The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9). Томас Джефферсон
and the privileges of the parties concerned.
I have the honor to be, with great respect and esteem, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Sir,—It is my duty to communicate to you a piece of information, although I cannot say I have confidence in it myself. A French gentleman, one of the refugees from St. Domingo, informs me that two Frenchmen, from St. Domingo also, of the names of Castaing and La Chaise, are about setting out from this place for Charleston, with a design to excite an insurrection among the negroes. He says that this is in execution of a general plan, formed by the Brissotine party at Paris, the first branch of which has been carried into execution at St. Domingo. My informant is a person with whom I am well acquainted, of good sense, discretion and truth, and certainly believes this himself. I inquired of him the channel of his information. He told me it was one which had given them many pre-admonitions in St. Domingo, and which had never been found to be mistaken. He explained it to me; but I could by no means consider it as a channel meriting reliance; and when I questioned him what could be the impulse of these men, what their authority, what their means of execution, and what they could expect in result; he answered with conjectures which were far from sufficient to strengthen the fact. However, were anything to happen, I should deem myself inexcusable not to have made the communication. Your judgment will decide whether injury might not be done by making the suggestion public, or whether it ought to have any other effect than to excite attention to these two persons, should they come into South Carolina. Castaing is described as a small dark mulatto, and La Chaise as a Quarteron, of a tall fine figure.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, your Excellency's most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO DR. EDWARDS
Dear Sir,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your two favors of July 30th and August 16th, and thank you for the information they contained. We have now assembled a new Congress, being a fuller and more equal representation of the people, and likely, I think, to approach nearer to the sentiments of the people in the demonstration of their own. They have the advantage of a very full communication from the Executive of the ground on which we stand with foreign nations. Some very unpleasant transactions have taken place here with Mr. Genet, of which the world will judge, as the correspondence is now in the press; as is also that with Mr. Hammond on our points of difference with his nation. Of these you will doubtless receive copies. Had they been out yet, I should have had the pleasure of sending them to you; but to-morrow I resign my office, and two days after set out for Virginia, where I hope to spend the remainder of my days in occupations infinitely more pleasing than those to which I have sacrificed eighteen years of the prime of my life; I might rather say twenty-four of them. Our campaign with the Indians has been lost by an unsuccessful effort to effect peace by treaty, which they protracted till the season for action was over. The attack brought on us from the Algerines is a ray from the same centre. I believe we shall endeavor to do ourselves justice in a peaceable and rightful way. We wish to have nothing to do in the present war; but if it is to be forced upon us, I am happy to see in the countenances of all but our paper men a mind ready made up to meet it, unwillingly, indeed, but perfectly without fear. No nation has strove more than we have done to merit the peace of all by the most rigorous impartiality to all. Sir John Sinclair's queries shall be answered from my retirement. I am, with great esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient servant.
TO MR. GENET
Sir,—I have laid before the President of the United States your letter of the 20th instant, accompanying translations of the instructions given you by the Executive Council of France to be distributed among the members of Congress, desiring that the President will lay them officially before both houses, and proposing to transmit successively other papers, to be laid before them in like manner; and I have it in charge to observe, that your functions as the missionary of a foreign nation here, are confined to the transactions of the affairs of your nation with the Executive of the United States; that the communications, which are to pass between the Executive and Legislative branches, cannot be a subject for your interference, and that the President must be left to judge for himself what matters his duty or the public good may require him to propose to the deliberations of Congress. I have therefore the honor of returning you the copies sent for distribution, and of being, with great respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Dear Sir,—Having had the honor of communicating to you in my letter of the last of July, my purpose of returning from the office of Secretary of State, at the end of the month of September, you were pleased, for particular reasons, to wish its postponement to the close of the year. That term being now arrived, and my propensities to retirement becoming daily more and more irresistible, I now take the liberty of resigning the office into your hands. Be pleased to accept with it my sincere thanks for all the indulgences which you have been so good as to exercise towards me in the discharge of its duties. Conscious that my need of them has been great, I have still ever found them greater, without any other claim on my part, than a firm pursuit of what has appeared to me to be right, and a thorough disdain of all means which were not as open and honorable, as their object was pure. I carry into my retirement a lively sense of your goodness, and shall continue gratefully to remember it. With very sincere prayers for your life, health and tranquillity, I pray you to accept the homage of the great and constant respect and attachment with which I have the honor to be, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO E. RANDOLPH
Dear Sir,—I have to thank you for the transmission of the letters from General Gates, La Motte, and Hauterieve. I perceive by the latter, that the partisans of the one or the other principle (perhaps of both) have thought my name a convenient cover for declarations of their own sentiments. What those are to which Hauterieve alludes, I know not, having never seen a newspaper since I left Philadelphia (except those of Richmond), and no circumstances authorize him to expect that I should inquire into them, or answer him. I think it is Montaigne who has said, that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head. I am sure it is true as to everything political, and shall endeavor to estrange myself to everything of that character. I indulge myself on one political topic only, that is, in declaring to my countrymen the shameless corruption of a portion of the Representatives to the first and second Congresses, and their implicit devotion to the treasury. I think I do good in this, because it may produce exertions to reform the evil, on the success of which the form of the government is to depend.
I am sorry La Motte has put me to the expense of one hundred and forty livres for a French translation of an English poem, as I make it a rule never to read translations where I can read the original. However, the question now is, how to get the book brought here, as well as the communications with Mr. Hammond, which you were so kind as to promise me.
This is the first letter I have written to Philadelphia since my arrival at home, and yours the only ones I have received.
Accept assurances of my sincere esteem and respect. Yours affectionately.
TO JAMES MADISON
Dear Sir,—Our post having ceased to ride ever since the inoculation began in Richmond, till now, I received three days ago, and all together, your friendly favors of March the 2d, 9th, 12th, 14th, and Colonel Monroe's of March the 3d and 16th. I have been particularly gratified by the receipt of the papers containing yours and Smith's discussion of your regulating propositions. These debates had not been seen here but in a very short and mutilated form. I am at no loss to ascribe Smith's speech to its true father. Every tittle of it is Hamilton's except the introduction. There is scarcely anything there which I have not heard from him in our various private though official discussions. The very turn of the arguments is the same, and others will see as well as myself that the