Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson Volume II Part 53

In our first Confederation, the principle of rotation was established in the office of President of Congress, who could serve but one year in three, and in that of a member of Congress, who could serve but three years in six.

I believe all the countries in Europe determine their standard of money, in gold as well as silver. Thus, the laws of England direct that a pound Troy of gold, of twenty-two carats fine, shall be cut into forty-four and a half guineas, each of which shall be worth twenty-one and a half s.h.i.+llings, that is, into 956 3/4 s.h.i.+llings. This establishes the s.h.i.+lling at 5.518 grains of pure gold. They direct that a pound of silver, consisting of 11 1/10 ounces of pure silver, and 9/10 of an ounce alloy, shall be cut into sixty-two s.h.i.+llings. This establishes the s.h.i.+lling at 85.93 grains of pure silver, and, consequently, the proportion of gold to silver as 85.93 to 5.518, or as 15.57 to 1. If this be the true proportion between the value of gold and silver at the general market of Europe, then the value of the s.h.i.+lling, depending on two standards, is the same, whether a payment be made in gold or in silver. But if the proportion at the general market of Europe be as fifteen to one, then the Englishman who owes a pound weight of gold at Amsterdam, if he sends the pound of gold to pay it, sends 1043.72 s.h.i.+llings; if he sends fifteen pounds of silver, he sends only 1030.5 s.h.i.+llings; if he pays half in gold and half in silver, he pays only 1037.11 s.h.i.+llings. And this medium between the two standards of gold and silver, we must consider as furnis.h.i.+ng the true medium value of the s.h.i.+lling. If the parliament should now order the pound of gold (of one-twelfth alloy as before) to be cut into a thousand s.h.i.+llings instead of nine hundred and fifty-six and three fourths, leaving the silver as it is, the medium or true value of the s.h.i.+lling would suffer a change of half the difference; and in the case before stated, to pay a debt of a pound weight of gold, at Amsterdam, if he sent the pound weight of gold, he would send 1090.9 s.h.i.+llings; if he sent fifteen pounds of silver, he would send 1030.5 s.h.i.+llings; if half in gold and half in silver, he would send 1060.7 s.h.i.+llings; which shows, that this parliamentary operation would reduce the value of the s.h.i.+lling in the proportion of 1060.7 to 1037.11.

Now this is exactly the effect of the late change in the quant.i.ty of gold contained in your louis. Your _marc d'argent fin_ is cut into 53.45 livres (fifty-three livres and nine sous), the _marc de l'or fin_ was cut, heretofore, by law, into 784.6 livres (seven hundred and eighty-four livres and twelve sous); gold was to silver, then, as 14.63 to 1. And if this was different from the proportion at the markets of Europe, the true value of your livre stood half way between the two standards. By the ordinance of October the 30th, 1785, the marc of pure gold has been cut into 828.6 livres. If your standard had been in gold alone, this would have reduced the value of the livre, in the proportion of 828.6 to 784.6. But as you had a standard of silver as well as gold, the true standard is the medium between the two; consequently, the value of the livre is reduced only one half the difference, that is, as 806.6 to 784.6, which is very nearly three per cent. Commerce, however, has made a difference of four per cent., the average value of the pound sterling, formerly twenty-four livres, being now twenty-five livres.

Perhaps some other circ.u.mstance has occasioned an addition of one per cent, to the change of your standard.

I fear I have tired you by these details. I did not mean to be so lengthy when I began. I beg you to consider them as an appeal to your judgment, which I value, and from which I will expect a correction, if they are wrong.

I have the honor to be, with very great esteem and attachment, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVI.--TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE, May 6,1789

TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.

Paris, May 6,1789.

My Dear Friend,

As it becomes more and more possible that the _n.o.blesse_ will go wrong, I become uneasy for you. Your principles are decidedly with the _Tiers-Etat_, and your instructions against them. A complaisance to the latter on some occasions, and an adherence to the former on others, may give an appearance of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g between the two parties, which may lose you both. You will, in the end, go over wholly to the _Tiers-Etat_, because it will be impossible for you to live in a constant sacrifice of your own sentiments to the prejudices of the _n.o.blesse_. But you would be received by the _Tiers-Etat_, at any future day, coldly, and without confidence. This appears to me the moment to take at once that honest and manly stand with them, which your own principles dictate. This will win their hearts for ever, be approved by the world, which marks and honors you as the man of the people, and will be an eternal consolation to yourself. The _n.o.blesse_, and especially the _n.o.blesse of Auvergne_, will always prefer men who will do their dirty work for them. You are not made for that. They will therefore soon drop you, and the people, in that case, will perhaps not take you up. Suppose a scission should take place. The Priests and n.o.bles will secede, the nation will remain in place, and, with the King, will do its own business. If violence should be attempted, where will you be? You cannot then take side with the people in opposition to your own vote, that very vote which will have helped to produce the scission. Still less can you array yourself against the people. That is impossible. Your instructions are indeed a difficulty. But to state this at its worst, it is only a single difficulty, which a single effort surmounts. Your instructions can never embarra.s.s you a second time, whereas an acquiescence under them will re-produce greater difficulties every day, and without end. Besides, a thousand circ.u.mstances offer as many justifications of your departure from your instructions. Will it be impossible to persuade all parties, that (as for good legislation two Houses are necessary) the placing the privileged cla.s.ses together in one House, and the unprivileged in another, would be better for both than a scission? I own I think it would. People can never agree without some sacrifices; and it appears but a moderate sacrifice in each party, to meet on this middle ground.

