CIRCULAR LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF WAR TO THE GOVERNORS.'

January 17, 1809.

SIR, The pressure of the embargo, though sensibly felt by every description of our fellow citizens, has yet been cheerfully borne by most of them, under the conviction that it was a temporary evil, and a necessary one to save us from greater and more permanent evils, the loss of property and surrender of rights. But it would have been more cheerfully borne, but for the knowledge that, while honest men were religiously observing it, the unprincipled along our sea-coast and frontiers were fraudulently evading it; and that in some parts they had even dared to break through it openly, by an armed force too powerful to be opposed by the collector and his assistants. To put an end to this scandalous insubordination to the laws, the Legislature has authorized the President to empower proper persons to employ militia, for preventing or suppressing armed or riotous assemblages of persons resisting the custom-house officers in the exercise of their duties, or opposing or violating the embargo laws. He sincerely hopes that, during the short time which these restrictions are expected to continue, no other instances will take place of a crime of so deep a die. But it is made his duty to take the measures necessary to meet it. He therefore requests you, as commanding officer of the militia of your State, to appoint some officer of the militia, of known respect for the laws, in or near to each port of entry within your State, with orders, when applied to by the collector of the district, to assemble immediately a sufficient force of his militia, and to employ them efficaciously to

accession to a share in the direction of our executive councils. Besides the general advantages we may promise ourselves from the employment of your talents & integrity in so important a station, we may hope peculiar effect from it towards restoring deeply wounded amity between your native state & her sisters. The design of the leading Federalists, then having direction of the state, to take advantage of the first war with England to separate the N. E. states from the union has distressingly impaired our future confidence in them. In this, as in all other cases, we must do them full justice, and make the fault all their own, should the last hope of human liberty be destined to receive it's final stab from them. I salute you with great esteem & respect.

1 Drafted by Thomas Jefferson.

maintain the authority of the laws respecting the embargo, and that you notify to each collector the officer to whom, by your appointment, he is so to apply for aid when necessary. He has referred this appointment to your Excellency, because your knowledge of characters, or means of obtaining it, will enable you to select one who can be most confided in to exercise so serious a power, with all the discretion, the forbearance, the kindness even, which the enforcement of the law will possibly admit,— ever to bear in mind that the life of a citizen is never to be endangered, but as the last melancholy effort for the maintenance of order and obedience to the laws.

TO THOMAS LEIPER.

J. MSS.

WASHINGTON, January, 21, 1809.

DEAR SIR,-Your letter of the 15th was duly received, and before that, Towers' book, which you had been so kind as to send me, had come to hand, for which I pray you to receive my thanks. You judge rightly that here I have no time to read. A cursory view of the book shows me that the author is a man of much learning in his line. I have heard of some other late writer, (the name I forget,) who has undertaken to prove contrary events from the same sources; and particularly that England is not to be put down; and that this is the favorite author in that country. As to myself, my religious reading has long been confined to the moral branch of religion, which is the same in all religions; while in that branch which consists of dogmas, all differ, all have a different set. The former instructs us how to live well and worthily in society; the latter are made to interest our minds in the support of the teachers who inculcate them. Hence, for one sermon on a moral subject, you hear ten on the dogmas of the sect. However, religion is not the subject for you and me; neither of us know the religious opinions of the other; that is a matter between our Maker and ourselves. We understand each other better in politics, to which therefore I will proceed. The House of Representatives passed last night a bill for the meeting of Congress on the 22d of May. This substantially decides the course

they mean to pursue; that is, to let the embargo continue till then, when it will cease, and letters of marque and reprisal be issued against such nations as shall not then have repealed their obnoxious edicts. The great majority seem to have made up their minds on this, while there is considerable diversity of opinion on the details of preparation; to wit: naval force, volunteers, army, non-intercouse, &c. I write freely to you, because I know that in stating facts, you will not quote names. You know that every syllable uttered in my name becomes a text for the federalists to torment the public mind on by their paraphrases and perversions. I have lately inculcated the encouragement of manufactures to the extent of our own consumption at least, in all articles of which we raise the raw material. On this the federal papers and meetings have sounded the alarm of Chinese policy, destruction of commerce, &c. ; that is to say, the iron which we make must not be wrought here into ploughs, axes, hoes, &c., in order that the ship-owner may have the profit of carrying it to Europe, and bringing it back in a manufactured form, as if after manufacturing our own raw materials for our own use, there would not be a surplus produce sufficient to employ a due proportion of navigation in carrying it to market and exchanging it for those articles of which we have not the raw material. this absurd hue and cry has contributed much to federalize New England, their doctrine goes to the sacrificing agriculture and manufactures to commerce; to the calling all our people from the interior country to the sea-shore to turn merchants, and to convert this great agricultural country into a city of Amsterdam. But I trust the good sense of our country will see that its greatest prosperity depends on a due balance between agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and not in this protuberant navigation which has kept us in hot water from the commencement of our government, and is now engaging us in war. That this may be avoided, if it can be done without a surrender of rights, is my sincere prayer. Accept the assurances of my constant esteem and respect.

