Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1

I think it probable that Vermont will be made independent, as I am told the State of New York is likely to agree to it. Maine will probably in time be also permitted to separate from Massachusetts. As yet, they only begin to think of it. Whenever the people of Kentucky shall have agreed among themselves, my friends write me word, that Virginia will consent to their separation. They will constitute the new State on the south side of Ohio, joining Virginia. North Corolina, by an act of their Assembly, ceded to Congress all their lands westward of the Allegany. The people inhabiting that territory thereon declared themselves independent, called their State by the name of Franklin, and solicited Congress to be received into the Union. But before Congress met, North Carolina (for what reasons I could never learn) resumed their session. The people, however, persist; Congress recommend to the State to desist from their opposition, and I have no doubt they will do it. It will, therefore, result from the act of Congress laying off the western country into new States, that these States will come into the Union in the manner therein provided, and without any disputes as to their boundaries.

I am told that some hostile transaction by our people at the Natchez, against the Spaniards, has taken place. If it be a fact, Congress will certainly not protect them, but leave them to be chastised by the Spaniards, saving the right to the territory. A Spanish minister being now with Congress, and both parties interested in keeping the peace, I think, if such an event has happened, it will be easily arranged.

I told you when here, of the propositions made by Congress to the States, to be authorized to make certain regulations in their commerce; and, that from the disposition to strengthen the hands of Congress, which was then growing fast, I thought they would consent to it. Most of them did so, and I suppose all of them would have done it, if they have not actually done it, but that events proved a much more extensive power would be requisite. Congress have, therefore, desired to be invested with the whole regulation of their trade, and for ever; and to prevent all temptations to abuse the power, and all fears of it, they propose that whatever monies shall be levied on commerce, either for the purpose of revenue, or by way of forfeitures or penalty, shall go directly into the coffers of the State wherein it is levied, without being touched by Congress. From the present temper of the States, and the conviction which your country has carried home to their minds, that there is no other method of defeating the greedy attempts of other countries to trade with them on unequal terms, I think they will add an article for this purpose to their Confederation. But the present powers of Congress over the commerce of the States, under the Confederation, seem not at all understood by your ministry. They say that body has no power to enter into a treaty of commerce; why then make one? This is a mistake. By the sixth article of the Confederation, the States renounce, individually, all power to make any treaty, of whatever nature, with a foreign nation. By the ninth article, they give the power of making treaties wholly to Congress with two reservations only. 1. That no treaty of commerce shall be made, which shall restrain the legislatures from making foreigners pay the same imposts with their own people: nor 2. from prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of merchandise, which they might think proper. Were any treaty to be made which should violate either of these two reservations, it would be so far void. In the treaties, therefore, made with France, Holland, &c. this has been cautiously avoided. But are these treaties of no advantage to these nations? Besides the advantages expressly given by them, there results another, of great value. The commerce of those nations with the United States is thereby under the protection of Congress, and no particular State, acting by fits and starts, can harass the trade of France, Holland, &c. by such measures as several of them have practised against England, by loading her merchandise with partial imposts, refusing admittance to it altogether, excluding her merchants, &c. &c. For you will observe, that though, by the second reservation before mentioned, they can prohibit the importation of any species of merchandise, as, for instance, though they may prohibit the importation of wines in general, yet they cannot prohibit that of French wines in particular. Another advantage is, that the nations having treaties with Congress, can and do provide in such treaties for the admission of their consuls, a kind of officer very necessary for the regulation and protection of commerce. You know that a consul is the creature of treaty. No nation, without an agreement, can place an officer in another country, with any powers or jurisdiction whatever. But as the States have renounced the separate power of making treaties with foreign nations, they cannot separately receive a consul: and as Congress have, by the Confederation, no immediate jurisdiction over commerce, as they have only a power of bringing that jurisdiction into existence by entering into a treaty, till such treaty be entered into, Congress themselves cannot receive a consul. Till a treaty then, there exists no power in any part of our government, federal or particular, to admit a consul among us: and if it be true, as the papers say, that you have lately sent one over, he cannot be admitted by any power in existence to an exercise of any function. Nothing less than a new article, to be agreed to by all the States, would enable Congress, or the particular States, to receive him. You must not be surprised then, if he be not received.

I think I have by this time tired you with American politics, and will therefore only add assurances of the sincere regard and esteem, with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir,

your most obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CV.—TO BARON GEISMER, September 6, 1785

TO BARON GEISMER.

