My duties at Paris were confined to a few objects; the receipt of our whale-oils, salted fish, and salted meats on favorable terms, the admission of our rice on equal terms with that of Piedmont, Egypt the Levant, a mitigation of the monopolies of our tobacco by the Farmers-general, and a free admission of our productions into their islands; were the principal commercial objects which required attention; and on these occasions I was powerfully aided by all the influence and the energies of the Marquis de La Fayette, who proved himself equally zealous for the friendship and welfare of both nations; and in justice I must also say that I found the government entirely disposed to befriend us on all occasions, and to yield us every indulgence not absolutely injurious to themselves. The Count de Vergennes had the reputation with the diplomatic corps of being wary slippery in his diplomatic intercourse; and so he might be with those whom he knew to be slippery and double-faced themselves. As he saw that I had no indirect views, practised no subtleties, meddled in no intrigues, pursued no concealed object, I found him as frank, as honorable, as easy of access to reason as any man with whom I had ever done business; and I must say the same for his successor Montmorin, one of the most honest and worthy of human beings.

Our commerce in the Mediterranean was placed under early alarm by the capture of two of our vessels and crews by the Barbary cruisers. I was very unwilling that we should acquiesce in the European humiliation of paying a tribute to those lawless pirates, and endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredation from them. I accordingly prepared and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation in the following form.

Proposals for concerted operation among the powers at war with the Piratical States of Barbary.

1. It is proposed that the several powers at war with the Piratical States of Barbary, or any two or more of them who shall be willing, shall enter into a convention to carry on their operations against those states, in concert, beginning with the Algerines.

2. This convention shall remain open to any other power who shall at any future time wish to accede to it; the parties reserving a right to prescribe the conditions of such accession, according to the circumstances existing at the time it shall be proposed.

3. The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical states to perpetual peace, without price, to guarantee that peace to each other.

4. The operations for obtaining this peace shall be constant cruises on their coast with a naval force now to be agreed on. It is not proposed that this force shall be so considerable as to be inconvenient to any party. It is believed that half a dozen frigates, with as many Tenders or Xebecs, one half of which shall be in cruise, while the other half is at rest, will suffice.

5. The force agreed to be necessary shall be furnished by the parties in certain quotas now to be fixed; it being expected that each will be willing to contribute in such proportion as circumstance may render reasonable.

6. As miscarriages often proceed from the want of harmony among officers of different nations, the parties shall now consider decide whether it will not be better to contribute their quotas in money to be employed in fitting out, and keeping on duty, a single fleet of the force agreed on.

7. The difficulties and delays too which will attend the management of these operations, if conducted by the parties themselves separately, distant as their courts may be from one another, and incapable of meeting in consultation, suggest a question whether it will not be better for them to give full powers for that purpose to their Ambassadors or other ministers resident at some one court of Europe, who shall form a Committee or Council for carrying this convention into effect; wherein the vote of each member shall be computed in proportion to the quota of his sovereign, and the majority so computed shall prevail in all questions within the view of this convention. The court of Versailles is proposed, on account of it’s neighborhood to the Mediterranean, and because all those powers are represented there, who are likely to become parties to this convention.

8. To save to that council the embarrassment of personal solicitations for office, and to assure the parties that their contributions will be applied solely to the object for which they are destined, there shall be no establishment of officers for the said Council, such as Commis, Secretaries, or any other kind, with either salaries or perquisites, nor any other lucrative appointments but such whose functions are to be exercised on board the sd vessels.

9. Should war arise between any two of the parties to this convention it shall not extend to this enterprise, nor interrupt it; but as to this they shall be reputed at peace.

10. When Algiers shall be reduced to peace, the other pyratical states, if they refuse to discontinue their pyracies shall become the objects of this convention, either successively or together as shall seem best.

11. Where this convention would interfere with treaties actually existing between any of the parties and the sd states of Barbary, the treaty shall prevail, and such party shall be allowed to withdraw from the operations against that state.

Spain had just concluded a treaty with Algiers at the expense of 3. millions of dollars, and did not like to relinquish the benefit of that until the other party should fail in their observance of it. Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably disposed to such an association; but their representatives at Paris expressed apprehensions that France would interfere, and, either openly or secretly support the Barbary powers; and they required that I should ascertain the dispositions of the Count de Vergennes on the subject. I had before taken occasion to inform him of what we were proposing, and therefore did not think it proper to insinuate any doubt of the fair conduct of his government; but stating our propositions, I mentioned the apprehensions entertained by us that England would interfere in behalf of those piratical governments. “She dares not do it,” said he. I pressed it no further. The other agents were satisfied with this indication of his sentiments, and nothing was now wanting to bring it into direct and formal consideration, but the assent of our government, and their authority to make the formal proposition. I communicated to them the favorable prospect of protecting our commerce from the Barbary depredations, and for such a continuance of time as, by an exclusion of them from the sea, to change their habits characters from a predatory to an agricultural people: towards which however it was expected they would contribute a frigate, and it’s expenses to be in constant cruise. But they were in no condition to make any such engagement. Their recommendatory powers for obtaining contributions were so openly neglected by the several states that they declined an engagement which they were conscious they could not fulfill with punctuality; and so it fell through.

May 17. In 1786. while at Paris I became acquainted with John Ledyard of Connecticut, a man of genius, of some science, and of fearless courage, enterprise. He had accompanied Capt Cook in his voyage to the Pacific, had distinguished himself on several occasions by an unrivalled intrepidity, and published an account of that voyage with details unfavorable to Cook’s deportment towards the savages, and lessening our regrets at his fate. Ledyard had come to Paris in the hope of forming a company to engage in the fur trade of the Western coast of America. He was disappointed in this, and being out of business, and of a roaming, restless character, I suggested to him the enterprise of exploring the Western part of our continent, by passing thro St. Petersburg to Kamschatka, and procuring a passage thence in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, whence he might make his way across the continent to America; and I undertook to have the permission of the Empress of Russia solicited. He eagerly embraced the proposition, and M. de Sémoulin, the Russian Ambassador, and more particularly Baron Grimm the special correspondent of the Empress, solicited her permission for him to pass thro’ her dominions to the Western coast of America. And here I must correct a material error which I have committed in another place to the prejudice of the Empress. In writing some Notes of the life of Capt Lewis, 1 prefixed to his expedition to the Pacific, I stated that the Empress gave the permission asked, afterwards retracted it. This idea, after a lapse of 26 years, had so insinuated itself into my mind, that I committed it to paper without the least suspicion of error. Yet I find, on recurring to my letters of that date that the Empress refused permission at once, considering the enterprise as entirely chimerical. But Ledyard would not relinquish it, persuading himself that by proceeding to St. Petersburg he could satisfy the Empress of it’s practicability and obtain her permission. He went accordingly, but she was absent on a visit to some distant part of her dominions, 2 and he pursued his course to within 200. miles of Kamschatka, where he was overtaken by an arrest from the Empress, brought back to Poland, and there dismissed. I must therefore in justice, acquit the Empress of ever having for a moment countenanced, even by the indulgence of an innocent passage thro’ her territories this interesting enterprise.

May 18. The pecuniary distresses of France produced this year a measure of which there had been no example for near two centuries, the consequences of which, good and evil, are not yet calculable. For it’s remote causes we must go a little back.

Celebrated writers of France and England had already sketched good principles on the subject of government. Yet the American Revolution seems first to have awakened the thinking part of the French nation in general from the sleep of despotism in which they were sunk. The officers too who had been to America, were mostly young men, less shackled by habit and prejudice, and more ready to assent to the suggestions of common sense, and feeling of common rights. They came back with new ideas impressions. The press, notwithstanding it’s shackles, began to disseminate them. Conversation assumed new freedoms. Politics became the theme of all societies, male and female, and a very extensive zealous party was formed which acquired the appellation of the Patriotic party, who, sensible of the abusive government under which they lived, sighed for occasions of reforming it. This party comprehended all the honesty of the kingdom sufficiently at it’s leisure to think, the men of letters, the easy Bourgeois, the young nobility partly from reflection, partly from mode, for these sentiments became matter of mode, and as such united most of the young women to the party. Happily for the nation, it happened at the same moment that the dissipations of the Queen and court, the abuses of the pension-list, and dilapidations in the administration of every branch of the finances, had exhausted the treasures and credit of the nation, insomuch that it’s most necessary functions were paralyzed. To reform these abuses would have overset the minister; to impose new taxes by the authority of the King was known to be impossible from the determined opposition of the parliament to their enregistry. No resource remained then but to appeal to the nation. He advised therefore the call of an assembly of the most distinguished characters of the nation, in the hope that by promises of various and valuable improvements in the organization and regimen of the government, they would be induced to authorize new taxes, to controul the opposition of the parliament, and to raise the annual revenue to the level of expenditures. An Assembly of Notables therefore, about 150. in number named by the King, convened on the 22d. of Feb. The Minister (Calonne) stated to them that the annual excess of expenses beyond the revenue, when Louis XVI. came to the throne, was 37. millions of livres; that 440. millns. had been borrowed to reestablish the navy; that the American war had cost them 1440. millns. (256. mils. of Dollars) and that the interest of these sums, with other increased expenses had added 40 millns. more to the annual deficit. (But a subseqt. and more candid estimate made it 56. millns.) He proffered them an universal redress of grievances, laid open those grievances fully, pointed out sound remedies, and covering his canvas with objects of this magnitude, the deficit dwindled to a little accessory, scarcely attracting attention. The persons chosen were the most able independent characters in the kingdom, and their support, if it could be obtained, would be enough for him. They improved the occasion for redressing their grievances, and agreed that the public wants should be relieved; but went into an examination of the causes of them. It was supposed that Calonne was conscious that his accounts could not bear examination; and it was said and believed that he asked of the King to send 4. members to the Bastile, of whom the M. de la Fayette was one, to banish 20. others, 2. of his Ministers. The King found it shorter to banish him. His successor went on in full concert with the Assembly. The result was an augmentation of the revenue a promise of economies in it’s expenditure, of an annual settlement of the public accounts before a council, which the Comptroller, having been heretofore obliged to settle only with the King in person, of course never settled at all; an acknowledgment that the King could not lay a new tax, a reformation of the criminal laws abolition of torture, suppression of Corvées, reformation of the gabelles, removal of the interior custom houses, free commerce of grain internal external, and the establishment of Provincial assemblies; which alltogether constituted a great mass of improvement in the condition of the nation. The establishment of the Provincial assemblies was in itself a fundamental improvement. They would be of the choice of the people, one third renewed every year, in those provinces where there are no States, that is to say over about three fourths of the kingdom. They would be partly an Executive themselves, partly an Executive council to the Intendant, to whom the Executive power, in his province had been heretofore entirely delegated. Chosen by the people, they would soften the execution of hard laws, having a right of representation to the King, they would censure bad laws, suggest good ones, expose abuses, and their representations, when united, would command respect. To the other advantages might be added the precedent itself of calling the Assemblée des Notables, which would perhaps grow into habit. The hope was that the improvements thus promised would be carried into effect, that they would be maintained during the present reign, that that would be long enough for them to take some root in the constitution, so that they might come to be considered as a part of that, and be protected by time, and the attachment of the nation.

The Count de Vergennes had died a few days before the meeting of the Assembly, the Count de Montmorin had been named Minister of foreign affairs in his place. Villedeuil succeeded Calonnes as Comptroller general, Lomenie de Bryenne, Archbishop of Thoulouse, afterwards of Sens, ultimately Cardinal Lomenie, was named Minister principal, with whom the other ministers were to transact the business of their departments, heretofore done with the King in person, and the Duke de Nivernois, and M. de Malesherbes were called to the Council. On the nomination of the Minister principal the Marshals de Segur de Castries retired from the departments of War Marine, unwilling to act subordinately, or to share the blame of proceedings taken out of their direction. They were succeeded by the Count de Brienne, brother of the Prime minister, and the Marquis de la Luzerne, brother to him who had been Minister in the United States.

May 24. A dislocated wrist, unsuccessfully set, occasioned advice from my Surgeon to try the mineral waters of Aix in Provence as a corroborant. I left Paris for that place therefore on the 28th. of Feb. and proceeded up the Seine, thro’ Champagne Burgundy, and down the Rhone thro’ the Beaujolais by Lyons, Avignon, Nismes to Aix, where finding on trial no benefit from the waters, I concluded to visit the rice country of Piedmont, to see if anything might be learned there to benefit the rivalship of our Carolina rice with that, and thence to make a tour of the seaport towns of France, along it’s Southern and Western Coast, to inform myself if anything could be done to favor our commerce with them. 1 From Aix therefore I took my route by Marseilles, Toulon, Hieres, Nice, across the Col de Tende, by Coni, Turin, Vercelli, Novara, Milan, Pavia, Novi, Genoa. Thence returning along the coast by Savona, Noli, Albenga, Oneglia, Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Frejus, Aix, Marseilles, Avignon, Nismes, Montpellier, Frontignan, Cette, Agde, and along the canal of Languedoc, by Bezieres, Narbonne, Cascassonne, Castelnaudari, thro’ the Souterrain of St. Feriol and back by Castelnaudari, to Toulouse, thence to Montauban down the Garonne by Langon to Bordeaux. Thence to Rochefort, la Rochelle, Nantes, L’Orient, then back by Rennes to Nantes, and up the Loire by Angers, Tours, Amboise, Blois to New Orleans, thence direct to Paris where I arrived on the 10th. of June. Soon after my return from this journey to wit, about the latter part of July, I received my younger daughter Maria from Virginia by the way of London, the youngest having died some time before.

The treasonable perfidy of the Prince of Orange, Stadtholder Captain General of the United Netherlands, in the war which England waged against them for entering into a treaty of commerce with the U.S. is known to all. As their Executive officer, charged with the conduct of the war, he contrived to baffle all the measures of the States General, to dislocate all their military plans, played false into the hands of England and against his own country on every possible occasion, confident in her protection, and in that of the King of Prussia, brother to his Princess. The States General indignant at this patricidal conduct applied to France for aid, according to the stipulations of the treaty concluded with her in 85. It was assured to them readily, and in cordial terms, in a letter from the Ct. de Vergennes to the Marquis de Verac, Ambassador of France at the Hague, of which the following is an extract.

Extrait de la depeche de Monsr. le Comte de Vergennes à Monsr. le Marquis de Verac, Ambassadeur de France à la Haye, du 1er Mars 1786.

Le Roi concourrera, autant qu’il sera en son pouvoir, au succes de la chose, et vous inviterez de sa part les patriotes de lui communiquer leurs vues, leurs plans, et leurs envieux. Vous les assurerez que le roi prend un interêt veritable à leurs personnes comme à leur cause, et qu’ ils peuvent compter sur sa protection. Ils doivent y compter d’ autant plus, Monsieur, que nous ne dissimulons pas que si Monsr. le Stadhoulder reprend son ancienne influence, le systeme Anglois ne tardera pas de prevaloir, et que notre alliance deviendroit un être de raison. Les Patriotes sentiront facilement que cette position seroit incompatible avec la dignité, comme avec la consideration de sa majesté. Mais dans le cas, Monsieur, ou les chefs des Patriotes auroient à craindre une scission, ils auroient le temps suffisant pour ramener ceux de leurs amis que les Anglomanes ont egarés, et preparer les choses de maniere que la question de nouveau mise en deliberation soit decidé selon leurs desirs. Dans cette hypothese, le roi vous autorise à agir de concert avec eux, de suivre la direction qu’ ils jugeront devoir vous donner, et d’ employer tous les moyens pour augmenter le nombre des partisans de la bonne cause. Il me reste, Monsieur, il me reste, Monsieur, de vous parler de la sureté personelle des patriotes. Vous les assurerez que dans tout etat de cause, le roi les prend sous sa protection immediate, et vous ferez connoitre partout ou vous le jugerez necessaire, que sa Majesté regarderoit comme une offense personnelle tout ce qu’ on entreprenderoit contre leur liberte. Il est à presumer que ce langage, tenu avec energie, en imposera à l’audace des Anglomanes et que Monsr. le Prince de Nassau croira courir quelque risque en provoquant le ressentiment de sa Majesté.

This letter was communicated by the Patriots to me when at Amsterdam in 1788. and a copy sent by me to Mr. Jay in my letter to him of Mar. 16. 1788.

The object of the Patriots was to establish a representative and republican government. The majority of the States general were with them, but the majority of the populace of the towns was with the Prince of Orange; and that populace was played off with great effect by the triumvirate of * * * Harris 1 the English Ambassador afterwards Ld. Malmesbury, the Prince of Orange a stupid man, and the Princess as much a man as either of her colleagues in audaciousness, in enterprise, in the thirst of domination. By these the mobs of the Hague were excited against the members of the States general, their persons were insulted endangered in the streets, the sanctuary of their houses was violated, and the Prince whose function duty it was to repress and punish these violations of order, took no steps for that purpose. The States General, for their own protection were therefore obliged to place their militia under the command of a Committee. The Prince filled the courts of London and Berlin with complaints at this usurpation of his prerogatives, and forgetting that he was but the first servant of a republic, marched his regular troops against the city of Utrecht, where the States were in session. They were repulsed by the militia. His interests now became marshalled with those of the public enemy against his own country. The States therefore, exercising their rights of sovereignty, deprived him of all his powers. The great Frederic had died in August 86. 1 He had never intended to break with France in support of the Prince of Orange. During the illness of which he died, he had thro’ the Duke of Brunswick, declared to the Marquis de la Fayette, who was then at Berlin, that he meant not to support the English interest in Holland: that he might assure the government of France his only wish was that some honorable place in the Constitution should be reserved for the Stadtholder and his children, and that he would take no part in the quarrel unless an entire abolition of the Stadtholderate should be attempted. But his place was now occupied by Frederic William, his great nephew, a man of little understanding, much caprice, very inconsiderate; and the Princess his sister, altho’ her husband was in arms against the legitimate authorities of the country, attempting to go to Amsterdam for the purpose of exciting the mobs of that place and being refused permission to pass a military post on the way, he put the Duke of Brunswick at the head of 20,000 men, and made demonstrations of marching on Holland. The King of France hereupon declared, by his Chargé des Affaires in Holland that if the Prussian troops continued to menace Holland with an invasion, his Majesty, in quality of Ally, was determined to succor that province. 1 In answer to this Eden gave official information to Count Montmorin, that England must consider as at an end, it’s convention with France relative to giving notice of it’s naval armaments and that she was arming generally. 2 War being now imminent, Eden questioned me on the effect of our treaty with France in the case of a war, what might be our dispositions. I told him frankly and without hesitation that our dispositions would be neutral, and that I thought it would be the interest of both these powers that we should be so; because it would relieve both from all anxiety as to feeding their W. India islands. That England too, by suffering us to remain so, would avoid a heavy land-war on our continent, which might very much cripple her proceedings elsewhere; that our treaty indeed obliged us to receive into our ports the armed vessels of France, with their prizes, and to refuse admission to the prizes made on her by her enemies: that there was a clause also by which we guaranteed to France her American possessions, which might perhaps force us into the war, if these were attacked. “Then it will be war, said he, for they will assuredly be attacked.” 3 Liston, at Madrid, about the same time, made the same inquiries of Carmichael. The government of France then declared a determination to form a camp of observation at Givet, commenced arming her marine, and named the Bailli de Suffrein their Generalissimo on the Ocean. She secretly engaged also in negotiations with Russia, Austria, Spain to form a quadruple alliance. The Duke of Brunswick having advanced to the confines of Holland, sent some of his officers to Givet to reconnoitre the state of things there, and report them to him. He said afterwards that “if there had been only a few tents at that place, he should not have advanced further, for that the King would not merely for the interest of his sister, engage in a war with France.” But finding that there was not a single company there, he boldly entered the country took their towns as fast as he presented himself before them, and advanced on Utrecht. The States had appointed the Rhingrave of Salm their Commander-in-chief, a Prince without talents, without courage, and without principle. He might have held out in Utrecht for a considerable time, but he surrendered the place without firing a gun, literally ran away hid himself so that for months it was not known what had become of him. Amsterdam was then attacked and capitulated. In the meantime the negotiations for the quadruple alliance were proceeding favorably. But the secrecy with which they were attempted to be conducted, was penetrated by Fraser, Chargé des affaires of England at St. Petersburg, who instantly notified his court, and gave the alarm to Prussia. The King saw at once what would be his situation between the jaws of France, Austria, and Russia. In great dismay he besought the court of London not to abandon him, sent Alvensleben to Paris to explain and soothe, and England thro’ the D. of Dorset and Eden, renewed her conferences for accommodation. The Archbishop, who shuddered at the idea of war, and preferred a peaceful surrender of right to an armed vindication of it, received them with open arms, entered into cordial conferences, and a declaration, and counter declaration were cooked up at Versailles and sent to London for approbation. They were approved there, reached Paris at 1 o’clock of the 27th. and were signed that night at Versailles. It was said and believed at Paris that M. de Montmorin, literally “pleuroit comme un enfant,” when obliged to sign this counter declaration; so distressed was he by the dishonor of sacrificing the Patriots after assurances so solemn of protection, and absolute encouragement to proceed. 1 The Prince of Orange was reinstated in all his powers, now become regal. A great emigration of the Patriots took place, all were deprived of office, many exiled, and their property confiscated. They were received in France, and subsisted for some time on her bounty. Thus fell Holland, by the treachery of her chief, from her honorable independence to become a province of England, and so also her Stadtholder from the high station of the first citizen of a free republic, to be the servile Viceroy of a foreign sovereign. And this was effected by a mere scene of bullying demonstration, not one of the parties, France England or Prussia having ever really meant to encounter actual war for the interest of the Prince of Orange. But it had all the effect of a real and decisive war.

Our first essay in America to establish a federative government had fallen, on trial, very short of it’s object. During the war of Independance, while the pressure of an external enemy hooped us together, and their enterprises kept us necessarily on the alert, the spirit of the people, excited by danger, was a supplement to the Confederation, and urged them to zealous exertions, whether claimed by that instrument, or not. But when peace and safety were restored, and every man became engaged in useful and profitable occupation, less attention was paid to the calls of Congress. The fundamental defect of the Confederation was that Congress was not authorized to act immediately on the people, by it’s own officers. Their power was only requisitory, and these requisitions were addressed to the several legislatures, to be by them carried into execution, without other coercion than the moral principle of duty. This allowed in fact a negative to every legislature, on every measure proposed by Congress; a negative so frequently exercised in practice as to benumb the action of the federal government, and to render it inefficient in it’s general objects, more especially in pecuniary and foreign concerns. The want too of a separation of the legislative, executive, judiciary functions worked disadvantageously in practice. Yet this state of things afforded a happy augury of the future march of our confederacy, when it was seen that the good sense and good dispositions of the people, as soon as they perceived the incompetence of their first compact, instead of leaving it’s correction to insurrection and civil war, agreed with one voice to elect deputies to a general convention, who should peaceably meet and agree on such a constitution as “would ensure peace, justice, liberty, the common defence general welfare.”

This Convention met at Philadelphia on the 25th. of May ’87. It sate with closed doors, and kept all it’s proceedings secret, until it’s dissolution on the 17th. of September, when the results of their labors were published all together. I received a copy early in November, and read and contemplated it’s provisions with great satisfaction. As not a member of the Convention however, nor probably a single citizen of the Union, had approved it in all it’s parts, so I too found articles which I thought objectionable. The absence of express declarations ensuring freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of the person under the uninterrupted protection of the Habeas corpus, trial by jury in civil as well as in criminal cases excited my jealousy; and the re-eligibility of the President for life, I quite disapproved. I expressed freely in letters to my friends, and most particularly to Mr. Madison General Washington, my approbations and objections. How the good should be secured, and the ill brought to rights was the difficulty. To refer it back to a new Convention might endanger the loss of the whole. My first idea was that the 9. states first acting should accept it unconditionally, and thus secure what in it was good, and that the 4. last should accept on the previous condition that certain amendments should be agreed to, but a better course was devised of accepting the whole and trusting that the good sense honest intention of our citizens would make the alterations which should be deemed necessary. Accordingly all accepted, 6. without objection, and 7. with recommendations of specified amendments. Those respecting the press, religion, juries, with several others, of great value, were accordingly made; but the Habeas corpus was left to the discretion of Congress, and the amendment against the reeligibility of the President was not proposed by that body. My fears of that feature were founded on the importance of the office, on the fierce contentions it might excite among ourselves, if continuable for life, and the dangers of interference either with money or arms, by foreign nations, to whom the choice of an American President might become interesting. Examples of this abounded in history; in the case of the Roman emperors for instance, of the Popes while of any significance, of the German emperors, the Kings of Poland, the Deys of Barbary. I had observed too in the feudal History, and in the recent instance particularly of the Stadtholder of Holland, how easily offices or tenures for life slide into inheritances. My wish therefore was that the President should be elected for 7. years be ineligible afterwards. This term I thought sufficient to enable him, with the concurrence of the legislature, to carry thro’ establish any system of improvement he should propose for the general good. But the practice adopted I think is better allowing his continuance for 8. years with a liability to be dropped at half way of the term, making that a period of probation. That his continuance should be restrained to 7. years was the opinion of the Convention at an early stage of it’s session, when it voted that term by a majority of 8. against 2. and by a simple majority that he should be ineligible a second time. This opinion c. was confirmed by the house so late as July 26, referred to the committee of detail, re-reported favorably by them, and changed to the present form by final vote on the last day but one only of their session. 1 Of this change three states expressed their disapprobation, N. York by recommending an amendment that the President should not be eligible a third time, and Virginia and N. Carolina that he should not be capable of serving more than 8. in any term of 16. years. And altho’ this amendment has not been made in form, yet practice seems to have established it. The example of 4 Presidents voluntarily retiring at the end of their 8th year, the progress of public opinion that the principle is salutary, have given it in practice the force of precedent usage; insomuch that should a President consent to be a candidate for a 3d. election, I trust he would be rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views.

But there was another amendment of which none of us thought at the time and in the omission of which lurks the germ that is to destroy this happy combination of National powers in the General government for matters of National concern, and independent powers in the states for what concerns the states severally. In England it was a great point gained at the Revolution, that the commissions of the judges, which had hitherto been during pleasure, should thenceforth be made during good behavior. A Judiciary dependent on the will of the King had proved itself the most oppressive of all tools in the hands of that Magistrate. Nothing then could be more salutary than a change there to the tenure of good behavior; and the question of good behavior left to the vote of a simple majority in the two houses of parliament. Before the revolution we were all good English Whigs, cordial in their free principles, and in their jealousies of their executive Magistrate. These jealousies are very apparent in all our state constitutions; and, in the general government in this instance, we have gone even beyond the English caution, by requiring a vote of two thirds in one of the Houses for removing a judge; a vote so impossible where 1 any defence is made, before men of ordinary prejudices passions, that our judges are effectually independent of the nation. But this ought not to be. I would not indeed make them dependant on the Executive authority, as they formerly were in England; but I deem it indispensable to the continuance of this government that they should be submitted to some practical impartial controul: and that this, to be imparted, must be compounded of a mixture of state and federal authorities. It is not enough that honest men are appointed judges. All know the influence of interest on the mind of man, and how unconsciously his judgment is warped by that influence. To this bias add that of the esprit de corps, of their peculiar maxim and creed that “it is the office of a good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction,” and the absence of responsibility, and how can we expect impartial decision between the General government, of which they are themselves so eminent a part, and an individual state from which they have nothing to hope or fear. We have seen too that, contrary to all correct example, they are in the habit of going out of the question before them, to throw an anchor ahead and grapple further hold for future advances of power. They are then in fact the corps of sappers miners, steadily working to undermine the independant rights of the States, to consolidate all power in the hands of that government in which they have so important a freehold estate. But it is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected. Were not this great country already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority. Every state again is divided into counties, each to take care of what lies within it’s local bounds; each county again into townships or wards, to manage minuter details; and every ward into farms, to be governed each by it’s individual proprietor. Were we directed from Washington when to sow, when to reap, we should soon want bread. It is by this partition of cares, descending in gradation from general to particular, that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the good and prosperity of all. I repeat that I do not charge the judges with wilful and ill-intentioned error; but honest error must be arrested where it’s toleration leads to public ruin. As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.

Among the debilities of the government of the Confederation, no one was more distinguished or more distressing than the utter impossibility of obtaining, from the states, the monies necessary for the payment of debts, or even for the ordinary expenses of the government. Some contributed a little, some less, some nothing, and the last furnished at length an excuse for the first to do nothing also. Mr. Adams, while residing at the Hague, had a general authority to borrow what sums might be requisite for ordinary necessary expenses. Interest on the public debt, and the maintenance of the diplomatic establishment in Europe, had been habitually provided in this way. He was now elected Vice President of the U S. was soon to return to America, 1 and had referred our bankers to me for future councel on our affairs in their hands. But I had no powers, no instructions, no means, and no familiarity with the subject. It had always been exclusively under his management, except as to occasional and partial deposits in the hands of Mr. Grand, banker in Paris, for special and local purposes. These last had been exhausted for some time, and I had fervently pressed the Treasury board to replenish this particular deposit; as Mr. Grand now refused to make further advances. They answered candidly that no funds could be obtained until the new government should get into action, and have time to make it’s arrangements. Mr. Adams had received his appointment to the court of London while engaged at Paris, with Dr. Franklin and myself, in the negotiations under our joint commissions. He had repaired thence to London, without returning to the Hague to take leave of that government. He thought it necessary however to do so now, before he should leave Europe, and accordingly went there. I learned his departure from London by a letter from Mrs. Adams received on the very day on which he would arrive at the Hague. A consultation with him, some provision for the future was indispensable, while we could yet avail ourselves of his powers. For when they would be gone, we should be without resource. I was daily dunned by a company who had formerly made a small loan to the U S. the principal of which was now become due; and our bankers in Amsterdam had notified me that the interest on our general debt would be expected in June; that if we failed to pay it, it would be deemed an act of bankruptcy and would effectually destroy the credit of the U S. and all future prospect of obtaining money there; that the loan they had been authorized to open, of which a third only was filled, had now ceased to get forward, and rendered desperate that hope of resource. I saw that there was not a moment to lose, and set out for the Hague on the 2d. morning after receiving the information of Mr. Adams’s journey. I went the direct road by Louvres, Senlis, Roye, Pont St. Maxence, Bois le duc, Gournay, Peronne, Cambray, Bouchain, Valenciennes, Mons, Bruxelles, Malines, Antwerp, Mordick, and Rotterdam, to the Hague, where I happily found Mr. Adams. He concurred with me at once in opinion that something must be done, and that we ought to risk ourselves on doing it without instructions, to save the credit of the U S. We foresaw that before the new government could be adopted, assembled, establish it’s financial system, get the money into the treasury, and place it in Europe, considerable time would elapse; that therefore we had better provide at once for the years 88. 89. 90. in order to place our government at it’s ease, and our credit in security, during that trying interval. We set out therefore by the way of Leyden for Amsterdam, where we arrived on the 10th. I had prepared an estimate showing that

      Florins.   
                               there would be necessary for the year 88    531,937–10
  89    538,540   
  90    473,540   
                                                                                   Total,     1,544,017–10
    Flor.   
to meet this the bankers had in hand 79,268–2–8 the unsold bonds would yield 542,800     622,068–2–8
leaving a deficit of     921,949–7–4
we proposed then to borrow a million yielding     920,000
which would leave a small deficiency of         1,949–7–4

Mr. Adams accordingly executed 1000. bonds, for 1000. florins each, and deposited them in the hands of our bankers, with instructions however not to issue them until Congress should ratify the measure. This done, he returned to London, and I set out for Paris; and as nothing urgent forbade it, I determined to return along the banks of the Rhine to Strasburg, and thence strike off to Paris. I accordingly left Amsterdam on the 30th of March, and proceeded by Utrecht, Nimeguen, Cleves, Duysberg, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bonne, Coblentz, Nassau, Hocheim, Frankfort, made an excursion to Hanau, thence to Mayence and another excursion to Rudesheim, Johansberg; then by Oppenheim, Worms, and Manheim, and an excursion to Heidelberg, then by Spire, Carlsruh, Rastadt Kelh, to Strasburg, where I arrived Apr. 16th, and proceeded again on the 18th, by Phalsbourg, Fenestrange, Dieuze, Moyenvie, Nancy, Toul, Ligny, Barleduc, St. Diziers, Vitry, Chalons sur Marne, Epernay, Chateau Thierri, Meaux, to Paris where I arrived on the 23d. of April 1 ; and I had the satisfaction to reflect that by this journey our credit was secured, the new government was placed at ease for two years to come, and that as well as myself were relieved from the torment of incessant duns, whose just complaints could not be silenced by any means within our power.

A Consular Convention had been agreed on in 84. between Dr. Franklin and the French government containing several articles so entirely inconsistent with the laws of the several states, and the general spirit of our citizens, that Congress withheld their ratification, and sent it back to me with instructions to get those articles expunged or modified so as to render them compatible with our laws. The minister retired unwillingly from these concessions, which indeed authorized the exercise of powers very offensive in a free state. After much discussion it was reformed in a considerable degree, and the Convention was signed by the Count Montmorin and myself, on the 14th. of Nov. 88 not indeed such as I would have wished; but such as could be obtained with good humor friendship. 1

