TO COLONEL N. LEWIS.
Philadelphia, April 12, 1792.
Dear Sir,—Unremitting business must be my apology, as it is really the true one, for my having been longer without writing to you than my affections dictated. I am never a day without wishing myself with you, and more and more as the fine sunshine comes on, which was made for all the world but me. Congress will rise about the 21st. They have passed the Representation bill at one for thirty-three thousand, which gives to Virginia nineteen members. They have voted an army of five thousand men, and the President has given the command to General Wayne, with four brigadiers, to wit, Morgan, Brooks, Willet and Wilkinson. Congress is now engaged on the ways and means of raising money to pay this army. A further assumption of State debt has been proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, which has been rejected by a small majority; but the chickens of the treasury have so many contrivances, and are so indefatigable within doors and without, that we all fear they will get it in yet some way or other. As the doctrine is that a public debt is a public blessing, so they think a perpetual one is a perpetual blessing, and therefore wish to make it so large that we can never pay it off. Your friend and servant.
TO THE PRESIDENT.
Philadelphia, April 13, 1792.
Sir,—I have the honor to lay before you a communication from Mr. Hammond, Minister Plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty, covering a clause of a statute of that country relative to its commerce with us, and notifying a determination to carry it into execution henceforward. Conceiving that the determination announced could not be really meant as extensively as the words import, I asked and received an explanation from the minister, as expressed in the letter and answer herein enclosed; and on consideration of all circumstances, I cannot but confide in the opinion expressed by him, that its sole object is to exclude foreign vessels from the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. The want of proportion between the motives expressed and the measure, its magnitude and consequences, total silence as to the proclamation on which the intercourse between the two countries has hitherto hung, and of which, in this broad sense, it would be a revocation, and the recent manifestations of the disposition of that government to concur with this in mutual offices of friendship and good will, support his construction. The minister, moreover, assured me verbally, that he would immediately write to his court for an explanation, and in the meantime, is of opinion that the usual intercourse of commerce between the two countries (Jersey and Guernsey excepted) need not be suspended.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most profound respect and attachment Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.