Monsieur Klein, such as that Congress engaged to give him a regiment;
that he paid the recruiting money out of his own pocket; that his
soldiers had nothing but bread and water; that Congress had promised
him they would pay his soldiers in specie, &c.; some of which are
impossible, and others very improbable; but these would be details too
lengthy, Madam, for you to be troubled with. Klein’s object is to
be received at the hospital of invalids. I presume he is not of the
description of persons entitled to be received there, and that his
American commission and American grievances are the only ground he has,
whereon to raise a claim to reception. He has therefore tried to make
the most of them. Few think there is any immorality in scandalizing
governments or ministers; and M. Klein’s distresses render this resource
more innocent in him, than it is in most others.
Your commands, Madam, to give what information I could, have drawn thus
much from me. I would not wish to weaken the hopes he so justly rests
on your, known goodness and benevolence. On the contrary, the weaker his
claims elsewhere, the stronger they will plead in your bosom to procure
him relief; and whatever may be done for him here, I repeat it, that if
he has any just demand against the United States, and will furnish
me with proofs of it, I will solicit it with zeal, and, I trust, with
effect. To procure him justice will be one gratification, and a great
additional one will be, that he has procured me the occasion of offering
you my portion of the general tribute so justly due, for all the good
you have done, and all you are perpetually endeavoring to do. Accept
then, Madam, I pray you, this homage from one, whose motives are
pure truth and justice, when he assures you of the sincerity of those
sentiments of esteem and respect, with which he has the honor to be,
Madam, your most obedient and most
humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXI.--TO JOHN JAY, February 1, 1789
TO JOHN JAY.
Paris, February 1, 1789.
Sir,
My last letters have been of the 11th, 14th, and 21st of January. The
present conveyance being through the post to Havre, from whence a vessel
is to sail for New York, I avail myself of it, principally to send
you the newspapers. That of Leyden of the 24th, contains a note of the
_Chargé des Affaires_ of France, at Warsaw, which is interesting. It
shows a concert between France and Russia; it is a prognostication that
Russia will interfere in the affairs of Poland, and if she does, it is
most probable that the King of Prussia must be drawn into the war. The
revolution which has taken place in Geneva, is a remarkable and late
event. With the loss of only two or three lives, and in the course of
one week, riots, begun at first on account of a rise in the price of
bread, were improved and pointed to a reformation of their
constitution; and their ancient constitution has been almost completely
re-established. Nor do I see any reason to doubt of the permanence
of the re-establishment. The King of England has shown such marks of
returning reason, that the regency bill was postponed in the House
of Lords, on the 19th instant. It seems now probable, there may be no
change of the ministry, perhaps no regent. We may be sure, however, that
the present ministry make the most of those favorable symptoms. There
has been a riot in Brittany, begun on account of the price of bread, but
converted into a quarrel between the _Noblesse_ and _Tiers-Etat_. Some
few lives were lost in it. All is quieted for the present moment. In
Burgundy and Franche Compte, the opposition of the nobles to the views
of government is very warm. Every where else, however, the revolution
is going on quietly and steadily, and the public mind ripening so
fast, that there is great reason to hope a good result from the States
General. Their numbers (about twelve hundred) give room to fear, indeed,
that they may be turbulent. Having never heard of Admiral Paul Jones
since the action, in which he took a part before Oczakow, I began to be
a little uneasy. But I have now received a letter from him, dated at
St. Petersburg, the 31 st of January, where he had just arrived, at the
desire of the Empress. He has hitherto commanded on the Black Sea. He
does not know whether he shall be employed there, or where, the ensuing
campaign. I have no other interesting intelligence, which would not
lead me into details, improper for the present mode of conveyance. After
observing, therefore, that the gazettes of France and Leyden, to the
present date, accompany this, I shall only add assurance of the sincere
esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir, your
most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXII.--TO JOHN JAY, February 4, 1789
TO JOHN JAY.
Paris, February 4, 1789.
Sir,
Your favor of November the 25th, by Gouverneur Morris, is duly received.
I must beg you to take the trouble of deciphering yourself what follows,
and to communicate it to nobody but the President, at least for the
present.
We had before understood, through different channels, that the conduct
of the Count de Moustier was politically and morally offensive. It was
delicate for me to speak on the subject to the Count de Montmorin.