Paris, September 6, 1785.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of March the 28th, which I received about a month after its date, gave me a very real pleasure, as it assured me of an existence which I valued, and of which I had been led to doubt. You are now too distant from America, to be much interested in what passes there. From the London gazettes, and the papers copying them, you are led to suppose that all there is anarchy, discontent, and civil war. Nothing, however, is less true. There are not on the face of the earth, more tranquil governments than ours, nor a happier and more contented people. Their commerce has not as yet found the channels, which their new relations with the world will offer to best advantage, and the old ones remain as yet unopened by new conventions. This occasions a stagnation in the sale of their produce, the only truth among all the circumstances published about them. Their hatred against Great Britain, having lately received from that nation new cause and new aliment, has taken a new spring. Among the individuals of your acquaintance, nothing remarkable has happened. No revolution in the happiness of any of them has taken place, except that of the loss of their only child to Mr. and Mrs. Walker, who, however, left them a grandchild for their solace, and that of your humble servant, who remains with no other family than two daughters, the elder here (who was of your acquaintance), the younger in Virginia, but expected here the next summer. The character in which I am here, at present, confines me to this place, and will confine me as long as I continue in Europe. How long this will be, I cannot tell. I am now of an age which does not easily accommodate itself to new manners and new modes of living: and I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital. I shall, therefore, rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages; for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery. I should like it better, however, if it could tempt you once more to visit it: but that is not to be expected. Be this as it may, and whether fortune means to allow or deny me the pleasure of ever seeing you again, be assured that the worth which gave birth to my attachment, and which still animates it, will continue to keep it up while we both live, and that it is with sincerity I subscribe myself, Dear Sir,

your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CVI.—TO JOHN LANGDON, September 11, 1785

TO JOHN LANGDON.

Paris, September 11, 1785.

Dear Sir,

Your Captain Yeaton being here, furnishes me an opportunity of paying the tribute of my congratulations on your appointment to the government of your State, which I do sincerely. He gives me the grateful intelligence of your health, and that of Mrs. Langdon. Anxious to promote your service, and believing he could do it by getting himself naturalized here, and authorized to command your vessel he came from Havre to Paris. But on making the best inquiries I could, it seemed that the time requisite to go through with this business, would be much more than he could spare. He therefore declined it. I wish it were in my power to give you a hope that our commerce, either with this country, or its islands, was likely to be put on better footing. But if it be altered at all, it will probably be for the worse. The regulations respecting their commerce are by no means sufficiently stable to be relied on.

Europe is in quiet, and likely to remain so. The affairs of the Emperor and Dutch are as good as settled, and no other cloud portends any immediate storm. You have heard much of American vessels taken by the Barbary pirates. The Emperor of Morocco took one last winter (the brig Betsey of Philadelphia); he did not however reduce the crew to slavery, nor confiscate the vessel or cargo. He has lately delivered up the crew on the solicitation of the Spanish court. No other has ever been taken by them. There are, indeed, rumors of one having been lately taken by the Algerines. The fact is possible, as there is nothing to hinder their taking them, but it is not as yet confirmed. I have little doubt that we shall be able to place our commerce on a popular footing with the Barbary States this summer, and thus not only render our navigation to Portugal and Spain safe, but open the Mediterranean as formerly. In spite of treaties, England is still our enemy. Her hatred is deep-rooted and cordial, and nothing is wanting with her but the power, to wipe us and the land we live on out of existence. Her interest, however, is her ruling passion! and the late American measures have struck at that so vitally, and with an energy, too, of which she had thought us quite incapable, that a possibility seems to open of forming some arrangement with her. When they shall see decidedly, that, without it we shall suppress their commerce with us, they will be agitated by their avarice on the one hand, and their hatred and their fear of us on the other. The result of this conflict of dirty passions is yet to be awaited. The body of the people of this country love us cordially. But ministers and merchants love nobody. The merchants here are endeavoring to exclude, us from their islands. The ministers will be governed in it by political motives, and will do it, or not do it, as these shall appear to dictate, without love or hatred to any body. It were to be wished that they were able to combine better the various circumstances, which prove, beyond a doubt, that all the advantages of their colonies result, in the end, to the mother country. I pray you to present me in the most friendly terms to Mrs. Langdon, and be assured of the esteem with which I am

your Excellency’s most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CVII.—LISTER ASQUITH, September 14, 1785

TO LISTER ASQUITH.

Paris, September 14, 1785.