Yet

TO ABRAHAM VENABLE.

J. MSS.

WASHINGTON, January 23, 09.

DEAR SIR,-In a letter to my friend & relation Mr. Jefferson, I explained to him the unexpected difficulties into which I was likely to fall on my winding up my affairs here, with a request to endeavor to procure me the aid of the bank at Richmond. You have been so kind as to interpose and to procure for me the sum needed on private loan, which is infinitely more eligible for myself. It is the more so inasmuch as your friendly undertaking to be my indorser, contrary to a necessary rule you had established will, by remaining unknown, not expose you to other solicitations of the like kind. I return you, my dear sir, my sincere thanks for this friendly relief, and shall ever retain a lively sense of it; & the greater as I should never have thought myself entitled to ask such a favor of you. In addition to the resources for repaiment mentioned in the letter to Mr. Jefferson, I have directed my agents in Bedford & Albermarle to offer in each place a tract of land for sale, worth each from 4 to 5 thousand D. A crop of tobo. which will be in his hands the next month, will make a first impression on the amount, and with another a twelve month hence will discharge 5,000 D. of the sum, for the balance I must depend on the sale of some of those lands, of which one tract alone is certain, an offer having been made to me for that. Lands are of difficult sale. For this reason I have asked the indulgence of a twelve month certain. The note sent me is for 6 months, but I presume will be renewable; otherwise

I should be forced at its expiration to have recourse to the bank. Repeating again my extreme obligation to you, I salute you with great esteem & respect.1

1 On the subject of his financial straits Jefferson further wrote to Madison: MONTICELLO, May 22, 09.

DEAR SIR,It is my duty to write to you on the subject of the note you were so kind as to endorse for me at the Bank of the U. S., and I do it willingly, altho' painfully. Notwithstanding a fixed determination to take care that at the termination of my duties at Washington my pecuniary matters should at least be square, and my confidence that they would be so, I found, by an estimate made in December last, that there would be a deficit in them of several thousand dollars. I took immediate measures for transferring that debt to Virginia, and did it the more easily as I was enabled to pledge certain resources which I had in possession, or not very distant. However after this liquidation effected other demands, which had not come under my view, came upon me, one after another, and required to answer them the amount of the note you indorsed for me. The forms of the bank requiring two indorsers, for an absentee, I asked of Mr. Barnes to be the second, which he very readily assented to, the cashier previously assuring me that it would have no effect on their transactions with Mr. Barnes on his private account, & so I assured him. But by a letter I have received from the old gentleman, I find that he is made uneasy by some circumstance in the execution of the note, which makes him liable in the first instance, were the bank, contrary to expectation, to make a sudden demand of the money. It would add much to my affliction to give him uneasy nights at his age, which obliges me to ask you to satisfy him by interposing yourself between him & the first liability to the bank, which I believe is done by your subscribing the words' credit the drawer' instead of his doing it. He however can best say how this may be done. I might, without much delay have relieved you from this unpleasant responsibility had I not engaged my earliest resources on my first estimate, which I then thought would discharge all demands. It is this circumstance which renders me unable to fix any time with confidence. I limit my expenses here to my income here, leaving that of my Bedford estate free, which is about 2500 D. clear one year with another. But as this would take an improper course of time, I am endeavoring to sell several detached parcels of land, unconnected with my possessions either here or in Bedford, & which I can spare without diminution of revenue or other inconvenience. They amount to between two & three thousand acres & at the market prices would bring the double of these deficits. I trust that the bank will find no interest in calling for a reimbursement before I shall have been able to avail myself of all my resources.

I had seen with much pleasure that the dispute with Pennsylvania was likely to go off so smoothly; but am much mortified to see the spirit manifested by

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