The invaluable mediation of our friend, the Marquis de la Fayette, was
therefore resorted to, and the subject explained, though not pressed.
Later intelligence showing the necessity of pressing it, it was
yesterday resumed, and represented through the same medium to the Count
de Montmorin, that recent information proved to us, that his minister’s
conduct had rendered him personally odious in America, and might even
influence the dispositions of the two nations; that his recall was
become a matter of mutual concern; that we had understood he was
instructed to remind the new government of their debt to this country,
and that he was in the purpose of doing it in very harsh terms; that
this could not increase their desire of hastening payment, and might
wound their affections: that, therefore, it was much to be desired that
his discretion should not be trusted to, as to the form in which the
demand should be made, but that the letter should be written here, and
he instructed to add nothing but his signature: nor was his private
conduct omitted. The Count de Montmorin was sensibly impressed. He very
readily determined that the letter should be formed here, but said that
the recall was a more difficult business: that as they had no particular
fact to allege against the Count de Moustier, they could not recall him
from that ministry, without giving him another, and there was no vacancy
at present. However, he would hazard his first thoughts on the subject,
saving the right of correcting them by further consideration. They
were these: that there was a loose expression in one of de Moustier’s
letters, which might be construed into a petition for leave of absence;
that he would give him permission to return to France; that it had been
before decided, on the request of the Marquis de la Luzerne, that Otto
should go to him to London; that they would send a person to America
as _Chargé des Affaires_ in place of Otto, and that if the President
(General Washington) approved of him, he should be afterwards made
minister. He had cast his eye on Colonel Ternant, and desired the
Marquis to consult me, whether he would be agreeable. At first I
hesitated, recollecting to have heard Ternant represented in America, as
an hypochondriac, discontented man, and paused for a moment between him
and Barthelemy, at London, of whom I have heard a great deal of good.
However, I concluded it safer to take one whom we knew and who knew us.
The Marquis was decidedly of this opinion. Ternant will see that his
predecessor is recalled for unconciliatory deportment, and that he
will owe his own promotion to the approbation of the President.
He established a solid reputation in Europe, by his conduct when
Generalissimo of one of the United Provinces, during their late
disturbances; and it is generally thought, that if he had been put at
the head of the principal province, instead of the Rhingrave de Salm,
he would have saved that cause. Upon the whole, I believe you may expect
that the Count de Moustier will have an immediate leave of absence,
which will soon after become a recall in effect. I will try also to have
the consuls admonished as to the line of conduct they should observe. I
shall have the honor of writing you a general letter, within a few days.
I have now that of assuring you of the sentiments of sincere esteem and
respect, with which I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble
servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIII.--TO WILLIAM SHORT, February 9,1789
TO WILLIAM SHORT.
Paris, February 9,1789.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 22nd of January, on which day I received yours
of December the 31st, and since that, the other of January the 14th. We
have now received news from America down to the middle of December.
They had then had no cold weather. All things relative to our new
constitution were going on well. Federal senators are; New Hampshire,
President Langdon and Bartlett. Massachusetts, Strong and Dalton.
Connecticut, Dr. Johnson and Ellsworth. New Jersey, Patterson and
Ellmer. Pennsylvania, Robert Morris and M’Clay. Delaware, Reed and
Bassett. Virginia, Richard Henry Lee and Grayson. Maryland, Charles
Carroll, of Carrolton, and John Henry. All of these are federalists,
except those of Virginia; so that a majority of federalists are secured
in the Senate, and expected in the House of Representives. General
Washington will be President, and probably Mr. Adams Vice-President. So
that the constitution will be put under way by those who will give it a
fair trial. It does not seem probable that the attempt of New York,
to have another convention to make amendments, will succeed, though
Virginia concurs in it. It is tolerably certain that Congress will
propose amendments to the Assemblies, as even the friends of the
constitution are willing to make amendments; some from a conviction they
are necessary, others, from a spirit of conciliation. The addition of
a bill of rights will, probably, be the most essential change. A vast
majority of anti-federalists have got into the Assembly of Virginia,
so that Mr. Henry is omnipotent there. Mr. Madison was left out as a
senator by eight or nine votes; and Henry has so modeled the districts
for representatives, as to tack Orange to counties where himself has
great influence, that Madison may not be elected into the lower federal
House, which was the place he had wished to serve in, and not the
Senate. Henry pronounced a philippic against Madison in open
Assembly, Madison being then at Philadelphia. Mifflin is President
of Pennsylvania, and Peters, Speaker. Colonel Howard is Governor of
Maryland. Beverly Randolph, Governor of Virginia; (this last is said
by a passenger only, and he seems not very sure.) Colonel Humphreys is
attacked in the papers for his French airs, for bad poetry, bad prose,
vanity, &c. It is said his dress, in so gay a style, gives general
disgust against him. I have received a letter from him. He seems fixed
with General Washington. Mayo’s bridge, at Richmond, was completed, and
carried away in a few weeks. While up, it was so profitable that he
had great offers for it. A turnpike is established at Alexandria, and
succeeds. Rhode Island has again refused to call a convention. Spain has
granted to Colonel Morgan, of New Jersey, a vast tract of land on the
western side of the Mississippi, with the monopoly of the navigation
of that river. He is inviting settlers, and they swarm to him. Even the
settlement of Kentucky is likely to be much weakened by emigrations to
Morgan’s grant. Warville has returned, charmed with our country. He is
going to carry his wife and children to settle there. Gouverneur
Morris has just arrived here; deputed, as is supposed, to settle Robert
Morris’s affairs, which continue still deranged. Doctor Franklin was
well when he left America, which was about the middle of December.