Sir,

Several of your letters have been received, and we have been occupied in endeavors to have you discharged: but these have been ineffectual. If our information be right, you are mistaken in supposing you are already condemned. The Farmers General tell us, you are to be tried at Brest, and this trial may perhaps be a month hence. From that court you may appeal to the Parliament of Rennes, and from that to the King in Council. They say, that from the depositions sent to them, there can be no doubt you came to smuggle, and that in that case, the judgment of the law is a forfeiture of the vessel and cargo, a fine of a thousand livres on each of you, and six years’ condemnation to the galleys. These several appeals will be attended with considerable expense. They offer to discharge your persons and vessel (but not the cargo) on your paying two thousand livres, and the costs already incurred; which are three or four hundred more. You will therefore choose, whether to go through the trial, or to compromise, and you are the best judge, what may be the evidence for or against you. In either case, I shall render you all the service I can. I will add, that if you are disposed to have the matter tried, I am of opinion, that, if found against you, there will be no danger of their sending you to the galleys; so that you may decide what course you will take, without any bias from that fear. If you choose to compromise, I will endeavor to have it done for you, on the best terms we can. I fear they will abate little from the two thousand livres, because Captain Deville, whom you sent here, fixed the matter by offering that sum, and has done you more harm than good. I shall be glad if you will desire your lawyer to make out a state of your case, (which he may do in French,) and send it to me. Write me also yourself a plain and full narration of your voyage, and the circumstances which have brought so small a vessel, with so small a cargo, from America into France. As far as we yet know them, they are not in your favor. Inform me who you are, and what papers you have on board. But do not state to me a single fact which is not true: for if I am led by your information to advance any thing which they shall prove to be untrue, I will abandon your case from that moment: whereas, sending me a true statement, I will make the best of it I can. Mr. Barclay, the American consul, will be here some few days yet. He will be, as he has already been, of much service to you, if the information I ask both from yourself and your lawyer, can come before his departure. I repeat my assurances of doing whatever I can for you, and am, Sir,

your very humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CVIII.—TO JOHN ADAMS, September 19, 1785

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Paris, September 19, 1785.

Dear Sir,

Lambe has arrived. He brings new full powers to us from Congress, to appoint persons to negotiate with the Barbary States; but we are to sign the treaties. Lambe has not even a recommendation from them to us, but it seems clear that he would be approved by them. I told him of Mr. Barclay’s appointment to Morocco, and proposed Algiers to him. He agrees. A small alteration in the form of our despatches will be necessary, and, of course, another courier shall be despatched to you on the return of Colonel Franks, for your pleasure herein.

I am, with great esteem,

your friend and servant,

Th: Jefferson.67

LETTER CIX.—TO JAMES MADISON, September 20, 1785

TO JAMES MADISON.

Paris, September 20, 1785.

Dear Sir,

By Mr. Fitzhugh, you will receive my letter of the first instant. He is still here, and gives me an opportunity of again addressing you much sooner than I should have done, but for the discovery of a great piece of inattention. In that letter I send you a detail of the cost of your books, and desire you to keep the amount in your hands, as if I had forgot that a part of it was in fact your own, as being a balance of what I had remained in your debt. I really did not attend to it in the moment of writing, and when it occurred to me, I revised my memorandum book from the time of our being in Philadelphia together, and stated our account from the beginning, lest I should forget or mistake any part of it. I enclose you this statement. You will always be so good as to let me know, from time to time, your advances for me. Correct with freedom all my proceedings for you, as, in what I do, I have no other desire than that of doing exactly what will be most pleasing to you.

I received this summer a letter from Messrs. Buchanan and Hay, as Directors of the public buildings desiring I would have drawn for them plans of sundry buildings, and, in the first place, of a capital. They fixed; for their receiving this plan, a day which Was within about six weeks of that on which their letter came to my hand. I engaged an architect of capital abilities in this business. Much time was requisite, after the external form was agreed on, to make the internal distribution convenient for the three branches of government. This time was much lengthened by my avocations to other objects, which I had no right to neglect. The plan however Was settled. The gentlemen had sent me one which they had thought of. The one agreed on here is more convenient, more beautiful, gives more room, and will not cost more than two thirds of what that would. We took for our model what is called the Maison Quarr©e (Nismes), one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful and precious morsel of architecture left us by antiquity. It was built by Caius and Lucius C¦sar, and repaired by Louis XIV., and has the suffrage of all the judges of architecture who have seen it, as yielding to no one of the beautiful monuments of Greece, Rome, Palmyra, and Balbec, which late travellers have communicated to us. It is very simple, but it is noble beyond expression, and would have done honor to our country, as presenting to travellers a specimen of taste in our infancy, promising much for our maturer age. I have been much mortified with information, which I received two days ago from Virginia, that the first brick of the Capitol would be laid within a few days. But surely, the delay of this piece of a summer would have been repaired by the savings in the plan preparing here, were we to value its other superiorities as nothing. But how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen, unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study and imitation? Pray try if you can effect the slopping of this work. I have written also to E. R. on the subject. The loss will be only of the laying the bricks already laid, or a part of them. The bricks themselves will do again for the interior walls, and one side wall and one end wall may remain, as they will answer equally well for our plan. This loss is not to be weighed against the saving of money which will arise, against the comfort of laying out the public money for something honorable, the satisfaction of seeing an object and proof of national good taste, and the regret and mortification of erecting a monument of our barbarism, which will be loaded with execrations as long as it shall endure. The plans are in good forwardness, and I hope will be ready within three or four weeks. They could not be stopped now, but on paying their whole price, which will be considerable. If the undertakers are afraid to undo what they have done, encourage them to it by a recommendation from the Assembly. You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.

