TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. J. MSS. MONTICELLO, August 16, 1806. DEAR SIR,-I have made it a rule to grant no pardon in any criminal case but on the recommendation of the judges who sat on the trial, and the district attorney, or two of them. I believe it a sound rule, and not to be departed from but in extraordinary cases. This occasions me to trouble you with the enclosed petition. It is probable the party petitioning, or his friends, on being informed of the rule, will take the petition and present it for the necessary signature; I ask the favor of you accordingly to put it into their hands with the necessary information. I salute you with affection and respect. TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. J. MSS. MONTICELLO, August 28, 1806. DEAR SIR,-I returned hither the day before yesterday, and found your two letters of the 15th. I am much pleased with the expectation of Mr. Thompson's continuance in office in the Orleans land office. The appointment of Robert Sargent as second mate of the revenue cutter of Delaware is approved. On the subject of the negotiation for the Floridas, not one word further than is known to you has been received. You shall immediately know when anything is received. As to the proposition for employing the Hornet to transport money for certain merchants from a belligerent port to the United States, Mr. Miller seems to have viewed one side of the question only. The other would not withstand a moment's reflection. Every neutral vessel, armed or unarmed, transporting merchandise of money or other goods, is rightfully liable to search by the ships of war of a belligerent. Private vessels, even armed, are accordingly searched. The public armed ships are not, because no nation uses them but for the protection of private commerce, not for carrying it on. The honor of the nation is relied on that they are not so employed; and the nation VOL. VIII.-30 who lend them to such purposes must give up their exemption from search. Should a British frigate, having intimation of the Hornet's cargo, demand and make a search, he would find on board the proofs that our public ships abuse their privilege and of course must be denied it. The license to four British vessels to sail to Lima proves that belligerents may, either by compact or force, conduct themselves towards one another as they please; but not that a neutral may, unless by express permission of the belligerent. If the money said to have been brought from Jamaica by Murray & Mullony was private property, the act was wrong and ought not to be repeated. There are other insuperable reasons in this case, but this one is sufficient. I must take a little more time to consider and answer as to the Western roads and Louisiana instructions. Affectionate salutations. TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. J. MSS. MONTICELLO, August 31, 1806. DEAR SIR, I now return you the papers respecting the Louisiana Board of Commissioners, with only the alteration of omitting the words in the Xth instruction, about which you had doubted yourself. At the same time it is without confidence I give any opinion on this subject, having always considered your knowledge on it so exact as to supersede the necessity of my studying it minutely. If any opinion in aid of yours be necessary, I am sorry we could not call in that of the Attorney General, who is acquainted with the subject. I return also the papers on the Western roads. I have not here a complete copy of the laws of the last session, and particularly no copy of that respecting the road from the Mississippi to the Ohio. If I recollect it rightly, it authorized us to open but one road. If so, the branchings proposed by Mr. Badollet may be beyond our powers. At any rate, they should be secondary, and not attempted till we know there will be money left after accomplishing the principal one. I submit to you, therefore, whether we should not suspend all measures respecting the branching roads. With respect to the great and important road which is the principal object : 1. Why should not the guide-line from St. Louis to Vincennes be direct, instead of bending to B? 2. I like your idea of straightening the guide-line from Vincennes, although it may pass through a corner of the Indian lands. But if necessary to cross the river at A on account of the ford, should not the guide-line go thence direct to Cincinnati, as I have pencilled it, or to Dayton, if that be the shortest way to Chillicothe? and even in that case the fork to Cincinnati might be transferred to C. 3. But the post-office map (the only one I have here) must be egregiously wrong if Dayton is not much out of the direct road from Vincennes to Chillicothe. According to that Cincinnati is in the direct line. But perhaps the deviation by Dayton is from economy, and to spare our fund the expense of opening the road from Cincinnati to Chillicothe and Marietta. But I doubt whether for a temporary reason we ought to do a permanent injury, especially as we may with certainty expect that Congress will enlarge the appropriation. As to the branches of the roads, if it be lawful and advisable to extend our operations to them, I presume that to Louisville C. H. will be the most important. But should the fund hold out, that to Kaskaskia may be taken in ultimately. I think Mr. Badollet is right in proposing that the road shall not be opened more than a rod wide. Accept affectionate salutations, and assurances of constant esteem and respect. TO JOSEPH HAMILTON DAVEISS.1 MONTICELLO, Sept. 12, '06. SIR,-Your letter of Aug. 14 has been just received. The first of Jan. 10 was acknowledged in mine of After that, those of Feb. 10, Mar. 5, April As their matter do not Feb. 15. 5 and 21, came in due time. 1 From Daveiss' View of the President's Conduct, Frankfort, 1806, p. 25. require answer, their acknowledgment was postponed to avoid the suspicion of which you seemed to be aware, as well as to await your return from the journey you had undertaken. The acknowledgment of their receipt is now therefore made to relieve you from any anxiety respecting their safety, and you may rely on the most inviolable secrecy as to the past and any future communication you may think proper to make. Your letters are not filed in the offices; but will be kept among my private papers. Accept my salutations and assurances of respect. TO W. A. BURWELL. J. MSS. MONTICELLO, Sept. 17, 06. DEAR SIR, Yours of Aug. 7, from Liberty, never got to my hands till the 9th instant. About the same time I received the Enquirer, in which Decius was so judiciously answered. The writer of that paper observed, that the matter of Decius1 consisted, 1st of facts; 2dly, of inferences from these facts: that he was not well enough informed to affirm or deny his facts, & he therefore examines his inferences, and in a very masterly manner shews that even were his facts true, the reasonable inferences from them are very different from those drawn by Decius. But his facts are far from truth, and should be corrected. It happened that Mr. Madison & Genl Dearborne were here when I received your letter. I therefore, with them, 1 "Decius" was the signature used by John Randolph to a series of papers in the "Richmond Examiner." took up Decius & read him deliberately; & our memories aided one another in correcting his bold & unauthorized assertions. I shall note the most material of these in the order of the paper. 1. It is grossly false that our ministers, as is said in a note, had proposed to surrender our claims to compensation for Spanish spoliations, or even for French. Their instructions were to make no treaty in which Spanish spoliations were not provided for; and altho they were permitted to be silent as to French spoliations carried into Spanish ports, they were not expressly to abandon even them. 2. It is not true that our ministers, in agreeing to establish the Colorado as our Western boundary, had been obliged to exceed the authority of their instructions. Altho' we considered our title good as far as the Rio Bravo, yet in proportion to what they could obtain East of the Missipi, they were to relinquish to the Westward, & successive sacrifices were marked out, of which even the Colorado was not the last. 3. It is not true that the Louisiana treaty was antedated, lest Great Britain should consider our supplying her enemies with money as a breach of neutrality. After the very words of the treaty were finally agreed to, it took some time, perhaps some days, to make out all the copies in the very splendid manner of Bonaparte's treaties. Whether the 30th of Apr., 1803, the date expressed, was the day of the actual compact, or that on which it was signed, our memories do not enable us to say. If the former, then it is strictly conformable to the day of the compact; if the latter, then it was postdated, instead of being antedated. The motive assigned too, is as incorrect |