On my return from Holland, I had found Paris still in high fermentation as I had left it. Had the Archbishop, on the close of the assembly of Notables, immediately carried into operation the measures contemplated, it was believed they would all have been registered by the parliament, but he was slow, presented his edicts, one after another, at considerable intervals of time, which gave time for the feelings excited by the proceedings of the Notables to cool off, new claims to be advanced, and a pressure to arise for a fixed constitution, not subject to changes at the will of the King. Nor should we wonder at this pressure when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were ground to powder, when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and inequality of their distribution; the oppressions of the tythes, of the tailles, the corvées, the gabelles, the farms barriers; the shackles on Commerce by monopolies; on Industry by gilds corporations; on the freedom of conscience, of thought, and of speech; on the Press by the Censure; and of person by lettres de Cachet. the cruelty of the criminal code generally, the atrocities of the Rack, the venality of judges, and their partialities to the rich; the Monopoly of Military honors by the Noblesse; the enormous expenses of the Queen, the princes the Court; the prodigalities of pensions; the riches, luxury, indolence immorality of the clergy. Surely under such a mass of misrule and oppression, a people might justly press for a thoro’ reformation, and might even dismount their rough-shod riders, leave them to walk on their own legs. The edicts relative to the corvées free circulation of grain, were first presented to the parliament and registered. But those for the impôt territorial, stamp tax, offered some time after, were refused by the parliament, which proposed a call of the States General as alone competent to their authorization. Their refusal produced a Bed of justice, and their exile to Troyes. The advocates however refusing to attend them, a suspension in the administration of justice took place. The Parliament held out for awhile, but the ennui of their exile and absence from Paris begun at length to be felt, and some dispositions for compromise to appear. On their consent therefore to prolong some of the former taxes, they were recalled from exile, the King met them in session Nov. 19. 87. promised to call the States General in the year 92. and a majority expressed their assent to register an edict for successive and annual loans from 1788. to 92. But a protest being entered by the Duke of Orleans and this encouraging others in a disposition to retract, the King ordered peremptorily the registry of the edict, and left the assembly abruptly. The parliament immediately protested that the votes for the enregistry had not been legally taken, and that they gave no sanction to the loans proposed. This was enough to discredit and defeat them. Hereupon issued another edict for the establishment of a cour plenière, and the suspension of all the parliaments in the kingdom. This being opposed as might be expected by reclamations from all the parliaments provinces, the King gave way and by an edict of July 5. 88 renounced his cour plenière, promised the States General for the 1st. of May of the ensuing year: and the Archbishop finding the times beyond his faculties, accepted the promise of a Cardinal’s hat, was removed [Sep. 88] from the ministry, and Mr. Necker was called to the department of finance. The innocent rejoicings of the people of Paris on this change provoked the interference of an officer of the city guards, whose order for their dispersion not being obeyed, he charged them with fixed bayonets, killed two or three, and wounded many. This dispersed them for the moment; but they collected the next day in great numbers, burnt 10. or 12. guard houses, killed two or three of the guards, lost 6. or 8. more of their own number. The city was hereupon put under martial law, and after awhile the tumult subsided. The effect of this change of ministers, and the promise of the States General at an early day, tranquillized the nation. But two great questions now occurred. 1. What proportion shall the number of deputies of the tiers etat bear to those of the Nobles and Clergy? And 2. shall they sit in the same, or in distinct apartments? Mr. Necker, desirous of avoiding himself these knotty questions, proposed a second call of the same Notables, and that their advice should be asked on the subject. They met Nov. 9. 88. and, by five bureaux against one, they recommended the forms of the States General of 1614. wherein the houses were separate, and voted by orders, not by persons. But the whole nation declaring at once against this, and that the tiers etat should be, in numbers, equal to both the other orders, and the Parliament deciding for the same proportion, it was determined so to be, by a declaration of Dec. 27. 88. A Report of Mr. Necker to the King, of about the same date, contained other very important concessions. 1. That the King could neither lay a new tax, nor prolong an old one. 2. It expressed a readiness to agree on the periodical meeting of the States. 3. To consult on the necessary restriction on letters de Cachet. And 4. how far the Press might be made free. 5. It admits that the States are to appropriate the public money; and 6. that Ministers shall be responsible for public expenditures. And these concessions came from the very heart of the King. He had not a wish but for the good of the nation, and for that object no personal sacrifice would ever have cost him a moment’s regret. But his mind was weakness itself, his constitution timid, his judgment null, and without sufficient firmness even to stand by the faith of his word. His Queen too, haughty and bearing no contradiction, had an absolute ascendency over him; and around her were rallied the King’s brother d’Artois, the court generally, and the aristocratic part of his ministers, particularly Breteuil, Broglio, Vauguyon, Foulon, Luzerne, men whose principles of government were those of the age of Louis XIV. Against this host the good counsels of Necker, Montmorin, St. Priest, altho’ in unison with the wishes of the King himself, were of little avail. The resolutions of the morning formed under their advice, would be reversed in the evening by the influence of the Queen court. But the hand of heaven weighed heavily indeed on the machinations of this junto; producing collateral incidents, not arising out of the case, yet powerfully co-exciting the nation to force a regeneration of it’s government, and overwhelming with accumulated difficulties this liberticide resistance. For, while laboring under the want of money for even ordinary purposes, in a government which required a million of livres a day, and driven to the last ditch by the universal call for liberty, there came on a winter of such severe cold, as was without example in the memory of man, or in the written records of history. The Mercury was at times 50° below the freezing point of Fahrenheit and 22° below that of Reaumur. All out-door labor was suspended, and the poor, without the wages of labor, were of course without either bread or fuel. The government found it’s necessities aggravated by that of procuring immense quantities of fire-wood, and of keeping great fires at all the cross-streets, around which the people gathered in crowds to avoid perishing with cold. Bread too was to be bought, and distributed daily gratis, until a relaxation of the season should enable the people to work: and the slender stock of bread-stuff had for some time threatened famine, and had raised that article to an enormous price. So great indeed was the scarcity of bread that from the highest to the lowest citizen, the bakers were permitted to deal but a scanty allowance per head, even to those who paid for it; and in cards of invitation to dine in the richest houses, the guest was notified to bring his own bread. To eke out the existence of the people, every person who had the means, was called on for a weekly subscription, which the Curés collected and employed in providing messes for the nourishment of the poor, and vied with each other in devising such economical compositions of food as would subsist the greatest number with the smallest means. This want of bread had been foreseen for some time past and M. de Montmorin had desired me to notify it in America, and that, in addition to the market price, a premium should be given on what should be brought from the U S. Notice was accordingly given and produced considerable supplies. Subsequent information made the importations from America, during the months of March, April May, into the Atlantic ports of France, amount to about 21,000 barrels of flour, besides what went to other ports, and in other months, while our supplies to their West-Indian islands relieved them also from that drain. This distress for bread continued till July.

Hitherto no acts of popular violence had been produced by the struggle for political reformation. Little riots, on ordinary incidents, had taken place, as at other times, in different parts of the kingdom, in which some lives, perhaps a dozen or twenty, had been lost, but in the month of April a more serious one occurred in Paris, unconnected indeed with the revolutionary principle, but making part of the history of the day. The Fauxbourg St. Antoine is a quarter of the city inhabited entirely by the class of day-laborers and journeymen in every line. A rumor was spread among them that a great paper manufacturer, of the name of Reveillon, had proposed, on some occasion, that their wages should be lowered to 15 sous a day. Inflamed at once into rage, without inquiring into it’s truth, they flew to his house in vast numbers, destroyed everything in it, and in his magazines work shops, without secreting however a pin’s worth to themselves, and were continuing this work of devastation when the regular troops were called in. Admonitions being disregarded, they were of necessity fired on, and a regular action ensued, in which about 100. of them were killed, before the rest would disperse. There had rarely passed a year without such a riot in some part or other of the Kingdom; and this is distinguished only as cotemporary with the revolution, altho’ not produced by it.

The States General were opened on the 5th. of May 89. by speeches from the King, the Garde des Sceaux Lamoignon, and Mr. Necker. The last was thought to trip too lightly over the constitutional reformations which were expected. His notices of them in this speech were not as full as in his previous ‘Rapport au Roi.’ This was observed to his disadvantage. But much allowance should have been made for the situation in which he was placed between his own counsels, and those of the ministers and party of the court. Overruled in his own opinions, compelled to deliver, and to gloss over those of his opponents, and even to keep their secrets, he could not come forward in his own attitude.

The composition of the assembly, altho’ equivalent on the whole to what had been expected, was something different in it’s elements. It had been supposed that a superior education would carry into the scale of the Commons a respectable portion of the Noblesse. It did so as to those of Paris, of it’s vicinity and of the other considerable cities, whose greater intercourse with enlightened society had liberalized their minds, and prepared them to advance up to the measure of the times. But the Noblesse of the country, which constituted two thirds of that body, were far in their rear. Residing constantly on their patrimonial feuds, and familiarized by daily habit with Seigneurial powers and practices, they had not yet learned to suspect their inconsistence with reason and right. They were willing to submit to equality of taxation, but not to descend from their rank and prerogatives to be incorporated in session with the tiers etat. Among the clergy, on the other hand, it had been apprehended that the higher orders of the hierarchy, by their wealth and connections, would have carried the elections generally. But it proved that in most cases the lower clergy had obtained the popular majorities. These consisted of the Curés, sons of the peasantry who had been employed to do all the drudgery of parochial services for 10. 20. or 30 Louis a year; while their superiors were consuming their princely revenues in palaces of luxury indolence.

The objects for which this body was convened being of the first order of importance, I felt it very interesting to understand the views of the parties of which it was composed, and especially the ideas prevalent as to the organization contemplated for their government. I went therefore daily from Paris to Versailles, and attended their debates, generally till the hour of adjournment. Those of the Noblesse were impassioned and tempestuous. They had some able men on both sides, and actuated by equal zeal. The debates of the Commons were temperate, rational and inflexibly firm. As preliminary to all other business, the awful questions came on, Shall the States sit in one, or in distinct apartments? And shall they vote by heads or houses? The opposition was soon found to consist of the Episcopal order among the clergy, and two thirds of the Noblesse; while the tiers etat were, to a man, united and determined. After various propositions of compromise had failed, the Commons undertook to cut the Gordian knot. The Abbe Sieyes, the most logical head of the nation (author of the pamphlet Qu’est ce que le tiers etat? which had electrified that country, as Paine’s Common sense did us) after an impressive speech on the 10th of June, moved that a last invitation should be sent to the Nobles and Clergy, to attend in the Hall of the States, collectively or individually for the verification of powers, to which the commons would proceed immediately, either in their presence or absence. This verification being finished, a motion was made, on the 15th. that they should constitute themselves a National assembly; which was decided on the 17th. by a majority of four fifths. During the debates on this question, about twenty of the Curés had joined them, and a proposition was made in the chamber of the clergy that their whole body should join them. This was rejected at first by a small majority only; but, being afterwards somewhat modified, it was decided affirmatively, by a majority of eleven. While this was under debate and unknown to the court, to wit, on the 19th. a council was held in the afternoon at Marly, wherein it was proposed that the King should interpose by a declaration of his sentiments, in a seance royale. A form of declaration was proposed by Necker, which, while it censured in general the proceedings both of the Nobles and Commons, announced the King’s views, such as substantially to coincide with the Commons. It was agreed to in council, the seance was fixed for the 22d. the meetings of the States were till then to be suspended, and everything, in the meantime, kept secret. The members the next morning (20th.) repairing to their house as usual, found the doors shut and guarded, a proclamation posted up for a seance royale on the 22d. and a suspension of their meetings in the meantime. Concluding that their dissolution was now to take place, they repaired to a building called the “Jeu de paume” (or Tennis court) and there bound themselves by oath to each other, never to separate of their own accord, till they had settled a constitution for the nation, on a solid basis, and if separated by force, that they would reassemble in some other place. The next day they met in the church of St. Louis, and were joined by a majority of the clergy. The heads of the Aristocracy saw that all was lost without some bold exertion. The King was still at Marly. Nobody was permitted to approach him but their friends. He was assailed by falsehoods in all shapes. He was made to believe that the Commons were about to absolve the army from their oath of fidelity to him, and to raise their pay. The court party were now all rage and desperate. They procured a committee to be held consisting of the King and his ministers, to which Monsieur the Count d’ Artois should be admitted. At this committee the latter attacked Mr. Necker personally, arraigned his declaration, and proposed one which some of his prompters had put into his hands. Mr. Necker was brow-beaten and intimidated, and the King shaken. He determined that the two plans should be deliberated on the next day and the seance royale put off a day longer. This encouraged a fiercer attack on Mr. Necker the next day. His draught of a declaration was entirely broken up, that of the Count d’Artois inserted into it. Himself and Montmorin offered their resignation, which was refused, the Count d’Artois saying to Mr. Necker “No sir, you must be kept as the hostage; we hold you responsible for all the ill which shall happen.” This change of plan was immediately whispered without doors. The Noblesse were in triumph; the people in consternation. I was quite alarmed at this state of things. The soldiery had not yet indicated which side they should take, and that which they should support would be sure to prevail. I considered a successful reformation of government in France, as ensuring a general reformation thro Europe, and the resurrection, to a new life, of their people, now ground to dust by the abuses of the governing powers. I was much acquainted with the leading patriots of the assembly. Being from a country which had successfully passed thro’ a similar reformation, they were disposed to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged most strenuously an immediate compromise; to secure what the government was now ready to yield, and trust to future occasions for what might still be wanting. It was well understood that the King would grant at this time 1. Freedom of the person by Habeas corpus. 2. Freedom of conscience. 3. Freedom of the press. 4. Trial by jury. 5. A representative legislature. 6. Annual meetings. 7. The origination of laws. 8. The exclusive right of taxation and appropriation. And 9. The responsibility of ministers; and with the exercise of these powers they would obtain in future whatever might be further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They thought otherwise however, and events have proved their lamentable error. For after 30. years of war, foreign and domestic, the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of private happiness, and foreign subjugation of their own country for a time, they have obtained no more, nor even that securely. They were unconscious of (for who could foresee?) the melancholy sequel of their wellmeant perseverance; that their physical force would be usurped by a first tyrant to trample on the independance, and even the existence, of other nations: that this would afford fatal example for the atrocious conspiracy of Kings against their people; would generate their unholy and homicide alliance to make common cause among themselves, and to crush, by the power of the whole, the efforts of any part, to moderate their abuses and oppressions.

When the King passed, the next day, thro’ the lane formed from the Chateau to the Hotel des etats, there was a dead silence. He was about an hour in the House delivering his speech declaration. On his coming out a feeble cry of “Vive le Roy” was raised by some children, but the people remained silent sullen. In the close of his speech he had ordered that the members should follow him, resume their deliberations the next day. The Noblesse followed him, and so did the clergy, except about thirty, who, with the tiers, remained in the room, and entered into deliberation. They protested against what the King had done, adhered to all their former proceedings, and resolved the inviolability of their own persons. An officer came to order them out of the room in the King’s name. “Tell those who sent you, said Mirabeau, that we shall not move hence but at our own will, or the point of the bayonet.” In the afternoon the people, uneasy, began to assemble in great numbers in the courts, and vicinities of the palace. This produced alarm. The Queen sent for Mr. Necker. He was conducted amidst the shouts and acclamations of the multitude who filled all the apartments of the palace. He was a few minutes only with the queen, and what passed between them did not transpire. The King went out to ride. He passed thro’ the crowd to his carriage and into it, without being in the least noticed. As Mr. Neckar followed him universal acclamations were raised of “vive Monsr. Neckar, vive le sauveur de la France opprimée.” He was conducted back to his house with the same demonstrations of affection and anxiety. About 200. deputies of the Tiers, catching the enthusiasm of the moment, went to his house, and extorted from him a promise that he would not resign. On the 25th. 48. of the Nobles joined the tiers, among them the D. of Orleans. There were then with them 164 members of the Clergy, altho’ the minority of that body still sat apart called themselves the chamber of the clergy. On the 26th. the Archbp. of Paris joined the tiers, as did some others of the clergy and of the Noblesse.

These proceedings had thrown the people into violent ferment. It gained the souldiery, first of the French guards, extended to those of every other denomination, except the Swiss, and even to the body guards of the King. They began to quit their barracks, to assemble in squads, to declare they would defend the life of the King, but would not be the murderers of their fellow-citizens. They called themselves the souldiers of the nation, and left now no doubt on which side they would be, in case of rupture. Similar accounts came in from the troops in other parts of the kingdom, giving good reason to believe they would side with their fathers and brothers rather than with their officers. The operation of this medicine at Versailles was as sudden as it was powerful. The alarm there was so compleat that in the afternoon of the 27th. the King wrote with his own hand letters to the Presidents of the clergy and Nobles, engaging them immediately to join the Tiers. These two bodies were debating hesitating when notes from the Ct. d’ Artois decided their compliance. They went in a body and took their seats with the tiers, and thus rendered the union of the orders in one chamber compleat.

The Assembly now entered on the business of their mission, and first proceeded to arrange the order in which they would take up the heads of their constitution, as follows:

First, and as Preliminary to the whole a general Declaration of the Rights of Man. Then specifically the Principles of the Monarchy; rights of the Nation; rights of the King; rights of the citizens; organization rights of the National assembly; forms necessary for the enactment of laws; organization functions of the provincial municipal assemblies; duties and limits of the Judiciary power; functions duties of the military power.

A declaration of the rights of man, as the preliminary of their work, was accordingly prepared and proposed by the Marquis de la Fayette.

But the quiet of their march was soon disturbed by information that troops, and particularly the foreign troops, were advancing on Paris from various quarters. The King had been probably advised to this on the pretext of preserving peace in Paris. But his advisers were believed to have other things in contemplation. The Marshal de Broglio was appointed to their command, a high flying aristocrat, cool and capable of everything. Some of the French guards were soon arrested, under other pretexts, but really on account of their dispositions in favor of the National cause. The people of Paris forced their prison, liberated them, and sent a deputation to the Assembly to solicit a pardon. The Assembly recommended peace and order to the people of Paris, the prisoners to the King, and asked from him the removal of the troops. His answer was negative and dry, saying they might remove themselves, if they pleased, to Noyons or Soissons. In the meantime these troops, to the number of twenty or thirty thousand, had arrived and were posted in, and between Paris and Versailles. The bridges and passes were guarded. At three o’clock in the afternoon of the 11th July the Count de la Luzerne was sent to notify Mr. Neckar of his dismission, and to enjoin him to retire instantly without saying a word of it to anybody. He went home, dined, and proposed to his wife a visit to a friend, but went in fact to his country house at St. Ouen, and at midnight set out for Brussels. This was not known till the next day, 12th when the whole ministry was changed, except Villedeuil, of the Domestic department, and Barenton, Garde des sceaux. The changes were as follows:

The Baron de Breteuil, president of the council of finance; de la Galaisiere, Comptroller general in the room of Mr. Neckar; the Marshal de Broglio, minister of War, Foulon under him in the room of Puy-Segur; the Duke de la Vauguyon, minister of foreign affairs instead of the Ct. de Montmorin; de La Porte, minister of Marine, in place of the Ct. de la Luzerne; St. Priest was also removed from the council. Luzerne and Puy-Segur had been strongly of the Aristocratic party in the Council, but they were not considered as equal to the work now to be done. The King was now compleatly in the hands of men, the principal among whom had been noted thro’ their lives for the Turkish despotism of their characters, and who were associated around the King as proper instruments for what was to be executed. The news of this change began to be known at Paris about 1. or 2. o’clock. In the afternoon a body of about 100 German cavalry were advanced and drawn up in the Place Louis XV. and about 200. Swiss posted at a little distance in their rear. This drew people to the spot, who thus accidentally found themselves in front of the troops, merely at first as spectators; but as their numbers increased, their indignation rose. They retired a few steps, and posted themselves on and behind large piles of stones, large and small, collected in that Place for a bridge which was to be built adjacent to it. In this position, happening to be in my carriage on a visit, I passed thro’ the lane they had formed, without interruption. But the moment after I had passed, the people attacked the cavalry with stones. They charged, but the advantageous position of the people, and the showers of stones obliged the horse to retire, and quit the field altogether, leaving one of their number on the ground, the Swiss in their rear not moving to their aid. This was the signal for universal insurrection, and this body of cavalry, to avoid being massacred, retired towards Versailles. The people now armed themselves with such weapons as they could find in armorer’s shops and private houses, and with bludgeons, and were roaming all night thro’ all parts of the city, without any decided object. The next day (13th.) the assembly pressed on the king to send away the troops, to permit the Bourgeosie of Paris to arm for the preservation of order in the city, and offer[ed] to send a deputation from their body to tranquillize them; but their propositions were refused. A committee of magistrates and electors of the city are appointed by those bodies to take upon them it’s government. The people, now openly joined by the French guards, force the prison of St. Lazare, release all the prisoners, and take a great store of corn, which they carry to the Corn-market. Here they get some arms, and the French guards begin to form train them. The City-committee determined to raise 48.000 Bourgeoise, or rather to restrain their numbers to 48.000. On the 14th. they send one of their members (Mons. de Corny) to the Hotel des Invalides, to ask arms for their Garde-Bourgeoise. He was followed by, and he found there a great collection of people. The Governor of the Invalids came out and represented the impossibility of his delivering arms without the orders of those from whom he received them. De Corny advised the people then to retire, and retired himself; but the people took possession of the arms. It was remarkable that not only the Invalids themselves made no opposition, but that a body of 5000. foreign troops, within 400. yards, never stirred. M. de Corny and five others were then sent to ask arms of M. de Launay, governor of the Bastile. They found a great collection of people already before the place, and they immediately planted a flag of truce, which was answered by a like flag hoisted on the Parapet. The deputation prevailed on the people to fall back a little, advanced themselves to make their demand of the Governor, and in that instant a discharge from the Bastile killed four persons, of those nearest to the deputies. The deputies retired. I happened to be at the house of M. de Corny when he returned to it, and received from him a narrative of these transactions. On the retirement of the deputies, the people rushed forward almost in an instant were in possession of a fortification defended by 100. men of infinite strength, which in other times had stood several regular sieges, and had never been taken. How they forced their entrance has never been explained. They took all the arms, discharged the prisoners, and such of the garrison as were not killed in the first moment of fury, carried the Governor and Lt. Governor to the Place de Grève (the place of public execution) cut off their heads, and sent them thro’ the city in triumph to the Palais royal. About the same instant a treacherous correspondence having been discovered in M. de Flesselles, prevot des marchands, they seized him in the Hotel de Ville where he was in the execution of his office, and cut off his head. These events carried imperfectly to Versailles were the subject of two successive deputations from the assembly to the king, to both of which he gave dry and hard answers for nobody had as yet been permitted to inform him truly and fully of what had passed at Paris. But at night the Duke de Liancourt forced his way into the king’s bed chamber, and obliged him to hear a full and animated detail of the disasters of the day in Paris. He went to bed fearfully impressed. The decapitation of de Launai worked powerfully thro’ the night on the whole aristocratic party, insomuch that, in the morning, those of the greatest influence on the Count d’Artois represented to him the absolute necessity that the king should give up everything to the Assembly. This according with the dispositions of the king, he went about 11. o’clock, accompanied only by his brothers, to the Assembly, there read to them a speech, in which he asked their interposition to re-establish order. Altho’ couched in terms of some caution, yet the manner in which it was delivered made it evident that it was meant as a surrender at discretion. He returned to the Chateau afoot, accompanied by the assembly. They sent off a deputation to quiet Paris, at the head of which was the Marquis de la Fayette who had, the same morning, been named Commandant en chef of the Milice Bourgeoise, and Mons Bailly, former President of the States General, was called for as Prevot des marchands. The demolition of the Bastile was now ordered and begun. A body of the Swiss guards of the regiment of Ventimille, and the city horse guards joined the people. The alarm at Versailles increased. The foreign troops were ordered off instantly. Every minister resigned. The king confirmed Bailly as Prevot des Marchands, wrote to Mr. Neckar to recall him, sent his letter open to the assembly, to be forwarded by them, and invited them to go with him to Paris the next day, to satisfy the city of his dispositions; and that night, and the next morning the Count d’Artois and M. de Montesson a deputy connected with him, Madame de Polignac, Madame de Guiche, and the Count de Vaudreuil, favorites of the queen, the Abbe de Vermont, her confessor, the Prince of Condé and Duke of Bourbon fled. The king came to Paris, leaving the queen in consternation for his return. Omitting the less important figures of the procession, the king’s carriage was in the center, on each side of it the assembly, in two ranks afoot, at their head the M. de la Fayette, as Commander-in-chief, on horseback, and Bourgeois guards before and behind. About 60.000 citizens of all forms and conditions, armed with the muskets of the Bastile and Invalids, as far as they would go, the rest with pistols, swords, pikes, pruning hooks, scythes, c. lined all the streets thro’ which the procession passed, and with the crowds of people in the streets, doors windows, saluted them everywhere with cries of “vive la nation,” but not a single “vive le roy” was heard. The King landed at the Hotel de Ville. There M. Bailly presented and put into his hat the popular cockade, and addressed him. The King being unprepared, and unable to answer, Bailly went to him, gathered from him some scraps of sentences, and made out an answer, which he delivered to the audience as from the king. On their return the popular cries were “vive le roy et la nation.” He was conducted by a garde bourgeoise to his palace at Versailles, thus concluded an amende honorable as no sovereign ever made, and no people ever received.

And here again was lost another precious occasion of sparing to France the crimes and cruelties thro’ which she has since passed, and to Europe, finally America the evils which flowed on them also from this mortal source. The king was now become a passive machine in the hands of the National Assembly, and had he been left to himself, he would have willingly acquiesced in whatever they should devise as best for the nation. A wise constitution would have been formed, hereditary in his line, himself placed at it’s head, with powers so large as to enable him to do all the good of his station, and so limited as to restrain him from it’s abuse. This he would have faithfully administered, and more than this I do not believe he ever wished. But he had a Queen of absolute sway over his weak mind, and timid virtue; and of a character the reverse of his in all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of the Rhetor Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d’Artois and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the Guillotine, drew the king on with her, and plunged the world into crimes calamities which will forever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed that had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked nor exercised. The king would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only, with the same pace, to advance the principles of their social institution. The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns, I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say that the first magistrate of a nation cannot commit treason against his country, or is unamenable to it’s punishment: nor yet that where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts, and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right, and redressing wrong. Of those who judged the king, many thought him wilfully criminal, many that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of kings, who would war against a regeneration which might come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the legislature. I should have shut up the Queen in a Convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the king in his station, investing him with limited powers, which I verily believe he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his understanding. In this way no void would have been created, courting the usurpation of a military adventurer, nor occasion given for those enormities which demoralized the nations of the world, and destroyed, and is yet to destroy millions and millions of it’s inhabitants. There are three epochs in history signalized by the total extinction of national morality. The first was of the successors of Alexander, not omitting himself. The next the successors of the first Cæsar, the third our own age. This was begun by the partition of Poland followed by that of the treaty of Pilnitz next the conflagration of Copenhagen; then the enormities of Bonaparte partitioning the earth at his will, and devastating it with fire and sword; now the conspiracy of kings, the successors of Bonaparte, blasphemously calling themselves the Holy Alliance, and treading in the footsteps of their incarcerated leader, not yet indeed usurping the government of other nations avowedly and in detail, but controuling by their armies the forms in which they will permit them to be governed; and reserving in petto the order and extent of the usurpations further meditated. But I will return from a digression, anticipated too in time, into which I have been led by reflection on the criminal passions which refused to the world a favorable occasion of saving it from the afflictions it has since suffered.

M. Necker had reached Basle before he was overtaken by the letter of the king, inviting him back to resume the office he had recently left. He returned immediately, and all the other ministers having resigned, a new administration was named, to wit St. Priest Montmorin were restored; the Archbishop of Bordeaux was appointed Garde des sceaux; La Tour du Pin Minister of War; La Luzerne Minister of Marine. This last was believed to have been effected by the friendship of Montmorin; for altho’ differing in politics, they continued firm in friendship, Luzerne, altho’ not an able man was thought an honest one. And the Prince of Bauvau was taken into the Council.

Seven princes of the blood royal, six ex-ministers, and many of the high Noblesse having fled, and the present ministers, except Luzerne, being all of the popular party, all the functionaries of government moved for the present in perfect harmony.

In the evening of Aug. 4. and on the motion of the Viscount de Noailles brother in law of La Fayette, the assembly abolished all titles of rank, all the abusive privileges of feudalism, the tythes and casuals of the clergy, all provincial privileges, and, in fine, the Feudal regimen generally. To the suppression of tythes the Abbe Sieyes was vehemently opposed; but his learned and logical arguments were unheeded, and his estimation lessened by a contrast of his egoism (for he was beneficed on them) with the generous abandonment of rights by the other members of the assembly. Many days were employed in putting into the form of laws the numerous demolitions of ancient abuses; which done, they proceeded to the preliminary work of a Declaration of rights. There being much concord of sentiment on the elements of this instrument, it was liberally framed, and passed with a very general approbation. They then appointed a Committee for the reduction of a projet of a Constitution, at the head of which was the Archbishop of Bordeaux. I received from him, as Chairman of the Committee a letter of July 20. requesting me to attend and assist at their deliberations; but I excused myself on the obvious considerations that my mission was to the king as Chief Magistrate of the nation, that my duties were limited to the concerns of my own country, and forbade me to intermeddle with the internal transactions of that in which I had been received under a specific character only. Their plan of a constitution was discussed in sections, and so reported from time to time, as agreed to by the Committee. The first respected the general frame of the government; and that this should be formed into three departments, Executive, Legislative and Judiciary was generally agreed. But when they proceeded to subordinate developments, many and various shades of opinion came into conflict, and schism, strongly marked, broke the Patriots into fragments of very discordant principles. The first question Whether there should be a king, met with no open opposition, and it was readily agreed that the government of France should be monarchical hereditary. Shall the king have a negative on the laws? shall that negative be absolute, or suspensive only? Shall there be two chambers of legislation? or one only? If two, shall one of them be hereditary? or for life? or for a fixed term? and named by the king? or elected by the people? These questions found strong differences of opinion, and produced repulsive combinations among the Patriots. The Aristocracy was cemented by a common principle of preserving the ancient regime, or whatever should be nearest to it. Making this their Polar star, they moved in phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the minorities of the Patriots, and always to those who advocated the least change. The features of the new constitution were thus assuming a fearful aspect, and great alarm was produced among the honest patriots by these dissensions in their ranks. In this uneasy state of things, I received one day a note from the Marquis de la Fayette, informing me that he should bring a party of six or eight friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. I assured him of their welcome. When they arrived, they were La Fayette himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander La Meth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These were leading patriots, of honest but differing opinions sensible of the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, and not afraid therefore to unbosom themselves mutually. This last was a material principle in the selection. With this view the Marquis had invited the conference and had fixed the time place inadvertently as to the embarrassment under which it might place me. The cloth being removed and wine set on the table, after the American manner, the Marquis introduced the objects of the conference by summarily reminding them of the state of things in the Assembly, the course which the principles of the constitution were taking, and the inevitable result, unless checked by more concord among the Patriots themselves. He observed that altho’ he also had his opinion, he was ready to sacrifice it to that of his brethren of the same cause: but that a common opinion must now be formed, or the Aristocracy would carry everything, and that whatever they should now agree on, he, at the head of the National force, would maintain. The discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten o’clock in the evening; during which time I was a silent witness to a coolness and candor of argument unusual in the conflicts of political opinion; to a logical reasoning, and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato and Cicero. The result was an agreement that the king should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the legislature should be composed of a single body only, that to be chosen by the people. This Concordate decided the fate of the constitution. The Patriots all rallied to the principles thus settled, carried every question agreeably to them, and reduced the Aristocracy to insignificance and impotence. But duties of exculpation were now incumbent on me. I waited on Count Montmorin the next morning, and explained to him with truth and candor how it had happened that my house had been made the scene of conferences of such a character. He told me he already knew everything which had passed, that, so far from taking umbrage at the use made of my house on that occasion, he earnestly wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure I should be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and promoting a wholesome and practicable reformation only. I told him I knew too well the duties I owed to the king, to the nation, and to my own country to take any part in councils concerning their internal government, and that I should persevere with care in the character of a neutral and passive spectator, with wishes only and very sincere ones, that those measures might prevail which would be for the greatest good of the nation. I have no doubt indeed that this conference was previously known and approved by this honest minister, who was in confidence and communication with the patriots, and wished for a reasonable reform of the Constitution.

Here I discontinue my relation of the French revolution. The minuteness with which I have so far given it’s details is disproportioned to the general scale of my narrative. But I have thought it justified by the interest which the whole world must take in this revolution. As yet we are but in the first chapter of it’s history. The appeal to the rights of man, which had been made in the U S. was taken up by France, first of the European nations. From her the spirit has spread over those of the South. The tyrants of the North have allied indeed against it, but it is irresistible. Their opposition will only multiply it’s millions of human victims; their own satellites will catch it, and the condition of man thro’ the civilized world will be finally and greatly ameliorated. This is a wonderful instance of great events from small causes. So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes consequences in this world that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all it’s inhabitants. I have been more minute in relating the early transactions of this regeneration because I was in circumstances peculiarly favorable for a knowledge of the truth. Possessing the confidence and intimacy of the leading patriots, more than all of the Marquis Fayette, their head and Atlas, who had no secrets from me, I learnt with correctness the views proceedings of that party; while my intercourse with the diplomatic missionaries of Europe at Paris, all of them with the court, and eager in prying into it’s councils and proceedings, gave me a knolege of these also. My information was always and immediately committed to writing, in letters to Mr. Jay, and often to my friends, and a recurrence to these letters now insures me against errors of memory.

These opportunities of information ceased at this period, with my retirement from this interesting scene of action. I had been more than a year soliciting leave to go home with a view to place my daughters in the society care of their friends, and to return for a short time to my station at Paris. But the metamorphosis thro’ which our government was then passing from it’s Chrysalid to it’s Organic form suspended it’s action in a great degree; and it was not till the last of August that I received the permission I had asked.—And here I cannot leave this great and good country without expressing my sense of it’s preeminence of character among the nations of the earth. A more benevolent people, I have never known, nor greater warmth devotedness in their select friendships. Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled, and the hospitality of Paris is beyond anything I had conceived to be practicable in a large city. Their eminence too in science, the communicative dispositions of their scientific men, the politeness of the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their conversation, give a charm to their society to be found nowhere else. In a comparison of this with other countries we have the proof of primacy, which was given to Themistocles after the battle of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of valor, and the second to Themistocles. So ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, In what country on earth would you rather live?—Certainly in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.

On the 26th. of Sep. I left Paris for Havre, where I was detained by contrary winds until the 8th. of Oct. On that day, and the 9th. I crossed over to Cowes, where I had engaged the Clermont, Capt. Colley, to touch for me. She did so, but here again we were detained by contrary winds until the 22d. when we embarked and landed at Norfolk on the 23d. of November. On my way home I passed some days at Eppington in Chesterfield, the residence of my friend and connection, Mr. Eppes, and, while there, I received a letter from the President, Genl. Washington, by express, covering an appointment to be Secretary of State. I received it with real regret. My wish had been to return to Paris, where I had left my household establishment, as if there myself, and to see the end of the Revolution, which, I then thought would be certainly and happily closed in less than a year. I then meant to return home, to withdraw from Political life, into which I had been impresed by the circumstances of the times, to sink into the bosom of my family and friends, and devote myself to studies more congenial to my mind. In my answer of Dec. 15. I expressed these dispositions candidly to the President, and my preference of a return to Paris; but assured him that if it was believed I could be more useful in the administration of the government, I would sacrifice my own inclinations without hesitation, and repair to that destination; this I left to his decision. I arrived at Monticello on the 23d. of Dec. where I received a second letter from the President, expressing his continued wish that I should take my station there, but leaving me still at liberty to continue in my former office, if I could not reconcile myself to that now proposed. This silenced my reluctance, and I accepted the new appointment.

In the interval of my stay at home my eldest daughter had been happily married to the eldest son 1 of the Tuckahoe branch of Randolphs, a young gentleman of genius, science and honorable mind, who afterwards filled a dignified station in the General Government, the most dignified in his own State. I left Monticello on the 1st of March 1790. for New York. At Philadelphia I called on the venerable and beloved Franklin. He was then on the bed of sickness from which he never rose. My recent return from a country in which he had left so many friends, and the perilous convulsions to which they had been exposed, revived all his anxieties to know what part they had taken, what had been their course, and what their fate. He went over all in succession, with a rapidity and animation almost too much for his strength. When all his inquiries were satisfied, and a pause took place, I told him I had learnt with much pleasure that, since his return to America, he had been occupied in preparing for the world the history of his own life. I cannot say much of that, said he; but I will give you a sample of what I shall leave: and he directed his little grandson (William Bache) who was standing by the bedside, to hand him a paper from the table to which he pointed. He did so; and the Doctr. putting it into my hands, desired me to take it and read it at my leisure. It was about a quire of folio paper, written in a large and running hand very like his own. I looked into it slightly, then shut it and said I would accept his permission to read it and would carefully return it. He said, “no, keep it.” Not certain of his meaning, I again looked into it, folded it for my pocket, and said again, I would certainly return it. “No,” said he, “keep it.” I put it into my pocket, and shortly after took leave of him. He died on the 17th, of the ensuing month of April; and as I understood that he had bequeathed all his papers to his grandson William Temple Franklin, I immediately wrote to Mr. Franklin to inform him I possessed this paper, which I should consider as his property, and would deliver to his order. He came on immediately to New York, called on me for it, and I delivered it to him. As he put it into his pocket, he said carelessly he had either the original, or another copy of it, I do not recollect which. This last expression struck my attention forcibly, and for the first time suggested to me the thought that Dr. Franklin had meant it as a confidential deposit in my hands, and that I had done wrong in parting from it. I have not yet seen the collection he published of Dr. Franklin’s works, 1 and therefore know not if this is among them. I have been told it is not. It contained a narrative of the negotiations between Dr. Franklin and the British Ministry, when he was endeavoring to prevent the contest of arms which followed. The negotiation was brought about by the intervention of Ld. Howe and his sister, who, I believe, was called Lady Howe, but I may misremember her title. Ld. Howe seems to have been friendly to America, and exceedingly anxious to prevent a rupture. His intimacy with Dr. Franklin, and his position with the Ministry induced him to undertake a mediation between them; in which his sister seemed to have been associated. They carried from one to the other, backwards and forwards, the several propositions and answers which past, and seconded with their own intercessions the importance of mutual sacrifices to preserve the peace connection of the two countries. I remember that Ld. North’s answers were dry, unyielding, in the spirit of unconditional submission, and betrayed an absolute indifference to the occurrence of a rupture; and he said to the mediators distinctly, at last that “a rebellion was not to be deprecated on the part of Great Britain; that the confiscations it would produce would provide for many of their friends.” 1 This expression was reported by the mediators to Dr. Franklin, and indicated so cool and calculated a purpose in the Ministry, as to render compromise hopeless, and the negotiation was discontinued. If this is not among the papers published, we ask what has become of it? I delivered it with my own hands into those of Temple Franklin. It certainly established views so atrocious in the British government that it’s suppression would to them be worth a great price. But could the grandson of Dr. Franklin be in such degree an accomplice in the parricide of the memory of his immortal grandfather? The suspension for more than 20. years of the general publication bequeathed and confided to him, produced for awhile hard suspicions against him: and if at last all are not published, a part of these suspicions may remain with some.

