Your zeal for the general service needs not to be excited by information, that it is with the special approbation of the President of the United States that I address you on this occasion.
I have the honor to be, with great regard, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO MR. RANDOLPH.
New York, August 14, 1790.
Dear Sir,—I am setting out on a trip to Rhode Island with the President to-morrow, by water. We shall be absent five or six days, and of course his departure hence to the southward will be that much later than he intended; and my departure, which must be after his, a little delayed. Still I hope to reach Monticello by the 15th of September, or from that to the 20th. We have just concluded a treaty with the Creeks, which is important, as drawing a line between them and Georgia, and enabling the government to do, as it will do, justice against either party offending. Congress separated the day before yesterday, having in the latter part of their session re-acquired the harmony which had always distinguished their proceedings, till the two disagreeable subjects of the assumption and residence were introduced. These really threatened, at one time, a separation of the legislature sine die. They saw the necessity of suspending almost all business for some time; and, when they resumed it, of some mutual sacrifices of opinion. It is not foreseen that anything so generative of dissension can arise again, and therefore the friends of the government hope that, this difficulty once surmounted in the States, everything will work well. I am principally afraid that commerce will be overloaded by the assumption, believing that it would be better that property should be duly taxed. Present me affectionately to my dear daughters, and believe me to be sincerely yours.
TO GOVERNOR HANCOCK.
New York, August 24, 1790.
Sir,—The representatives of the United States have been pleased to refer to me the representation from the general court of Massachusetts, on the subject of the whale and cod fisheries, which had been transmitted by your Excellency, with an instruction to examine the matter thereof, and report my opinion thereupon to the next session of Congress. To prepare such a report as may convey to them the information necessary to lead to an adequate remedy, it is indispensable that I obtain a statement of the fisheries, comprehending such a period before and since the war, as may show the extent to which they were and are carried on. With such a statement under their view, Congress may be able, by comparing the circumstances which existed when the fisheries flourished, with those which exist at this moment of their decline, to discover the cause of that decline, and provide either a remedy for it, or something which may countervail its effect. This information can be obtained nowhere but in the State over which your Excellency presides, and under no other auspices so likely to produce it. May I, therefore, take the liberty of soliciting your Excellency to charge with the collecting and furnishing me this information, some person or persons who may be competent to the object. Taking a point of commencement at a proper interval before the year of greatest prosperity, there should be stated in a table, year by year, under different columns, as follows: