Dear Sir,—Your favor of July 8, came to my hands November 30. The infrequency of conveyances, is an apology for this late answer. I receive with pleasure this recognition and renewal of your former acquaintance, and shall be happy to continue it by an exchange of epistolary communications. Yours to me will be always welcome. Your first gives me information in the line of Natural History, and the second (not yet received) promises political news. The first is my passion, the last my duty, and therefore both desirable. I believe entirely with you, that the remains of fortifications found in the Western country, have been the works of the natives. Nothing I have ever yet heard of, proved the existence of a nation here who knew the use of iron. I have never heard even of burnt bricks, though they might be made without iron. The statue you have been so kind as to send me, and for which I beg you to accept my thanks, would, because of the hardness of the stone, be a better proof of the use of iron, than I ever yet saw; but as it is a solitary fact, and possible to have been made with implements of stone, and great patience, for which the Indians are remarkable, I consider it to have been so made. It is certainly the best piece of workmanship I ever saw from their hands. If the artist did not intend it, he has very happily hit on the representation of a woman in the first moments of parturition.
Mr. Brown, the bearer of this, will give you the Congressional news, some good, some so so, like everything else in this world. Our endeavors the last year to punish your enemies have had an unfortunate issue. The federal council has yet to learn by experience, which experience has long ago taught us in Virginia, that rank and file fighting will not do against Indians. I hope this year's experiment will be made in a more auspicious form. Will it not be possible for you to bring General Clark forward? I know the greatness of his mind, and am the more mortified at the cause which obscures it. Had not this unhappily taken place, there was nothing he might not have hoped: could it be surmounted, his lost ground might yet be recovered. No man alive rated him higher than I did, and would again, were he to become again what I knew him. We are made to hope he is engaged in writing the account of his expeditions north of Ohio. They will be valuable morsels of history, and will justify to the world those who have told them how great he was.
Mr. Brown will tell you also that we are not inattentive to the interests of your navigation. Nothing short of actual rupture is omitted. What its effect will be, we cannot yet foretell; but we should not stop even here, were a favorable conjuncture to arise. The move we have now made must bring the matter to issue. I can assure you of the most determined zeal of our chief magistrate in this business, and I trust mine will not be doubted so far as it can be of any avail. The nail will be driven as far as it will go peaceably, and farther the moment that circumstances become favorable. I am, with great esteem, dear Sir, your friend and servant.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF FRANCE.
Philadelphia, March 8, 1791.
Sir,—I have it in charge from the President of the United States of America, to communicate to the National Assembly of France, the peculiar sensibility of Congress to the tribute paid to the memory of Benjamin Franklin, by the enlightened and free representatives of a great nation, in their decree of the 11th of June, 1790.
That the loss of such a citizen should be lamented by us, among whom he lived, whom he so long and eminently served, and who feel their country advanced and honored by his birth, life and labors, was to be expected. But it remained for the National Assembly of France, to set the first example of the representative of one nation, doing homage, by a public act, to the private citizen of another, and by withdrawing arbitrary lines of separation, to reduce into our fraternity the good and the great, wherever they have lived or died.
That these separations may disappear between us in all times and circumstances, and that the union of sentiment which mingles our sorrows on this occasion, may continue long to cement the friendship and the interests of our two nations, is our constant prayer. With no one is it more sincere than with him, who, in being charged with the honor of conveying a public sentiment, is permitted that of expressing the homage of profound respect and veneration with which he is, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.