them delivered out for particular purposes, that we find several missing, without being able to recollect what has been done with them. Some of them were delivered to the Attorney of this district, to be used on the occasions which arose in the District Court, and a part of them were filed, as is said, in their office. The Attorney General will examine their office to day, and has written to the District Attorney to know whether he retained any of them. No researches shall be spared to recover this letter, and if recovered, it shall immediately be sent on to you. Compiling the message from a great mass of papers, and pressed in time, the date of a particular paper may have been mistaken, but we all perfectly remember the one referred to in the message, and that its substance is there correctly stated. General Wilkinson probably has copies of all the letters he wrote me, and having expressed a willingness to furnish the one desired by the Court, the defendant can still have the benefit of it. Or should he not have the particular one on which that passage in the message is founded, I trust that his memory would enable him to affirm that it is substantially correct. I salute you with friendship and respect.
TO GEORGE BLAKE, ESQ
Sir,—I enclose you a petition of John Partridge, which I perceive to have been in your hands before, by a certificate endorsed on it. The petitioner says the term of labor to which he was sentenced expired on the 14th instant; that he is unable to pay the costs of prosecution, and therefore prays to be discharged. But in such cases it is usual to substitute an additional term of confinement equivalent to that portion of the sentence which cannot be complied with. Pardons too for counterfeiting bank paper are yielded with much less facility than others. However, in all cases I have referred these petitions to the judges and prosecuting attorney, who having heard all the circumstances of the case, are the best judges whether any of them were of such a nature as ought to obtain for the criminal a remission or abridgement of the punishment. I now enclose the papers, and ask the favor of you to take the opinion of the judges on that subject, and to favor me with your own, which will govern me in what I do, and be my voucher for it. I salute you with esteem and respect.
TO GENERAL DEARBORNE
Dear Sir,—I am sincerely sorry that I am obliged to ask your attendance here without a moment's avoidable delay. The capture of the Chesapeake by a British ship of war renders it necessary to have all our Council together. I do not suppose it will detain you long from rejoining Mrs. Dearborne. The mail is closing. Affectionate salutations.
TO MR. GALLATIN
Dear Sir,—I am sorry to be obliged to hasten your return to this place, and pray that it maybe without a moment's avoidable delay. The capture of the Chesapeake by a British ship of war renders it necessary to have all our Council together. The mail is closing. Affectionate salutations.
TO GOVERNOR CABELL
Sir,—Your favor by express was safely received on Saturday night, and I am thankful to you for the attention of which it is a proof. Considering the General and State governments as co-operators in the same holy concerns, the interest and happiness of our country, the interchange of mutual aid is among the most pleasing of the exercises of our duty. Captain Gordon, the second in command of the Chesapeake, has arrived here with the details of that affair. Yet as the precaution you took of securing us against the accident of wanting information, was entirely proper, and the expense of the express justly a national one, I have directed him to be paid here, so that he is enabled to refund any money you may have advanced him. Mr. Gallatin and General Dearborne happening to be absent, I have asked their immediate attendance here, and I expect them this day. We shall then determine on the course which the exigency and our constitutional powers call for. Whether the outrage is a proper cause of war, belonging exclusively to Congress, it is our duty not to commit them by doing anything which would be to be retracted. We may, however, exercise the powers entrusted to us for preventing future insults within our harbors, and claim firmly satisfaction for the past. This will leave Congress free to decide whether war is the most efficacious mode of redress in our case, or whether, having taught so many other useful lessons to Europe, we may not add that of showing them that there are peaceable means of repressing injustice, by making it the interest of the aggressor to do what is just, and abstain from future wrong. It is probable you will hear from us in the course of the week. I salute you with great esteem and respect.
TO MR. GALLATIN
If I understand the claim of the Creeks, it is that they shall have a right of transit across our territories, but especially along our rivers from the Spanish territories to their own, for goods for their own use, without paying us a duty. I think they are in the right. This is exactly what we are claiming of Spain, as to this very river, the Mobile. Our doctrine is that different nations inhabiting the same river have all a natural right to an innocent passage along it, just as individuals of the same nation have of a river wholly within the territory of that nation. I do not know whether our revenue law, justly construed, opposes this; but if it does not, we ought to take the case into consideration, and do what is right. It is here that the manner in which this right has been asserted by Captain Isaac, is not agreeable. But can we blame it? and ought not those who are in the wrong to put themselves in the right, without listening to false pride?
Affectionate salutations.
TO THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Dear Sir,—I congratulate you on your safe arrival with Miss Clinton at New York, and especially on your escape from British violence. This aggression is of a character so distinct from that on the Chesapeake, and of so aggravated a nature, that I consider it as a very material one to be presented with that to the British Government. I pray you, therefore, to write me a letter, stating the transaction, and in such a form as that it may go to that Government. At the same time, I must request you to instruct Mr. Gelston, from me, to take the affidavits of the Captain of the revenue cutter, and of such other persons as you shall direct, stating the same affair, and to be forwarded, in like manner, to our Minister in London.
You will have seen by the proclamation, the measures adopted. We act on these principles, 1. That the usage of nations requires that we shall give the offender an opportunity of making reparation and avoiding war. 2. That we should give time to our merchants to get in their property and vessels and our seamen now afloat. And 3. That the power of declaring war being with the Legislature, the executive should do nothing, necessarily committing them to decide for war in preference of non-intercourse, which will be preferred by a great many. They will be called in time to receive the answer from Great Britain, unless new occurrences should render it necessary to call them sooner.
I salute you with friendship and respect.
TO COLONEL TATHAM
Sir,—Your favor of the 1st instant has been received, and I thank you for the communication. Considering the mass of false reports in circulation, and the importance of being truly informed of the proceedings of the British armed vessels in the Chesapeake and its vicinities, I should be very glad, as you are on the spot, provided with a proper vessel and men, if you could continue watching their motions constantly, and giving me information of them. In that case it would be necessary you should journalize everything respecting them which should fall within your observation, and enclose daily to me a copy of the observations of the day, forwarding them to the post-office of Norfolk, by every opportunity occurring. Your allowance should be exactly on the same footing as when you were surveying the coast, and for current expenses you may draw on Mr. Bedinger, Navy Agent, at Norfolk, only accompanying each
