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The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9)

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Philadelphia, June 28, 1793.

Dear Sir,—I should have taken time ere this to have considered the observations of Mr. Young, could I at this place have done it in such a way as would satisfy either him or myself. When I wrote the notes of the last year, I had never before thought of calculating what were the profits of a capital invested in Virginia agriculture. Yet that appeared to be what Mr. Young most desired. Lest therefore no other of those, whom you consulted for him, should attempt such a calculation, I did it; but being at such a distance from the country of which I wrote, and having been absent from that and from the subject in consideration many years, I could only, for my facts, recur to my own recollection, weakened by time and very different applications, and I had no means here of correcting my facts. I therefore hazarded the calculation rather as an essay of the mode of calculating the profits of a Virginia estate, than as an operation which was to be ultimately relied on. When I went last to Virginia I put the press-copy of those notes into the hands of the most skilful and successful farmer in the part of the country of which I wrote. He omitted to return them to me, which adds another impediment to my resuming the subject here; but indeed if I had them, I could only present the same facts, with some corrections and some justifications of the principles of calculation. This would not and ought not to satisfy Mr. Young. When I return home I shall have time and opportunity of answering Mr. Young's enquiries fully. I will first establish the facts as adapted to the present times, and not to those to which I was obliged to recur by recollection, and I will make the calculation on rigorous principles. The delay necessary for this will I hope be compensated by giving something which no endeavors on my part shall be wanting to make it worthy of confidence. In the meantime Mr. Young must not pronounce too hastily on the impossibility of an annual production of £750 worth of wheat coupled with a cattle product of £125. My object was to state the produce of a good farm, under good husbandry as practised in my part of the country. Manure does not enter into this, because we can buy an acre of new land cheaper than we can manure an old acre. Good husbandry with us consists in abandoning Indian corn and tobacco, tending small grain, some red clover, following, and endeavoring to have, while the lands are at rest, a spontaneous cover of white clover. I do not present this as a culture judicious in itself, but as good in comparison with what most people there pursue. Mr. Young has never had an opportunity of seeing how slowly the fertility of the original soil is exhausted. With moderate management of it, I can affirm that the James river lowgrounds with the cultivation of small grain, will never be exhausted: because we know that under that cultivation we must now and then take them down with Indian corn, or they become, as they were originally, too rich to bring wheat. The highlands, where I live, have been cultivated about sixty years. The culture was tobacco and Indian corn as long as they would bring enough to pay the labor. Then they were turned out. After four or five years rest they would bring good corn again, and in double that time perhaps good tobacco. Then they would be exhausted by a second series of tobacco and corn. Latterly we have begun to cultivate small grain; and excluding Indian corn, and following, such of them as were originally good, soon rise up to fifteen or twenty bushels the acre. We allow that every laborer will manage ten acres of wheat, except at harvest. I have no doubt but the coupling cattle and sheep with this would prodigiously improve the produce. This improvement Mr. Young will be better able to calculate than anybody else. I am so well satisfied of it myself, that having engaged a good farmer from the head of Elk, (the style of farming there you know well,) I mean in a farm of about 500 acres of cleared land and with a dozen laborers to try the plan of wheat, rye, potatoes, clover, with a mixture of some Indian corn with the potatoes, and to push the number of sheep. This last hint I have taken from Mr. Young's letters which you have been so kind as to communicate to me. I have never before considered with due attention the profit from that animal. I shall not be able to put the farm into that form exactly the ensuing autumn, but against another I hope I shall, and I shall attend with precision to the measures of the ground and of the product, which may perhaps give you something hereafter to communicate to Mr. Young which may gratify him, but I will furnish the ensuing winter what was desired in Mr. Young's letter of Jan. 17, 1793. I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

TO DR. GILMER

Philadelphia, June 25, 1793.

Dear Doctor,—* * * * * Dumourier was known to be a scoundrel in grain. I mentioned this from the beginning of his being placed at the head of the armies; but his victories at length silenced me. His apostasy has now proved that an unprincipled man, let his other fitnesses be what they will, ought never to be employed. It has proved too that the French army, as well as nation, cannot be shaken in their republicanism. Dumourier's popularity put it to as severe a proof as could be offered. Their steadiness to their principles insures the issue of their revolution against every effort but by the way of famine. Should that take place the effect would be incalculable; because our machine, unsupported by food, is no longer under the control of reason. This crisis, however, is now nearly over, as their harvest is by this time beginning. As far as the last accounts come down, they were retiring to within their own limits; where their assignats would do for money, (except at Mentz,) England too is issuing her paper, not founded like the assignats, on land, but on pawns of thread, ribbons, &c. They will soon learn the science of depreciation, and their whole paper system vanish into nothing, on which it is bottomed. My affectionate respects to Mrs. Gilmer, and am, dear Doctor, yours, sincerely.

