies in 1802. Smith, a religious dissenter and advocate of reform who was acquainted with Priestley, defeated William Windham, the former secretary at war in William Pitt’s government, to take the seat for Norwich. Burdett, a baronet who had called attention to the treatment of political prisoners, took the Middlesex County seat from William Mainwaring. After Mainwaring’s supporters, including the London Times, accused Burdett of electoral fraud, the election for the Middlesex seat was voided (DNB; London Times, 13, 16, 26, 28, 29 July; John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle [London, 1996], 287n, 574).

¹ Word supplied.

² Word supplied.

The certificate in the case of Daniel Cutter, is similar to what has usually been prepared when the expense is to be paid out of the contingent fund. The only form required is that you should annex the word “Approved” to the certificate & return it with your signature to this office—

RC (DLC); at foot of text: “The President.” Recorded in SJL as received from the Treasury Department on 25 Oct. with notation “Cutter for seamen contingt fund.” Enclosure not found.

On 26 Oct., Gallatin reminded TJ: “Captn. Cutter waits for the payment of the money allowed for the transportation of seamen from Bordeaux; which cannot be done until your approbation to the certificate transmitted yesterday shall have been received” (RC in DLC; partially dated: “Tuesday”; addressed: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Treasury Department on 26 Oct. and “Cutter seamen Contingt. fund” and so recorded in SJL).

I have the honor to acquaint you that I have shipped on board the Adelaide for Baltimore, John Mun Master, two half pipes Oeiras Wine of the Vintage of 1798, which I address’d to Genl Smith. The House from which I obtained it, is the only one in this City that had any; but I am apprehensive Sir that it will not prove altogether agreeable to your taste, it appearing to me a little too sweet to answer your description, tho time will rectify this fault, it growing drier by age. Whatever may be its defects I assure you Sir that not any better can be had, as neither pain nor price has been spared to procure the first quality

Since the old Marquis Pombal’s death it is said the Wines from that Estate have not been so good as in his life time, owing to the Vineyards not being so well attended, nor so much pain taken with the Vintage. But should it meet your approbation it will be a source of infinite pleasure to me—

with the most profound Respect I have the honor to be Sir Your mo: devoted Servt

RC (DLC); at foot of first page: “Thomas Jefferson Esquire”; endorsed by TJ as received 6 Jan. 1803.

The OEIRAS WINE that TJ had requested arrived in Baltimore in January 1803 and was eventually shipped to Monticello (MB, 2:1115; TJ to S. Smith & Buchanan, 12 Jan. 1803).

Your favor of the 16th. is recieved, and that of July 24. had come to hand while I was at Monticello. I sincerely condole with you on the sickly state of your family and hope this will find them reestablished with the approach of the cold season. as yet however we have had no frost at this place, and it is believed the yellow fever still continues in Philadelphia if not in Baltimore. we shall all be happy to see you here whenever the state of your family admits it. you will have seen by the newspapers, that we have gained ground generally in the elections, that we have lost ground in not a single district of the US. except Kent county in Delaware, where a religious dissension occasioned it. in Jersey the elections are always carried by small majorities, consequently the issue is affected by the smallest accidents. by the paper of the last night we have a majority of 3. in their council & 1. in their house of representatives, another says it is only of 1. in each house; even the latter is sufficient for every purpose. the opinion I originally formed has never been changed; that such of the body of the people as thought themselves federalists, would find that they were in truth republicans, and would come over to us by degrees; but that their leaders had gone too far ever to change. their bitterness increases with their desperation. they are trying slanders now which nothing could prompt but a gall which blinds their judgments as well as their consciences. I shall take no other revenge than by a steady pursuit of economy, and peace, and by the establishment of republican principles in substance and in form, to sink federalism into an abyss from which there shall be no resurrection for it. I still think our original idea as to office is best. that is to depend for the obtaining a just participation, on deaths, resignations, & delinquencies; this will least affect the tranquility of the people, and prevent their giving into the suggestion of our enemies, that ours has been a contest for office, not for principle. this is rather a slow operation, but it is sure, if we pursuit it steadily; which however has not been done with the undeviating resolution which I would wish. to these means of obtaining a just share in the transaction of the public business shall be added one other, to wit, removal for electioneering activity or open & industrious opposition to the principles of the present government legislative & executive. every officer of the government may vote at elections according to his conscience; but we should betray the cause committed to our care, were we to permit the influence of official patronage to be used to overthrow that cause. your present situation will enable you to judge of prominent offenders in your state in the case of the present election. I pray you to seek them, to mark them, to be quite sure of your ground that we may commit no error or wrong, and leave the rest to me. I have been urged to remove mr Whittermore the Surveyor of Gloucester, on grounds of neglect of duty and industrious opposition. yet no facts are so distinctly charged as to make the step sure which we should take in this. will you take the trouble to satisfy yourself on this point. I think it not amiss that it should be known that we are determined to remove officers who are active or open mouthed against the government, by which I mean the legislature as well as the Executive. Accept assurances of my sincere friendship & high respect.

RC (MHi: Levi Lincoln Papers); addressed: “Levi Lincoln esquire Atty Genl. of the US. Worcester”; endorsed by Lincoln. PrC (DLC).

