there. Accept assurances of my affectionate attachment.1 TO ELBRIDGE GERRY. J. MSS. MONTICELLO, Aug. 28, 1802. DEAR SIR,-You very justly suppose, in yours of the 9th inst., that the act of duty which removed your brother from office, was one of the most painful and unwilling which I have had to perform. Very soon after our administration was formed, the situation of 'On this subject Jefferson further wrote to Monroe: WASHINGTON, July 17, 1802. But on looking for the On recollection I believe DEAR SIR,-After writing you on the 15th I turned to my letter file to see what letters I had written to Callender and found them to have been of the dates of 1798 Oct. 11. and 1799 Sept. 6. and Oct. 6. letters they were not in their places nor to be found. I sent them to you a year or two ago. If you have them, I shall be glad to receive them at Monticello where I shall be on this day sennight. I inclose you a paper which shows the Tories mean to pervert these charities to Callender as much as they can. They will probably first represent me as the patron and support of the Prospect before us, and other things of Callender's, and then picking out all the scurrilities of the author against Genl. Washington, Mr. Adams and others impute them to me. I as well as most other republicans who were in the way of doing it, contributed what I could afford to the support of the republican papers and printers, paid sums of money for the bee, the Albany register &c. when they were staggering under the sedition law, contributed to the fines of Callender himself, of Holt, Brown and others suffering under that law. I discharged, when I came into office, such as were under the persecution of our enemies, without instituting any prosecutions in retaliation. They may therefore, with the same justice, impute to me, or to every republican contributor, everything which was ever published in those papers or by those persons. I must correct a fact in mine of the 15th. I find I did not enclose the 50 D. to Callender himself while at Genl. Mason's, but authorized the Genl. to draw on my correspondt. at Richmond and to give the money to Callender. So the other 50. D. of which he speaks were by order on my correspondt. at Richmond. Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and respect. his accounts was placed under the notice of the secretary of the Treasury, and consequently communicated to me. He was written to. The failure to render accounts periodically, the disagreement among those he did render, gave reason to believe he was imprudently indulging himself in the use of the public money. What were the circumstances which led him to this, was not an inquiry permitted to us. If the perquisites of his office were insufficient to support him, it was a case for the legislature not for us to remedy. Our duty was to see their will carried into execution. We could only give a little more or less time for the ratification of his proceedings, according to our hope of its being effected. Besides monitory letters which were unanswered, friends were relied on to give the necessary warning. The derangements of his accounts being known to you, and the deficiency, though ultimately to fall on you as his security, not being paid up, on which he would have been continued, was evidence to me that you probably thought that if he were relieved by such a [faded] on your part, he would relapse again, and that therefore you had made up your mind to let legal consequences take their course. It became then an indispensable duty to put an end to indulgences, which after being extended from quarter to quarter for nearly 18. months, gave no hope but of further deficiency. However afflicting this act of duty might be to you, I know you would see in it a proof of that justice which was the foundation of your esteem and confidence in the administration. Mr. Warren having declined accept ing the place, another was appointed before the receipt of your letter. Although the performance of the same officer in other cases was cutting down the foes instead of the friends of republican government, yet like the office [illegible] it has excited the most revolting sensations. The safety of the government absolutely required that its direction in its higher departments should be taken into friendly hands. Its safety did not even admit that the whole of its immense patronage should be left at the command of its enemies to be exercised secretly or openly to reestablish the tyrannical and delapidating system of the preceding administration, and their deleterious principles of government. Rigorous justice too required that as they had filled every office with their friends to the avowed exclusion of republicans, that the latter should be admitted to a participation of office, by the removal of some of the former. This was done to the extent of about 20. only out of some thousands, and no more was intended. But instead of their acknowledging its moderation, it has been a ground for their more active enmity. After a twelve months trial I have at length been induced to remove three or four more of those most marked for their bitterness and active zeal in slandering and in electioneering. Whether we shall proceed any further will depend on themselves. Those who are quiet, and take no part against that order of things which the public will has established, will be safe. Those who continue to clamor against it, to slander and oppose it, shall not be armed with its wealth and power for its own destruction. The late removals have been intended merely as monitory, but such officers as shall afterwards continue to bid us defiance shall as certainly be removed, if the case shall become known. A neutral conduct is all I ever desired, and this the public have a right to expect. Our information from every quarter is that republican principles spread more and more. Indeed the body of the people may be considered as consolidated into one mass from the Delaware southwardly and westwardly. New Jersey is divided, and in New York a schism may render inefficacious what the great majority would be equal to. In your corner alone priestcraft and lawcraft are still able to throw dust into the eyes of the people. But, as the Indian says, they are clearing the dust out of their eyes there also. The republican portion will at length rise, and the sediment of monarchism be left as lees at the bottom. Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and high consideration. TO GIDEON GRANGER. J. MSS. MONTICELLO, Aug. 29, 1802. DEAR SIR,-Not knowing whether the postmasters from hence to and at Boston are all true, I inclose the within to you and ask the favor of your cover to the postmaster or any other person you can confide in at Boston to deliver it. Your favors of Aug. 23. and 24. are received. Pray forward me by post one of Mr. Bishop's new pamphlets, and let it stand in account between us till we meet. I see with sincere grief that the schism at New York is setting good republicans by the ears, and is attacking characters which nobody doubts. It is not for me to meddle in this matter; but there can be no harm in wishing for forbearance. If the mortification arising from our division could be increased, it would be by the triumph and chucklings and fomentations of the Federalists. Accept assurances of my great esteem and respect. TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. J. MSS. MONTICELLO, September 13, 1802. DEAR SIR,- * * * I have always forgotten to ask of you a general idea of the effect of the peace on our revenues so far as we have gone. It is of the utmost importance, if these diminish, to diminish our expenses; this may be done in the Naval Department. I wish it were possible to increase the impost on any articles affecting the rich chiefly, to the amount of the sugar tax, so that we might relinquish that at the next session. But this must depend on our receipts keeping up. As to the tea and coffee tax, the people do not regard it. The next tax which an increase of revenue should enable us to suppress should be the salt tax, perhaps; indeed, the production of that article at home is already undermining that tax. * * * TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (JAMES MADISON.) J. MSS. MONTICELLO, Sept. 13, 1802. DEAR SIR, I now return you the papers which came in your letter of the 11th. I am not satisfied that the ground taken by the Chancellor Livingston is advantageous. For the French government and the Spanish have only to grant him all he asks (and they will in justice & policy do that at once) & his mouth |