I arrived at New York on the 21st. of Mar. where Congress was in session.

THE ANAS 1
1791–1806

Explanations of the 3. volumes bound in marbled paper.

In these 3 vols will be found copies of the official opinions given in writing by me to Genl. Washington, while I was Secretary of State, with sometimes the documents belonging to the case. Some of these are the rough draughts, some press-copies, some fair ones. In the earlier part of my acting in that office I took no other note of the passing transactions: but, after awhile, I saw the importance of doing it, in aid of my memory. Very often therefore I made memorandums on loose scraps of paper, taken out of my pocket in the moment, and laid by to be copied fair at leisure, which however they hardly ever were. 1 These scraps therefore, ragged, rubbed, scribbled as they were, I had bound with the others by a binder who came into my cabinet, did it under my own eye, and without the opportunity of reading a single paper. At this day, after the lapse of 25 years, or more, from their dates, I have given to the whole a calm revisal, when the passions of the time are past away, and the reasons of the transactions act alone on the judgment. Some of the informations I had recorded are now cut out from the rest, because I have seen that they were incorrect, or doubtful, or merely personal or private, with which we have nothing to do. I should perhaps have thought the rest not worth preserving, but for their testimony against the only history of that period 2 which pretends to have been compiled from authentic and unpublished documents. Could these documents, all, be laid open to the public eye, they might be compared, contrasted, weighed, the truth fairly sifted out of them, for we are not to suppose that every thing found among Genl. Washington’s papers is to be taken as gospel truth. Facts indeed of his own writing inditing, must be believed by all who knew him; and opinions, which were his own, merit veneration and respect; for few men have lived whose opinions were more unbiassed and correct. Not that it is pretended he never felt bias. His passions were naturally strong; but his reason, generally, stronger. But the materials from his own pen make probably an almost insensible part of the mass of papers which fill his presses. He possessed the love, the veneration, and confidence of all. With him were deposited suspicions certainties, rumors realities, facts falsehoods, by all those who were, or who wished to be thought, in correspondence with him, and by the many Anonymi who were ashamed to put their names to their slanders. From such a Congeries history may be made to wear any hue, with which the passions of the compiler, royalist or republican, may chuse to tinge it. Had Genl. Washington himself written from these materials a history of the period they embrace, it would have been a conspicuous monument of the integrity of his mind, the soundness of his judgment, and its powers of discernment between truth falsehood; principles pretensions. But the party feeling of his biographer, to whom after his death the collection was confided, has culled from it a composition as different from what Genl. Washington would have offered, as was the candor of the two characters during the period of the war. The partiality of this pen is displayed in lavishments of praise on certain military characters, who had done nothing military, but who afterwards, before he wrote, had become heroes in party, altho’ not in war; and in his reserve on the merits of others, who rendered signal services indeed, but did not earn his praise by apostatising in peace from the republican principles for which they had fought in war. It shews itself too in the cold indifference with which a struggle for the most animating of human objects is narrated. No act of heroism ever kindles in the mind of this writer a single aspiration in favor of the holy cause which inspired the bosom, nerved the arm of the patriot warrior. No gloom of events, no lowering of prospects ever excites a fear for the issue of a contest which was to change the condition of man over the civilized globe. The sufferings inflicted on endeavors to vindicate the rights of humanity are related with all the frigid insensibility with which a monk would have contemplated the victims of an auto da fé. Let no man believe that Genl. Washington ever intended that his papers should be used for the suicide of the cause, for which he had lived, and for which there never was a moment in which he would not have died. The abuse of these materials is chiefly however manifested in the history of the period immediately following the establishment of the present constitution; and nearly with that my memorandums begin. Were a reader of this period to form his idea of it from this history alone, he would suppose the republican party (who were in truth endeavoring to keep the government within the line of the Constitution, and prevent it’s being monarchised in practice) were a mere set of grumblers, and disorganisers, satisfied with no government, without fixed principles of any, and, like a British parliamentary opposition, gaping after loaves and fishes, and ready to change principles, as well as position, at any time, with their adversaries.

But a short review of facts omitted, or uncandidly stated in this history will shew that the contests of that day were contests of principle, between the advocates of republican, and those of kingly government, and that, had not the former made the efforts they did, our government would have been, even at this early day, a very different thing from what the successful issue of those efforts have made it.

The alliance between the states under the old articles of confederation, for the purpose of joint defence against the aggression of Great Britain, was found insufficient, as treaties of alliance generally are, to enforce compliance with their mutual stipulations: and these, once fulfilled, that bond was to expire of itself, each state to become sovereign and independant in all things. Yet it could not but occur to every one that these separate independencies, like the petty States of Greece, would be eternally at war with each other, would become at length the mere partisans satellites of the leading powers of Europe. All then must have looked forward to some further bond of union, which would ensure internal peace, and a political system of our own, independant of that of Europe. Whether all should be consolidated into a single government, or each remain independant as to internal matters, and the whole form a single nation as to what was foreign only, and whether that national government should be a monarchy or republic, would of course divide opinions according to the constitutions, the habits, and the circumstances of each individual. Some officers of the army, as it has always been said and believed (and Steuben and Knox have even been named as the leading agents) trained to monarchy by military habits, are understood to have proposed to Genl. Washington to decide this great question by the army before it’s disbandment, and to assume himself the crown, on the assurance of their support. The indignation with which he is said to have scouted this parricid proposition, was equally worthy of his virtue and his wisdom. The next effort was (on suggestion of the same individuals, in the moment of their separation) the establishment of an hereditary order, under the name of the Cincinnati, ready prepared, by that distinction, to be engrafted into the future frame of government, placing Genl. Washington still at their head. The General 1 wrote to me on this subject, while I was in Congress at Annapolis, and an extract from my answer is inserted in 5. Marshall’s hist. pa. 28. He afterwards called on me at that place, on his way to a meeting of the society, and after a whole evening of consultation he left that place fully determined to use all his endeavors for it’s total suppression. But he found it so firmly riveted in the affections of the members that, strengthened as they happened to be by an adventitious occurrence of the moment, he could effect no more than the abolition of it’s hereditary principle. 2 He called again on his return, 1 explained to me fully the opposition which had been made, the effect of the occurrence from France, and the difficulty with which it’s duration had been limited to the lives of the present members. Further details will be found among my papers, in his and my letters, and some in the Encyclop. Method. Dictionnaire d’Econ. politique, communicated by myself to M. Meusnier, 2 it’s author, who had made the establishment of this society the ground, in that work, of a libel on our country. The want of some authority which should procure justice to the public creditors, and an observance of treaties with foreign nations, produced, some time after, the call of a convention of the States at Annapolis. Altho’ at this meeting a difference of opinion was evident on the question of a republican or kingly government, yet, so general thro’ the states, was the sentiment in favor of the former, that the friends of the latter confined themselves to a course of obstruction only, and delay, to every thing proposed. They hoped that, nothing being done, and all things going from bad to worse, a kingly government might be usurped, and submitted to by the people, as better than anarchy, wars internal and external the certain consequences of the present want of a general government. 3 The effect of their manœuvres, with the defective attendance of deputies from the states, resulted in the measure of calling a more general convention, to be held at Philadelphia. At this the same party exhibited the same practices, and with the same views of preventing a government of concord, which they foresaw would be republican, and of forcing, thro’ anarchy, their way to monarchy. But the mass of that convention was too honest, too wise, and too steady to be baffled or misled by their manœuvres. One of these was, a form of government proposed by Colo. Hamilton, which would have been in fact a compromise between the two parties of royalism republicanism. According to this, the Executive one branch of the legislature were to be during good behavior, i. e. for life, and the Governors of the states were to be named by these two permanent organs. This however was rejected, on which Hamilton left the Convention, as desperate, never returned again until near it’s final conclusion. 1 These opinions efforts, secret or avowed, of the advocates for monarchy, had begotten great jealousy thro’ the states generally; and this jealousy it was which excited the strong opposition to the conventional constitution; a jealousy which yielded at last only to a general determination to establish certain amendments as barriers against a government either monarchical or consolidated. In what passed thro’ the whole period of these conventions, I have gone on the information of those who were members of them, being absent myself on my mission to France.

I returned from that mission in the 1st. year of the new government, having landed in Virginia in Dec. 89. proceeded to N. York in March 90. to enter on the office of Secretary of State. Here certainly I found a state of things which, of all I had ever contemplated, I the least expected. I had left France in the first year of its revolution, in the fervor of natural rights, and zeal for reformation. My conscientious devotion to these rights could not be heightened, but it had been aroused and excited by daily exercise. The President received me cordially, and my Colleagues the circle of principal citizens, apparently, with welcome. The courtesies of dinner parties given me as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in their familiar society. But I cannot describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly, over republican, government, was evidently the favorite sentiment. An apostate I could not be; nor yet a hypocrite: and I found myself, for the most part, the only advocate on the republican side of the question, unless, among the guests, there chanced to be some member of that party from the legislative Houses. Hamilton’s financial system had then past. It had two objects. 1st as a puzzle, to exclude popular understanding inquiry. 2dly, as a machine for the corruption of the legislature; for he avowed the opinion that man could be governed by one of two motives only, force or interest: force he observed, in this country, was out of the question; and the interests therefore of the members must be laid hold of, to keep the legislature in unison with the Executive. And with grief and shame it must be acknowledged that his machine was not without effect. That even in this, the birth of our government, some members were found sordid enough to bend their duty to their interests, and to look after personal, rather than public good. It is well known that, during the war, the greatest difficulty we encountered was the want of money or means, to pay our souldiers who fought, or our farmers, manufacturers merchants who furnished the necessary supplies of food clothing for them. After the expedient of paper money had exhausted itself, certificates of debt were given to the individual creditors, with assurance of payment, so soon as the U. S. should be able. But the distresses of these people often obliged them to part with these for the half, the fifth, and even a tenth of their value; and Speculators had made a trade of cozening them from the holders, by the most fraudulent practices and persuasions that they would never be paid. In the bill for funding paying these, Hamilton made no difference between the original holders, the fraudulent purchasers of this paper. Great just repugnance arose at putting these two classes of creditors on the same footing, and great exertions were used to pay to the former the full value, and to the latter the price only which he had paid, with interest. But this would have prevented the game which was to be played, for which the minds of greedy members were already tutored and prepared. When the trial of strength on these several efforts had indicated the form in which the bill would finally pass, this being known within doors sooner than without, and especially than to those who were in distant parts of the Union, the base scramble began. Couriers relay horses by land, and swift sailing pilot boats by sea, were flying in all directions. 1 Active part[n]ers agents were associated employed in every state, town and country neighborhood, and this paper was bought up at 5/ and even as low as 2/ in the pound, before the holder knew that Congress had already provided for it’s redemption at par. Immense sums were thus filched from the poor ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those who had themselves been poor enough before. Men thus enriched by the dexterity of a leader, would follow of course the chief who was leading them to fortune, and become the zealous instruments of all his enterprises. This game was over, and another was on the carpet at the moment of my arrival; 1 and to this I was most ignorantly innocently made to hold the candle. This fiscal maneuvre is well known by the name of the Assumption. Independantly of the debts of Congress, the states had, during the war, contracted separate and heavy debts; and Massachusetts particularly in an absurd attempt, absurdly conducted, on the British post of Penobscot: and the more debt Hamilton could rake up, the more plunder for his mercenaries. This money, whether wisely or foolishly spent, was pretended to have been spent for general purposes, and ought therefore to be paid from the general purse. But it was objected that nobody knew what these debts were, what their amount, or what their proofs. No matter; we will guess them to be 20. millions. But of these 20. millions we do not know how much should be reimbursed to one state, nor how much to another. No matter; we will guess. And so another scramble was set on foot among the several states, and some got much, some little, some nothing. But the main object was obtained, the phalanx of the treasury was reinforced by additional recruits. This measure produced the most bitter angry contests ever known in Congress, before or since the union of the states. I arrived in the midst of it. But a stranger to the ground, a stranger to the actors on it, so long absent as to have lost all familiarity with the subject, and as yet unaware of it’s object, I took no concern in it. The great and trying question however was lost in the H. of Representatives. So high were the feuds excited by this subject, that on it’s rejection, business was suspended. Congress met and adjourned from day to day without doing any thing, the parties being too much out of temper to do business together. The Eastern members particularly, who, with Smith from South Carolina, 1 were the principal gamblers in these scenes, threatened a secession and dissolution. Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to the President’s one day, I met him in the street. He walked me backwards forwards before the President’s door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been wrought, the disgust of those who were called the Creditor states, the danger of the secession of their members, and the separation of the states. He observed that the members of the administration ought to act in concert, that tho’ this question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make it a common concern; that the President was the center on which all administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally around him, and support with joint efforts measures approved by him; and that the question having been lost by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the machine of government, now suspended, might be again set into motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject; not having yet informed myself of the system of finances adopted, I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly if it’s rejection endangered a dissolution of our union at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded. I proposed to him however to dine with me the next day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together, and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save the union. The discussion took place. I could take no part in it, but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally agreed that, whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the union, of concord among the states was more important, and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to effect which some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had before been propositions to fix the seat of government either at Philadelphia, or at Georgetown on the Potomac; and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone. So two of the Potomac members (White Lee, 1 but White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive) agreed to change their votes, Hamilton undertook to carry the other point. In doing this the influence he had established over the Eastern members, with the agency of Robert Morris with those of the middle states, effected his side of the engagement, and so the assumption was passed, and 20. millions of stock divided among favored states, and thrown in as pabulum to the stock-jobbing herd. This added to the number of votaries to the treasury and made its Chief the master of every vote in the legislature which might give to the government the direction suited to his political views. I know well, and so must be understood, that nothing like a majority in Congress had yielded to this corruption. Far from it. But a division, not very unequal, had already taken place in the honest part of that body, between the parties styled republican and federal. The latter being monarchists in principle, adhered to Hamilton of course, as their leader in that principle, and this mercenary phalanx added to them ensured him always a majority in both houses: so that the whole action of the legislature was now under the direction of the treasury. Still the machine was not compleat. The effect of the funding system, of the assumption, would be temporary. It would be lost with the loss of the individual members whom it had enriched, and some engine of influence more permanent must be contrived, while these myrmidons were yet in place to carry it thro’ all opposition. This engine was the Bank of the U. S. All that history is known; so I shall say nothing about it. While the government remained at Philadelphia, a selection of members of both houses were constantly kept as Directors, who, on every question interesting to that institution, or to the views of the federal head, voted at the will of that head; and, together with the stockholding members, could always make the federal vote that of the majority. By this combination, legislative expositions were given to the constitution, and all the administrative laws were shaped on the model of England, so passed. And from this influence we were not relieved until the removal from the precincts of the bank, to Washington. Here then was the real ground of the opposition which was made to the course of administration. It’s object was to preserve the legislature pure and independant of the Executive, to restrain the administration to republican forms and principles, and not permit the constitution to be construed into a monarchy, and to be warped in practice into all the principles and pollutions of their favorite English model. Nor was this an opposition to Genl. Washington. He was true to the republican charge confided to him; has solemnly and repeatedly protested to me, in our private conversations, that he would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it, and he did this the oftener, and with the more earnestness, because he knew my suspicions of Hamilton’s designs against it; wished to quiet them. For he was not aware of the drift, or of the effect of Hamilton’s schemes. Unversed in financial projects calculations, budgets, his approbation of them was bottomed on his confidence in the man. But Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on corruption. In proof of this I will relate an anecdote, for the truth of which I attest the God who made me. Before the President set out on his Southern tour in April 1791. he addressed a letter of the 4th. of that month, from Mt. Vernon to the Secretaries of State, Treasury War, desiring that, if any serious and important cases should arise during his absence, they would consult act on them, and he requested that the Vice-president should also be consulted. This was the only occasion on which that officer was ever requested to take part in a cabinet question. Some occasion for consultation arising, I invited those gentlemen (and the Attorney genl. as well as I remember) to dine with me in order to confer on the subject. After the cloth was removed, and our question agreed dismissed, conversation began on other matters and, by some circumstance, was led to the British constitution, on which Mr. Adams observed “purge that constitution of it’s corruption, and give to it’s popular branch equality of representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever devised by the wit of man.” Hamilton paused and said, “purge it of it’s corruption, and give to it’s popular branch equality of representation, it would become an impracticable government: as it stands at present, with all it’s supposed defects, it is the most perfect government which ever existed.” And this was assuredly the exact line which separated the political creeds of these two gentlemen. The one was for two hereditary branches and an honest elective one: the other for a hereditary king with a house of lords commons, corrupted to his will, and standing between him and the people. Hamilton was indeed a singular character. Of acute understanding, disinterested, honest, and honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society, and duly valuing virtue in private life, yet so bewitched perverted by the British example, as to be under thoro’ conviction that corruption was essential to the government of a nation. Mr. Adams had originally been a republican. The glare of royalty and nobility, during his mission to England, had made him believe their fascination a necessary ingredient in government, and Shay’s rebellion, not sufficiently understood where he then was, seemed to prove that the absence of want and oppression was not a sufficient guarantee of order. His book on the American constitutions having made known his political bias, he was taken up by the monarchical federalists, in his absence, and on his return to the U. S. he was by them made to believe that the general disposition of our citizens was favorable to monarchy. He here wrote his Davila, as a supplement to the former work, and his election to the Presidency confirmed his errors. Innumerable addresses too, artfully and industriously poured in upon him, deceived him into a confidence that he was on the pinnacle of popularity, when the gulph was yawning at his feet which was to swallow up him and his deceivers. For, when Genl Washington was withdrawn, these energumeni of royalism, kept in check hitherto by the dread of his honesty, his firmness, his patriotism, and the authority of his name now, mounted on the Car of State free from controul, like Phäeton on that of the sun, drove headlong wild, looking neither to right nor left, nor regarding anything but the objects they were driving at; until, displaying these fully, the eyes of the nation were opened, and a general disbandment of them from the public councils took place. Mr. Adams, I am sure, has been long since convinced of the treacheries with which he was surrounded during his administration. He has since thoroughly seen that his constituants were devoted to republican government, and whether his judgment is re-settled on it’s ancient basis, or not, he is conformed as a good citizen to the will of the majority, and would now, I am persuaded, maintain it’s republican structure with the zeal and fidelity belonging to his character. For even an enemy has said “he is always an honest man, often a great one.” But in the fervor of the fury and follies of those who made him their stalking horse, no man who did not witness it, can form an idea of their unbridled madness, and the terrorism with which they surrounded themselves. The horrors of the French revolution, then raging, aided them mainly, and using that as a raw head and bloody bones they were enabled by their stratagems of X. Y. Z. in which this historian was a leading mountebank, their tales of tub-plots, Ocean massacres, bloody buoys, and pulpit lyings, and slanderings, and maniacal ravings of their Gardiners, their Osgoods and Parishes, to spread alarm into all but the firmest breasts. Their Attorney General had the impudence to say to a republican member that deportation must be resorted to, of which, said he, “you republicans have set the example,” thus daring to identify us with the murderous Jacobins of France. These transactions, now recollected but as dreams of the night, were then sad realities; and nothing rescued us from their liberticide effect but the unyielding opposition of those firm spirits who sternly maintained their post, in defiance of terror, until their fellow citizens could be aroused to their own danger, and rally, and rescue the standard of the constitution. This has been happily done. Federalism monarchism have languished from that moment, until their treasonable combinations with the enemies of their country during the late war, their plots of dismembering the Union their Hartford convention, has consigned them to the tomb of the dead: and I fondly hope we may now truly say “we are all republicans, all federalists,” and that the motto of the standard to which our country will forever rally, will be “federal union, and republican government;” and sure I am we may say that we are indebted, for the preservation of this point of ralliance, to that opposition of which so injurious an idea is so artfully insinuated excited in this history.