RELIGIOUS DISSENSION: charges appeared in the Federal Ark that the Methodist Society had been disturbed in their devotions, abused, and assaulted by the Republicans of New Castle. The Republican press countered that the abuse came from the Federalists. While the people of New Castle knew this, “A friend to toleration” feared that the citizens of Kent and Sussex did not realize that “those ‘disturbing mobs’ were composed of some of John Adams’s good federal midshipmen!” The Federalists also charged that James Payne, a leading Methodist on trial at Wilmington, was being “persecuted by the democrats,” who anxiously awaited his conviction. The Mirror of the Times argued that the principal persons engaged against Payne were Federalists. Indeed Caesar A. Rodney served as a leading counsel for Payne (Wilmington Mirror of the Times, & General Advertiser, 22, 25, 29 Sep., 4 Oct. 1802).

SMALL MAJORITIES: some newspapers were reprinting, from the Aurora of 22 Oct., a tally that gave Republicans a three-vote majority in the 13 seats of the New Jersey Council and a one-vote margin in the 39-member House of Assembly (Alexandria, Va., Columbian Advertiser, New York Morning Chronicle, and New York American Citizen, all 25 Oct.).

The duties of my present office calling for the whole of my time and more than the whole, if more there could be, I have been obliged to deny myself the gratification of indulging in speculations of the nature of those in your letter of Sep. 30. speculations which were I free would be peculiarly agreeable to me. that the introduction of so powerful an agent as steam will make a great change in the situation of man I have no doubt. to extend it’s application nothing is wanting as you observe, but to simplify the machinery, and make that & the fire apparatus more portable. no law of nature forbids us to hope this, and the ingenuity of man leaves us to despair of nothing within the laws of nature. some effective steps towards this simplification have been lately taken, but nothing which approaches to your object of moving carriages by that agent. that you may succeed in it, I sincerely wish. I should suppose no place in the US. so likely as Philadelphia to furnish artists equal to the execution of the requisite machinery, & persons willing to embark in the enterprize itself, for a just share in it’s profits. but of this your acquaintance in that place probably enables you to form a better judgment than I can. to the guidance of your own judgment I must leave it with my best wishes for it’s success & for your personal welfare.

RC (DLC); addressed: “Mr. James Sylv. Mc.lean Lancaster”; franked and postmarked; endorsed: “Dead letter, returned to the General post office,—from Lancaster Pennsylvania The President U.S.”; endorsed by TJ in ink on address sheet. PrC (DLC).

I wrote you some days past & inclosed Mr Eassans letter to me, I have since been informed that he is a good man, from gentlemen from that County. & they wished him to succeed.

I am happy to hear that our prospects in the Mediteranean brightens, I have hopes all the European powers will join in stopping the depredations of the States of Barbary. you have not said whether I shall ingage any cyder for you this year. I am respectfully

I took the liberty of asking you for a copy of a law respecting this Parish (Eliza River) passed in 1764 allowing them to buy 4 lotts in lieu of a glebe, we cannot obtain a copy in this place. if you have it I will thank you for a Copy

RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 17 Nov. and so recorded in SJL.

I WROTE YOU SOME DAYS PAST: one of two letters Newton wrote to TJ on 21 Oct., neither of which has been found. TJ recorded the first in SJL as received 26 Oct. and the second as received the following day with the notation “John Easson Surveyor Smithfield.” John Eason had represented Isle of Wight, Surry, and Prince George Counties in the Virginia Senate for three terms and was confirmed as surveyor at Smithfield in January 1803 (Leonard, General Assembly, 205, 210, 214; JEP, 1:433, 440).

For the LAW RESPECTING Elizabeth River Parish, see Newton to TJ, 6 Oct.

Observing that the roof of the Representatives chambers has sunk in the middle, that the walls are cracked in several places and pressing out from the perpendicular, I think it necessary that the cause should be examined into by good & experienced persons, that we may know whether they may be safely left in their present state until the next season, when such steps may be taken as Congress shall in the mean time authorize, or whether, and what, immediate steps are necessary to prevent the injury from going further until the next season. I would wish Mr. Blagden, mr Herbaugh & mr Hadfield to be called in, and to recieve their opinions in writing; which therefore I request you to do, as you have the immediate care of that chamber under your charge. Accept my best wishes.

PrC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Claxton.”

ROOF OF THE REPRESENTATIVES CHAMBERS: beginning with the first session of the Seventh Congress, members of the House of Representatives met in the Capitol in a temporary brick structure in the south wing designed by James Hoban and built by William Lovering and William Dyer. From three design options, TJ had approved a plan that would allow some of its features to be used in the permanent structure of the Capitol. The selected elliptical one-story arcade was intended to support columns 30 feet high that would ultimately help support the roof. When the walls of the “Oven,” as the hot and stuffy legislative chamber was commonly known, began to buckle under the weight of the roof, builders braced them with heavy timber. TJ’s concerns about the architectural soundness of the chamber were not unfounded and the structure was razed entirely in 1804 and rebuilt in favor of Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s revised plans for the south wing (Office of the Architect of the Capitol, The United States Capitol: A Brief Architectural History [Washington, D.C., 1990], 5, 7; Donald R. Kennon, ed., The United States Capitol: Designing and Decorating a National Icon [Athens, Ohio, 2000], 20-1; William Bushong, Glenn Brown’s History of the United States Capitol [Washington, D.C., 2005], 98, 102-3; Latrobe, Correspondence, 1:268-84; Vol. 34:234-5; Benjamin H. Latrobe to TJ, 4 Apr. 1803, and enclosure).

