I may perhaps, with your permission, take the liberty of troubling you sometimes with a line from my retirement, and shall be ever happy to hear from you, & give every proof of the sincere esteem & respect with which I have the honor to be Dear Sir your most obedt Servt. P. S.-We received information yesterday of the conclusion of peace with the Wabash & Illinois IndiThis forms a separation between the Northern & Southern war-tribes. ans. TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. J. MSS. Nov. 16, 1792. Th: Jefferson has the honor to inform the President that the papers from Johanna Lucia Henriette Hendrickson, a Danish subject, state that she is entitled to inherit from her brother Daniel Wriesburg deceased two tracts of land in New Jersey & New York and she petitions Congress, & the states of New Jersey & New York to have justice done her, offering, if they will pay her the reasonable rents during her life and an indemnification for the detention hitherto, that she will cede to them the remainder after her death for the establishment of a charitable institution for the benefit of poor military persons, the plan of which she leaves to the President of the U. S. to settle. Th: Jefferson is of opinion that the incompetence of the General government to legislate on the subject of inheritances is a reason the more against the President's becoming the channel of a petition to them: but that it might not be amiss that Th: J. should inclose to the Governors of New Jersey & N. York the petitions addressed to their states, as some advantages are offered to them of which they will take notice, or not, at their pleasure. If the President approves of this, & will return the petitions they shall be inclosed accordingly. TO THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH. J. MSS. PHILADELPHIA Nov. 16, 1792. DEAR SIR,-Congress have not yet entered into any important business. An attempt has been made to give further extent to the influence of the Executive over the legislature, by permitting the heads of departments to attend the house and explain their measures viva voce. But it was negatived by a majority of 35 to 11 which gives us some hope of an increase of the republican vote. However no trying question enables us yet to judge, nor indeed is there reason to expect from this Congress many instances of conversion tho' some will probably have been effected by the expression of the public sentiment in the late election. For as far as we have heard the event has been generally in favor of republican & against the aristocratical candidates. In this state the election has been triumphantly carried by the republicans; their antagonists having got but 2 out of II members, and the vote of this state can generally turn the balance. Freneau's paper is getting into Massachusetts under the patronage of Hancock & Sam Adams, & Mr. Ames, the colossus of the monocrats & paper men, will either be left out or hard run. The people of that state are republican; but hitherto they have heard nothing but The hymns & lauds chaunted by Fenno.-My love to my dear Martha and am Dear Sir Yours affectionately. TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. J. MSS. Th: Jefferson has the honor to inform the President that the papers from Mons! Cointeraux of Paris contain some general ideas on his method of building houses of mud, he adds that he has a method of making incombustible roofs and ceilings, that his process for building is auxiliary to agriculture, that France owes him 66,000 livres, for so much expended in experiments & models of his art, but that the city of Paris is unable to pay him 600. livres decreed to him as a premium, that he is 51. years old has a family of seven persons, and asks of Congress the expenses of their passage & a shop to work in. Th: Jefferson saw M. Cointeraux at Paris, went often to examine some specimens of mud walls which he erected there, and which appeared to be of the same kind generally built in the neighborhood of Lyons, which have stood perhaps for a century. Instead of moulding bricks, the whole wall is moulded at once, & suffered to dry in the sun, when it becomes like unburnt brick. This is the most serious view of his papers. He proceeds further to propose to build all our villages incombustible that the enemy may not be able to burn them, to fortify them all with his kind. of walls impenetrable to their cannon, to erect a like wall across our whole frontier to keep off the Indians, observing it will cost us nothing but the building, &c. &c. &c. The paper is not in the form of a petition, tho' evidently intended for Congress, & making a proposition to them. It does not however merit a departure from the President's rule of not becoming the channel of petitions to that body, nor does it seem entitled to any particular answer. ACT TO AMEND THE ACT INTITLED AN ACT MAKING PROVI- [November, 1792.] It being highly expedient that no time should be lost in redeeming those portions of the principal of the Public debt which may be annually redeemed, and more desirable, until other funds shall be provided, to apply to this object the surplus of duties described in the act making provision for the reduction of the Public debt, than to the purchase of any other part of the said Debt. Be it enacted by the Senate & House of Repr of the U. S. of A. in Congs. assembled, that the sd surplus now in the treasury, or hereafter coming into the treasury shall be applied under the direction of the persons therein named to the redemption of those proportions of the public debt bearing a present interest of six per centum per annum which may be lawfully redeemed, for the year preceeding the sd payments; and the residue, if any, to the redemption of the proportion of the same debt which may be redeemed in the then succeeding year. TO THE FRENCH MINISTER. (JEAN BAPTISTE TERNANT.) J. MSS. PHILADELPHIA Novr 20th, 1792. SIR,-Your letter on the subject of further supplies to the colony of St. Domingo, has been duly received and considered. When the distress of that Colony first broke forth, we thought we could not better evidence our friendship to that, and to the mother country also, than to step in to its relief, on your application, without waiting a formal authorization from the national Assembly. As the case was unforeseen, so it was unprovided for on their part, and we did what we doubted not they would have desired us to do, had there been time to make the application, and what we presumed they would sanction as soon as known to them. We have now been going on more than a twelve-month, in making advances for the relief of the Colony, without having as yet received any such sanction; for the Decree of 4. millions of Livres in aid of the Colony, besides the circuitous and informal manner by which we became acquainted with it, describes and applies to operations very different from those which have actually taken place. The wants of the Colony appear likely to continue, and their reliance on our supplies to become habitual. We feel every disposition to continue our efforts for administering to those wants; but that cautious attention to forms, which would have been unfriendly in the first moment, becomes a duty to ourselves; when the business assumes the appearance of long continuance, and respectful also to the National assembly itself, who have a right to prescribe the line of an interference so materially interesting to the Mother country and the Colony. By the estimate you were pleased to deliver me, we perceive that there will be wanting to carry the Colony through the month of December, between 30 & 40,000 dollars, in addition to the sums before engaged to you. I am authorized to inform you that the sum of 40,000 Dollars shall be paid to your orders at the Treasury of the United States, and to assure you that we feel no abatement in our dispositions to contribute these aids from time to time, as they shall be wanting for the necessary subsistence of the Colony but the want of express approbation from the national legislature must ere long produce a presumption that they contemplate perhaps other modes of relieving the Colony, and dictate to us the propriety of doing only what they shall have regularly and previously sanctioned. Their Decree before mentioned, contemplates purchases made in the United States only. In this they might probably have in view, as well to keep the business of providing supplies under a single direction, as that these supplies should be bought where they can be had cheapest, and where the same sum will consequently effect the greatest measure of relief to the Colony. It is our wish, as undoubtedly it must be yours, that the monies we furnish, be applied strictly in the line they prescribe. We understand, however, that there are in the hands of our Citizens, some bills drawn by the administration of the Colony, for articles of subsistence delivered there. It seems just that such of them should be paid as were received before bona fide notice that that mode of supply was not bottomed on the funds furnished to you by the United States, and we recommend them to you accordingly. |