The attempt to bring this about might satisfy your instructions, and a failure in it would justify your siding with the people, even to those who think instructions are laws of conduct. Forgive me, my dear friend, if my anxiety for you makes me talk of things I know nothing about.

You must not consider this as advice. I know you and myself too well to presume to offer advice. Receive it merely as the expression of my uneasiness, and the effusion of that sincere friends.h.i.+p, with which I am, my dear Sir, yours affectionately,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVII.--TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL, May 8, 1789

TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.

Paris, May 8, 1789.

Dear Sir,

Your favor of January the 26th, to March the 27th, is duly received, and I thank you for the interesting papers it contained. The answer of Don Ulloa, however, on the subject of the ca.n.a.l through the American isthmus, was not among them, though mentioned to be so. If you have omitted it through accident, I shall thank you for it at some future occasion, as I wish much to understand that subject thoroughly. Our American information comes down to the 16th of March. There had not yet been members enough a.s.sembled of the new Congress, to open the tickets.

They expected to do it in a day or two. In the mean time, it was said from all the States, that their vote had been unanimous for General Was.h.i.+ngton, and a good majority in favor of Mr. Adams, who is certainly, therefore, Vice-President. The new government would be supported by very cordial and very general dispositions in its favor from the people. I have not yet seen a list of the new Congress. This delay in the meeting of the new government has delayed the determination on my pet.i.tion for leave of absence. However, I expect to receive it every day, and am in readiness to sail the instant I receive it, so that this is probably the last letter I shall write you hence, till my return. While there, I shall avail government of the useful information I have received from you, and shall not fail to profit of any good occasion which may occur, to show the difference between your real situation, and what it ought to be. I consider Paris and Madrid as the two only points, at which Europe and America should touch closely, and that a connection at these points should be fostered.

We have had in this city a very considerable riot, in which about one hundred people have been probably killed. It was the most unprovoked, and is therefore, justly, the most unpitied catastrophe of that kind I ever knew. Nor did the wretches know what they wanted, except to do mischief. It seems to have had no particular connection with the great national question now in agitation. The want of bread is very seriously dreaded through the whole kingdom. Between twenty and thirty s.h.i.+p-loads of wheat and flour has already arrived from the United States, and there will be about the same quant.i.ty of rice sent from Charleston to this country directly, of which about half has arrived. I presume that, between wheat and rice, one hundred s.h.i.+p-loads may be counted on in the whole from us. Paris consumes about a s.h.i.+p-load a day, (say two hundred and fifty tons.) The total supply of the West Indies, for this year, rests with us, and there is almost a famine in Canada and Nova Scotia.

The States General were opened the day before yesterday. Viewing it as an opera, it was imposing; as a scene of business, the King's speech was exactly what it should have been, and very well delivered; not a word of the Chancellor's was heard by any body, so that, as yet, I have never heard a single guess at what it was about. Mr. Necker's was as good as such a number of details would permit it to be. The picture of their resources was consoling, and generally plausible. I could have wished him to have dwelt more on those great const.i.tutional reformations, which his _Rapport au Roy_ had prepared us to expect. But they observe, that these points are proper for the speech of the Chancellor. We are in hopes, therefore, they were in that speech, which, like the Revelations of St. John, were no revelations at all. The _n.o.blesse_, on coming together, show that they are not as much reformed in their principles as we had hoped they would be. In fact, there is real danger of their totally refusing to vote by persons. Some found hopes on the lower clergy, which const.i.tute four-fifths of the deputies of that order. If they do not turn the balance in favor of the _Tiers-Etat_, there is real danger of a scission. But I shall not consider even that event as rendering things desperate. If the King will do business with the _Tiers-Etat_, which const.i.tutes the nation, it may be well done without Priests or n.o.bles. From the best information I can obtain, the King of England's madness has terminated in an imbecility, which may very possibly be of long continuance. He is going with his Queen to Germany.