Will you be so good as to peruse & return the inclosed? what Dupont says of N. Orleans will require a verbal explanation. he will probably be a very efficient instrument for us in that business, and I should very much wish to render him the personal service he asks as to paiments in Paris, if you find such an arrangement can be made agreeably to what is right & useful for us. it would lessen the amount of bills you have to procure here for Amsterdam.

PrC (DLC). Enclosure: Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours to TJ, 16 Aug. 1802.

I return Mr Dupont’s letter: we do not pay in Europe any part of the interest on our domestic debt which is that alluded to by him as partly held by French stockholders. The Bank of the U.S., for a majority of the foreign stockholders whose attorneys have made that institution their attorney, and the special attorneys of the others remit the quarterly interest to England & Holland where the sd. stockholders have wished it to be paid. If the French Stockholders will make Mr Dupont’s house their agents, the business may be transacted by him as he wishes; but we have nothing to do with it: his error arises from his having supposed that the remittances for domestic¹ interest to Holland, were made by Government; it is only the interest & principal² of our foreign debt which Govt. remits; & that is exclusively held in Holland.

On the subject of the Comptroller, on which I feel much interested, I have made up my opinion, after a fuller examination of his duties than I had yet bestowed on it, that a certain degree of legal knowledge is the most essential qualification: as it is difficult to find any one man in whom the several requisites are united, it would be preferable to obtain a sound lawyer, or at least a man of perfectly sound judgment & possessed of legal information (who had at least read law) & who had only a general idea of accounts, than a perfect accountant without law knowledge. Not only the general nature of the duties of that office leads me to that conclusion; but it is also expressed with considerable force by the consideration that I am not a lawyer; the law questions which arise in the Treasury (exclusively of those relating to the settlement of accounts) are numerous: during the comptroller’s absence, nearly one half of my time is occupied by questions directed to me by collectors & which I would refer to him if he was present, or directed to him & which his clerks refer to me during his absence. If we have a Comptroller who is not a lawyer, it will considerably encrease my labour or rather prevent its being applied in the most proper manner, and the business will not be so well done, as I will be compelled to decide on a much greater number of law questions. The other two important requisites for a Comptroller is that he should possess method and great industry: without the first, the last would be of no avail; and to fill well his duties he cannot be too laborious. Another essential point is that he should write, if not with elegance, at least with precision & great facility; for his correspondence is very extensive & consists principally of decisions, instructions, & explanations. I cannot write even a decent letter without great labour, and that is another reason why I desire that the Comptroller may be able to write himself; for the duties of the two offices are so blended in what relates to the collection of the impost, that a great part of the correspondence with collectors³ may fall either on the one or the other as may be agreed on between them. But I repeat that legal knowledge and a sound judgment are the most important qualifications. Who will answer that description I do not know. Unless we had a personal knowledge of men, I am afraid of the eastward, both on account of their species of law knowledge on which I could not, generally speaking, place much greater confidence than on my own judgment, and because their style of writing is not as classical & correct as it ought to be. Mr Madison has mentioned judge Duval of whom I never heard any thing but favorable, but whom I do not sufficiently know justly to appreciate his rate. Who was that comptroller of New York whom Dewitt Clinton once proposed for naval officer, intending that Bailey should have his office. He spoke highly of him; but I recollect neither his name nor profession.

I enclose two recommendations for Mr Kuhn; also a letter from Worthington which induces a belief that politics are settling the right way in the north west territory

paymts. in the Treasury—about 3 millions 4 hd. thd. dollars or 200,000, dollars more than in any preceding quarter—see the enclosed

RC (DLC); undated; addressed: “The President”; endorsed by TJ as a letter of 26 Oct. received from the Treasury Department on the same day and “paimt of interest at Paris. comptroller. 3d. quarters rect. of Impost” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) Joseph Clay to Albert Gallatin, Philadelphia, 19 Oct. 1802, introducing Peter Kuhn, Jr., as a young man with extensive mercantile and business information and “of sound political principles”; Clay will consider as a “personal favor” any attention Gallatin shows Kuhn as he visits Washington (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR; endorsed by TJ: “Kuhn Peter. Clay Joseph. to mr Gallatin”). (2) Thomas Worthington to Gallatin, Chilicothe, 15 Oct. 1802, predicting that three-fourths of those elected to the convention for statehood will be Republicans; all five from Ross County are from the party; although Elias Langham, shortly before the election, requested an investigation into Worthington’s conduct as register of the land office, Langham “is left out by a great majority” and Worthington is among the five elected; he predicts that the state legislature “will be almost entirely republican” and those sent to Congress and presidential electors “will be decidedly so” (Gallatin, Papers, 7:652-3; see Terr. Papers, 3:248-51, for the charges against Worthington). (3) List of 51 ports with receipts for the third quarter ending 30 Sep. 1802 paid into the Treasury by each collector for a total income of $3,397,598.68; Gallatin notes below the total: “The real amt. will exceed this sketch several Hd. dollars” (MS in DLC; in Gallatin’s hand; endorsed by Gallatin: “Receipt in Treasury Impost— 3d Qr. 1802”). Other enclosure not found.

