The peculiar custom in England, of impressing seamen on every appearance of war, will occasionally expose our seamen to peculiar oppressions and vexations. These will require your most active exertions and protection, which we know cannot be effectual without incurring considerable expense; and as no law has as yet provided for this, we think it fairer to take the risk of it on the executive than to leave it on your shoulders. You will, therefore, with all due economy, and on the best vouchers the nature of the case will admit, meet those expenses, transmitting an account of them to the Secretary of State, to be communicated to the legislature. It will be expedient that you take proper opportunities in the mean time, of conferring with the minister on this subject, in order to form some arrangement for the protection of our seamen on those occasions. We entirely reject the mode which was the subject of a conversation between Mr. Morris and him, which was, that our seamen should always carry about them certificates of their citizenship. This is a condition never yet submitted to by any nation, one with which seamen would never have the precaution to comply; the casualties of their calling would expose them to the constant destruction or loss of this paper evidence, and thus, the British government would be armed with legal authority to impress the whole of our seamen. The simplest rule will be, that the vessel being American, shall be evidence that the seamen on board her are such. If they apprehend that our vessels might thus become asylums for the fugitives of their own nation from impress-gangs, the number of men to be protected by a vessel may be limited by her tonnage, and one or two officers only be permitted to enter the vessel in order to examine the numbers on board; but no press-gang should be allowed ever to go on board an American vessel, till after it shall be found that there are more than their stipulated number on board, nor till after the master shall have refused to deliver the supernumeraries (to be named by himself) to the press-officer who has come on board for that purpose; and, even then, the American Consul should be called in. In order to urge a settlement of this point, before a new occasion may arise, it may not be amiss to draw their attention to the peculiar irritation excited on the last occasion, and the difficulty of avoiding our making immediate reprisals on their seamen here. You will be so good as to communicate to me what shall pass on this subject, and it may be made an article of convention, to be entered into either there or here.
You will receive herewith a copy of the journals of the ancient Congress, and of the laws, journals, and reports of the present. Those for the future, with gazettes and other interesting papers, shall be sent you from time to time; and I shall leave you generally to the gazettes, for whatever information is in possession of the public, and shall especially undertake to communicate by letter, such only relative to the business of your mission as the gazetteers cannot give. From you I ask, once or twice a month, a communication of interesting occurrences in England, of the general affairs of Europe, the court gazette, the best paper in the interest of the ministry, and the best of the opposition party, most particularly, that one of each which shall give the best account of the debates of parliament, the parliamentary register annually, and such other political publications as may be important enough to be read by one who can spare little time to read any thing, or which may contain matter proper to be kept and turned to, on interesting subjects and occasions. The English packet is the most certain channel for such epistolary communications as are not very secret, and intermediate occasions by private vessels may be resorted to for secret communications, and for such as would come too expensively burthened with postage, by the packets. You are furnished with a cipher for greater secrecy of communication. To the papers before mentioned, I must desire you to add the Leyden gazette, paper by paper as it comes out, by the first vessel sailing after its receipt.
I enclose you the papers in the case of a Mr. Wilson, ruined by the capture of his vessels after the term limited by the armistice. They will inform you of the circumstances of his case, and where you may find him personally, and I recommend his case to your particular representations to the British court. It is possible that other similar cases may be transmitted to you. You have already received some letters of Mr. Adams’s explanations of the principles of the armistice, and of what had passed between him and the British minister on the subject.
Mr. Greene of Rhode Island will deliver you his papers, and I am to desire that you may patronize his claims so far as shall be just and right, leaving to himself and his agent to follow up the minute details of solicitation, and coming forward yourself only when there shall be proper occasion for you to do so in the name of your nation.
Mr. Cutting has a claim against the government, vouchers for which he is to procure from England. As you are acquainted with the circumstances of it, I have only to desire that you will satisfy yourself as to any facts relative thereto, the evidence of which cannot be transmitted, and that you will communicate the same to me, that justice may be done between the public and the claimant.
We shall have occasion to ask your assistance in procuring a workman or two for our mint; but this shall be the subject of a separate letter after I shall have received more particular explanations from the director of the mint.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.