Paris, June 19, 1788.
I had the honor of addressing your Excellency, by Admiral Paul Jones, on the 21st of January, on the subject of the prizes taken under his command during the late war, and sent into Bergen. I communicated at the same time a copy of the powers which the Congress of the United States of America had been pleased to confide to me therein, having previously shown the original to the Baron de Blome, Envoy Extraordinary of his Majesty, the King of Denmark, at this court; and I furnished, at the same time, to Admiral Paul Jones, such authority as I was empowered to delegate, for the arrangement of this affair. That officer has transmitted me a copy of your Excellency’s letter to him of the 4th of April, wherein you are pleased to observe, that the want of full powers on his part was an invincible obstacle to the definitive discussion of this claim with him, and to express your dispositions to institute a settlement at this place. Always assured of the justice and honor of the court of Denmark, and encouraged by the particular readiness of your Excellency to settle and remove this difficulty from between the two nations, I take the liberty of recalling your attention to it. The place of negotiation proposed by your Excellency, meets no objection from us, and it removes, at the same time, that which the want of full powers in Admiral Paul Jones had produced in your mind. These full powers Congress have been pleased to honor me with. The arrangement taken between the person to be charged with your full powers and myself, will be final and conclusive. You are pleased to express a willingness to treat at the same time on the subjects of amity and commerce. The powers formerly communicated on our part, were given to Mr. Adams, Doctor Franklin, and myself, for a limited term only. That term has expired, and the other two gentlemen returned to America; so that no person is commissioned at this moment to renew those conferences. I may safely, however, assure your Excellency, that the same friendly dispositions still continue, and the same desire of facilitating and encouraging a commerce between the two nations, which produced the former appointment. But our nation is, at this time, proposing a change in the organization of its government. For this change to be agreed to by all the members of the Union, the new administration chosen and brought into activity, their domestic matters arranged, which will require their first attention, their foreign system afterwards decided on and carried into full execution, will require very considerable length of time. To place under the same delay the private claims which I have the honor to present to your Excellency, would be hard on the persons interested: because these claims have no connection with the system of commercial connection, which may be established between the two nations, nor with the particular form of our administration. The justice due to them is complete, and the present administration as competent to final settlement as any future one will be, should a future change take place. These individuals have already lingered nine years in expectation of their hard and perilous earnings. Time lessens their numbers continually, disperses their representatives, weakens the evidence of their right, and renders more and more impracticable his Majesty’s dispositions to repair the private injury, to which public circumstances constrained him. These considerations, the just and honorable intentions of your Excellency, and the assurances you give us in your letter, that no delay is wished on your part, give me strong hopes that we may speedily obtain that final arrangement, which express instructions render it my duty to urge. I have the honor, therefore, of agreeing with your Excellency, that the settlement of this matter, formerly begun at Paris, shall be continued there; and to ask that you will be pleased to give powers and instructions for this purpose to such persons as you shall think proper, and in such full form as may prevent those delays, to which the distance between Copenhagen and Paris might otherwise expose us.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most profound respect, your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXLIII.—TO THE COUNT DE MONTMORIN, June 20, 1788
TO THE COUNT DE MONTMORIN.
Paris, June 20, 1788.
Sir,
Having had the honor of mentioning to your Excellency the wish of Congress, that certain changes should be made in the articles for a consular convention, which had been sent to them, I have now that, conformably to the desire you expressed, of giving a general idea of the alterations to be proposed.