Gabriel Duvall (DUVAL) was chief justice of the General Court of Maryland (Vol. 33:268n). Robert R. Livingston considered Elisha Jenkins, a businessman, well qualified to serve as naval officer, before he was appointed COMPTROLLER OF NEW YORK by Governor George Clinton in 1801 (George Rogers Howell and Jonathan Tenney, Bi-Centennial History of Albany. History of the County of Albany, N.Y., from 1609 to 1886 [New York, 1886], 133; Vol. 35:62; Elisha Jenkins to TJ, 4 June 1802). De-Witt Clinton’s recommendation has not been found.

¹ Word interlined.

² Word and ampersand interlined.

³ Preceding two words added in margin.

Lisbon, 26 Oct. 1802. He announces that his wife, the princess of Brazil, has this day given birth to a son. He knows that the United States will receive this news as another sign of his constant readiness to cultivate the relations of understanding and friendship between the two countries.

RC (DNA: RG 59, Ceremonial Letters); 2 p.; in Portuguese, in a clerk’s hand, signed by João as prince of Brazil and countersigned by João de Almeida de Mello e Castro as secretary of state for foreign affairs and war (see Vol. 35:442n); addressed: “A Os Estados Unidos da America que muito amo e prezo” (“to the United States of America, which I very much love and esteem”); endorsed by Jacob Wagner as received 29 Mch. 1803 and “To be answd.”

The baby born at Queluz Palace in Lisbon on 26 Oct. was the seventh child of João and his wife, Carlota Joaquina. They named the child Miguel (José Correia do Souto, Dicionário de História de Portugal, 6 vols. [Lisbon, 1985], 4:83, 306).

Convention between the Poutawatamies, Eel river Indns. Piankeshaws, Weaws, Kaskaskias & Kickapoos & Govr. Harrison for the US. at Vincennes Sep. 17. 1802.

In considn that the US. relinquish all claim to lands ‘in the nbhood of Vincennes except the following described tract’ they cede to the US. the following described tract, viz. ‘beginning at Point Coupee on the Wabash river, thence running a Westwardly line 4. leagues, thence South Westwardly¹ by a line drawn parallel to the general course of the Wabash river until it will be intersected by a Westwardly line drawn from the confluence of the White river and Wabash river, thence from the point of intersection aforesd along the sd line by the confluence of the White & Wabash rivers in an Easterly direction 24 leagues, thence North westwardly² by a line drawn parallel to the General course of the sd Wabash river until it will intersect an Easterly line drawn from Point Coupee aforesd on the Wabash river, thence by the line last mentioned to Point Coupee the place of beginning.’

also to transfer & make over to the US ‘the right & privilege of making salt for ever at the salt lick on the Saline river near the Ohio river,³ & also a tract of land 4. miles square including the Salt lick aforesaid.’

MS (DLC: TJ Papers, 126:21749); undated, but see below; entirely in TJ’s hand, including one corrective note in margin (see note 2); endorsed by TJ: “Indians. Boundaries established between the US. and Indians around Vincennes.”

On 26 Oct., the War Department received a copy of the CONVENTION from which TJ made the notes printed above (William Henry Harrison to War Department, 20, 24 Sep., recorded in DNA: RG 107, RLRMS). The document seen by TJ has not been found, but the text of the convention is in Moses Dawson, A Historical Narrative of the Civil and Military Services of Major-General William H. Harrison (Cincinnati, 1824), 27-8, and reprinted in Esarey, William Henry Harrison, 1:56-7.

In June, Henry Dearborn had authorized William Henry HARRISON to negotiate the limits of the tract around VINCENNES and to investigate other possible acquisitions of territory by the United States (Dearborn to TJ, 29 July, 7 Aug.). The Vincennes tract, granted by Indians in the region to France in the colonial period, could be claimed by the United States through succession, the grant having passed from France to Great Britain, along with other French lands east of the Mississippi, by the 1763 Treaty of Paris, and similarly from Britain to the United States by the 1783 treaty that ended the Revolutionary War (Parry, Consolidated Treaty Series, 42:326; 48:491-2).

TRANSFER & MAKE OVER TO THE US: five Potawatomis, two members of the Eel River tribe, three Piankashaws, three Weas, one Kasakaskia, and two Kickapoos agreed to the convention signed on 17 Sep. In addition to setting bounds of the Vincennes tract, the instrument authorized a group of four chiefs, including Little Turtle, to conclude treaties and agreements for the formal cession to the United States of the Vincennes lands and the saline springs. Little Turtle was present during the negotiation of the convention, not as a party to the transaction, but, with his son-in-law, William Wells, to help Harrison complete the agreement (Dawson, Historical Narrative, 27-8; Owens, Jefferson’s Hammer, 63-6). In his annual message on 15 Dec. 1802, TJ advised Congress that the agreement on the lines of the Vincennes tract meant the “extinction” of Native American titles to a tract 24 leagues wide running about the same distance down the Wabash River.