Much of this relation is notorious to the world, many intimate proofs of it will be found in these notes. From the moment, where they end, of my retiring from the administration, the federalists 1 got unchecked hold of Genl. Washington. His memory was already sensibly impaired by age, the firm tone of mind for which he had been remarkable, was beginning to relax, it’s energy was abated; a listlessness of labor, a desire for tranquillity had crept on him, and a willingness to let others act and even think for him. Like the rest of mankind, he was disgusted with atrocities of the French revolution, and was not sufficiently aware of the difference between the rabble who were used as instruments of their perpetration, and the steady rational character of the American people, in which he had not sufficient confidence. The opposition too of the republicans to the British treaty, and zealous support of the federalists in that unpopular, but favorite measure of theirs, had made him all their own. Understanding moreover that I disapproved of that treaty, copiously nourished with falsehoods by a malignant neighbor 2 of mine, who ambitioned to be his correspondent, he had become alienated from myself personally, as from the republican body generally of his fellow citizens; he wrote the letters to Mr. Adams, and Mr. Carroll, over which, in devotion to his imperishable fame, we must forever weep as monuments of mortal decay.

Th. Jefferson.

Notes of a conversn between A. Hamilton and Th J[efferson]. Th: J. mentioned to him a lre. recd from J[ohn] A[dam]s, disavowing Publicola, 1 denying that he ever entertd. a wish to bring this country under a hereditary executive, or introduce an hereditary branch of legislature c. See his lre. A. H. condemning Mr. A’s writings most particularly Davila, 2 as having a tendency to weaken the present govm’t declared in substance as follows. “I own it is my own opn, tho’ I do not publish it in Dan Bersheba, that the present govnmt is not that which will answer the ends of society, by giving stability protection to it’s rights, and that it will probably be found expedient to go into the British form. However, since we have undertaken the experiment, I am for giving it a fair course, whatever my expectns. The success indeed so far, is greater than I had expected, therefore at present success seems more possible than it had done heretofore, there are still other other stages of improvement which, if the present does not succeed, may be tried, ought to be tried before we give up the republican form altogether, for that mind must be really depraved which would not prefer the equality of political rights which is the foundation of pure republicanism, if it can be obtained consistently with order. Therefore whoever by his writings disturbs the present order of things, is really blameable, however pure his intentions may be, he was sure Mr. Adams’ were pure.” This is the substance of a declaration made in much more lengthy terms, which seemed to be more formal than usual for a private conversation between two, as if intended to qualify some less guarded expressions which had been dropped on former occasions. Th: J. has committed it to writing in the moment of A. H.’s leaving the room.

Colo Gunn (of Georgia) dining the other day with Colo Hamilton said to him, with that plain freedom he is known to use, “I wish Sir you would advise your friend King, to observe some kind of consistency in his votes. There has been scarcely a question before Senate on which he has not voted both ways. On the Representation bill, for instance, he first voted for the proposition of the Representatives, and ultimately voted against it.” “Why,” says Colo H. “I ’ll tell you as to that Colo Gunn, that it never was intended that bill should pass.” Gunn told this to Butler, who told it to Th: J. 1

Memorandum of communications made to a committee of the Senate on the subject of the diplomatic nominations to Paris, London, and the Hague. January 4th, 1792.

The Secretary of State having yesterday received a Note from Mr. Strong as Chairman of a Committee of the Senate, asking a conference with him on the subject of the late diplomatic nominations to Paris, London and the Hague, he met them in the Senate chamber in the evening of the same day, and stated to them in substance what follows.—

That he should on all occasions be ready to give to the Senate, or to any other Branch of the Government, whatever information might properly be communicated, and might be necessary to enable them to proceed in the line of their respective offices: That on the present occasion particularly, as the Senate had to decide on the fitness of certain persons to act for the United States at certain Courts, they would be the better enabled to decide, if they were informed of the state of our affairs at those courts, and what we had to do there: That when the Bill for providing the means of intercourse with foreign nations was before the Legislature, he had met the committees of each House, and had given them the ideas of the Executive as to the courts with which we should keep diplomatic characters, and the grades we should employ: That there were two principles which decided on the Courts, viz.t 1. vicinage, and 2. commerce: That the first operated in the cases of London and Madrid, and the second in the same cases, and also in those of France and Portugal; perhaps too of Holland: That as to all other countries our commerce and connections were too unimportant to call for the exchange of diplomatic residents: That he thought we should adopt the lowest grades admissible, to wit, at Paris that of minister plenipotentiary, because that grade was already established there; the same at London, because the pride of that court, and perhaps the sense of our country and it’s interests, would require a sort of equality of treatment to be observed towards them: and for Spain and Lisbon, that of Chargé des affaires only; the Hague uncertain: That at the moment of this Bill there was a complete vacancy of appointment between us and France and England, by the accidental translations of the Ministers of France and the United States to other offices, and none as yet appointed to, or from England: That in this state of things the Legislature had provided for the grade of Minister plenipotentiary, as one that was to be continued, shewed they had their eye on that grade only, and that of Chargé des affaires; that by the sum allowed they approved of the views then communicated: That circumstances had obliged us to change the grade at Lisbon to Minister resident, and this of course would force a change at Madrid and the Hague, as had been communicated at the time to the Senate; but that no change was made in the salary, that of Resident being made the same as had been established for a Chargé des affaires.

He then added the new circumstances which had supervened on those general ones in favour of these establishments, to wit with Paris, the proposal on their part to make a liberal Treaty, the present situation of their colonies which might lead to a freer commerce with them, and the arrival of a Minister plenipotentiary here; with London, their sending a Minister here in consequence of notorious and repeated applications from us, the powers given him to arrange the differences which had arisen about the execution of the Treaty, to wit; the Posts, Negroes, c. which was now in train, and perhaps some authority to talk on the subject of arrangements of commerce, and also the circumstances which had induced that Minister to produce his commission; with Madrid, the communication from the King that he was ready to resume the negociations on the navigation of the Mississippi, and to arrange that, and a port of deposit on the most friendly footing, if we would send a proper person to Madrid for that purpose: he explained the idea of joining one of the Ministers in Europe to Mr. Carmichael for that purpose; with Lisbon, that we had to try to obtain a right of sending flour there, and mentioned Del Pinto’s former favourable opinion on that subject: he stated also the interesting situation of Brazil, and the dispositions of the Court of Portugal with respect to our warfare with the Algerines; with Holland, the negociating loans for the transfer of the whole French debt there, an operation which must be of some years, because there is but a given sum of new money there every year, and only a given proportion of that will be lent to any one Nation. He then particularly recapitulated the circumstances which justified the President’s having continued the grade of Minister plenipotentiary; but added that whenever the biennial bill should come on, each House would have a constitutional right to review the establishment again, and whenever it should appear that either House thought any part of it might be reduced, on giving to the Executive time to avail themselves of the first convenient occasion to reduce it, the Executive could not but do it; but that it would be extremely injurious now, or at any other time, to do it so abruptly as to occasion the recall of Ministers, or unfriendly sensations in any of those countries with which our commerce is interesting.—

That a circumstance recalled to the recollection of the Secretary of State this morning induced him immediately to add to the preceding verbal communication, a letter addressed to Mr. Strong in the following words.—

Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson, Thomas
Jan. 4, 1792
Philadelphia
Strong
Strong
Sir

“I am just now made to recollect a mistake in one of the answers I gave last night in the Committee of the Senate, and which therefore I beg leave to correct. After calling to their minds the footing on which Mr. Morris had left matters at the Court of London, and informing them of what had passed between the British minister here myself, I was asked whether this was all that had taken place? Whether there had been no other or further engagement? I paused, you may remember to recollect: I knew nothing more had passed on the other side the water, because Mr. Morris’s powers there had been determined, and I endeavoured to recollect whether anything else had passed with Mr. Hammond and myself. I answered that this was all, and added in proof, that I was sure nothing had passed between the President Mr. Hammond personally, and so I might safely say this was all. It escaped me that there had been an informal agent here (Col: Beckwith) and so informal that it was thought proper that I should never speak on business with him, and that on a particular occasion, the question having been asked whether if a British minister should be sent here, we would send one in exchange? It was said, through another channel, that one would doubtless be sent. Having only been present when it was concluded to give the answer, and not having been myself the person who communicated it, nor having otherwise had any conversation with Col: Beckwith on the subject, it absolutely escaped my recollection at the moment the Committee put the question, and I now correct the error I committed in my answer, with the same good faith with which I committed the error in the first moment. Permit me to ask the favour of you, sir, to communicate this to the other members of the Committee, and to consider this as a part of the information I have had the honor of giving the Committee on the subject.

“I am with the most perfect esteem, sir, Your most obt most h’ble servant.

Th: Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson, Thomas
Jan. 4, 1792
Philadelphia
Strong
Strong
“Mr. Strong.

Which letter with the preceding statement, contains the substance of what the Secretary of State has communicated to the Committee, as far as his memory enables him to recollect.

Th: Jefferson.

Colo. Beckwith called on me and informed me that tho’ not publicly commissioned he had been sent here on the part of his government, that arriving before I came into office he had been put into the hands of another department, not indeed by the Chief Magistrate directly, as he had never had any direct communications, but informally had never been transferred to my department: that on commencing his correspondence with the Secretary of State of Gr. Britain, he had thought it his duty to make that circumstance known to us: that Mr. Hammond’s arrival had now rendered his longer continuance here unnecessary, as his residence hitherto had been only preparatory to Mr. Hammond’s reception, that he had received orders by the last packet from the Secretary of State to return to England by the next, and that he should accdly do so. He acknowledged the personal civility with which he had been treated generally, his entire satisfaction. [Note this was the first conversation I ever had with him, but merely as a private gentleman. I note its purport, because he was sent here by L’d Dorchester from Quebeck, which consequently authorizes us to send such a character to Quebec.

T. J.

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT.

I was to have been with him long enough before 3. o clock (which was the hour day he received visits) to have opened to him a proposition for doubling the velocity of the post riders, who now travel about 50. miles a day, might without difficulty go 100. and for taking measures (by waybills) to know where the delay is, when there is any. I was delayed by business, so as to have scarcely time to give him the outlines. I run over them rapidly, observed afterwards that I had hitherto never spoke to him on the subject of the post office, not knowing whether it was considered as a revenue law, or a law for the general accommodation of the citizens; that the law just passed seemed to have removed the doubt, by declaring that the whole profits of the office should be applied to extending the posts that even the past profits should be refunded by the treasury for the same purpose: that I therefore conceived it was now in the department of the Secretary of State: that I thought it would be advantageous so to declare it for another reason, to wit, that the department of treasury possessed already such an influence as to swallow up the whole Executive powers, and that even the future Presidents (not supported by the weight of character which himself possessed) would not be able to make head against this department. That in urging this measure I had certainly no personal interest, since, if I was supposed to have any appetite for power, yet as my career would certainly be exactly as short as his own, the intervening time was too short to be an object. My real wish was to avail the public of every occasion during the residue of the President’s period, to place things on a safe footing.—He was now called on to attend his company, he desired me to come and breakfast with him the next morning.

I did so, after breakfast we retired to his room, I unfolded my plan for the post-office, and after such an approbation of it as he usually permitted himself on the first presentment of any idea, and desiring me to commit it to writing, he, during that pause of conversation which follows a business closed, said in an affectionate tone, that he had felt much concern at an expression which dropt from me yesterday, which marked my intention of retiring when he should. That as to himself, many motives obliged him to it. He had through the whole course of the war, and most particularly at the close of it uniformly declared his resolution to retire from public affairs, never to act in any public office; that he had retired under that firm resolution, that the government however which had been formed being found evidently too inefficacious, and it being supposed that his aid was of some consequence towards bringing the people to consent to one of sufficient efficacy for their own good, he consented to come into the convention, on the same motive, after much pressing, to take a part in the new government and get it under way. That were he to continue longer, it might give room to say, that having tasted the sweets of office he could not do without them: that he really felt himself growing old, his bodily health less firm, his memory, always bad, becoming worse, and perhaps the other faculties of his mind showing a decay to others of which he was insensible himself, that this apprehension particularly oppressed him, that he found moreover his activity lessened, business therefore more irksome, and tranquility retirement become an irresistible passion. That however he felt himself obliged for these reasons to retire from the government, yet he should consider it as unfortunate if that should bring on the retirement of the great officers of the government, and that this might produce a shock on the public mind of dangerous consequence. I told him that no man had ever had less desire of entering into public offices than myself; that the circumstance of a perilous war, which brought every thing into danger, called for all the services which every citizen could render, had induced me to undertake the administration of the government of Virginia, that I had both before after refused repeated appointments of Congress to go abroad in that sort of office, which if I had consulted my own gratification, would always have been the most agreeable to me, that at the end of two years, I resigned the government of Virginia, retired with a firm resolution never more to appear in public life, that a domestic loss however happened, and made me fancy that absence, a change of scene for a time might be expedient for me, that I therefore accepted a foreign appointment limited to two years, that at the close of that, Dr. Franklin having left France, I was appointed to supply his place, which I had accepted, tho’ I continued in it three or four years, it was under the constant idea of remaining only a year or two longer; that the revolution in France coming on, I had so interested myself in the event of that, that when obliged to bring my family home, I had still an idea of returning awaiting the close of that, to fix the æra of my final retirement; that on my arrival here I found he had appointed me to my present office, that he knew I had not come into it without some reluctance, that it was on my part a sacrifice of inclination to the opinion that I might be more serviceable here than in France, with a firm resolution in my mind to indulge my constant wish for retirement at no very distant day: that when therefore I received his letter written from Mount Vernon, on his way to Carolina Georgia, (Apr. 1. 1791) and discovered from an expression in that that he meant to retire from the government ere long, as to the precise epoch there could be no doubt, my mind was immediately made up to make that the epoch of my own retirement from those labors, of which I was heartily tired. That however I did not believe there was any idea in either of my brethren in the administration of retiring, that on the contrary I had perceived at a late meeting of the trustees of the sinking fund that the Secretary of the Treasury had developed the plan he intended to pursue, that it embraced years in it’s view.—He said that he considered the Treasury department as a much more limited one going only to the single object of revenue, while that of the Secretary of State embracing nearly all the objects of administration, was much more important, the retirement of the officer therefore would be more noticed: that tho’ the government had set out with a pretty general good will of the public, yet that symptoms of dissatisfaction had lately shewn themselves far beyond what he could have expected, and to what height these might arise in case of too great a change in the administration, could not be foreseen.—

I told him that in my opinion there was only a single source of these discontents. Tho’ they had indeed appear [ sic ] to spread themselves over the war department also, yet I considered that as an overflowing only from their real channel which would never have taken place if they had not first been generated in another department, to wit that of the treasury. That a system had there been contrived for deluging the states with paper money instead of gold silver, for withdrawing our citizens from the pursuits of commerce, manufactures, buildings, other branches of useful industry, to occupy themselves their capitals in a species of gambling, destructive of morality, which had introduced it’s poison into the government itself. That it was a fact, as certainly known as that he I were then conversing, that particular members of the legislature, while those laws were on the carpet, had feathered their nests with paper, had then voted for the laws, and constantly since lent all the energy of their talents, instrumentality of their offices to the establishment and enlargement of this system: that they had chained it about our necks for a great length of time, in order to keep the game in their hands had from time to time aided in making such legislative constructions of the constitution as made it a very different thing from what the people thought they had submitted to; that they had now brought forward a proposition, far beyond every one ever yet advanced, to which the eyes of many were turned as the decision which was to let us know whether we live under a limited or an unlimited government.—He asked me to what proposition I alluded? I answered to that in the Report on manufactures which, under colour of giving bounties for the encouragement of particular manufactures, meant to establish the doctrine that the power given by the Constitution to collect taxes to provide for the general welfare of the U. S., permitted Congress to take everything under their management which they should deem for the public welfare, which is susceptible of the application of money: consequently that the subsequent enumeration of their powers was not the description to which resort must be had, did not at all constitute the limits of their authority: that this was a very different question from that of the bank, which was thought an incident to an enumerated power: that therefore this decision was expected with great anxiety: that indeed I hoped the proposition would be rejected, believing there was a majority in both houses against it, and that if it should be, it would be considered as a proof that things were returning into their true channel; that at any rate I looked forward to the broad representation which would shortly take place for keeping the general constitution on it’s true ground, that this would remove a great deal of the discontent which had shown itself. The conversation ended with this last topic. It is here stated nearly as much at length as it really was, the expressions preserved where I could recollect them, and their substance always faithfully stated.