I shall send off your books, in two trunks, to Havre, within two or three days, to the care of Mr. Limozin, American agent there. I will advise you, as soon as I know by what vessel he forwards them. Adieu.

Yours affectionately,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CX.—TO EDMUND RANDOLPH, September 20,1785

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Paris, September 20,1785.

Dear Sir,

Being in your debt for ten volumes of Buffon, I have endeavored to find something that would be agreeable to you to receive, in return. I therefore send you, by way of Havre, a dictionary of law, natural and municipal, in thirteen volumes 4to, called Le Code de l’Humanit©. It is published by Felice, but written by him and several other authors of established reputation. It is an excellent work. I do not mean to say, that it answers fully to its title. That would have required fifty times the volume. It wants many articles which the title would induce us to seek in it. But the articles which it contains are well written. It is better than the voluminous Dictionnaire Diplomatique, and better also than the same branch of the Encyclop©die M©thodigue. There has been nothing published here, since I came, of extraordinary merit. The Encyclop©die M©thodique, which is coming out from time to time, must be excepted from this. It is to be had at two guineas less than the subscription price. I shall be happy to send you any thing in this way which you may desire. French books are to be bought here for two thirds of what they can in England. English and Greek and Latin authors cost from twenty-five to fifty per cent, more here than in England.

I received, some time ago, a letter from Messrs. Hay and Buchanan, as Directors of the public buildings, desiring I would have plans drawn for our public buildings, and in the first place for the capitol. I did not receive their letter till within about six weeks of the time they had fixed on for receiving the drawings. Nevertheless, I engaged an excellent architect to comply with their desire. It has taken much time to accommodate the external adopted, to the internal arrangement necessary for the three branches of government. However, it is effected on a plan, which, with a great deal of beauty and convenience within, unites an external form on the most perfect model of antiquity now existing. This is the Maison Quarr©e of Nismes, built by Caius and Lucius C¦sar, and repaired by Louis XIV., which, in the opinion of all who have seen it, yields, in beauty, to no piece of architecture on earth. The gentlemen enclosed me a plan of which they had thought. The one preparing here will be more convenient, give more room, and cost but two thirds of that: and as a piece of architecture, doing honor to our country, will leave nothing to be desired. The plans will be ready soon. But, two days ago, I received a letter from Virginia, informing me the first brick of the capitol would be laid within a few days. This mortifies my extremely. The delay of this summer would have been amply repaid by the superiority and economy of the plan preparing here. Is it impossible to stop the work where it is? You will gain money by losing what is done, and general approbation, instead of occasioning a regret, which will endure as long as your building does. How is a taste for a chaste and good style of building to be formed in our countrymen, unless we seize all occasions which the erection of public buildings offers, of presenting to them models for their imitation? Do, my dear Sir, exert your influence to stay the further progress of the work, till you can receive these plans. You will only lose the price of laying what bricks are already laid, and of taking part of them asunder. They will do again for the inner walls. A plan for a prison will be sent at the same time.

Mazzei is here, and in pressing distress for money. I have helped him as far as I have been able, but particular circumstances put it out of my power to do more. He is looking with anxiety to the arrival of every vessel, in hopes of relief through your means. If he does not receive it soon, it is difficult to foresee his fate.

The quiet which Europe enjoys at present, leaves nothing to communicate to you in the political way. The Emperor and Dutch still differ about the quantum of money to be paid by the latter; they know not for what. Perhaps their internal convulsions will hasten them to a decision. France is improving her navy, as if she were already in a naval war: yet I see no immediate prospect of her having occasion for it. England is not likely to offer war to any nation, unless, perhaps, to ours. This would cost us our whole shipping: but in every other respect, we might flatter ourselves with success. But the most successful war seldom pays for its losses. I shall be glad to hear from you when convenient, and am, with much esteem, Dear Sir,