¹ Dawson, Historical Narrative, 27: “southwardly.”

² In margin, keyed to this word with a “+,” TJ wrote “Eastwardly.” Dawson, Historical Narrative, 28: “northeastwardly.”

³ Preceding four words lacking in Dawson, Historical Narrative, 28.

In a government like ours, where the confidence of the people is the best support and reward of political merit, a testimony of this confidence from the republicans of Connecticut will not be unacceptable to the chief executive of our country.

Among the United States, this State affords the solitary fact of republicans, whose voice has on no occasion been allowed a public expression, either in their State legislature, or in the councils of the nation, or in the choice of a President.

Persuaded that a season has arrived when our hopes and fears ought to be equally at rest as respects the enemies of liberty, and that the majority of our fellow citizens are republican, we will not delay the expression of our confidence in your character and administration.

We rejoice that the principles of our revolution triumphed eminently in your election to the highest of offices, the presidency of a free people, and that the arts which were designed to prevent that triumph, at a memorable crisis of public anxiety, were defeated. Your appointments of the distinguished men who preside over the departments, and the legislative measures, adopted under your sanction, tending to the decrease of patronage and expence, have concurred with the general prosperity of the United States to advance the republican cause in this State. Your forbearance, and spirit of conciliation, extended even to this time, towards some powerful opposers of your administration, have persuaded the people of your sincere wish to restore harmony to social intercourse, and ought to have silenced those clamours which were raised against a few early & justifiable discriminations.

We confide fully in your motives and measures, and are sure that the general interests of the union will be the unvarying object of your labours; and whenever these interests can be promoted by an extended exercise of that discretion which the constitution has confided to the President in the choice of officers, even in the subordinate grades of his administration, we shall rejoice that the general interests coincide with our wishes.

You have known, Sir, a part of the abuse and revilings which our political opponents in this State have heaped on your name, your friends, and the cause of liberty. What has not been made public, we hope may be concealed from you and the world; but we are not unmindful of these testimonies of a radical hostility to the principles of our revolution.

In the midst of republican successes on every side of us, we will not complain of delays. Through a continuance of the wise system of measures already begun, when their tendency shall have been fully perceived, we have full confidence that this State will regain a political standing in the union, and that the President will hereafter receive a more official, though it cannot be a more sincere, tribute of attachment and respect.

RC (DLC); undated; in a clerk’s hand, signed by Judd; at head of text: “To the President of the United States.” Recorded in SJL as received 4 Nov. Enclosure: Notice that a general meeting of Connecticut Republicans held at New Haven, 27 Oct. 1802, with Judd serving as chairman and John T. Peters as clerk, unanimously approved an address to the president of the United States reported by the committee appointed at the last meeting, consisting of Judd, Pierpont Edwards, Joseph Willcox, Asa Spalding, John Welch, and Abraham Bishop, and resolving “That it be signed in our name by the Chairman of this Meeting, and forwarded by him to the President” (MS in same; on a separate sheet; in a clerk’s hand, signed by Peters). Enclosed in William Judd to TJ, New Haven, 28 Oct. 1802, stating, “Pursuant to a resolve of the republicans of the State of Connecticut, I have the honor to enclose their Address to you, passed at General Meeting, together with a Copy of their Resolve” (RC in DLC, in a clerk’s hand, signed by Judd, endorsed by TJ as received 4 Nov. and “Address of a general meeting of the Republicans of Connecticut at New Haven, Oct. 27. 1802” and so recorded in SJL).

For William Judd, see Vol. 36:109n. John T. Peters, clerk of the meeting, was a member of the state legislature from Hebron (Hartford Connecticut Courant, 17 May 1802).

The under signed have examined the construction of the Eliptical Room south of the Capitol agreeable to your wish expressed through Mr Clackston and are of opinion that the signs of instability which have appeared in the building are entirely owing to the Roof which presses the walls outward, but they believe that no immediate bad consequnces can hapen.

They would recommend all the cracks to be stopped up, and if any further marks should appear that the Building is still giving way the walls may be propped up on the out side to insure the Building till after the next session of Congress—

RC (DLC); in Hadfield’s hand, signed by all; addressed: “The President of the U: N: States.” Recorded in SJL as received 28 Oct.

Leonard Harbaugh (d. 1822), a contractor from Baltimore, came to Washington in 1792 at the invitation of the Board of Commissioners to work on the capital city. He built the flawed Rock Creek Bridge, but achieved success building Trinity Church and finishing the Little Falls locks on the Potomac. Named chief engineer for the Potomac Company by 1797, he also oversaw the construction and opening of the Great Falls locks. In 1798 and 1799 he received contracts for the construction of the Treasury and the War Department buildings (Douglas R. Littlefield, “Eighteenth-Century Plans to Clear the Potomac River: Technology, Expertise, and Labor in a Developing Nation,” VMHB, 93 [1985], 315-16; William W. Warner, At Peace with All Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital 1787-1860 [Washington, D.C., 1994], 22-3, 125-30; Vol. 23:379; Vol. 26:426-7n).