On the Messrs. Fitzsimmons Gerry (among others) dined with me. These two staid with a Mr. Learned of Connecticut after the company was gone. We got on the subject of References by the legislature to the heads of Deptmts, considering their mischief in every direction. Gerry Fitzsimmons clearly opposed to them.

Two days aftwds (Jan. 4.) Mr. Bourne from Rho. isl.d presentd a memorial from his state, complaining of inequality in the assumption moved to refer it to the Sec. of the Treasury. Fitzsimns, Gerry others opposed it but it was carried.

Fitzsimmons moved that the Pr. of the U. S. be requested to direct the Sec. of the Treasury to lay before the house informn to enable the legislature to judge of the addnl revenue necessary on the encrease of the military establmt. The house on debate struck out the words “Pres. of the U. S.”

The subject resumed. An animated debate took place on the tendency of references to the heads of deptmts; and it seemed that a great majority would be against it. the house adjourned. Treasury greatly alarmed, much industry supposed to be used before next morning when it was brought on again debated thro’ the day, on the question the Treasury carried it by 31. to 27. 1 but deeply wounded, since it was seen that all Pensylva except [Israel] Jacobs voted against the reference, that [Thomas Tudor] Tucker of S. C. voted for it [Thomas] Sumpter absented himself, debauched for the moment only because of the connection of the question with a further assumption which S. Caroline favored, but that they never were to be counted on among the Treasury votes Some others absented themselves. [Elbridge] Gerry changed sides. On the whole it shewed that treasury influence was tottering.

Committed to writing this 10th of Mar. 92.

a Consultation at present H.[amilton] K.[nox] J.[efferson] 1. subject

Kirkland’s 2 letter. British idea of a new line from Genesee to Ohio. see extract on another paper.

Deputn. of 6 nations now on their way here. Their disposns doubtful. [Samuel] Street, a Connecticut man, a great scoundrel, coming with them. ¼ of the nation agt. us. Other ¾ qy. 1

Agreed they should be well treated, but not overtrusted.

[Capt. Peter]

Pond’s report. Stedman’s [ i.e. William Steedman] report. These two persons hd. bn. to Niagara, where they had much conversn with Colo. [A.] Gordon, commandg. officer. he s[ai]d he had relation of St. Clair’s defeat from a sensible Indn. who assured him the Indns. had 50. killed 150. wounded. They were commanded by Simon Girthy, [ i.e. Girty] a renegado white from Virga. or Pensn. He sd. the Indns. were right, that we shd. find them a powerful enemy, they were improving in war, did you ever before hear, says he, of Indns. being rallied 3. times? (this rallying was nothing more than the returns on the 3 charges with bayonets made by our troops—which produced a correspondent retiremt. of the Indns. but not a flight.) That we should never have peace of the Indns. but thro’ the median. of Britain. That Britn. must appt. one Commr., the U. S. one, the Indns. one: a line must be drawn, Britn. guarantee the line peace. Pond says the British have a prospect of settling 1000 fam. at the Illinois. That Capt. Stevenson who was here some time ago, who came over with Govr. Simcoe, was sent here to Hammond to confer about these matters. (Stevenson staid here 5. days we know was constantly with Hammond.) Colo. Gordon refused to let Pond Stedman go on. They pretended private business, but in reality had been sent by the President to propose peace to the North Wn. Indns. 1

H[amilton]

doubts Pond’s truth his fidelity, as he talks of a close intimacy with Colo. Gordon.

J[efferson]

observes that whether Pond be faithful or false, his facts are probable, because not of a nature to be designedly communicated if false. Besides they are supported in many points from other questions.

It seems that the English exercise jur[is]d[iction] over all the country South of the Genisee, their idea appears, to have a new line along that river, then along the Allegeney to Fort Pitt, thence due west or perhaps along the Indn. lines to the Mississipi, to give them access to the Missi. H. here mentd. that Hammond in a conversn with him had spoke of settling our incertain boundary from the lake of the wood due West to the Missi, by substituting from the lake of the wood in a straight line to the head of the Missi.

Agreed in a vote never to admit British median.

H.

proposed that a summary statement of all the acts we are possessed of relative to the Aid by the British to the Indns. be made delivered to Pinkney 2 to form a representn on it to the Ct. of London.

J.

observed it wd. be proper to possess Mr. Pinkney of all facts that he mt. at all times be able to meet the Brit Min. in conversn but that whether he shd. make a respresentn or not, in form, dependd. on Another questn. Whether it is better to keep the negocian here, or transfer it there? for that certainly any proceedg. there wh. slacken those here, put it in their power gradually to render them the principal. The Pr[esident] was of opn. the negotian shd. be kept here by all means.

Shall anything be said here to Hammond—J. No. There is no doubt but the aids given by subordinate officers are with secret approbn of their court. A feeble compt. to Hammond then will not change their conduct yet will humiliate us.

Qu.

proposd. by Pr. Shall a person be sent to the N. Western Indns. by the way of Fort Pitt Vincennes to propose peace? K. observed that such a person cd. at this season be at Vincennes in 25. days recommended one [Capt. Alexander] Trueman, that he shd. from Ft. Washington take some of the Indn. prisoners as a safeguard.—agreed nem. con. but the person to be further considd. of.

Qu.

shall a 2d. deputn be procured from the Indns. now expected here, to go to same place on same object. H. No. It will shew too much earnestness. J. No for same reason, because 2 deputn, independt. of each other might counterwork each other. Pr. No for the last reason.

J.

proposed taking a small post at Presque isle.

1. to cut off communcn betw. 6. Natns. Westn. Indns. 2. to vindicate our right by possn. 3. to be able to begin a Naval preparn. H. contra. It will certainly be attacked by Eng. bring on war. We are not in a condn to go to war—K. as usual with H.—Pr. When ever we take post at Presq-isle it must be by going in great force, so as to establish ourselves completely before an attack can be made, with workmen all materials to create a fleet instanter: he verily believes it will come to that.

[Joseph]

Brant says he has resigned his Eng. commn means to become entirely an Indn. wishes to herd unite all the Indns. in a body.

The Pr’s answer to St. Clair’s lre of resign. considered. It was drawn by Knox. The passage was now omitted to which I objected in my Note to the Pr. of Mar. 2. K. wished to insert something like an approbn of all his conduct by the Pr.—J. said if the Pr. Approvd. all his conduct it wd. be right to say so.—Pr. sd. he hd. always disapprovd. of two things. 1. the want of informn. 2. not keepg. his army in such a position always as to be able to display them in a line behind trees in the Indn. Manner at any Moment.—K. acquiesced, the lre was Alterd. to avoid touching on anything relative to the action, unless St. Clair shd. chuse to retain a clause acknolgg his zeal that day.

The future commander talked of.

Pr. went over all the characters. 1 viz.

[Daniel]

Morgan. no head. health gone. Speculator.

[Anthony]

Wayne. brave nothing else. deserves credit for Stoney Pt. but on another occn run his head agt a wall where success was both impossible useless.

[William]

Irwin. does not know him. has formd. a midling opn of him.

H. he never distingd. himself. All that he did during war was to avoid any censure of any kind.

[James]

Wilkinson. brave—enterprising to excess. but many unapprovable points in his character.

[Henry]

Lee. A better head more resource than any of them but no economy, being a junior officer, we shd. lose benefit of good seniors who wd. not serve under him.

[Charles Cotesworth]

Pin[c]kney. Sensible. tactician, but immersed in business. has refused other appmts probably will refuse this or accept with reluctance.

Pickings [ i.e. Andrew Pickens].

Govr. Pinkney recommends him for Southern command if necessary. sensible, modest, enterprizing, judicious. yet doubtful if he is equal to commd. of 5000 men. wd. be an untried undertaking for him.

J.

mentd. Sumpter. [Thomas Sumter] K. intimated he must be commander-in-chief or nothing. incapable of subordination. Nothing concluded.

Qu.

proposed. shall we use Indns. agt Indns. particularly shall we invite the 6. natns. to join us.

K.

agreed there were but 36. of them who joined the enemy last year, that we cd. not count on more than the Cornplanter 200 to join us.

J.

agt. employing Indns.—dishonble policy—he hd rather let 36, take the other side than have 200. on ours.

H.

disliked employing them. No depdce—barbarians—treacherous.

K.

for employing 500.

Pr.

they must be employed with us or they will be against us. Perhaps immaterial as to 6. nations but material as to Southern. He would use them to scour round the army at a distance. No small parties of enemy could approach thro’ them to discover our Movements. he wd. ntwstg take same precautions by our own men. for fear of infidelity.—expensive, discontented, insubordinate.

Conclusion. they shall not be invited but to be told that if they cannot restrain their young men from taking one side or the other, we will receive employ them.

Written this 10th. of Mar. 92.

Consulted verbally by the President on whom a commee of the Senate (Izard, Morris, King) are to wait to-morrow morning to know whether he will think it proper to redeem our Algerine captives make a treaty with the Algerines on the single vote of the Senate without taking that of the Represent.

My opn run on the following heads.

We must go to Algiers with the cash in our hands. Where shall we get it? By loan? By converting money now in the treasury?

Probably a loan mt be obtd on the Presid’s authority but as this cd nt be repd without a subseqt act of legislature, the Represent mt refuse it.

So if convert money in treasury, they may refuse to sanction it.

The subseqt approbatn of the Sen being necessary to validate a treaty they expect to be consulted beforehand if the case admits.

So the subseqt act of the Repr. being necessary where money is given, why shd nt they expect to be consulted in like manner when the case admits. A treaty is a law of the land. But prudence will point out this difference to be attended to in making them; viz. where a treaty contains such articles only as will go into ex-n of themselves, or be carried into ex-n by the judges, they may be safely made; but where there are articles which require a law to be passed afterwds by the legislature, great caution is requisite.

e.g. the consular convention with France required a very small legislative reguln. This convention was unanimously ratified by the Senate. Yet the same identical men threw by the law to enforce it at the last session, the Repr. at this session have placed it among the laws which they may take up or not at their own convenience, as if that was a higher motive than the public faith.

Therefore against hazarding this transaction with out the sanction of both houses.

The Pres. concurred. The Senate express the motive for this proposn to be a fear that the Repr would not keep the secret. He has no opinion of the secrecy of the senate. In this very case Mr. Izard made the communication to him setting next to him at table on one hand, while a lady (Mrs. McLane) was on his other hand and the Fr. minister next to her, and as Mr. Izard got on with his communication, his voice kept rising, his stutter bolting the words out loudly at intervals, so that the minister might hear if he would. He sd. he hd a great mind at one time to have got up in order to put a stop to Mr. Izard.

Mr. [Samuel] Sterret tells me that sitting round a fire the other day with 4 or 5. others of [which?] Mr. [William Loughton] Smith (of S. C.), was one, somebody mentioned that the murderers of Hogeboom sheriff of Columbia county N. York, were acquitted. “Aye, says Smith, this is what comes of your damned trial by jury.

Verbal answer proposed to the President to be made to the commee who are to wait on him with the resoln of the 10th. inst. congratulating on the completion acceptance of the French constn.

That the President will, in his answer, communicate to the King of the French, the sentiments expressed by the H. of representatives in the resolution which the committee has delivered him.

Mar. 12. 1792.

Towards the latter end of Nov. H. had drawn Ternant into a conversation on the subject of the treaty of commerce recommdd. by the Natl. assembly of France to be negotiated with us, and as he hd nt recd. instrns on the subject he led him into a proposal that Ternant shd take the thing up as a volunteer with me, that we shd arrange condns, and let them go for confirmn or refusal. H. communicated this to the Presid. who came into it, proposed it to me. I disapproved of it, observg that such a volunteer project would be binding on us, not on them, that it would enable them to find out how far we would go, avail themselves of it. However the Presidt. thot it worth trying I acquiesced. I prepared a plan of treaty for exchanging the privileges of native subjects and fixing all duties forever as they now stood. He did not like this way of fixing the duties because he said that many articles here would bear to be raised and therefore he would prepare a tariff. He did so raising duties for the French from 25. to 50 per cent. So they were to give us the privileges of native subjects, and we, as a compensation, were to make them pay higher duties. H. havg made his arrangemts with Hammond to pretend that tho’ he had no powers to conclude a treaty of commerce yet his genl. commn authorized him to enter into the discussion of one, then proposed to the President at one of our meetings that the business should be taken up with Hammond in the same informal way. I now discovd. the trap which he hd laid by first getting the Presidt into that step with Ternant, I opposed the thing warmly. H. observed if we did it with Ternant we shd also with Hammond. The Presid thot this reasonable. I desired him to recollect I had been agt it with Ternant, only acquiesced under his opn. So the matter went off as to both. His scheme was evidently to get us engaged first with Ternant, merely that he might have a pretext to engage us on the same ground with Hammond, taking care at the same time, by an extravagant tariff to render it impossible we should come to any conclusion with Ternant: probably meaning at the same time to propose terms so favble to Gr. Br. as wd attach us to that country by treaty. On one of those occans he asserted that our commerce with Gr. Br. her colonies was put on a much more favble footing than with France her colonies. I therefore prepared the tabular comparative view of the footing of our commerce with those nations, which see among my papers. See also my project of a treaty H.’s tariff.

Committed to writing Mar. 11. 1792.

It was observable that whenever at any of our consultns anything was proposed as to Gr. Br. Hamilton had constantly ready something which Mr. Hammond had communicated to him, which suited the subject, and proved the intimacy of their communications: insomuch that I believe he communicated to Hammond all our views knew from him in return the views of the British court. Many evidences of this occurred. I will state some.—I delivd to the Presid. my report of Instrns for Carmichl. Short on the subjects of navign, boundary commerce; desired him to submit it to Hamilton. H. made several just criticisms on difft parts of it. But where I asserted that the U. S. had no right to alienate an inch of the territory of any state he attacked denied the doctrine. See my report, his note my answer. 1 A few days after came to hand. Kirkland’s lre informing us that the British at Niagara expected to run a new line between them and us, and the reports of Pond Stedman, informing us it was understood at Niagara that Capt Stevenson had bn sent here by Simcoe to settle that plan with Hammd. Hence Hamilton’s attack of the principle I had laid down, in order to prepare the way for this new line. See minute of Mar. 9. Another proof. At one of our consultns about the last of Dec. I mentd. that I wished to give in my report on commerce, in which I cd nt avoid recommendg. a commercial retaliation agt Gr. B. H. opposed it violently; among other arguments observed that it was of more importance to us to have the posts than to commence a commercial war, that this this alone wd free us from the expense of the Indn. wars, that it wd therefore be the height of imprudce in us while treating for the surrender of the posts to engage in anything which wd irritate them, that if we did so, they wd naturally say “these people mean war let us therefore hold what we have in our hands.” This argument struck me forcibly, I said “if there is a hope of obtaining the posts, I agree it wd be imprudent to risk that hope by a commercial retaliation. I will therefore wait till Mr. Hammond gives me in his assignment of breaches, if that gives a glimmering of hope that they mean to surrender the posts, I will not give in my report till the next session.” Now Hammond had recd. my assignment of breaches on the 15th of Dec. and about the 22d. or 23d. had made me an apology, for not having been able to send me his counter assignment of breaches, but in terms which showed I might expect it in a few days. From the moment it escaped my lips in the presence of Hamilton that I wd nt give in my rept till I shd see Hammond’s counter-complaint judge if there were a hope of the posts, Hammond never said a word to me on any occn. as to the time he should be ready. At length the Presidt got out of patience insisted I shd jog him. This I did on the 21st. of Feb. at the President’s assembly, he immediately promised I should have it in a few days and accdly on the 5th. of Mar. I recd. them. Written Mar. 11. 1792.