England chained to rest, the other parts of Europe may recover or retain tranquillity.

I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson..

LETTER CXCVIII.--TO JOHN JAY, May 9, 1789

TO JOHN JAY.

Paris, May 9, 1789.

Sir,

Since my letter of March the 1st, by the way of Havre, and those of March the 12th and 15th, by the way of London, no opportunity of writing has occurred, till the present to London.

There are no symptoms of accommodation between the Turks and two empires, nor between Russia and Sweden. The Emperor was, on the 16th of the last month, expected to die, certainly; he was, however, a little better when the last news came away, so that hopes were entertained of him; but it is agreed that he cannot get the better of his complaints ultimately, so that his life is not at all counted on. The Danes profess, as yet, to do no more against Sweden than furnish their stipulated aid. The agitation of Poland is still violent, though somewhat moderated by the late change in the demeanor of the King of Prussia. He is much less thrasonic than he was. This is imputed to the turn which the English politics may be rationally expected to take. It is very difficult to get at the true state of the British King j but from the best information we can get, his madness has gone off, but he is left in a state of imbecility and melancholy. They are going to carry him to Hanover, to see whether such a journey may relieve him. The Queen accompanies him. If England. should, by this accident, be reduced to inactivity, the southern countries of Europe may escape the present war. Upon the whole, the prospect for the present year, if no unforeseen accident happens, is certain peace for the powers not already engaged, a probability that Denmark will not become a princ.i.p.al, and a mere possibility that Sweden and Russia may be accommodated. The interior disputes of Sweden are so exactly detailed in the Leyden gazette, that I have nothing to add on that subject.

The revolution of this country has advanced thus far without encountering any thing which deserves to be called a difficulty. There have been riots in a few instances, in three or four different places, in which there may have been a dozen or twenty lives lost. The exact truth is not be got at. A few days ago, a much more serious riot took place in this city, in which it became necessary for the troops to engage in regular action with the mob, and probably about one hundred of the latter were killed. Accounts vary from twenty to two hundred. They were the most abandoned banditti of Paris, and never was a riot more unprovoked and unpitied. They began, under a pretence that a paper manufacturer had proposed in an a.s.sembly, to reduce their wages to fifteen sous a day. They rifled his house, destroyed every thing in his magazines and shops, and were only stopped in their career of mischief, by the carnage above mentioned. Neither this nor any other of the riots, have had a professed connection with the great national reformation going on. They are such as have happened every year since I have been here, and as will continue to be produced by common incidents. The States General were opened on the 4th instant, by a speech from the throne, one by the _Garde des Sceaux_, and one from Mr. Necker. I hope they will be printed in time to send you herewith: lest they should not, I will observe, that that of Mr, Necker stated the real and ordinary deficit to be fifty-six millions, and that he showed that this could be made up without a new tax, by economies and bonifications which he specified. Several articles of the latter are liable to the objection, that they are proposed on branches of the revenue, of which the nation has demanded a suppression. He tripped too lightly over the great articles of const.i.tutional reformation, these being not as clearly announced in this discourse as they were in his _Rapport au Roy_, which I sent you some time ago. On the whole, his discourse has not satisfied the patriotic party. It is now, for the first time, that their revolution is likely to receive a serious check, and begins to wear a fearful appearance. The progress of light and liberality in the order of the _n.o.blesse_ has equalled expectation in Paris only, and its vicinities. The great ma.s.s of deputies of that order, which come from the country, show that the habits of tyranny over the people, are deeply rooted in them. They will consent, indeed, to equal taxation; but five-sixths of that chamber are thought to be, decidedly, for voting by orders; so that, had this great preliminary question rested on this body, which formed heretofore the sole hope, that hope would have been completely disappointed. Some aid, however, comes in from a quarter whence none was expected. It was imagined the ecclesiastical elections would have been generally in favor of the higher clergy; on the contrary, the lower clergy have obtained five-sixths of these deputations. These are the sons of peasants, who have done all the drudgery of the service, for ten, twenty, and thirty guineas a year, and whose oppressions and penury, contrasted with the pride and luxury of the higher clergy, have rendered them perfectly disposed to humble the latter. They have done it, in many instances, with a boldness they were thought insusceptible of. Great hopes have been formed, that these would concur with the _Tiers-Etat_, in voting by persons. In fact, about half of them seem as yet so disposed; but the bishops are intriguing, and drawing them over with the address which has ever marked ecclesiastical intrigue. The deputies of the _Tiers-Etat_ seem, almost to a man, inflexibly determined against the vote by orders. This is the state of parties, as well as can be judged from conversation only, during the fortnight they have been now together. But as no business has been yet begun, no votes as yet taken, this calculation cannot be considered as sure. A middle proposition is talked of, to form the two privileged orders into one chamber. It is thought more possible to bring them into it, than the _Tiers-Etat_. Another proposition is, to distinguish questions, referring those of certain descriptions to a vote by persons, others to a vote by orders. This seems to admit of endless altercation, and the _Tiers-Etat_ manifest no respect for that, or any other modification whatever. Were this single question accommodated, I am of opinion, there would not occur the least difficulty in the great and essential points of const.i.tutional reformation. But on this preliminary question the parties are so irreconcilable, that it is impossible to foresee what issue it will have. The _Tiers-Etat_, as const.i.tuting the nation, may propose to do the business of the nation, either with or without the minorities in the Houses of Clergy and n.o.bles, which side with them. In that case, if the King should agree to it, the majorities in those two Houses would secede, and might resist the tax-gatherers.