George Blagden (d. 1826), an Englishborn stonemason who came to the United States sometime before 1794, was superintendent for stonework and quarries at the Capitol. He was active in Washington civic, business, and church affairs and was killed by the collapse of an embankment of the Capitol (Henry Hope Reed, The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration [New York, 2005], 192; Latrobe, Correspondence, 1:284n).

YOUR WISH: see TJ to Thomas Claxton, 26 Oct.

In the Letter you did me the honor to write me of the 7th of July last, you gave me information that the Interest due on the loan of two hundred thousand Dollars made by the State of Maryland to the Commissioners of the City of Washington and guaranteed by Congress would be immediately paid—The Sum of eighteen thousand Dollars then due on this loan, was soon after actually remitted by the Treasury of the United States, to that of this State, but the succeeding quarter’s payment of three thousand Dollars which became due on the first of this Month, still remains unpaid.

It contained also an assurance, that the loan of fifty thousand Dollars with the Interest due thereon and which now amounts to three thousand Dollars would be also paid on the first Monday in November next.

As the Legislature of Maryland convene on that day, to enable the Executive to lay before them a Statement of the public resources, they are anxious that you would direct the Secretary of the Treasury to remit on the 1 of November next, the Sum of fifty six thousand, two hundred and fifty Dollars, which will be due, to Thomas Harwood Treasurer of this State.

RC (DLC); in a clerk’s hand, signed by Mercer; endorsed by TJ as received 29 Oct. but recorded in SJL at 28 Oct. FC (MdAA: Letterbooks of Governor and Council); in same clerk’s hand; dated 26 Oct.

On 5 Nov., Governor Mercer reported to the LEGISLATURE OF MARYLAND that the “last loan with the Interest due on the 1st. of November, and all the Interest of the two first loans except for the last quarter have been received into the Treasury.—The Interest due for this quarter, we are informed will be paid in a few days and from the assurances of the President of the United States, we have no doubt of a punctual and liberal compliance with the law” (Mercer to the General Assembly, dated 6 [i.e. 5] Nov. 1802, in MdAA: Letterbooks of Governor and Council; Votes and Proceedings of the House of Delegates of the State of Maryland, November Session, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Two [Annapolis, 1803], 5).

I made it my bussiness to call on Mr. Henderson immediately aftar getting to the state of Kentuckey And as soon as possible to compleat the purchase, the land in the County of Boone which he has conveyed in Trust is more clear of disputes than Any land they hold. as I was informed, its not being divided is the reason of my not being more particular in the discription of it, from what I coud. discovar Hendarson appeared to be in good credit, And much respected. I entared into the purchase with the Widow Henderson without your naming Any particular sum, shoud. the sum given be more than you contemplated, I should be quite willing for you not to take it, as my fervant wish is to give you entire satisfaction. for your own inspection, I have enclosed all the papars. shoud Any alterations be necessary please pint them out, And they shall be executed. respecting the payment £650.0.0 will be required the Tenth of the next month. And shoud. the dower proparty meet your approbation the Money coud continue in your hands untill some time the next year, from yours of the 8th June I am extremely fearfull that this sum may put you¹ to some inconvenience which woud. give me much pain. And have since my arrival endeavoured to make sale & indeed a considerable sacrafice so as to throw the payment to the next year, for your Own Accommodation, but my endeavours have proven inaffectual. please drop me a line by the return mail

RC (ViU); endorsed by TJ as received 31 Oct. and so recorded in SJL.

CALL ON MR. HENDERSON: James L. Henderson acted on behalf of his younger siblings, the Henderson minors who had moved with their mother to Shelby County, Kentucky, the previous fall (Boynton Merrill, Jr., Jefferson’s Nephews: A Frontier Tragedy [Princeton, 1976], 65, 67; Vol. 35:455n).

PURCHASE WITH THE WIDOW HENDERSON: see Vol. 35:xlvi-xlviii, 342-4n, 362-4.

YOURS OF THE 8TH JUNE: see TJ’s first letter to Peyton of that date.

¹ Word interlined.

Know all men by these presents that I Elizabeth Henderson of the state of Kentucky have this day bargained and sold to Craven Peyton of the state of Virginia, all my right, title and interest in all the property¹ in the county of Albemarle in said state of Virginia which I possessed² as Dower after the death of my husband Bennett Henderson in said county of Albemarle, except the mill, warehouse, and improved lots in the town of Milton; to have & to hold the sd lands and appurtenances to him the sd Craven³ & his heirs: and the sd Elizabeth, the sd lands and appurtenances to him the sd Craven & his heirs will for ever warrant and defend. in witness whereof the sd Elizabeth have hereunto set her hand & seal this 18th. day of Sep. 1802.

Tr (ViU); entirely in TJ’s hand, with hand-drawn facsimile seal beside Elizabeth Henderson’s signature; on same sheet as Enclosure No. 2; endorsed by TJ: “Elizabeth Henderson to Craven Peyton } Deed for Dower Sep. 18. 02. except Mill, warehouses improvd lots in Milton.” Tr (same); in a clerk’s hand; lacks sum of money after E. Henderson’s signature; includes Isham Henderson and John Gentry as testators; acknowledgement of deed in Shelby County, Kentucky, by James L. Henderson, Isham Henderson, and John Gentry before Mathews Flournoy and Thomas I. Gwin, justices of the peace, 6 June 1804; certified by James Craig, clerk of Shelby County Court, same date; Craig’s certificate certified by Isaac Ellis, justice of the peace for the court, same date; attested by John Nicholas, clerk, as deed to be recorded by the “Albemarle July Court 1804”; endorsed: “Henderson to Peyton } Copy Deed Exd.”; endorsed by TJ: “Elizabeth Henderson. Dowress. deed to Craven Peyton 1802. Sep. 18. for Dower in all the lands except the Mill Warehouse improved lots in Milton.” Tr (Albemarle County Deed Book No. 14:497-8); includes Isham Henderson and Gentry as testators; acknowledg ment of deed by James L. Henderson, Isham Henderson, and Gentry before Flournoy and Gwin, 6 June 1804; certified by Craig, same date; Craig’s certificate certified by Ellis, same date; certified and ordered to be recorded by Nicholas at the Albemarle Court, July 1804.

¹ 2d and 3d Trs: “real property.”

² 2d and 3d Trs: “possess.”

³ Here added in 2d and 3d Trs: “Peyton.”

‘It is understood that whereas I Elizabeth Henderson have this day sold to Craven Peyton of Virginia my¹ dower in certain property in Albermarle county Virginia, including the house I formerly lived in, and Know ye that whereas I rented the sd house to John Henderson of said state,² and that there is nothing to be so construed in my sale of said house to sd Peyton as to damage me, but if sd Henderson agrees to keep sd house, he does, so long as he thinks proper, agreeable to our articles:³ but sd Peyton is to recieve said rent after this year: sd Peyton to be bound by the articles of agreement between sd Henderson & myself.

I, said Peyton, doth bind myself to the above writing, as witness my hand & seal this 18th. of Sep. 1802.

Tr (ViU); entirely in TJ’s hand; written on same sheet below Enclosure No. 1; endorsed by TJ: “Craven Peyton to Elizabeth Henderson } Declaration as to dwelling house leased to J. Henderson.” Tr (same); entirely in Craven Peyton’s hand; lacks signature; endorsed by Peyton: “C. Peyton to E. Henderson”; endorsed by TJ: “Peyton to Henderson.”

¹ 2d Tr: “My Own.”

² 2d Tr: “County & state.”

³ 2d Tr: “Article.”

Know all Men by these presents that I James L. Henderson of the state of Kentucky have this day bargained & sold Unto Craven Peyton all the right title & interest of the within named legatees of Bennett Henderson Decd. Viz. Bennett Hill Henderson, Eliza, Frances, Lucy, & Nancy Henderson, to all their Lands in the County of Albemarle in the State of Virginia And its appurtenances there to except a Mill Ware House & Store House in Milton for which Lands I have receaved full payment the Receipt of which I do hereby acknowledge & do bind my self my Heirs Executors & administrators in the sum of Five Thousand Pounds Lawfull Money that the above Named Bennett H., Eliza Frances Lucy And Nancy shall make a good & sufficient right title to the above mentioned Lands & appurtenances immediately aftar Marriage Or becomeing of Lawfull age to him the said Craven Or his Heirs. Or assigns, given under my hand & Seale this

MS (ViU); in Craven Peyton’s hand, signed by all; with hand-drawn facsimile seal beside James L. Henderson’s signature; endorsed by Peyton: “Conveyance James L. Henderson to Peyton”; on a separate sheet, in a clerk’s hand, acknowledgment of deed in Shelby County, Kentucky, by James L. Henderson before Mathews Flournoy and Thomas I. Gwin, justices of the peace, 6 June 1804; on another sheet, a signed and sealed certificate in the hand of James Craig, clerk of Shelby County Court, dated 6 June 1804, verifying the positions of Flournoy and Gwin, with Craig’s certificate verified, signed, and sealed by Isaac Ellis, presiding justice of the peace for the court; on verso, John Nicholas, as clerk of the “Albemarle July Court 1804,” testified and signed: “This Bill or Bargain & sale from James L. Henderson to Craven Peyton was Produced into Court duly certified from the County of Shelby & State of Kentuckey, and Ordered to be recorded”; endorsed: “James L. Henderson To Craven Peyton } Conveyance”; endorsed by Nicholas: “July 2nd. 1804 Certified & to be recorded”; endorsed by TJ: “James L. Henderson for Bennet H. Eliza, Frances, Lucy & Nancy C. to Craven Peyton. Sep. 18. 1802. £650. except Mill. warehouse & storehouse in Milton.” Tr (Albemarle County Deed Book No. 14:520-1); lacks the sum of £650; acknowledgment of deed by James L. Henderson before Flournoy and Gwin, 6 June 1804; certified by Craig, same date; Craig’s certificate certified by Ellis, same date; certified and ordered to be recorded by Nicholas at the Albemarle Court, July 1804. Tr (ViU); in William Wertenbaker’s hand and signed by him as deputy clerk of the Albemarle County Court; lacks the sum of £650; also in Wertenbaker’s hand: “Acknowledged by James L Henderson before two Justices of the peace for the County of Shelby State of Kentucky the 6th day of June 1804 and Recorded in Albemarle County Court at July Court. 1804” and “The foregoing is an extract from the County Court of Albemarle”; endorsed by Wertenbaker: “Henderson to Peyton } Extract Deed”; endorsed by TJ: “Hendersons, Bennet H. Eliza. Frances, Lucy, Nancy to James L. Henderson to Peyton. Deed. 1802. Sep. 18.”

I recieved last night your favor of the 23d. and now inclose under cover to mr Jefferson, as you desired, this letter with the certificate requested. I have not named you a citizen of the US. because I do not know the fact, and I doubted whether it would be of service to you. I have to the certificate subjoined a passport, without subscribing in any official capacity, because in that capacity I never sign either passports or certificates. Wishing you a happy voyage, successful pursuit of your affairs and safe return to your family I pray you to accept assurances of esteem and respect.

PrC (DLC); at foot of text: “M. De Rieux”; endorsed by TJ in ink on verso. Enclosed in TJ to George Jefferson, 28 Oct.

I hereby certify to¹ all whom it may concern that Justin Peter Plumard de Rieux a native of France, & nephew of Madame Bellanger of St. Germaine with whom I was acquainted, was on my return from Europe in 1789. living in the state of Virginia & has lived therein ever since; and as I have been well informed had lived there some years previous to 1789. during my absence from the state: that he has during the whole time conducted himself as an honest, sober, industrious & good man, greatly esteemed by his neighbors & acquaintances; that he has now a wife in the said state and a numerous family of children, all minors: that he has been unsuccessful in his various endeavors to increase the means of supporting his family & educating his children, & particularly in having his house burnt and nearly every thing in it.

And the said Justin Peter Plumard de Rieux, now proposing to go to France to obtain his portion of the estate of Madame Bellanger & for other purposes of business, it is hereby recommended to all persons to permit the said J. P. P. deRieux to pass & repass freely and without molestation or hindrance wherever his lawful affairs may call him, he conducting himself honestly & peaceably, as foreigners generally are by the laws and customs of this country permitted to pass freely & under their protection in like cases. Given under my hand at Washington the seat of the government of the US. this 28th. day of October 1802.

PrC (DLC).

¹ Word supplied.

At the request of Mr. DeRieux, I inclose you a letter for him, which he will call for in a few days, being about to embark for France. I believe you know his entire inability to repay any aid he may recieve, which I mention lest he might apply to you on the ground of my acquaintance with him. the truth is he has some time since exhausted all the charities I could justifiably extend to him, and can do nothing more for him. Accept my affectionate salutations.

PrC (MHi); at foot of text: “Mr. George Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ in ink on verso. Enclosure: TJ to J. P. P. Derieux, 28 Oct., and enclosure.

TJ last recorded offering aid to Derieux on 13 Oct. 1799 (MB, 2:1007).

The enclosed packet marked No 1, was written at the time it is dated—The subject of it is very painful to me, & I have retained it for the reasons mentioned in the enclosed letters No. 1 & 2—by which I trust it will appear how much I sacrificed both of my rights, & my feelings, to prevent this matter from causing you, or the connections of Mr. Sumter any uneasiness—I continued to act with Mr. Sumter presuming that long before this, his resignation would have been accepted, or that he would have changed his conduct with respect to me—but he has all along appeared to consider himself not as my Secretary, but as my coadjutor and when his constructions of my instructions dosse not square mine, he refuses expresly to execute my orders—the enclosed statement shews that he has explicitly discharged himself from the duties of the office, by refusing to perform those I have enjoined to him—I shall accordingly employ a secretary to execute them & shall draw for his pay, making the best bargain I can for the United States—But that I may not be again exposed to what I have suffered from the independence of the Secretary upon his principal I must explicitly request that if it continues to be the system of the government to give the Ministers a secretary of the Legation, & no private Secretary that my resignation may be accepted. It will appear by Mr. Sumters own statement, that he thinks, he is to be judge when I am to interpose in behalf of a citizen of the United States, & when not, and that he is to determine thro’ what channel business is to pass, & when he differs in opinion with me, that he is entitled to refuse to obey my orders—I would observe that the whole duty previous to Mr. Sumter’s last refusal for at least two months has not been such as would have occupied one half hour in a day, so that it has not been of the burthen of business that he has had to complain—

I forbear to mingle any other matter with the disagreeable subject of this letter—

I have the honor to be Dear Sir with the most respectful Esteem, Your most Obt Hble Svt

This letter & the statement enclosed have been submitted to Mr. Sumters inspection—as well as my former letter on the same subject.

	Saml. Prentiss
	Darius Chipman
	Richard Skinner.
	Mark Richards
	Reuben Atwater
	James Elliot
	Oliver Gallop

JAMES L. HENDERSON.	CHARLES HENDERSON.
ELIZA. HENDERSON £250.–0–0