TO COLONEL MONROE

Philadelphia, June 28, 1793.

Dear Sir,—I have to acknowledge your favor of May 28. I believe that through all America there has been but a single sentiment on the subject of peace and war, which was in favor of the former. The Executive here has cherished it with equal and unanimous desire. We have differed perhaps as to the conduct exactly adapted to the securing it. We have as yet no indirections of the intentions or even the wishes of the British government. I rather believe they mean to hold themselves up, and be led by events. In the meanwhile Spain is so evidently picking a quarrel with us, that we see a war absolutely inevitable with her. We are making a last effort to avoid it, but our cabinet is without any decision in their expectations of the result. This may not be known before the last of October, earlier than which I think you will meet. You should therefore calculate your domestic measures on this change of position. If France collected within her own limits shall maintain her ground there steadily, as I think she will, (barring the effect of famine which no one can calculate,) and if the bankruptcies of England proceed to the length of an universal crush of their paper, which I also think they will, she will leave Spain the bag to hold; she is emitting assignats also, that is to say exchequer bills, to the amount of five millions English, or one hundred and twenty-five millions French; and these are not founded on land as the French assignats are, but on pins, thread, buckles, hops, and whatever else you will pawn in the exchequer of double the estimated value. But we all know that five millions of such stuff forced for sale on the market of London, where there will be neither cash nor credit, will not pay storage. This paper must rest then ultimately on the credit of the nation as the rest of their public paper does, and will sink with that. If either this takes place, or the confederacy is unsuccessful, we may be clear of war with England. With respect to the increase of our shipping, our merchants have no need, you know, of a permission to buy up foreign bottoms. There is no law prohibiting it, and when bought they are American property, and as such entitled to pass freely by our treaties with some nations, and by the law of nations with all. Such accordingly, by a determination of the Executive, will receive American passports. They will not be entitled indeed to import goods on the low duties of home-built vessels, the laws having confined that privilege to these only. We have taken every possible method to guard against fraudulent conveyances, which, if we can augment our shipping to the extent of our own carriage, it would not be our interest to cover. I enclose you a note from Freneau, explaining the interruption of your papers. I do not augur well of the mode of conduct of the new French minister; I fear he will enlarge the evils of those disaffected to his country. I am doing everything in my power to moderate the impetuosity of his movements, and to destroy the dangerous opinions which has been excited in him, that the people of the United States will disavow the acts of their government, and that he has an appeal from the Executive to Congress, and from both to the people. Affairs with the Creeks seem to present war there as inevitable, but that will await for you. We have no news from the northern commissioners, but of the delay likely to be attempted by the Indians; but as we never expected peace from the negotiation, I think no delay will be admitted which may defeat our preparations for a campaign. Crops here are likely to be good, though the beginning of the harvest has been a little wet. I forgot whether I informed you that I had chosen a house for you, and was determined in the choice by the southern aspect of the back buildings, the only circumstance of difference between the two presented to my choice. Give my best love to Mrs. Monroe, and be assured of the affectionate esteem of, dear Sir, your friend and servant.

TO J. MADISON

June 29, 1793.

Sir,—I wrote you on the 23d, and yesterday I received yours of the 17th, which was the more welcome as it acknowledged mine of the 9th, about the safety of which I was anxious. I now risk some other papers, the sequel of those conveyed in that. The result I know not. We are sending a courier to Madrid to make a last effort for the preservation of honorable peace. The affairs of France are recovering their solidity, and from the steadiness of the people on the defection of so popular and capital a commander as Dumourier, we have a proof that nothing can shake this republicanism. Hunger is to be expected; but the silence of the late papers on that head, and the near approach of harvest, makes us hope they will weather that rock. I do not find that there has been serious insurrection but in Brittany, and where the noblesse having been as numerous as the people, and indeed being almost the people, the counter-revolutionary spirit has been known always to have existed since the night in which titles were suppressed. The English are trying to stop the torrent of bankruptcies by an emission of five millions of exchequer bills, loaned on the pawn-broking plan, consequently much inferior to the assignats in value. But that paper will sink to an immediate level with their other public paper, and consequently can only complete the ruin of those who take it from government at par, and on a pledge of pins, buckles, &c., of little value, which will not sell so as to pay storage in a country where there is no specie, and we may say no paper of confidence. Every letter which comes expresses a firm belief that the whole paper system will now vanish into that nothing on which it is bottomed. For even the public faith is nothing as the mass of paper bottomed on it is known to be beyond its possible redemption. I hope this will be a wholesome lesson to our future Legislature. The war between France and England has brought forward the Republicans and Monocrats in every State, so that their relative numbers are perfectably visible.

TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT

Philadelphia, June 30, 1793.

Gentlemen,—I have received from Messrs. Viar and Jaudenes the representatives of Spain at this place, a letter, which, whether considered in itself, or as the sequel of several others, conveys to us very disagreeable prospects of the temper and views of their court towards us. If this letter is a faithful expression of that temper, we presume it to be the effect of egregious misrepresentations by their agents in America. Revising our own dispositions and proceedings towards that power, we can find in them nothing but those of peace and friendship for them; and conscious that this will be apparent from a true statement of facts, I shall proceed to give you such a one, to be communicated to the court of Madrid. If they find it very different from that conveyed to them by others, they may think it prudent to doubt, and to take and to give time for mutual inquiry and explanation. I shall proceed to give you this statement, beginning it from an early period.

At the commencement of the late war, the United States laid it down as a rule of their conduct, to engage the Indian tribes within their neighborhood to remain strictly neutral. They accordingly strongly pressed it on them, urging that it was a family quarrel with which they had nothing to do, and in which we wished them to take no part; and we strengthened these recommendations by doing them every act of friendship and good neighborhood, which circumstances left in our power. With some, these solicitations prevailed; but the greater part of them suffered themselves to be drawn into the war against us. They waged it in their usual cruel manner, murdering and scalping men, women and children, indiscriminately, burning their houses, and desolating the country. They put us to vast expense, as well by the constant force we were obliged to keep up in that quarter, as by the expeditions of considerable magnitude which we were under the necessity of sending into their country from time to time.

Peace being at length concluded with England, we had it also to conclude with them. They had made war on us without the least provocation or pretence of injury. They had added greatly to the cost of that war. They had insulted our feelings by their savage cruelties. They were by our arms completely subdued and humbled. Under all these circumstances, we had a right to demand substantial satisfaction and indemnification. We used that right, however, with real moderation. Their limits with us under the former government were generally ill defined, questionable, and the frequent cause of war. Sincerely desirous of living in their peace, of cultivating it by every act of justice and friendship, and of rendering them better neighbors by introducing among them some of the most useful arts, it was necessary to begin by a precise definition of boundary. Accordingly, at the treaties held with them, our mutual boundaries were settled; and notwithstanding our just right to concessions adequate to the circumstances of the case, we required such only as were inconsiderable; and for even these, in order that we might place them in a state of perfect conciliation, we paid them a valuable consideration, and granted them annuities in money which have been regularly paid, and were equal to the prices for which they have usually sold their lands.

Sensible, as they were, of the wrong they had done, they expected to make some indemnification, and were, for the most part, satisfied with the mode and measure of it. In one or two instances, where a dissatisfaction was observed to remain as to the boundaries agreed on, or doubts entertained of the authority of those with whom they were agreed, the United States invited the parties to new treaties, and rectified what appeared to be susceptible of it. This was particularly the case with the Creeks. They complained of an inconvenient cession of lands on their part, and by persons not duly representing their nation. They were therefore desired to appoint a proper deputation to revise their treaty; and that there might be no danger of any unfair practices, they were invited to come to the seat of the General Government, and to treat with that directly. They accordingly came. A considerable proportion of what had been ceded, was, on the revision, yielded back to them, and nothing required in lieu of it; and though they would have been better satisfied to have had the whole restored, yet they had obtained enough to satisfy them well. Their nation, too, would have been satisfied, for they were conscious of their aggression, and of the moderation of the indemnity with which we had been contented. But at that time came among them an adventurer of the name of Bowles, who, acting from an impulse with which we are unacquainted, flattered them with the hope of some foreign interference, which should undo what had been done, and force us to consider the naked grant of their peace as a sufficient satisfaction for their having made war on us. Of this adventurer the Spanish government rid us; but not of his principles, his practices, and his excitements against us. These were more than continued by the officers commanding at New Orleans and Pensacola, and by agents employed by them, and bearing their commission. Their proceedings have been the subject of former letters to you, and proofs of these proceedings have been sent to you. Those, with others now sent, establish the facts, that they called assemblies of the southern Indians, openly persuaded them to disavow their treaties, and the limits therein established, promised to support them with all the powers which depended on them, assured them of the protection of their sovereign, gave them arms in great quantities for the avowed purpose of committing hostilities on us, and promised them future supplies to their utmost need. The Chickasaws, the most steady and faithful friends of these States, have remained unshaken by these practices. So also have the Chocktaws, for the most part. The Cherokees have been teased into some expressions of discontent, delivered only to the Spanish Governors, or their agents; while to us they have continued to speak the language of peace and friendship. One part of the nation only, settled at Cuckamogga and mixed with banditti and outcasts from the Shawanese and other tribes, acknowledging control from none, and never in a state of peace, have readily engaged in the hostilities against us to which they were encouraged. But what was much more important, great numbers of the Creeks, chiefly their young men, have yielded to these incitements, and have now, for more than a twelvemonth, been committing murders and desolations on our frontiers. Really desirous of living in peace with them, we have redoubled our efforts to produce the same disposition in them. We have borne with their aggressions, forbidden all returns of hostility against them, tied up the hands of our people, insomuch that few instances of retaliation have occurred even from our suffering citizens; we have multiplied our gratifications to them, fed them when starving, from the produce of our own fields and labor. No longer ago than the last winter, when they had no other resource against famine, and must have perished in great numbers, we carried into their country and distributed among them, gratuitously, ten thousand bushels of corn; and that too, at the same time, when their young men were daily committing murders on helpless women and children on our frontiers. And though these depredations now involve more considerable parts of the nation, we are still demanding punishment of the guilty individuals, and shall be contented with it. These acts of neighborly kindness and support on our part have not been confined to the Creeks, though extended to them in much the greatest degree. Like wants among the Chickasaws had induced us to send to them also, at first, five hundred bushels of corn, and afterwards, fifteen hundred more. Our language to all the tribes of Indians has constantly been, to live in peace with one another, and in a most especial manner, we have used our endeavors with those in the neighborhood of the Spanish colonies, to be peaceable towards those colonies. I sent you on a former occasion the copy of a letter from the Secretary of War to Mr. Seagrove, one of our agents with the Indians in that quarter, merely to convey to you the general tenor of the conduct marked out for those agents; and I desired you, in placing before the eyes of the Spanish ministry the very contrary conduct observed by their agents here, to invite them to a reciprocity of good offices with our Indian neighbors, each for the other, and to make our common peace the common object of both nations. I can protest that such have hitherto been the candid and zealous endeavors of this government, and that if its agents have in any instance acted in another way, it has been equally unknown and unauthorized by us, and that were even probable proofs of it produced, there would be no hesitation to mark them with the disapprobation of the government. We expected the same friendly condescension from the court of Spain, in furnishing you with proofs of the practices of the Governor de Carondelet in particular practices avowed by him, and attempted to be justified in his letter.

In this state of things, in such dispositions towards Spain and towards the Indians, in such a course of proceedings with respect to them, and while negotiations were instituted at Madrid for arranging these and all other matters which might affect our friendship and good understanding, we received from Messrs. de Viar and Jaudenes their letter of May the 25th, which was the subject of mine of May the 31st to you; and now again we have received that of the 18th instant, a copy of which is enclosed. This letter charges us, and in the most disrespectful style, with

1. Exciting the Chickasaws to war on the Creeks.

2. Furnishing them with provisions and arms.

3. Aiming at the occupation of a post at the Ecores amargas.

4. Giving medals and marks of distinction to several Indians.

5. Meddling with the affairs of such as are allies of Spain.

6. Not using efficacious means to prevent these proceedings.

I shall make short observations on these charges.

1. Were the first true, it would not be unjustifiable. The Creeks have now a second time commenced against us a wanton and unprovoked war, and the present one in the face of a recent treaty, and of the most friendly and charitable offices on our part. There would be nothing out of the common course of proceeding then, for us to engage allies, if we needed any, for their punishment. But we neither need, nor have sought them. The fact itself is utterly false, and we defy the world to produce a single proof of it. The declaration of war by the Chickasaws, as we are informed, was a very sudden thing, produced by the murder of some of their people by a party of Creeks, and produced so instantaneously as to give nobody time to interfere, either to promote or prevent a rupture. We had, on the contrary, most particularly exhorted that nation to preserve peace, because in truth we have a most particular friendship for them. This will be evident from a copy of the message of the President to them, among the papers now enclosed.

