TO LEVETT HARRIS, ESQ.
Washington, March 28, 1807.
Sir,—Your letters of August 10th and September 18th have been duly received, and I have to thank you for the safe transmission of the four volumes of the "Vocabulaires Comparés de Pallas," for which I am indebted, through you, to the Minister of Commerce, Count Romanzoff. I must pray you, in a particular manner, to express to his Excellency my sensibility for this mark of his obliging attention, rendered the more impressive from a high esteem for his personal character, and from the hope that an interchange of personal esteem may contribute to strengthen the friendship of the two nations, bound together by many similar interests. To this I must add by anticipation my thanks for his work on the Commerce of Russia, as well as to Count Potoski, for the two works from him, which you mention to have been sent by Mr. A. Smith, and which, I doubt not, will come safely to hand. Accept for yourself my salutations and assurances of esteem and respect.
TO MR. GALLATIN.
March 29, 1807.
A doubt is entertained whether the Acts of Congress respecting claims to lands in Orleans and Louisiana, and authorizing the commissioners "to decide according to the laws and established usages and customs of the French and Spanish governments, upon all claims to lands within their respective districts," &c., meant to give that power as to all claims, or to restrict it to those claims only which had been previously recognized by Congress.
Were it necessary for us to decide that question, I should be of opinion that it meant all claims, because the words are general. "All claims to lands within their respective districts," and there are no other words restricting them to those claims only, previously recognized by Congress; and because the intention of the Act was to quiet and satisfy all the minor claimants, and reserve only the great and fraudulent speculations for rigorous examination.
But the Board of Commissioners, being a judiciary tribunal, I should think it proper to leave them to the law itself, as their instructions, on the meaning of which they are competent to decide, and, being on the spot, are better informed of the nature of those claims than we are. Affectionate salutations.
TO GENERAL DEARBORNE.
March 29, 1807.