Sent for by the Presidt. desired to bring the lre he had signed to the K of France.—Went.—He said the H. of Repr had on Saturday taken up the communication he had made of the King’s lre to him, and come to a vote in their own name, that he did not expect this when he sent his message the letter; otherwise he would have sent the message without the letter as I had proposed. That he apprehendd the legislature wd be endeavoring to invade the executive.—I told him I hd understood the house had resolved to request him to join their congratulations to his on the completion acceptance of the constitn. on which part of the vote there were only two dissentients, (Barnwell Benson) that the vote was 35. to 16. on that part which expressed an approbn of the wisdom of the constn; that in the lre he had signed I had avoided saying a word in approbn of the constn, not knowing whether the King, in his heart, approved it. Why, indeed, says he, I begin to doubt very much of the affairs of France; there are papers from London as late as the 10th of Jan. which represent them as going into confusion.—He read over the letter he had signed, found there was not a word which could commit his judgmt about the constn, gave it me back again. This is one of many proofs I have had, of his want of confidence in the event of the French revoln. The fact is, that Governeur Morris, a high flying monarchyman, shutting his eyes his faith to every fact against his wishes, believing everything he desires to be true, has kept the President’s mind constantly poisoned with his forebodings. That the President wishes the revoln may be established, I believe from several indications. I remember, when I recd the news of the king’s flight capture, I first told him of it at his assembly. I never saw him so much dejected by any event in my life. He expressed clearly, on this occasion, his disapprobation of the legislature referring things to the heads of departments.

Written Mar. 12.

Eod. die. Ten o’clock. A.M. The preceding was about 9 o’clock. The Presid. now sends Lear to me, to ask what answer he shall give the commee, and particularly, whether he shall add to it, that, “in making the communicn, it was not his expectn that the house should give any answer.” I told Mr. Lear that I thought the house had a right, independantly of legislation, to express sentiments on other subjects. That when these subjects did not belong to any other branch particularly, they would publish them by their own authority; that in the present case, which respected a foreign nation, the Pres. being the organ of our nation with other nations, the house would satisfy their duty, if, instead of a direct communication, they shd. pass their sentiments thro the President. That if expressing a sentiment were really an invasion of the Executive power, it was so faint a one, that it would be difficult to demonstrate it to the public, to a public partial to the French revoln. not disposed to consider the approbn of it from any quarter as improper. That the Senate indeed had given many indicns of their wish to invade the Executive power. the Represent. had done it in one case which was indeed mischievous and alarming, that of giving orders to the heads of the executive depmts without consulting the Pres., but that the late vote for directing the Sec. of the Treasy to report ways means, tho’ carried, was carried by so small a majority with the aid of members so notoriously under a local influence on that question, as to give a hope that the practice would be arrested, the constnl. course be taken up, of asking the Pres. to have informn laid before them. 1 But that in the prest instance, it was so far from being clearly an invasion of the Executive, and wd be so little approved by the genl. voice that I cd not advise the Pres. to express any dissatisfn at the vote of the house. I gave Lear in writing what I thot should be his answers. See it.

A meeting at the P’s, present Th: J., A. H., H. K. E. R[andolph]. The subject was the resoln of the H. of Repr. of Mar. 27. to appt a commee to inquire into the causes of the failure of the late expdn under Maj. Genl. St. Clair with power to call for such persons, papers records as may be necessary to assist their inquiries. The commee had written to Knox for the original letters, instns, c. The President he had called us to consult, merely because it was the first example, he wished that so far as it shd become a precedent, it should be rightly conducted. He neither acknowledged nor denied, nor even doubted the propriety of what the house were doing, for he had not thought upon it, nor was acquainted with subjects of this kind. He could readily conceive there might be papers of so secret a nature as that they ought not to be given up.—We were not prepared wished time to think enquire.

Met again at P’s on same subject. We had all considered and were of one mind 1. that the house was an inquest, therefore might institute inquiries. 2. that they might call for papers generally. 3. that the Executive ought to communicate such papers as the public good would permit, ought to refuse those the disclosure of which would injure the public. Consequently were to exercise a discretion. 4. that neither the commee nor House had a right to call on the head of a deptmt, who whose papers were under the Presidt. alone, but that the commee shd instruct their chairman to move the house to address the President. We had principally consulted the proceedings of the commons in the case of S. Rob. Walpole, 13. Chandler’s deb. For 1. point see pages 161. 170. 172 183, 187, 207: for the 2d. pa 153, 173. 207, for the 3d., 81, 173. append pa. 44 for the 4th pa. 246. Note. Hamilt. agrd with us in all these points except as to the powr of the house to call on heads of departmts. He observed that as to his departmt the act constituting it had made it subject to Congress in some points, but he thot himself not so far subject as to be obliged to produce all papers they might call for. They might demand secrets of a very mischievous nature. Here I thot he began to fear they would go to examining how far their own members other persons in the govmt had been dabbling in stocks, banks, c., and that he probably would choose in this case to deny their power in short he endeavd. to place himself subject to the house when the Executive should propose what he did not like, subject to the Executive, when the house shd propose anything disagreeable. I observed here a difference between the Brit parl our Congress, that the former was a legislature, an inquest, a council (S. C. page 91.) for the king. The latter was by the constn a legislature an inquest but not a council. Finally agreed to speak separation [ sic ] to the members of the commee bring them by persuasion into the right channel. It was agreed in this case that there was not a paper which might not be properly produced, that copies only should be sent, with an assurance that if they should desire it, a clerk should attend with the originals to be verified by themselves. The commee were Fitzsimmons, Steele, Mercer, Clarke, Sedgwick, Giles, Vining.

The Presit. hd wished to redeem our captives at Algiers, to make peace with them on paying an annual tribute. The Senate were willing to approve this, but unwilling to have the lower house applied to previously to furnish the money; they wished the President to take the money from the treasury, or open a loan for it. They thought that to consult the Representatives on one occasion, would give them a handle always to claim it, would let them into a participation of the power of making treaties, which the constn had given exclusively to the President Senate. They said too, that if the particular sum was voted by the Represent, it would not be a secret. The President had no confidence in the secresy of the Senate, did not chuse to take money from the treasury or to borrow. But he agreed he would enter into provisional treaties with the Algerines, not to be binding on us till ratified here. I prepared questions for consultn with the Senate, added, that the Senate were to be apprized, that on the return of the provisional treaty, after they should advise the ratifin, he should not have the seal put to it till the two houses should vote the money. He asked me if the treaty stipulating a sum ratified by him, with the advice of the Senate, would not be good under the constn, obligatory on the Repres to furnish the money? I answered it certainly would, that it would be the duty of the representatives to raise the money; but that they might decline to do what was their duty, I thot it might be incautious to commit himself by a ratifin with a foreign nation, where he might be left in the lurch in the execution: it was possible too, to conceive a treaty, which it wd nt be their duty to provide for. He said that he did not like throwing too much into democratic hands, that if they would not do what the constn called on them to do, the government would be at an end, must then assume another form. He stopped here; I kept silence to see whether he would say anything more in the same line, or add any qualifying expression to soften what he had said, but he did neither.

I had observed that wherever the agency of either or both houses would be requisite subsequent to a treaty to carry it into effect, it would be prudent to consult them previously if the occasion admitted. That thus it was we were in the habit of consulting the Senate previously when the occasion permitted, because their subseqt ratifin would be necessary. That there was the same reason for consulting the lower house previously where they were to be called on afterwards, especially in a case of money, as they held the purse strings would be jealous of them. However he desired me to strike out the intimation that the seal would not be put till both houses should have voted the money.

The President called on me before breakfast first introduced some other matters, then fell on the representn bill which he had now in his possn for the 10th day. I had before given him my opn 1 in writing that the method of apportionmt was contrary to the constn. He agreed that it was contrary to the common understanding of that instrument, to what was understood at the time by the makers of it: that yet it would bear the constn which the bill put, he observed that the vote for against the bill was perfectly geographical, a northern agt a southern vote, he feared he should be thought to be taking side with a southern party. I admitted this motive of delicacy, but that it should not induce him to do wrong: urged the dangers to which the scramble for the fractionary members would always lead. He here expressed his fear that there would ere long, be a separation of the union; that the public mind seemed dissatisfied tending to this. He went home, sent for Randolph the Atty Genl. desired him to get Mr. Madison immediately come to me, if we three concurred in opn that he should negative the bill, he desired to hear nothing more about it but that we would draw the instrument for him to sign. They came. Our minds had been before made up. We drew the instrumt. Randolph carried it to him told him we all concurred in it. He walked with him to the door, and as if he still wished to get off, he said, “ you say you approve of this yourself.” “Yes, Sir, says Randolph I do upon my honor.” He sent it in to the H. of Representatives instantly. A few of the hottest friends of the bill expressed passion but the majority were satisfied, both in and out of doors it gave pleasure to have at length an instance of the negative being exercised.

Written this the 9th. of April.

NOTES OF A CONVERSATION WITH MR. HAMMOND JUNE 3, 1792

Having recd Mr. Hammond’s letter of June 2, informing me that my letter of May 29 should be sent to his court for their instructions, I immediately went to his house. He was not at home. I wrote him a note inviting him to come and dine with me, alone, that we might confer together in a familiar way on the subject of our letters, and consider what was to be done. He was engaged, but said he would call on me any hour the next day. I invited him to take a solo dinner the next day. He accepted and came. After the cloth was taken off the servants retired I introduced the conversation by adverting to that part of his letter wherein he disavowed any intentional deception if he had been misinformed had misstated any facts, assuring him that I acquitted him of every suspicion of that kind, that he had been here too short a time to be acquainted with facts himself or to know the best sources for getting at them. That I had found great difficulty myself in the investigation of facts, with respect to the proceedings of the courts particularly had been indebted to the circumstance of Congress being in session, so that I could apply to the members of the different states for information respecting their states.

I told him that each party having now stated the matters between the two nations in the point of view in which they appeared to each, had hoped that we might by the way of free conversation abridge what remained. That I expected we were to take for our basis that the treaty was to be fully executed: that on our part we had pronounced our demands explicitly to have the upper posts delivered up, the negroes paid for. That they objected infractions on our part, which we denied; that we ought to proceed to investigate the facts on which we differed, that this was the country in which they could alone be investigated, and if it should be found we had unjustifiably broken the treaty, the case was of a nature to admit of a proper compromise.—He said that he believed the question had never been understood by his court, admitted they had as yet heard only one side of it, that from a party which entertained strong feelings against us (I think he said the Refugees) that the idea would be quite new to his court of their having committed the first infractions, and of the proceedings on the subject of their debts here being on the ground of retaliation. That this gave to the case a complexion so entirely new and different from what had been contemplated, that he should not be justified in taking a single step: that he should send my letter to the ministers, that they would be able to consider facts dates, see if they had really been the first infractors, and say what ground they would take on this new state of the case. That the matter was now for the first time carried into mutual discussion, that the close of my letter contained specific propositions, to which they would of course give specific answers adapted to the new statement of things brought forward. I replied that as to the fact of their committing the first infraction it could not be questioned, confessed that I believe the ministry which signed the treaty meant to execute it, that Ld Shelburne’s plan was to produce a new coalescence by a liberal conduct towards us; that the ministry which succeeded thought the treaty too liberal and wished to curtail it’s effect in the course of executing it: but that if every move and counter-move was to cross the Atlantic, it would be a long game indeed. He said no. That he thought they could take their ultimate ground at once, on having before them a full view of the facts, and he thought it fortunate that Mr. Bond, from whom he got most of his information, and Ld Dorchester would be on the spot to bring things to rights, he imagined he could receive his instructions before November.—I told him that I apprehended that Ld Dorchester would not feel a disposition to promote conciliation seeing himself marked personally as an infractor; and mentioned to him the opinions entertained here of the unfriendliness of Mr. Bond’s mind towards us.—He justified Mr. Bond. Believed him candid and disposed to conciliate. Besides Mr. Bond, he had received information from their other consuls and the factors of the merchants, who assured him that they could furnish proofs of the facts they communicated to him which he had advanced on their authority, that he should now write to them to produce their authority. He admitted that the debt to British subjects might be considered as liquidated from the Potowmac northward; that S. Carolina was making a laudable effort to pay hers, and that the only important object now was that of Virginia, amounting by his list to two millions sterling: that the attention of the British merchants from North to South was turned to the decision of the case of Jones Walker which he hoped would take place at the present session, let them see what they had to depend on. I told him that I was sorry to learn that but two judges had arrived in Richmond, and that unless the third arrived they would not take it up. I desired him to observe that the question in that case related only to that description of debts which had been paid into the treasury, that without pretending to know with any accuracy what proportion of the whole debt of Virginia had been paid into the treasury, I believed it was a small one; but the case of Jones Walker would be a precedent for those debts only: that as to the great residuary mass there were precedents enough as it appeared they were in a full course of recovery, and that there was no obstacle, real or apparent. He did not appear to have adverted to the distinction, and shewed marks of satisfaction on understanding that the question was confined to the other portion of the debts only. He thought that the collection there being once under a hopeful way, would of itself change the ground on which our difference stands. He observed that the treaty was of itself so vague and inconsistent in many of it’s parts as to require an explanatory convention. He instanced the two articles, one of which gave them the navigation of the Mississippi, and the other bounded them by a due West line from the lake of the wood, which being now understood to pass beyond the most Northern sources of the Mississippi intercepted all access to that river: that to reconcile these articles that line should be so run as to give them access to the navigable waters of the Mississippi, and that it would even be for our interest to introduce a third power between us the Spaniards. He asked my idea of the line from the lake of the woods, and of now settling it. I told him I knew of no objection to the settlement of it, that my idea of it was that if it was an impassable line as proposed in the treaty, it should be rendered passable by as small unimportant an alteration as might be, which I thought would be to throw in a line running due North from the Northernmost source of the Mississippi till it should strike the Western line from the lake of the woods, that the article giving them a navigation in the Mississippi did not relate at all to this Northern boundary, but to the Southern one, to the secret article respecting that, that he knew that our Provisional treaty was made seven weeks before that with Spain: that at the date of ours their ministers had still a hope of retaining Florida, in which case they were to come up to the 32d degree, in which case also the navigation of the Mississippi would have been important; but that they had not been able in event to retain the country to which the navigation was to be an appendage. (It was evident to me that they had it in view to claim a slice on our Northwestern quarter that they may get into the Mississippi, indeed I thought it presented as a sort of make-weight with the Posts to compensate the great losses their citizens had sustained by the infractions charged on us.) I had hinted that I had not been without a hope that an early possession of the posts might have been given us, as a commencement of full execution of the treaty. He asked me if I had conceived that he was authorized to write to the Governor of Canada to deliver us the posts?—I said I had.—He smiled at that idea and assured me he had by no means any such authority.—I mentioned what I had understood to have passed between him Genl Dickinson, which was related to me by Mr. Hawkins, to wit that the posts might be delivered upon the assurance of the recovery of their debts in Virginia. He said that if any such thing as that had dropped from him, it must have been merely as a private unauthorized opinion, for that the opinion of his court was that the retention of the posts was but a short compensation for the losses which their citizens had sustained would sustain by the delay of their admission into our courts. (Putting together this expression and his frequent declarations that the face of the controversy was now so totally changed from what it was understood to be at his court, that no instructions of his could be applicable to it, I concluded that his court had entertained no thought of ever giving up the posts, and had framed their instructions to him on a totally different hypothesis)—He asked what we understood to be the boundary between us and the Indians?—I told him he would see by recurring to my report on the North Western territory, 1 and by tracing the line there described on Hutchins’s map.—What did I understand to be our right in the Indian soil? 1. A right of preemption of their lands, that is to say, the sole exclusive right of purchasing from them whenever they should be willing to sell. 2. A right of regulating the commerce between them and the whites.—Did I suppose that the right of preemption prohibited any individual of another nation from purchasing lands which the Indians should be willing to sell? Certainly. We consider it as established by the usage of different nations into a kind of Jus gentium for America, that a white nation settling down and declaring that such and such are their limits, makes an invasion of those limits by any other white nation an act of war, but gives no right of soil against the native possessors.—Did I think the right of regulating the commerce went to prohibit the British traders from coming into the Indian territory? That has been the idea. He said this would be hard on the Indians. I observed that whichever way the principle was established, it would work equally on both sides the line. I did not know whether we would gain or lose by mutual admission or exclusion. He said they apprehended our intention was to exterminate the Indians take the lands. I assured him that, on the contrary, our system was to protect them, even against our own citizens; that we wish to get lines established with all of them, and have no views even of purchasing any more lands from them for a long time. We consider them as a mare chaussee or police, for scouring the woods on our borders, and preventing their being a cover for rovers and robbers. He wished the treaty had established an independent nation between us to keep us apart. He was under great apprehensions that it would become a matter of bidding as it were between the British and us who should have the greatest army there, who should have the greatest force on the lakes. That we holding posts on this side the water, they on the other souldiers looking constantly at one another, would get into broils; commit the two nations in war. I told him we might perhaps regulate by agreement the force to be kept on each side.—He asked what was our view in keeping a force there, that he apprehended, if we had these posts, we should be able to hinder vessels from passing. I answered that I did not know whether the position of the present posts was such as that no vessel could pass but within their gun-shot, but that each party must have a plenty of such positions on the opposite sides, exclusively of the present posts. That our view in possessing these posts was to awe the Indians, to participate in the Fur trade, to protect that trade. Protect it against whom? Against the Indians. He asked what I imagined to be their motives for keeping the posts? To influence the Indians, to keep off a rival nation and the appearance of having a rival nation, to monopolize the fur trade. He said he was not afraid of rivals if the traders would have fair play. He thought it would be better that neither party should have any military posts, but only trading houses. I told him that the idea of having no military post on either side was new to me, that it had never been mentioned among the members of the Executive. That therefore I could only speak for myself say that, primâ facie, it accorded well with two favorite ideas of mine of leaving commerce free, never keeping an unnecessary souldier, but when he spoke of having no military post on either side there might be difficulty in fixing the distance of the nearest posts. He said that tho’ his opinion on this subject was only a private one, he understood mine to be so also, yet he was much pleased that we two seemed to think nearly alike, as it might lead to something. He said that their principal object in the fur trade was the consumption of the goods they gave in exchange for the furs. I answered that whether the trade was carried on by English or Americans, it would be with English goods, and the route would be, not through Canada, but by the shorter channels of the Hudson or the Potowmac.