Fronda states that a proprietor of Amelia Island, in Florida, shipped his crop for a foreign port on board an American vessel. The vessel was taken by the Argus, carried into Savannah, and condemned for a breach of the embargo laws; the cargo pronounced clear. Probably the vessel had left our harbors without a clearance, though that is not stated, nor the cause of her condemnation specified. Permission is asked to send away the cargo. If the Spanish proprietor had no agency in drawing the vessel away contrary to the embargo laws, his employment of her was innocent, and he ought to be permitted to send his cargo out; because for us to take his property and bring it in by force, and against his will, and then to detain it under pretext of an embargo, would be equivalent to piracy or war. A vessel driven involuntarily into a port by weather, or an enemy, with prohibited goods, is always allowed to depart, and even to sell as much of the goods as will make the vessel sea-worthy, if disabled. I do not know, however, that in the present case we are bound to do any more than let one of our vessels be engaged to replace the cargo in Amelia Island, and certainly we ought not to let it go to any distant port; but if the proprietor enticed or engaged the vessel to break the embargo law, he was particeps criminis, and must submit to the loss which he has brought on himself. I send you Fronda's note, which should be returned to Mr. Madison, with information of the order you shall give for inquiring into the facts, and permission or refusal as they shall turn out. Affectionate salutations.
TO THOMAS COOPER, ESQ.
Washington, October 27, 1808.
Dear Sir,—When I received your letter of the 16th, I thought I had not a copy of my report on measures, weights, and coins, except one bound up in a volume with other reports; but on carefully searching a bundle of duplicates, I found the one I now enclose you, being the only detached one I possess. It is defective in one article. The report was composed under a severe attack of periodical headache, which came on every day at sunrise, and never left me till sunset. What had been ruminated in the day under a paroxysm of the most excruciating pain, was committed to paper by candlelight, and then the calculations were made. After delivering in the report, it was discovered that in calculating the money unit § 5 page 49, there was a small error in the third or fourth column of decimals, the correction of which however brought the proposed unit still nearer to the established one. I reported the correction in a single leaf to Congress. The copy I send you has not that leaf.
The first question to be decided is between those who are for units of measures, weights, and coins, having, a known relation to something in nature of fixed dimension, and those who are for an arbitrary standard. On this "dice vexata quaestio" it is useless to say a word, every one having made up his mind on a view of all that can be said. Mr. Dorsey was so kind as to send me his pamphlet, by which I found he was for the arbitrary standard of one-third of the standard yard of H. G. of England, supposed to be in the Exchequer of that nation, a fac simile of which was to be procured and lodged in Philadelphia. I confess myself to be of the other sect, and to prefer an unit bearing a given relation to some fixed subject of nature, and of preference to the pendulum, because it may be in the possession of every man, so that he may verify his measures for himself. You will observe that I proposed alternative plans to Congress, that they might take the one or the other, according to the degree of courage they felt. The first is from page 18 to 38; the second from page 39 to 44. Were I now to decide, it would be in favor of the first, with this single addition, that each of the denominations there adopted, should be divisible decimally at the will of every individual. The iron-founder deals in tons; let him take the ton for his unit, and divide it into 10ths, 100ths, and 1000ths. The dry-goods merchant deals in pounds and yards; let him divide them decimally. The land-measurer deals in miles and poles; divide them decimally, only noting over his figures what the unit is, thus:
| Tons. | Lbs. | Yds. | Miles. | |
| 18.943, | 18.943, | 1.8943, | 189.43, | &c. |
I have lately had a proof how familiar this division into dimes, cents, and mills, is to the people when transferred from their money to anything else. I have an odometer fixed to my carriage, which gives the distances in miles, dimes, and cents. The people on the road inquire with curiosity what exact distance I have found from such a place to such a place; I answer, so many miles, so many cents. I find they universally and at once form a perfect idea of the relation of the cent to the mile as an unit. They would do the same as to yards of cloth, pounds of shot, ounces of silver, or of medicine. I believe, therefore, they are susceptible of this degree of approximation to a standard rigorously philosophical; beyond this I might doubt. However, on this too every one has an opinion, and I am open to compromise, as I am also to other plans of reformation, of which multitudes have been published. I can conclude, therefore, candidly with the "si quid novisti rectius," &c., and sincerely with assurances of my constant esteem and respect.
TO DOCTOR JAMES BROWN.
Washington, October 27, 1808.
Dear Sir,—You will wonder that your letter of June the 3d should not be acknowledged till this date. I never received it till September the 12th, and coming soon after to this place, the accumulation of business I found here has prevented my taking it up till now. That you ever participated in any plan for a division of the Union, I never for one moment believed. I knew your Americanism too well. But as the enterprise against Mexico was of a very different character, I had supposed what I heard on that subject to be possible. You disavow it; that is enough for me, and I forever dismiss the idea. I wish it were possible to extend my belief of innocence to a very different description of men in New Orleans; but I think there is sufficient evidence of there being there a set of foreign adventurers, and native malcontents, who would concur in any enterprise to separate that country from this. I did wish to see these people get what they deserved; and under the maxim of the law itself, that inter arma silent leges, that in an encampment expecting daily attack from a powerful enemy, self-preservation is paramount to all law, I expected that instead of invoking the forms of the law to cover traitors, all good citizens would have concurred in securing them. Should we have ever gained our Revolution, if we had bound our hands by manacles of the law, not only in the beginning, but in any part of the revolutionary conflict? There are extreme cases where the laws become inadequate even to their own preservation, and where the universal resource is a dictator, or martial law. Was New Orleans in that situation? Although we knew here that the force destined against it was suppressed on the Ohio, yet we supposed this unknown at New Orleans at the time that Burr's accomplices were calling in the aid of the law to enable them to perpetrate its suppression, and that it was reasonable, according to the state of information there, to act on the expectation of a daily attack. Of this you are the best judge.