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 honour to be, with great esteem and attachment, Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, TH. JEFFERSON. DEAR SIR, TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL. New York, August 2, 1790. This letter will be delivered to you by Colonel Humphreys, whose character is so well known to you as to need no recommendations from me. The present appearances of war between our two neighbours, Spain and England, cannot but excite all our attention. The part we are to act is uncertain, and will be difficult. The unsettled state of our dispute with Spain may give a turn to it, very different from what we would wish. As it is important that you should be fully apprised of our way of thinking on this subject, I have sketched, in the inclosed paper, general heads of consideration arising from present circumstances. These will be readily developed by your own reflections and in conversations with Colonel Humphreys; who, possessing the sentiments of the executive on this subject, being well acquainted with the circumstances of the western country in particular, and of the state of our affairs in general, comes to Madrid expressly for the purpose of giving you a thorough communication of them. He will, therefore, remain there as many days or weeks, as may be necessary for this purpose. With this information, written and oral, you will be enabled to meet the minister in conversations on the subject of the navigation of the Mississippi, to which we wish you to lead his attention immediately. Impress him thoroughly with the necessity of an early, and even an immediate settlement of this matter, and of a return to the field of negociation for this purpose: and though it must be done delicately, yet he must be made to understand unequivocally, that a resumption of the negociation is not desired on our part, unless he can determine, in the first opening of it, to yield the immediate and full enjoyment of that navigation. (I say nothing of the claims of Spain to our territory north of the thirty-first degree, and east of the Mississippi. They never merited the respect of an answer; and you know it has been admitted at Madrid that they were not to be maintained.) It may be asked, what need of negociation, if the navigation is to be ceded at all events? You know that the navigation cannot be practised without a port, where the sea and river vessels may meet and exchange loads, and where those employed about them may be safe and unmolested. The right to use a thing, comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless. The fixing on a proper port, and the degree of freedom it is to enjoy in its operations, will require negotiation, and be governed by events. There is danger, indeed, that even the unavoidable delay of sending a negotiator here, may render the mission too late for the preservation of peace. It is impossible to answer for the forbearance of our western citizens. We endeavour to quiet them with the expectation of an attainment of their rights by peaceable means. But should they, in a moment of impatience, hazard others, there is no saying how far we may be led; for neither themselves nor their rights will ever be abandoned by us. You will be pleased to observe, that we press these matters warmly and firmly, under this idea, that the war between Spain and Great Britain will be begun before you receive this; and such a moment must not be lost. But should an accommodation take place, we retain, indeed, the same object and the same resolutions unalterably; but your discretion will suggest, that, in that event, they must be pressed more softly, and that patience and persuasion must temper your conferences, till either these may prevail, or some other circumstance turn up, which may enable us to use other means for the attainment of an object, which we are determined, in the end, to obtain at every risk. I have the honour to be, with great esteem, Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, TO M. DE PINTO. New York, August 7, 1720. SIR, Under cover of the acquaintance I had the honour of contracting with you, during the negotiations we transacted together in London, I take the liberty of addressing you the present letter. The friendly dispositions you were then pleased to express towards this country, which were sincerely and reciprocally felt on my part towards yours, flatter me with the hope you will assist in maturing a subject for their common good. As yet, we have not the information necessary to present it to you formally, as the minister of her most faithful Majesty. I beg, therefore, that this letter may be considered as between two individual friends of their respective countries, preliminary to a formal proposition, and meant to give an acceptable shape to that. It is unnecessary, with your Excellency, to go through the history of our first experiment in government; the result of which was, a want of such tone in the governing powers, as might effect the good of those committed to their care. The nation, become sensible of this, has changed its organization, made a better distribution of its powers, and given to them more energy and independence. The new government has now, for some time, been under way; and so far, gives a confidence that it will answer its purposes. Abuses under the old forms, have led us to lay the basis of the new, in a rigorous economy of the public contributions. This principle will shew itself in our diplomatic establishments; and the rather, as at such a distance from Europe, and with such an ocean between us, we hope to meddle little in its quarrels or combinations. Its peace and its commerce are what we shall court; and to cultivate these, we propose to place at the courts of Europe most interesting to us, diplomatic characters of economical grade, and shall be glad to receive like ones in exchange. The important commerce carried on between your country and ours, and the proofs of friendly disposition towards us which her Majesty has manifested, induce us to wish for such an exchange with her, to express our sensibility at the intimations heretofore received of her readiness to meet our wish in this point, and our regret at the delay which has proceeded from the circumstances before touched on. The grade to be exchanged is the present question, and that on which I ask a friendly and informal consultation with you. That of chargé des affaires, is the one we would prefer. It is that we employ at the court of Madrid. But it has been said, that by the etiquette of your court, that grade cannot be received there' under a favourable countenance. Something like this existed at the court of Madrid. But his most Catholic Majesty, in consideration of our peculiar circumstances, dispensed with a general rule in our favour, and in our particular case; and our chargé des affaires there, enjoys at court the privileges, the respect, and favour due to a friendly nation, to a nation whom distance and difference of circumstances liberate, in some degree, from an etiquette, to which it is a stranger at home as well as abroad, The representative of her Majesty here, under whatever name mutual convenience may designate him, shall be received in the plenitude of friendship and favour. May we not ask a reciprocal treatment of ours with you? The nations of Europe have already seen the necessity of dis |