May an armed vessel arriving here be prohibited to employ their own citizens found here as seamen or mariners? Thomas Jefferson,—They cannot be prohibited to recruit their own citizens. Hamilton and Knox,—They may and ought to be prohibited. No decision yet by the President.
It appears to me the President wished the Little Sarah had been stopped by military coercion, that is, by firing on her; yet I do not believe he would have ordered it himself had he been here, though he would be glad if we had ordered it. The United States being a ship-building nation, may they sell ships, prepared for war, to both parties? Thomas Jefferson,—They may sell such ships in their ports to both parties, or carry them for sale to the dominions of both parties. E. Randolph of opinion they could not sell them here; and that if they attempted to carry them to the dominions of the parties for sale, they might be seized by the way as contraband. Hamilton of same opinion, except that he did not consider them as seizable for contraband, but as the property of a power, making itself a party in the war by an aid of such a nature, and consequently that it would be a breach of neutrality.
Hamilton moves that the government of France be desired to recall Mr. Genet. Knox adds that he be in the meantime suspended from his functions. Thomas Jefferson proposes that his correspondence be communicated to his government, with friendly observations. President silent.
July the 15th. Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton and Knox met at the President's. Governor Mifflin had applied to Knox for the loan of four cannon to mount at Mud Island. He informed him he should station a guard of thirty-five militia there, and asked what arrangement for rations the general government had taken. Knox told him nothing could be done as to rations, and he would ask the President for the cannon. In the meantime, he promised him to put the cannon on board a boat, ready to send off as soon as permission was obtained. The President declared his own opinion first and fully, that when the orders were given to the government to stop vessels arming, &c., in our ports, even by military force, he took for granted the government would use such diligence as to stop those projects in embryo, and stop them when no force was requisite, or a very small party of militia would suffice; that here was a demand from the government of Pennsylvania to land four cannon under pretext of executing orders of the general government; that if this was granted, we should be immediately applied to by every other governor, and that not for one place only, but for several, and our cannon would be dispersed all over the United States; that for this reason we would refuse the same request to the governors of South Carolina, Virginia, and Rhode Island; that if they erected batteries, they must establish men for them, and would come on us for this too. He did not think the executive had a power to establish permanent guards: he had never looked to anything permanent when the orders were given to the governors, but only an occasional call on small parties of militia in the moments requiring it. These sentiments were so entirely my own, that I did little more than combat on the same grounds the opinions of Hamilton and Knox. The latter said he would be ready to lend an equal number to every government to carry into effect orders of such importance; and Hamilton, that he would be willing to lend them in cases where they happened to be as near the place where they were to be mounted.
Hamilton submitted the purchase of a large quantity of salt-petre, which would outrun the funds destined to objects of that class by Congress. We were unanimous we ought to venture on it, and to the procuring supplies of military stores in the present circumstances, and take on us the responsibility to Congress, before whom it should be laid.
The President was fully of the same opinion.
In the above case of the cannon, the President gave no final order while I remained; but I saw that he was so impressed with the disagreeableness of taking them out of the boat again, that he would yield. He spoke sharply to Knox for having put them in that position without consulting him, and declared that, but for that circumstance, he would not have hesitated one moment to refuse them.
July the 18th, 1793. Lear calls on me. I told him that Irving, an Irishman, and a writer in the treasury, who, on a former occasion, had given the most decisive proofs of his devotion to his principal, was the author of the pieces signed Veritas; and I wished he could get at some of Irving's acquaintances and inform himself of the fact, as the person who told me of it would not permit the name of his informer to be mentioned; [Note.—Beckley told me of it, and he had it from Swaine, the printer to whom the pieces were delivered;] that I had long before suspected this excessive foul play in that party, of writing themselves in the character of the most exaggerated democrats, and incorporating with it a great deal of abuse on the President, to make him believe it was that party who were his enemies, and so throw him entirely into the scale of the monocrats. Lear said he no longer ago than yesterday, expressed to the President his suspicions of the artifices of that party to work on him. He mentioned the following fact as a proof of their writing in the character of their adversaries; to wit, the day after the little incident of Richet's toasting "the man of the people," (see the gazettes,) Mrs. Washington was at Mrs. Powel's, who mentioned to her that when the toast was given, there was a good deal of disapprobation appeared in the audience, and that many put on their hats and went out; on inquiry, he had not found the fact true, and yet it was put into ——'s paper, and written under the character of a republican, though he is satisfied it is altogether a slander of the monocrats. He mentioned this to the President, but he did not mention to him the following fact, which he knows; that in New York, the last summer, when the parties of Jay and Clinton were running so high, it was an agreed point with the former, that if any circumstances should ever bring it to a question, whether to drop Hamilton or the President, they had decided to drop the President. He said that lately one of the loudest pretended friends to the government, damned it, and said it was good for nothing, that it could not support itself, and it was time to put it down and set up a better; and yet the same person, in speaking to the President, puffed off that party as the only friends to the government. He said he really feared, that by their artifices and industry, they would aggravate the President so much against the republicans, as to separate him from the body of the people. I told him what the same cabals had decided to do, if the President had refused his assent to the bank bill; also what Brockhurst Livingston said to ——, that Hamilton's life was much more precious to the community than the President's.
July the 29th, 1793. At a meeting at the President's on account of the British letter-of-marque, ship Jane, said to have put up waste boards, to have pierced two port holes, and mounted two cannon (which she brought in) on new carriages which she did not bring in, and consequently having sixteen, instead of fourteen, guns mounted, it was agreed that a letter-of-marque, or vessel armé en guerre, and en marchandise, is not a privateer, and therefore not to be ordered out of our ports. It was agreed by Hamilton, Knox, and myself, that the case of such a vessel does not depend on the treaties, but on the law of nations. Edmund Randolph thought, as she had a mixed character of merchant vessel and privateer, she might be considered under the treaty; but this being overruled, the following paper was written
Rules proposed by Attorney General: