Court.

He admitted an inclination towards a trip to Europe as more eligible than his situation here; and, after a few uninteresting observations, concurred in the measure with a mutual understanding that the appointment would be postponed for some days, till he could wind up the business of his Department, and prepare for his departure from Washington. I observed that as the 1st of April, closed a quarter it might be a convenient epoch, for the date of his Commission, in which he acquiesced. He said he supposed there would be no impropriety in letting it be known that the mission was on foot; none at all. After a short pause, May I say that the appointment is offered to me. I have no objection, it being of course understood that it is to take place on the 1st of April; and that you will let me be at liberty as many days previous as may be convenient, to take overt measures for supplying the vacancy, which he promised. The conversation closed with his proposal that it should be considered as entirely confidential, & my acquiescence in it.

From his conversations & conduct for several days, in his office & elsewhere, it was not doubted that he persisted in his intention to accept the Mission, and was making preparations accordingly. Circumstances soon however began to denote & strengthen doubts, particularly his declining, after accepting my invitation, to dine with a party, including the Russian Legation; and as I did not hear from him as was expected and the 1st of April approached I sent for him.

On his arrival, I told him my object, and that I had, according to the understanding between us, caused a Commission to be made out for him. He said he was himself on the point of coming over to me, with the view of returning into my hands his Commission of Secretary of State, (handing it to me at the same time) and to inform me that he had determined to decline the other which had been proffered to him. However disposed he might have been to accept it under other circumstances, it was impossible he could do so under such as would give it the appearance of a mere expedient to get rid of him

as Secretary of State. He had learned from Baltimore that a removal of him was believed to have been determined on, under the influence of intrigues agst him, and that this intention was known even to federal members of Congress, as was evinced by their language on their return home, that the same impression existed elsewhere; that he had, in fact, recd letters from his friends not only in Baltimore, but in Penna & N. York, advising him by no means to make himself a party to the transaction by accepting the Russian Mission, which would be regarded as a mere cover for his removal. I told him I could not be answerable for the reports or assertions that might be propagated; that the course I had pursued was the one deemed proper in the circumstances which had resulted from that pursued by him, and had been as delicate and favorable to him as could be reconciled with what I owed to the Public & to myself; that in tendering him the Commission for Russia, I wished him to accept it for the reasons explained to him; that what the Federalists said on the occasion, must have grown out of the conversations which had, as was well known, been frequent & free among the friends of the administration, on the necessity of a change in the Department of State. I availed myself of this turn of the conversation, to allude anew to the reports & complaints, that the Federalists were the first to get from him information of our foreign Affairs; and to its being understood that he had told Mr. Morier that the whole policy of the Government towards G. B. had been contrary to his opinion & advice. This he denied. I assured him there was full evidence that Morier had said so; that this was known to and believed by sundry members of Congs, and had contributed, with other causes, to strengthen the current running agst him. I reminded him of the official letter from Mr. Morier to him, complaining of the non-intercourse being enforced against G. B. during the actual conduct of France in which he (M) referred to a conversation in which he (S.) admitted that G. B. had a right to complain; I told him I had been surprised, when he communicated the letter

to me, to find no apparent intention of a formal disavowal of that circumstance till I had pressed it on him as material to himself in case the correspondence should be brought before the public or Congress; and that I did not approve of the course finally taken by him, of getting Morier to withdraw the letter and substitute another omitting the passage; a course less eligible than the one I had suggested, of a written disavowal, as Morier's communications to his Govt might correspond with his first letter, and might find their way to the public thro' a Call for papers by the British Parliament, in which case the statement would be without his contradiction. These I observed were disagreeable topics, and I willingly turned from them, to repeat to him, that with a wish to consult the sensibility of common friends, I had been ready to give him in exchange for an office which he professed no longer to relish, a foreign Mission which in itself did not appear to be unacceptable to him; and that it was still in his option, & would remain so for a short time longer, if he wished to deliberate further on the subject. He said he had made up his mind, & meant to be understood as having given his final answer to the proposal. He recurred to the aspect it wore of an indirect removal of him from the department of State, and to the allegation of intrigues agst him, which had been mistaken for a loss of Confidence with the public & with Cong; regretted the tendency of what was taking place to injure the Republican cause, observing again that he should be supported by a Body of friends, and that he knew he could stand on good ground in justifying himself to his Country. I assured him that neither my sentiments nor conduct in relation to him were in the least the effect of intrigues, to which I should never listen, but of the facts & considerations I had unfolded to him; that I did not doubt the friendship for him of a number of respectable & weighty characters, but it was not less true, however disagreeable it might be to dwell on the circumstance, that with the Public, as well as among the members of Congs in both Houses, the tide was setting strongly & extensively agst him;

that I regretted as much as himself a tendency in any occurrence to impair harmony among the Republicans, more especially at this time & in this State, but that I believed this was not likely to be much the case; conceiving that the administration rested on ground as solid as at any preceding period; & that for myself, I was entirely confident that what I had done in relation to him, could be justified not only to the public, if it should become there necessary, but even to the most partial of his personal friends; that I cd have no personal objection therefore to any step he might take which would call the public attention to it. He said it was not his wish, however confident he might be of the ground on which he stood, to introduce any public discussion. The conversation being at an end, he took his leave with a cold formality, and I did not see him afterwards.

On reading over the above, I recollect nothing worth mentioning which is omitted; unless it be thought an exception, that in some stage of the conversation I alluded to the pretty general opposition made by his brother in the Senate to the measures proposed or supposed to be approved, by the Executive, and its effect in strengthening the presumption with many of a like spirit in the Secretary of State; explicitly declaring, at the same time, that however I might be sometimes disappointed at the part taken by his brother, or regret it on account of his talents & his weight, I had always considered myself bound to suppose him actuated by a just respect for the independence of his station & his character; and that as he stood in no official connection with the Executive rendering him anywise responsible for his political conduct, I had never permitted myself to complain of it.

APRIL, 1811.

J. M.

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

MAD. MSS.

W. May 3, 1811

DEAR SIR I have recd yours of the 24 Ap11 and return the letter inclosed in it; after having made the communication intended for Mr. Gallatin. Your expostulations with Duane could not be improved; but he gives proofs of a want of candor, as well as of temperance, that will probably repel advice, however rational or friendly. The great fulcrum of his attacks on Mr. Gallatin is Erskine's statement of his favorable dispositions toward England; and these attacks he obstinately reiterates and amplifies, notwithstanding the public & solemn denial of Mr. G: whilst Mr. Smith & myself, tho' included in a like statement, under which we have both remained silent, have not been reproached on that account, and Mr. S. is become an object even of favor. A like want of candor is seen in the comments of the Aurora, on the putative explanation of the rupture between Mr. S. & myself. Of the alledged points of difference, the main one, viz: the non-intercourse, it appears as his opinion on my side; yet he takes the other side generally without alluding to the exception; and of late, restricts his comments to Macon's bills, or smothers the "non-intercourse" under an &c, or confounds the measure with the manner of its execution. Again, Whilst he admits occasionally that the non-intercourse, or rather non-importation now in force, is the best and the only adequate resort

1 See Jefferson's correspondence with and concerning Duane in Writings of Jefferson (Ford), ix., 310 et seq.