Had

question of adjournment was lost by two votes. our members been here it would have been carried & much mischief prevented. I think now they will make their session permanent. I have therefore in my letters of today ordered my horses to be at Fredsbg on the 24. & shall probably be with you on the 25th or 26th. I send you further communications from our envoys. To these I believe I may add on good grounds that Pinckney is gone with his family into the south of France for the health of his daughter, Marshal to Amsterdam (but whether coming here for instructions or not is a secret not entrusted to us) & Gerry remains at Paris. It is rumored & I believe with probability that there is a schism between Gerry & his colleagues. Perhaps the directory may make a treaty with Gerry, if they can get through it before the brig Sophia takes him off. She sailed the 1st of April. It is evident from these communications that our envoys had not the least idea of a war between the two countries; much less that their dispatches are the cause of it. I mentioned to you in my last that I expected they would bring in a bill to declare the treaty with France void. Dwight Foster yesterday brought in resolutions for that purpose, & for authorizing general reprisals on the French armed vessels: & such is their preponderance by the number & talents of our absentees withdrawing from us that they will carry it. Never was any event so important to this country since it's revolution, as the issue of the invasion of England. With that we shall stand or fall. Colo. Jones's situ

ation is desperate. Every day is now expected to be his last. The petition for the reform of the British parliament enclosed in your last shall be disposed of as you desire. And the first vessel for Fredericksburg will carry your locks, hinges, pulleys & glass. My respectful salutations to Mrs. Madison & the family. Friendship & adieus to yourself.

TO ARCHIBALD STUART.1

PHILADELPHIA. June 8. 98.

DEAR SIR,-I inclose you some further communications from our envoys at Paris. To the information contained in these I can add that by the latest accounts Mr. Pinckney was gone into the south of France for the health of his family, Mr. Marshall to Amsterdam, and Mr. Gerry remained at Paris. It appears that neither themselves nor the French government dreamt of war between the two countries. It seems also fairly presumable that the douceur of 50,000 Guineas mentioned in the former dispatches was merely from X. and Y. as not a word is ever said. by Taleyrand to our envoys, nor by them to him on the subject. It is now thought possible that Gerry may be pursuing the treaty for he was always viewed with more favor by the French government than his collegues whom they considered as personally hostile to them. It seems they offered to pay in time for unjustifiable spoliations, and insist on a present

1 From the original in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society.

loan (and it would be much more than an equivalent). There seems nothing to prevent a conclusion, unless indeed the brig Sophia should arrive too soon & bring him away. She sailed from hence the 1st of April with positive orders to the envoys to come away. In the meantime, besides accumulating irritations we are proceeding to actual hostilities. You will have seen in the papers the bills already passed, and the measures now proposed. Every thing will be carried which is proposed. Nobody denies but that France has given just cause of war, but so has Gr. Britain & she is now capturing our vessels as much as France, but the question was one merely of prudence, whether seeing that both powers in order to injure one another, bear down every thing in their way, without regard to the rights of others, spoliating equally Danes, Swedes & Americans, it would not be more prudent in us to bear with it as the Danes & Swedes do, curtailing our commerce, and waiting for the moment of peace, when it is probable both nations would for their own interest & honour

retribute for their wrongs. However the public mind has been artfully inflamed by publications well calculated to deceive them & them only and especially in the towns, and irritations have been multiplied so as to shut the door of accomodation, and war is now inevitable. I imagine that France will do little with us till she has made her peace with England, which, whether her invasion succeeds or fails, must be made this summer and autumn. The game on both sides is too heavy to be continued. When she

shall turn her arms on us, I imagine it will be chiefly against our commerce and fisheries. If any thing is attempted by land it will probably be to the westward. Our great expence will be in equipping a navy to be lost as fast as equipped, or to be maintained at an expence which will sink us with itself, as the like course is sinking Great Britain. Of the two millions of Dollars now to be raised by a tax on lands, houses & slaves, Virginia is to furnish between 3 & 400,000 but this is not more than half of the actual expence if the provisional army be raised, nor one tenth of what must be the annual expences. I see no way in which we can injure France so as to advance to negociation (as we must do in the end) on better ground than at present and I believe it will thus appear to our citizens generally as soon as the present fervor cools down and there will be many sedatives to effect this. For the present however, nothing can be done. Silence and patience are necessary for a while; and I must pray you, as to what I now write, to take care it does not get out of your own hand, nor a breath of it in a newspaper. I wrote to Mr. Clarke some time ago mentioning that I had been here for six months advancing for all the nail rods for my nailery without the possibility of receiving any thing from it till my return. That this will render it necessary to receive immediately on my return whatever sums my customers may have in hand for me. I yesterday received a letter from him informing me he had left Staunton, & with our approbation had turned over my matters to a Mr. John McDowell. As I am not

acquainted with him, nor as yet in correspondence with him, will you be so good as to mention to him that I shall have great need of whatever sum he may have on hand for me, as soon as I return, and should be very glad if he could lodge it with Col° Bell by our July court, at which I shall be, or if no conveyance occurs he can send me a line by post to Charlottesville informing me what sum I can count on. His future orders for nails I shall be able to attend to in person. I leave this for Monticello on the 20th inst. The adjournment of Congress is not yet fixed.

TO JAMES MADISON.

MAD. MSS.

PHILADELPHIA, June 21, 98.

Yours of the 10th inst is received. I expected mine of the 14th would have been my last from hence, as I had proposed to have set out on the 20th ; but on the morning of the 19th, we heard of the arrival of Marshall at New York and I concluded to stay & see whether that circumstance would produce any new projects. No doubt he there received more than hints from Hamilton as to the tone required to be assumed. Yet I apprehend he is not hot enough for his friends. Livingston came with him from New York. M told him they had no idea in France of a war with us. That Taleyrand sent passports to him & Pinckney, but none for Gerry. Upon this, Gerry staid, without explaining to them the reason.