Mr. Adams and myself would permit the chairman of
the committee of American merchants to call on us.
He observed that the same person happened to be
chairman of the committee of the whole body of



VOL. IV. 14



210 THE WRITINGS OF [1876

British merchants ; and that such was the respect paid
to his person & office that we might consider what
came from him as coming from the committees them-
selves. He called on us at an appointed hour. He
was a Mr. Duncan Campbell, formerly much con-
cerned in the American trade. We entered on the
subject of the non-execution of the late treaty of peace
alleged on both sides. We observed that the refusal
to deliver the Western posts, and the withdrawing
American property contrary to express stipulation,
having preceded what they considered as breaches on
our part, were to be considered as the causes of our
proceedings. The obstructions thrown by our legis-
latures in the way of the recovery of their debts were
insisted on by him. We observed to him that the
great amount of the debt from America to Great
Britain, and the little circulating coin in the former
country, rendered an immediate paiment impossible,
that time was necessary, that we had been authorized
to enter into explanatory arrangements on this sub-
ject ; that we had made overtures for the purpose
which had not been attended to, and that the states
had therefore been obliged to modify the article for
themselves. He acknowledged the impossibility of
immediate paiment, the propriety of an explanatory
convention, and said that they were disposed to allow
a reasonable time. We mentioned the term of five
years, including the present, but that judgments might
be allowed immediately, only dividing the execution
into equal & annual parts so that the last should be
levied by the close of the year 1 790. This seemed



1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 211

to be quite agreeable to him, and to be as short a
term as would be insisted on by them. Proceeding
to the sum to be demanded, we agreed that the prin-
cipal with the interest incurring before and after the
war should be paid ; but as to that incurring during the
war, we differed from him. He urged it's justice with re-
spect to themselves who had laid out of the use of their
money during that period. This was his only topic.
We opposed to it all those which circumstances both
public & private gave rise to. He appeared to feel
their weight but said the renunciation of this interest
was a bitter pill, and such an one as the merchants
here could not swallow. He wished that no declara-
tion should be made as to this article : but we ob-
served that if we entered into explanatory declarations
of the points unfavourable to us, we should expect, as
a consideration for this, corresponding declarations on
the parts in our favour. In fact we supposed his
view to be to leave this part of the interest to stand
on the general expressions of the treaty, that they
might avail themselves in individual cases of the
favourable dispositions of debtors or of juries. We
proceeded to the necessity of arrangements of our
future commerce, were it only as a means of enabling
our country to pay it's debts. That they had been
contracted while certain modes of remittance had
existed here, and had been an inducement to us to
contract these debts. He said he was not authorized
to speak on the subject of the future commerce. He
appeared really & feelingly anxious that arrangements
.should be stipulated as to the paiment of the old



212 THE WRITINGS OF [1786

debts ; said he would proceed in that moment to Lord
Caermarthen's, and discuss the subject with him, and
that we might expect to hear from him. He took
leave ; and we never since heard from him or any
other person on the subject. Congress will judge
how far these conversations should influence their
future proceedings, or those of the states.

I have the honour to be with the highest respect
& esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble serv-



TO JOHN PAGE. j. MSS.

PARIS, May 4, 1786.

DEAR SIR, Your two favours of Mar 15 and Aug
23, 1785, by Monsieur de la Croix came to hand on
the 1 5th of November. His return gives me an
opportunity of sending you a copy of the nautical
almanacs for 1786, 7, 8, 9. There is no late and in-
teresting publication here, or I would send it by the
same conveiance. With these almanacs I pack a
copy of some Notes I wrote for Monsr de Marbois in
the year 1781, of which I had a few printed here.
They were written in haste & for his private inspec-
tion. A few friends having asked copies I found it
cheaper to print than to write them. They will offer
nothing new to you, not even as an oblation of my
friendship for you which is as old almost as we are
ourselves. Mazzei brought me your favor of Apr 28.
I thank you much for your communications. Nothing
can be more grateful at such a distance. It is unfor-



