Читать книгу Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3 - Томас Джефферсон, Thomas Jefferson - Страница 32

TO WILLIAM SHORT.

New York, July 26, 1790.

Dear Sir,

My public letters to you have been of the 28th of March, the 6th and 30th of April. Yours, which remain to be acknowledged, are of March the 9th, 17th, 29th, April the 4th, 12th, 23rd, and May the 1st; being from No. 21 to 28, inclusive, except No. 23, which had come to hand before. I will state to you the dates of all your letters received by me, with the times they have been received, and length of their passage.

You will perceive that they average eleven weeks and a half; that the quickest are of nine weeks, and the longest are of near eighteen weeks coming. Our information through the English papers is of about five or six weeks, and we generally remain as long afterwards in anxious suspense, till the receipt of your letters may enable us to decide what articles of those papers have been true. As these come principally by the English packet, I will take the liberty of asking you to write always by that packet, giving a full detail of such events as may be communicated through that channel; and indeed most may. If your letters leave Paris nine or ten days before the sailing of the packet, we shall be able to decide, on the moment, on the facts true or false, with which she comes charged. For communications of a secret nature, you will avail yourself of other conveyances, and you will be enabled to judge which are best, by the preceding statement. News from Europe is very interesting at this moment, when it is so doubtful whether a war will take place between our two neighbors.

Congress have passed an act for establishing the seat of government at Georgetown, from the year 1800, and in the mean time to remove to Philadelphia. It is to that place, therefore, that your future letters had better be addressed. They have still before them the bill for funding the public debts. That has been hitherto delayed by a question, whether the debts contracted by the particular Slates for general purposes should, at once, be assumed by the General Government. A developement of circumstances, and more mature consideration, seem to have produced some change of opinion on the subject. When it was first proposed, a majority was against it. There is reason to believe, by the complexion of some later votes, that the majority will now be for assuming these debts to a fixed amount. Twenty-one millions of dollars are proposed. As soon as this point is settled, the funding bill will pass, and Congress will adjourn. That adjournment will probably be between the 6th and 13th of August. They expect it sooner. I shall then be enabled to inform you, ultimately, on the subject of the French debt, the negotiations for the payment of which will be referred to the executive, and will not be retarded by them an unnecessary moment. A bill has passed, authorizing the President to raise the salary of a Chargé des Affaires to four thousand five hundred dollars, from the first day of July last. I am authorized by him to inform you, that yours will accordingly be at that rate, and that you will be allowed for gazettes, translating or printing papers, where that shall be necessary, postage, couriers, and necessary aids to poor American sailors, in addition to the salary, and no charge of any other description, except where you may be directed to incur it expressly. I have thought it would be most agreeable to you to give you precise information, that you may be in no doubt in what manner to state your accounts. Be pleased to settle your account down to the 1st of July last, and state the balance then due, which will be to be paid out of the former fund. From that day downwards, a new account must be opened, because a new fund is appropriated to it, from that time. The expenses for the medals, directed in my letter of April the 30th, must enter into the new account. As I presume the die will be finished by the time you receive this, I have to desire you will have a medal of gold struck for the Marquis de la Luzerne, and have put to it a chain of three hundred and sixty-five links, each link containing gold to the value of two dollars and a half, or thirteen livres and ten sous. The links to be of plain wire, so that their workmanship may cost as it were nothing. The whole will make a present of little more than one thousand dollars, including the medal and chain. As soon as done, be pleased to forward them by a safe hand to the Marquis de la Luzerne, in the name of the President of the United States, informing him that it is the one spoken of in my letter to him of April the 30th, 1790. Say nothing to any body of the value of the present, because that will not always be the same, in all cases. Be so good as to have a second medal of gold struck in the same die, and to send this second, together with the dies, to Philadelphia, by the first safe person who shall be passing; no chain to be sent with this.

We are impatient to learn the progress and prospect of the Algerine business. Do not let it languish a moment, nor leave us a moment uninformed of any thing relative to it. It is in truth a tender business, and more felt as such in this, than in any other country. The suppression of the Farms of tobacco, and the free importation of our salted provisions, will merit all your attention. They are both of them objects of first rate importance.

The following appointments of Consuls have taken place.

Their jurisdictions, in general, extend to all places within the same allegiance, which are nearer to them than to the residence of any other Consul or Vice-Consul. As yet, only their commissions have been made out. General instructions await the passage of a bill now depending. Mr. La Forest, at this place, remarked our appointment of Consuls in the French islands. In the first project of a convention proposed on the part of France, the expressions reached expressly to the kingdom of France only. I objected to this in writing, as being narrower than the twenty-ninth article of the treaty of amity, which was the basis of the consular convention, and which had granted the appointment of Consuls and Vice-Consuls, in their respective ‘States and ports,’ generally, and without restriction. On this, the word ‘France’ was struck out, and the ‘dominions of the M. C. K.’ inserted every where. See the fifth, ninth, twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth articles particularly, of the copy of the draughts of 1784 and 1788, as I had them printed side by side. The object of this alteration was, the appointment of Consuls in the free ports allowed us in the French West Indies, where our commerce has greater need of protection than any where. I mention these things, that you may be prepared, should any thing be said to you on the subject. I am persuaded the appointment will contribute eminently to the preservation of harmony between us. These Consuls will be able to prevent the misunderstandings which arise frequently now between the officers there and our traders, and which are doubtless much exaggerated and misrepresented to us by the latter.

I duly received the copy you were so kind as to send me of the Bishop of Autun’s proposition, on the subject of weights and measures. It happened to arrive in the moment I was about giving in to Congress a report on the same subject, which they had referred to me. In consequence of the Bishop of Autun’s proposition, I made an alteration in my report, substituting forty-five degrees instead of thirty-eight degrees, which I had at first proposed as a standard latitude. I send you a copy of my report for the Bishop, and another for M. Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. By taking the second pendulum or rod of the same latitude for the basis of our measures, it will at least furnish a common measure to which both our systems will refer, provided our experiments on the pendulum or rod of forty-five degrees should yield exactly the same result with theirs.

The newspapers, as usual, will accompany the present, which is to go by Mr. Barrett.

I have the honor to be, with great esteem and attachment, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.