*****
I send Mr. Rutledge two letters by this post. Be so good as to present
him my esteem, and to be assured yourself, of the sincere esteem
and attachment with which I am and shall ever be? Dear Sir, your
affectionate friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIV.--TO M. DE VILLEDEUIL, February 10, 1789
TO M. DE VILLEDEUIL.
Paris, February 10, 1789.
Sir,
I take the liberty of troubling your Excellency with the following case,
which I understand to be within your department. Mr. Jay, secretary for
Foreign Affairs, to the United States of America, having occasion
to send me despatches of great importance, and by a courier express,
confided them to a Mr. Nesbitt, who offered himself in that character.
He has delivered them safely: but, in the moment of delivering them,
explained to me his situation, which is as follows. He was established
in commerce at L’Orient, during the war. Losses by shipwreck, by
capture, and by the conclusion of the peace at a moment when he did not
expect it, reduced him to bankruptcy, and he returned to America, with
the consent of his creditors, to make the most of his affairs there.
He has been employed in this ever since, and now wishing to see his
creditors, and to consult them on their mutual interests, he availed
himself of Mr. Jay’s demand for a courier, to come under the safe
conduct of that character to Paris, where he flattered himself he might
obtain that of your Excellency, for the purpose of seeing his creditors,
settling, and arranging with them. He thinks a twelvemonth will be
necessary for this. Understanding that it is not unusual to grant safe
conducts in such cases, and persuaded it will be for the benefit of
his creditors, I take the liberty of enclosing his memoir to your
Excellency, and of soliciting your favorable attention to it, assured
that it will not be denied him, if it be consistent with the established
usage; and if inadmissible, praying that your Excellency will have the
goodness to give me as early an answer as the other arduous occupations
in which you are engaged, will admit, in order that he may know whether
he may see his creditors, or must return without. I am encouraged to
trouble your Excellency with this application, by the goodness with
which you have been pleased to attend to our interests on former
occasions, and by the desire of availing myself of every occasion of
proffering to you the homage of those sentiments of attachment and
respect, with which I have the honor to be your Excellency’s most
obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXV.--TO MR. CARNES, February 15,1789
TO MR. CARNES.
Paris, February 15,1789.
Sir,
I am now to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of January the 23rd,
and February the 9th and 10th. Your departure for America so soon,
puzzles me as to the finishing the affair of Schweighaeuser and Dobree,
in which I could have reposed myself on you. It remains, that I ask
you to recommend some person who may be perfectly relied on, in that
business. In fact, it is probably the only one I shall have occasion to
trouble them with before my own departure for America, which I expect
to take place in May; and I fix my return to Paris, in December. While
I ask your recommendation of a person to finish Dobree’s business with
fidelity, I must ask your secrecy on the subject of that very business,
so as not to name it at all, even to the person you shall recommend.