1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 213

tunate that most people think the occurrences pass-
ing daily under their eyes, are either known to all the
world, or not worth being known. They therefore
do not give them place in their letters. I hope you
will be so good as to continue your friendly informa-
tion. The proceedings of our public bodies, the
progress of the public mind on interesting questions,
the casualties which happen among our private
friends, and whatever is interesting to yourself and
family will always be anxiously received by me.
There is one circumstance in the work you were con-
cerned in which has not yet come to my knowledge,
to wit how far Westward from Fort Pitt does the
Western boundary of Pennsylvania pass, and where
does it strike the Ohio ? The proposition you men-
tion from Mr. Anderson on the purchase of tobacco,
I would have made use of, but that I have engaged
the abuses of the tobacco trade on a more general
scale. I confess their redress does not appear with
any certainty : but till I see all hope of removing the
evil by the roots, I cannot propose to prune it's
branches.

I returned but three or four days ago from a two
months trip to England. I traversed that country
much, and own both town & country fell short of my
expectations. Comparing it with this, I found a
much greater proportion of barrens, a soil in other
parts not naturally so good as this, not better culti-
vated, but better manured, & therefore more produc-
tive. This proceeds from the practice of long leases
there, and short ones here. The labouring people



214 THE WRITINGS OF [1786

here are poorer than in England. They pay about
one half their produce in rent, the English in general
about a third. The gardening in that country is the
article in which it surpasses all the earth. I mean
their pleasure gardening. This indeed went far be-
yond my ideas. The city of London, tho' handsomer
than Paris, is not so handsome as Philadelphia.
Their architecture is in the most wretched stile I ever
saw, not meaning to except America where it is bad,
nor even Virginia where it is worse than in any other
part of America, which I have seen. The mechanical
arts in London are carried to a wonderful perfection.
But of these I need not speak, because of them my
countrymen have unfortunately too many samples
before their eyes. I consider the extravagance which
has seized them as a more baneful evil than toryism
was during the war. It is the more so as the exam-
ple is set by the best and most amiable characters
among us. Would that a missionary appear who would
make frugality the basis of his religious system, and
go thro the land preaching it up as the only road to
salvation, I would join his school tho' not generally
disposed to seek my religion out of the dictates of
my own reason & feelings of my own heart. These
things have been more deeply impressed on my mind
by what I have heard & seen in England. That
nation hates us, their ministers hate us, and their
King more than all other men. They have the im-
pudence to avow this, tho' they acknolege our trade
important to them. But they say we cannot prevent
our countrymen from bringing that into their laps.



1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 215

A conviction of this determines them to make no
terms of commerce with us. They say they will
pocket our carrying trade as well as their own. Our
overtures of commercial arrangement have been
treated with a derision which shows their firm persua-
sion that we shall never unite to suppress their com-
merce or even to impede it. I think their hostility
towards us is much more deeply rooted at present
than during the war. In the arts the most striking
thing I saw there, new, was the application of the
principle of the steam-engine to grist mills. I saw 8
pr. of stones which are worked by steam, and they
are to set up 30 pair in the same house. A hundred
bushels of coal a day are consumed at present. I do
not know in what proportion the consumption will be
increased by the additional geer.

Be so good as to present my respects to Mrs. Page
& your family, to W. Lewis, F. Willis & their fami-
lies and to accept yourself assurances of the sincere
regard with which I am Dr Sir your affectionate
friend & servt.

P. S. Mazzei is still here and will publish soon a
book on the subject of America.



TO JAMES ROSS. J.MSS.

PARIS, May 8, 1786.

DEAR SIR, I have duly received your favor of
Octob 22, and am much gratified by the communica-
tions therein made. It has given me details which



2i6 THE WRITINGS OF [1786

do not enter into the views of my ordinary corre-
spondents, and which are very entertaining. I ex-
perience great satisfaction at seeing my country
proceed to facilitate the intercommunications of it's
several parts by opening rivers, canals & roads. How
much more rational is this disposal of public money,
than that of waging war.

Before the receipt of your letter, Morris's contract
for 60,000 hhds of tob was concluded with the Farmers
general. I have been for some time occupied in
endeavouring to destroy the root of the evils which
the tobacco trade encounters in this country : by
making the ministers sensible that merchants will not
bring a commodity to a market where but one person
is allowed to buy it : and that so long as that single
purchaser is obliged to go to foreign markets for it,
he must pay for it in coin & not in commodities.
These truths have made their way to the minds of
the ministry, insomuch as to have delayed the execu-
tion of the new lease of the farms six months. It is
renewed however for three years, but so as not to
render impossible a reformation of this great evil.
They are sensible of the evil, but it is so interwoven
with their fiscal system that they find it hazardous to
disentangle. The temporary distress too of the reve-
nue they are not prepared to meet. My hopes there-
fore are weak, though not quite desperate. When
they become so, it will remain to look about for the
best palliative this monopoly can bear. My present
idea is that it will be found in a prohibition to the
farmers general to purchase tobacco anywhere but in



1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 217

France. You will perceive by this that my object is
to strengthen the connection between this country &
my own in all useful points. I am of opinion that
23,000 hhds of tobacco, the annual consumption of
this country, do not exceed the amount of those com-
modities which it is more advantageous to us to buy
here than in England, or elsewhere, and such a
commerce would powerfully reinforce the motives for
a friendship from this country towards ours. This
friendship we ought to cultivate closely, considering
the present dispositions of England towards us. I
am lately returned from a visit to that country. It
appears to me to be more hostile than during the war ;
this spirit of hostility has always existed in the mind
of the King, but it has now extended itself thro' the
whole mass of people, and the majority in the public
councils. In a country where the voice of the people
influences so much the measures of administration
and where it coincides with the private temper of the
King, there is no pronouncing on future events. It
is true they have nothing to gain & much to lose by
a war with us. But interest is not the strongest pas-
sion in the human breast. There are difficult points too
still unsettled between us. They have not withdrawn
their armies out of our country nor given satisfaction
for the property they brought off. On our part we
have not paid our debts, and it will take time to pay
them. In conferences with some distinguished mer-
cantile characters, I found them sensible of the im-
possibility of our paying these debts at once, and that
an endeavor to force universal & immediate paiment



2i8 THE WRITINGS OF [1786

would render debts desperate, which are good in
themselves. I think we should not have differed in
the term necessary. We differed essentially in the
article of interest. For while the principal & interest
preceding & subsequent to the war seems justly due
from us, that which incurred during the war does not.
Interest is a compensation for the use of money.
Their money in our hands was in the form of lands
& negroes. Tobacco, the produce of these lands and
negroes (or as I may call it, the interest of them)
being almost impossible of conveyance to the markets
of consumption, because taken by themselves in it's
way there, sold during the war at 5/ or 6/ the hundred.
This did not pay tools, taxes, & other plantation
charges. A man who should have attempted to remit
to his creditor tobacco for either principal or interest,
must have remitted it three times before one would
have arrived safe : and this from the depredations of
their own nation, and often of the creditor himself,
for some of the merchants entered deeply into the
privateering business. The individuals who did not,
say they have lost this interest : the debtor replies
that he has not gained, & that it is a case where a
loss having incurred, every one tries to shift it from
himself. The known bias of the human mind from
motives of interest, should lessen the confidence of
each party in the justice of their reasoning ; but it is
difficult to say which of them should make the sacri-
fice both of reason & interest. Our conferences were
intended as preparatory to some arrangement. It is in-
certain how far we should have been able to accommo-