2. The gift of provisions was but an act of that friendship to them, when in the same distress, which had induced us to give five times as much to the less friendly nation of the Creeks. But we have given arms to them. We believe it is the practice of every white nation to give arms to the neighboring Indians. The agents of Spain have done it abundantly, and, we suppose, not out of their own pockets, and this for purposes of avowed hostility on us; and they have been liberal in promises of further supplies. We have given a few arms to a very friendly tribe, not to make war on Spain, but to defend themselves from the atrocities of a vastly more numerous and powerful people, and one which, by a series of unprovoked and even unrepelled attacks on us, is obliging us to look towards war as the only means left of curbing their insolence.

3. We are aiming, as is pretended, at an establishment on the Mississippi, at the Ecores amargas. Considering the measures of this nature with which Spain is going on, having, since the proposition to treat with us on the subject, established posts at the Walnut hills and other places for two hundred miles upwards, it would not have been wonderful if we had taken countervailing measures. But the truth is, we have not done it. We wished to give a fair chance to the negotiation going on, and thought it but common candor to leave things in statu quo, to make no innovation pending the negotiation. In this spirit we forbid, and deterred even by military force, a large association of our citizens, under the name of the Yazoo companies, which had formed to settle themselves at those very Walnut hills, which Spain has since occupied. And so far are we from meditating the particular establishment so boldly charged in this letter, that we know not what place is meant by the Ecores amargas. This charge then is false also.

4. Giving medals and marks of distinction to the Indian chiefs. This is but blindly hinted at in this letter, but was more pointedly complained of in the former. This has been an ancient custom from time immemorial. The medals are considered as complimentary things, as marks of friendship to those who come to see us, or who do us good offices, conciliatory of their good will towards us, and not designed to produce a contrary disposition towards others. They confer no power, and seem to have taken their origin in the European practice, of giving medals or other marks of friendship to the negotiators of treaties and other diplomatic characters, or visitors of distinction. The British government, while it prevailed here, practised the giving medals, gorgets, and bracelets to the savages, invariably. We have continued it, and we did imagine, without pretending to know, that Spain also did it.

5. We meddle with the affairs of Indians in alliance with Spain. We are perfectly at a loss to know what this means. The Indians on our frontier have treaties both with Spain and us. We have endeavored to cultivate their friendship, to merit it by presents, charities, and exhortations to peace with their neighbors, and particularly with the subjects of Spain. We have carried on some little commerce with them, merely to supply their wants. Spain too has made them presents, traded with them, kept agents among them, though their country is within the limits established as ours at the general peace. However, Spain has chosen to have it understood that she has some claim to some parts of that country, and that it must be one of the subjects of our present negotiations. Out of respect for her then, we have considered her pretensions to the country, though it was impossible to believe them serious, as coloring pretensions to a concern with those Indians on the same ground with our own, and we were willing to let them go on till a treaty should set things to right between us.

6. Another article of complaint is, that we have not used efficacious means to suppress these practices. But if the charge is false, or the practice justifiable, no suppression is necessary.

And lastly, these gentlemen say that on a view of these proceedings of the United States with respect to Spain and the Indians, their allies, they foresee that our peace with Spain is very problematical in future. The principal object of the letter being our supposed excitements of the Chickasaws against the Creeks and their protection of the latter, are we to understand from this that if we arm to repulse the attacks of the Creeks on ourselves it will disturb our peace with Spain? That if we will not fold our arms and let them butcher us without resistance, Spain will consider it as a cause of war? This is, indeed, so serious an intimation, that the President has thought it could no longer be treated with subordinate characters, but that his sentiments should be conveyed to the government of Spain itself, through you.

We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we had hoped that our distance and our dispositions would have left us free, in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world. We had, with sincere and particular dispositions, courted and cultivated the friendship of Spain. We have made to it great sacrifices of time and interest, and were disposed to believe she would see her interests also in a perfect coalition and good understanding with us. Cherishing still the same sentiments, we have chosen, in the present instance, to ascribe the intimations in this letter to the particular character of the writers, displayed in the peculiarity of the style of their communications, and therefore, we have removed the cause from them to their sovereign, in whose justice and love of peace we have confidence. If we are disappointed in this appeal, if we are to be forced into a contrary order of things, our mind is made up. We shall meet it with firmness. The necessity of our position will supersede all appeal to calculation now, as it has done heretofore. We confide in our own strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it. If we cannot otherwise prevail on the Creeks to discontinue their depredations, we will attack them in force. If Spain chooses to consider our defence against savage butchery as a cause of war to her, we must meet her also in war, with regret, but without fear; and we shall be happier, to the last moment, to repair with her to the tribunal of peace and reason.