This would bring on a civil war. On the other hand, the privileged orders, offering to submit to equal taxation, may propose to the King to continue the government in its former train, resuming to himself the power of taxation. Here, the tax-gatherers might be resisted by the people. In fine, it is but too possible, that between parties so animated, the King may incline the balance as he pleases. Happy that he is an honest, unambitious man, who desires neither money nor power for himself; and that his most operative minister, though he has appeared to trim a little, is still, in the main, a friend to public liberty.

I mentioned to you in a former letter, the construction which our bankers at Amsterdam had put on the resolution of Congress, appropriating the last Dutch loan, by which the money for our captives would not be furnished till the end of the year 1790. Orders from the board of treasury have now settled this question. The interest of the next month is to be first paid, and after that, the money for the captives and foreign officers is to be furnished, before any other payment of interest. This insures it when the next February interest becomes payable. My representations to them, on account of the contracts I had entered into for making the medals, have produced from them the money for that object, which is lodged in the hands of Mr. Grand.

Mr. Necker, in his discourse, proposes among his bonifications of revenue, the suppression of our two free ports of Bayonne and L'Orient, which, he says, occasion a loss of six hundred thousand livres annually, to the crown, by contraband. (The speech being not yet printed, I state this only as it struck my ear when he delivered it. If I have mistaken it, I beg you to receive this as my apology, and to consider what follows, as written on that idea only.) I have never been able to see that these free ports were worth one copper to us. To Bayonne our trade never went, and it is leaving L'Orient. Besides, the right of _entrepot_ is a perfect subst.i.tute for the right of free port. The latter is a little less troublesome only, to the merchants and captains. I should think, therefore, that a thing so useless to us and prejudicial to them might be relinquished by us, on the common principles of friends.h.i.+p.

I know the merchants of these ports will make a clamor, because the franchise covers their contraband with all the world. Has Monsieur de Moustier said any thing to you on this subject? It has never been mentioned to me. If not mentioned in either way, it is rather an indecent proceeding, considering that this right of free port is founded in treaty. I shall ask of M. de Montmorin, on the first occasion, whether he has communicated this to you through his minister; and if he has not, I will endeavor to notice the infraction to him in such manner, as neither to reclaim nor abandon the right of free port, but leave our government free to do either.

The gazettes of France and Leyden, as usual, will accompany this. I am in hourly expectation of receiving from you my leave of absence, and keep my affairs so arranged, that I can leave Paris within eight days after receiving the permission.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble

servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCIX.--TO GENERAL WAs.h.i.+NGTON, May 10, 1780

TO GENERAL WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

Paris, May 10, 1780,

Sir,

I am now to acknowledge, the honor of your two letters of November the 27th and February the 13th, both of which have come to hand since my last to you of December the 4th and 5th. The details you are so good as to give me on the subject of the navigation of the waters of the Potomac and Ohio, are very pleasing to me, as I consider the union of those two rivers, as among the strongest links of connection between the eastern and western sides of our confederacy. It will, moreover, add to the commerce of Virginia, in particular, all the upper parts of the Ohio and its waters. Another vast object, and of much less difficulty, is to add also, all the country on the lakes and their waters. This would enlarge our field immensely, and would certainly be effected by an union of the upper waters of the Ohio and lake Erie. The Big Beaver and Cayahoga offer the most direct line, and according to information I received from General Hand, and which I had the honor of writing you in the year 1783, the streams in that neighborhood head in lagoons, and the country is flat. With respect to the doubts which you say are entertained by some, whether the upper waters of Potomac can be rendered capable of navigation, on account of the falls and rugged banks, they are answered, by observing, that it is reduced to a maxim, that whenever there is water enough to float a batteau, there may be navigation for a batteau.