1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 219

date our opinions. But the absolute aversion of the
government to enter into any arrangement prevented
the object from being pursued. Each country is left
to do justice to itself & to the other according to its
own ideas, as to what is past, and to scramble for
the future as well as they can : to regulate their com-
merce by duties and prohibitions, and perhaps by
cannons & mortars ; in which event we must aban-
don the ocean where we are weak, leaving to neutral
nations the carriage of our commodities : & measure
with them on land where they alone can lose. Fare-
well then all our useful improvements of canals, roads,
reformations of laws & other rational emploiments.
I really doubt whether there is temper enough on
either side to prevent this issue of our present hatred.
Europe is at this moment without the appearance of
a cloud. The death of the K of Prussia, daily ex-
pected, may raise one. My paper admonishes me
that after asking a continuance of your favors, it is
time for me to conclude with assurances of the
esteem with which I am Dr Sir, your friend & servt.



TO JAMES MONROE. J. MSS.

PARIS, May 10, 1786.

DEAR SIR, My last to you was of Jan. 27. Since
that I have received yours of Jan. 19. Information
from other quarters gives me reasons to suspect you
have in negotiation a very important change in your
situation. You will carry into the execution all my



220 THE WRITINGS OF [1786

wishes for your happiness. I hope it will not detach
you from a settlement in your own country. I had
even entertained hopes of your settling in my neigh-
borhood : but these were determined by your desir-
ing a plan of a house for Richmond. However
reluctantly I relinquish this prospect, I shall not the
less readily obey your commands by sending you a
plan. Having been much engaged since my return
from England in answering the letters & despatching
other business which had accumulated during my ab-
sence, & being still much engaged, perhaps I may
not be able to send the plan by this conveyance. If
I do not send it now, I will surely by the first convei-
ance after this. Your Encyclopedic, containing 18
livraisons, went off last night for Havre, from whence
it will go in a vessel bound to N. York. It will be
under the care of M. la Croix a passenger, who, if he
does not find you in N. York will carry it to Virginia.
I send it to Richmond. Another copy in a separate
box, goes for Currie. I pay here all charges to N.
York. What may occur afterwards I desire him to
ask either of you or Currie, as either will pay for the
other, or to draw on me for them. My letters to
Mr. Jay will inform you of the objects which carried
me to England : and that the principal one, the treaty
with Portugal has been accomplished. Tho' we
were unable to procure any special advantages in
that, yet we thought it of consequence to insure our
trade againt those particular checks and discourage-
ments which it has heretofore met with there. The
information as to the Barbary states, which we ob-



1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 221

tained from Abdrahaman the Tripoline ambassador was
also given to Mr. Jay. If it be right, & the scale of
proportion between those nations which we had set-
tled be also right, eight times the sum required by
Tripoli will be necessary to accomplish a peace with
the whole, that is to say about two hundred and fifty
thousand guineas. The continuance of this peace
will depend on their idea of our power to enforce it,
and on the life of the particular Dey or other head of
the government, with whom it is contracted. Con-
gress will no doubt weigh these circumstances against
the expense & probable success of compelling a peace
by arms. Count d'Estaing having communicated to
me verbally some information as to an experiment
formerly made by this country, I shall get him to put
it into writing and I will forward it to Congress, as it
will aid them in their choice of measures. Accord-
ing to this a force, which after the first outfit, might
cost about three thousand guineas a month sufficed
in a short time. However, which plan is eligible can
only be known to ourselves who are on the spot &
have under your view all the difficulties of both.
There is a third measure : that of abandoning the Medi-
terranean carriage to other nations. With respect to
England no arrangements can be taken. The mer-
chants were certainly disposed to have consented to
accommodation as to the article of debts. I was not
certain when I left England that they would relinquish
the interest during the war. A letter received since
from the first character among the American mer-
chants in Scotland satisfies me they would have re-



222 THE WRITINGS OF [1786

linquished it to insure the capital & residue of inter-
est. Would to heaven all the states therefore would
settle on a uniform plan. To open the courts to
them so that they might obtain judgments, to divide
the executions into so many equal annual instalments
as that the last might be paid in the year 1 790, to
have the paiments in actual money, and to include
the capital & interest preceding & subsequent to
the war, would give satisfaction to the world, and to
the merchants in general. Since it is left for each
nation to pursue their own measures in the execution
of the late treaty, may not Congress with propriety
recommend a mode of executing that article respect-
ing the debts, and send it to each state to be passed
into law. Whether England gives up the posts or
not, these debts must be paid, or our character
stained with infamy among all nations & to all
times. As to the satisfaction for slaves carried off,
it is a bagatelle which if not made good before
the last instalment becomes due, may be secured out
of that.

I formerly communicated the overtures for a treaty
which had been made by the Imperial ambassador.
The instructions from Congress being in their favor,
and Mr. Adams's opinion also, I encouraged them.
He expected his full powers when I went to England.
Yet I did not think, nor did Mr. Adams, that this
was of importance enough to weigh against the ob-
jects of that journey. He received them soon after
my departure, & communicated it to me on my return,
.asking a copy of our propositions. I gave him one,



1786] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 223

but observed our commission had then but a few days
to run. He desired I would propose to Congress the
giving new powers to go on with this, and said that in
the meantime he would arrange with us the plan. In
a commercial view, no great good is to be gained by
this, but in a political one it may be expedient. Our
national respect needs strengthening in Europe. It
will certainly receive reinforcement by our being re-
ceived into alliance by the second power & what will
shortly be the first character in Europe. He is at the
head too of the other great European confederacy,
and may serve us with all the powers in that scale. As
the treaty would of course be in the terms of those of
Prussia & Portugal, it will give us but little additional
embarrasment in any commercial regulations we may
wish to establish. The exceptions from these which
the other treaties will require, may take in the treaty
with the Emperor. I should be glad to communicate
some answer as soon as Congress shall have made up
their minds on it. My information to Congress on
the subject of our commercial articles with this coun-
try has only come down to Jan 27. Whether I
shall say anything on it in my letter to Mr. Jay by
this conveiance, depends on it's not being too early
for an appointment. I expect hourly word from the
Count de Vergennes to meet him on this & other sub-
jects. My last information was that the lease was too
far advanced to withdraw from it the article of tobacco,
but that a clause is inserted in it empowering the
King to discontinue it at any time. A discontinuance
is therefore the only remaining object, and as even



224 THE WRITINGS OF [1786

this cannot be effected till the expiration of the old
lease, which is about the end of the present year, I
have wished only to stir the subject from time to time
so as to keep it alive. This idea led me into a meas-
ure proposed by the M. de la Fayette whose return
from Berlin found the matter in that point to which
my former report to Congress had conducted it. I
communicated to him what I had been engaged on,
what were my prospects, and my purpose of keeping
the subject just open. He offered his services with
that zeal which commands them on every occasion
respecting America. He suggested to me the meet-
ing two or three gentlemen well acquainted with this
business. We met. They urged me to propose to
the Ct de Vergennes the appointing a committee to
take this matter into consideration. I told them that
decency would not permit me to point out to the Ct
de Vergennes the mode by which he should conduct
a negotiation, but that I would press again the neces-
sity of an arrangement, if whilst that should be oper-
ating on his mind they would suggest the appoint-
ment of a committee. The Marquis offered his ser-
vice for this purpose. The consequence was the ap-
pointment of a committee, & the Marquis as a mem-
ber of it. I communicated to him my papers. He
collected other lights wherever he could, & particu-
larly from the gentlemen with whom he had before
concerted, and who had a good acquaintance with the
subject. The Marquis became our champion in the
committee and two of it's members, who were of the
corps of Farmers general entered the lists on the



i 7 86] THOMAS JEFFERSON. 225

other side. Each gave in memorials. The lease in-
deed was signed while I was gone to England, but the
discussions were & still are continued in the Commit-
tee from which we derive two advantages, i, that of
shewing that the object is not to be relinquished and
2, to enlighten government as to it's true interest.
The Ct de Vergennes is absolutely for it ; but it is not
in his department. Calonnes is his friend, and in
this instance his principle seems to be America veri-