I wrote you last on the 22nd of January, on which day I received yours of December the 31st, and since that, the other of January the 14th. We have now received news from America down to the middle of December. They had then had no cold weather. All things relative to our new constitution were going on well. Federal senators are; New Hampshire, President Langdon and Bartlett. Massachusetts, Strong and Dalton. Connecticut, Dr. Johnson and Ellsworth. New Jersey, Patterson and Ellmer. Pennsylvania, Robert Morris and M’Clay. Delaware, Reed and Bassett. Virginia, Richard Henry Lee and Grayson. Maryland, Charles Carroll, of Carrolton, and John Henry. All of these are federalists, except those of Virginia; so that a majority of federalists are secured in the Senate, and expected in the House of Representives. General Washington will be President, and probably Mr. Adams Vice-President. So that the constitution will be put under way by those who will give it a fair trial. It does not seem probable that the attempt of New York, to have another convention to make amendments, will succeed, though Virginia concurs in it. It is tolerably certain that Congress will propose amendments to the Assemblies, as even the friends of the constitution are willing to make amendments; some from a conviction they are necessary, others, from a spirit of conciliation. The addition of a bill of rights will, probably, be the most essential change. A vast majority of anti-federalists have got into the Assembly of Virginia, so that Mr. Henry is omnipotent there. Mr. Madison was left out as a senator by eight or nine votes; and Henry has so modeled the districts for representatives, as to tack Orange to counties where himself has great influence, that Madison may not be elected into the lower federal House, which was the place he had wished to serve in, and not the Senate. Henry pronounced a philippic against Madison in open Assembly, Madison being then at Philadelphia. Mifflin is President of Pennsylvania, and Peters, Speaker. Colonel Howard is Governor of Maryland. Beverly Randolph, Governor of Virginia; (this last is said by a passenger only, and he seems not very sure.) Colonel Humphreys is attacked in the papers for his French airs, for bad poetry, bad prose, vanity, &c. It is said his dress, in so gay a style, gives general disgust against him. I have received a letter from him. He seems fixed with General Washington. Mayo’s bridge, at Richmond, was completed, and carried away in a few weeks. While up, it was so profitable that he had great offers for it. A turnpike is established at Alexandria, and succeeds. Rhode Island has again refused to call a convention. Spain has granted to Colonel Morgan, of New Jersey, a vast tract of land on the western side of the Mississippi, with the monopoly of the navigation of that river. He is inviting settlers, and they swarm to him. Even the settlement of Kentucky is likely to be much weakened by emigrations to Morgan’s grant. Warville has returned, charmed with our country. He is going to carry his wife and children to settle there. Gouverneur Morris has just arrived here; deputed, as is supposed, to settle Robert Morris’s affairs, which continue still deranged. Doctor Franklin was well when he left America, which was about the middle of December.
I send Mr. Rutledge two letters by this post. Be so good as to present him my esteem, and to be assured yourself, of the sincere esteem and attachment with which I am and shall ever be? Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXXIV.—TO M. DE VILLEDEUIL, February 10, 1789
TO M. DE VILLEDEUIL.
Paris, February 10, 1789.
Sir,
I take the liberty of troubling your Excellency with the following case, which I understand to be within your department. Mr. Jay, secretary for Foreign Affairs, to the United States of America, having occasion to send me despatches of great importance, and by a courier express, confided them to a Mr. Nesbitt, who offered himself in that character. He has delivered them safely: but, in the moment of delivering them, explained to me his situation, which is as follows. He was established in commerce at L’Orient, during the war. Losses by shipwreck, by capture, and by the conclusion of the peace at a moment when he did not expect it, reduced him to bankruptcy, and he returned to America, with the consent of his creditors, to make the most of his affairs there. He has been employed in this ever since, and now wishing to see his creditors, and to consult them on their mutual interests, he availed himself of Mr. Jay’s demand for a courier, to come under the safe conduct of that character to Paris, where he flattered himself he might obtain that of your Excellency, for the purpose of seeing his creditors, settling, and arranging with them. He thinks a twelvemonth will be necessary for this. Understanding that it is not unusual to grant safe conducts in such cases, and persuaded it will be for the benefit of his creditors, I take the liberty of enclosing his memoir to your Excellency, and of soliciting your favorable attention to it, assured that it will not be denied him, if it be consistent with the established usage; and if inadmissible, praying that your Excellency will have the goodness to give me as early an answer as the other arduous occupations in which you are engaged, will admit, in order that he may know whether he may see his creditors, or must return without. I am encouraged to trouble your Excellency with this application, by the goodness with which you have been pleased to attend to our interests on former occasions, and by the desire of availing myself of every occasion of proffering to you the homage of those sentiments of attachment and respect, with which I have the honor to be your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant,