theless thinks that the policy of yielding to such circumstances as cannot without risk and hazard be neglected or controlled, will induce them at least to consent to the proposed article for limiting the duration of the convention.

As he perceives no inconvenience likely to result from giving Mr. Jefferson a commission authorizing him in general terms to negotiate and conclude a convention with his most Christian Majesty, for ascertaining the authority and powers of French and American Consuls, your Secretary thinks it will be advisable to send him such a commission, that he may thereby have an opportunity of endeavoring to realize the advantages he expects from it, and which under a new administration (perhaps not well advised of what has passed) may be attainable.

In the opinion of your Secretary, it will therefore be expedient to send Mr. Jefferson a commission of the following tenor, viz:

We, the United States of America in Congress assembled at the City of New York, to our well beloved Thomas Jefferson, Esq., our Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of his most Christian Majesty, &c., &c., send greeting. Being desirous to promote and facilitate the commerce between our States and the dominions of his said Majesty, and for that purpose to conclude with him a convention for regulating the powers, privileges, and duties of our respective Consuls, Vice Consuls, Agents, and Commissaries, and having full confidence in your abilities and integrity, we do by these presents authorize and empower you the said Thomas Jefferson, in our name and behalf, to treat with any person having equal powers from his most Christian Majesty of and concerning such convention, and the same in our name and behalf to conclude, sign, and seal. And we do promise to ratify and confirm whatever convention shall in virtue of this commission be by you so concluded, provided the duration of the same be limited to any term not exceeding years.

day of

Witness our seal and the signature of his Excellency Arthur St. Clair, our President, this in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and the eleventh of our independence.

Your Secretary thinks it would be proper to write the two following letters to Mr. Jefferson, the first of which he might communicate to the Court:

Sir,*

Congress being desirous that the commerce between the United States and France may be promoted by every reciprocal regulation conducive to that end, wish that no time may be lost in ascertaining the privileges, powers, and duties of their respective Consuls, Vice Consuls, and commercial agents and commissaries.

They regret the circumstance which calls you to the south of France, but are perfectly satisfied that you should make that or any other journey which your health may require. It is their wish and instruction that, on your return to the Court, your attention may be immediately directed to the abovementioned subject. Considering that conventions of this nature, however apparently useful in theory, may, from some defects or unforeseen circumstances, be attended with inconveniences in practice, they think it best that they should be probationary, at least in the first instance, and, therefore, that the term to be assigned for the duration of the one in question should not exceed years. They also think it advisable, in order to obviate any difficulties that might arise from your not having been more formally authorized to complete this business, to give you an express and special commission for the purpose, which I have now the honor to enclose.

Sir,

You will herewith receive another letter from me of this date, together with the commission mentioned in it. Both of them are in pursuance of the ideas suggested in your letter of the 9th January last. If the whole subject should be reconsidered and a new convention formed, it is the pleasure of Congress that the duties, powers, and privileges of Consuls, Vice Consuls, Agents, and Commissaries be accurately delineated, and that they be as much circumscribed and limited as the proper objects of their appointments will admit, and the Court of France consent to. How far it may be in your power to obtain a convention perfectly unexceptionable must depend on several circumstances not yet decided.

Congress confide fully in your talents and discretion, and they will ratify any convention that is not liable to more objections than

*This and the following letter were forwarded to Mr. Jefferson, and dated July 27, 1787.

the one already in part concluded, provided an article limiting its duration to a term not exceeding twelve years be inserted.

All which is submitted to the wisdom of Congress.

JOHN JAY.

Sir,

FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JOHN ADAMS.

Paris, January 11, 1787.

Mr. Jay, in his last letter to me, observes they hear nothing further of the treaty with Portugal. I have taken the liberty of telling him that I will write to you on the subject, and that he may expect to hear from you on it by the present conveyance. The Chevalier del Pinto being at London, I presume he has, or can, inform you why it is delayed on their part. I will thank you, also, for the information he shall give you.

There is here an order of priests called the Mathurins, the object of whose institution is the begging of alms for the redemption of captives. About eighteen months ago they redeemed three hundred, which cost them about fifteen hundred livres apiece. They have agents residing in the Barbary States, who are constantly employed in searching and contracting for the captives of their nation, and they redeem at a lower price than any other people can. It occurred to me that their agency might be engaged for our prisoners at Algiers. I have had interviews with them, and the last night a long one with the General of the order. They offer their services with all the benignity and cordiality possible. The General told me he could not expect to redeem our prisoners as cheap as their own, but that he would use all the means in his power to do it on the best terms possible, which will be the better, as there will be the less suspicion that he acts for our public. I told him I would write to you on the subject, and speak to him again. What do you think of employing them, limiting them to a certain price, as three hundred dollars, for instance, or any other sum you think proper? He will write immediately to his instruments there, and in two or three months we can know the event. He will deliver them at Marseilles, Cadiz, or where we please, at our expense. The money remaining of the fund destined to the Barbary business may, I suppose, be drawn on

for this object. Write me your opinion, if you please, on this subject, finally, fully, and immediately, that, if you approve the proposition, I may enter into arrangements with the General before my departure to the waters of Aix, which will be about the beginning of February. I have the honor to be, &c.,

TH: JEFFERSON.

FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JOHN JAY.

Paris, February 1, 1787.

Sir,

My last letters were of the 31st December and 9th of January. Since which last date I have been honored with yours of December the 13th and 14th. I shall pay immediate attention to your instructions relative to the South Carolina frigate. I had the honor of informing you of an improvement in the art of coining made here by one Drost, and of sending you, by Colonel Franks, a specimen of his execution in gold and silver. I expected to have sent also a coin of copper. The enclosed note from Drost will explain the reason why this was not sent. It will let you see, also, that he may be employed, as I suppose he is not so certain as he was of being engaged here. Mr. Grand, who knows him, gives me reason to believe he may be engaged reasonably. Congress will decide whether it be worth their attention.

In some of my former letters, I suggested an opportunity of obliging this Court by borrowing as much money in Holland as would pay the debt due here, if such a loan could be obtained, as to which I was altogether ignorant. To save time I wrote to Mr. Dumas to know whether he thought it probable a loan could be obtained, enjoining him the strictest secrecy, and informing him I was making the inquiry merely of my own motion, and without instruction. I enclose you his answer. He thinks purchasers of the debt could be found with a sacrifice of a small part of the capital, and a postponement be obtained of some of the first reimbursements. The proposition for an immediate adoption of this measure by me was probably urged on his mind by a desire to serve our country, more than a strict attention to my duty and the magnitude of the object. I hope, on the contrary, that if it should be

thought worth a trial, it may be put into the hands of Mr. Adams, who knows the ground, and is known there, and whose former successful negotiations in this line would give better founded hopes of success on this occasion.

I formerly mentioned to you the hopes of preferment entertained by the Chevalier de la Luzerne. They have been baffled by events, none of the vacancies taking place which had been expected. Had I pressed his being ordered back, I have reason to believe the order would have been given; but he would have gone back in ill humor with Congress. He would have laid forever at their door the failure of promotion then viewed as certain, and this might have excited dispositions that would have disappointed us of the good we hoped from his return. The line I have observed with him has been to make him sensible that nothing more was desired by Congress than his return; but that they would not willingly press it, so as to defeat him of a personal advantage. He sees his prospects fail, and will return in the approaching spring unless something unexpected should turn up in his favor. In this case the Count de Moustier has the promise of succeeding to him; and if I do not mistake his character, he would give great satisfaction. So that I think you may count on seeing the one or the other by midsummer.

It had been suspected that France and England might adopt those concerted regulations of commerce for their West Indies, of which your letter expresses some apprehensions, but the expressions on the 4, 5, 7, 11, 18, and other articles of their treaty, which communicate to the English the privileges of the most favored European nation only, has lessened, if not removed, those fears. They have clearly reserved a right of favoring, specially, any nation not European; and there is no nation out of Europe, who could so probably have been in their eye at that time as ours. They are wise. They must see it probable, at least, that any concert with England will be but of short duration; and they could hardly propose to sacrifice for that a connexion with us which may be perpetual.

We have been for some days in much inquietude for the Count de Vergennes. He is very seriously ill. Nature seems struggling to decide his disease into gout. A swelled foot at present gives us a hope of this issue. His loss would at all times have been very great, but it would be immense during the critical poise of European affairs existing at this moment. I enclose you a letter from one of the