With respect to the distressed American who needs one hundred and forty
livres to enable him to return to America, I have no authority to apply
any public monies to that purpose, and the calls of that nature are
so numerous, that I am obliged to refuse myself to them in my private
capacity. As to Captain Newell’s case, you are sensible, that being
in the channel of the laws of the land, to ask a special order from
government, would expose us, in reciprocity to like demands from them
in America, to which our laws would never permit us to accede. Speaking
conscientiously, we must say it is wrong in any government to interrupt
the regular course of justice. A minister has no right to intermeddle
in a private suit, but when the laws of the country have been palpably
perverted to the prejudice of his countryman.
When you shall be so kind as to recommend to me a correspondent in your
port during your absence, I will ask the favor of you also to give me
some idea of the time you expect to return.
I have the honor, after wishing you pleasant and prosperous voyages, to
assure you of the esteem and attachment, with which I am, Sir, your most
obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXVI.--TO DR. BANCROFT, March 2, 1789
TO DR. BANCROFT.
Paris, March 2, 1789
Dear Sir,
I have just received a letter of January the 31st from Admiral Paul
Jones, at Petersburg, which charging me with the execution of some
commissions, and these requiring money, he tells me you will answer my
drafts, to the amount of four or five thousand livres, on his account.
Be so good as to inform me whether you will pay such drafts.
A Monsieur Foulloy, who has been connected with Deane, lately offered me
for sale two volumes of Deane’s letter books and account books, that he
had taken instead of money, which Deane owed him. I have purchased them
on public account. He tells me Deane has still six or eight volumes
more, and being to return soon to London, he will try to get them
also, in order to make us pay high for them. You are sensible of the
impropriety of letting such books get into hands which might make
an unfriendly use of them. You are sensible of the immorality of an
ex-minister’s selling his secrets for money and, consequently, that
there can be no immorality in tempting him with money to part with them;
so that they may be restored to that government to whom they properly
belong. Your former acquaintance with Deane may, perhaps, put it in your
power to render our country the service of recovering those books. It
would not do to propose it to him as for Congress. What other way would
best bring it about, you know best. I suppose his distresses and his
crapulous habits will not render him difficult on this head. On the
supposition that there are six or eight volumes, I think you might
venture as far as fifty guineas, and proportionably for fewer. I will
answer your draft to this amount and purpose, or you may retain it out
of any monies you may propose to pay me for admiral Jones. There is no
time to lose in this negotiation, as, should Foulloy arrive there
before it is closed, he will spoil the bargain. If you should be able to
recover these books, I would ask the favor of you to send them to me by
the Diligence, that I may carry them back with me to America. I make no
apology for giving you this trouble. It is for our common country, and
common interest.
I am, with sincere and great esteem and attachment, Dear Sir, your most
obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXVII.--TO M. DE MALESHERBES, March 11, 1789
TO M. DE MALESHERBES.
Sir,
Paris, March 11, 1789.
Your zeal to promote the general good of mankind, by an interchange
of useful things, and particularly in the line of agriculture, and the
weight which your rank and station would give to your interposition,
induce me to ask it, for the purpose of obtaining one of the species of
rice which grows in Cochin-China on high lands, and which needs no
other watering than the ordinary rains. The sun and soil of Carolina are
sufficiently powerful to insure the success of this plant, and Monsieur
de Poivre gives such an account of its quality, as might induce the
Carolinians to introduce it instead of the kind they now possess, which,
requiring the whole country to be laid under water during a certain
season of the year, sweeps off numbers of the inhabitants annually, with
pestilential fevers. If you would be so good as to interest yourself
in the procuring for me some seeds of the dry rice of Cochin-China, you
would render the most precious service to my countrymen, on whose behalf
I take the liberty of asking your interposition: very happy, at the same
time, to have found such an occasion of repeating to you the homage of
those sentiments of respect and esteem, with which I have the honor to
be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXVIII.--TO JOHN JAY, March 12, 1789
TO JOHN JAY.
Sir,
Paris, March 12, 1789.
I had the honor of addressing you, on the 1st instant, through the post.
I write the present, uncertain whether Mr. Nesbitt, the bearer of your
last, will be the bearer of this, or whether it may not have to wait
some other private occasion. They have reestablished their packet-boats
here, indeed; but they are to go from Bordeaux, which, being between
four and five hundred miles from hence, is too far to send a courier
with any letters but on the most extraordinary occasions and without a
courier, they must pass through the post-office. I shall, therefore, not
make use of this mode of conveyance, but prefer sending my letters by
a private hand by the way of London. The uncertainty of finding private
conveyances to London, is the principal objection to this.