University of Virginia Library

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

My Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 9th. ult, has been
so long on hand unanswered that I can not now acknowledge
it without observing in the apology for the
delay that I waited for some measures of which I
wished to communicate the event. The district bill
of which I formerly made mention, was finally thrown
into a very curious situation, and lost by a single voice.
I refer you for its history to Col. Pendleton, who was
here at the time and is now with you. An attempt
has been since made to render the General Court more

efficient by lengthening its terms, and transferring the
criminal business to the Judges of the Admiralty. As
most of the little motives which co-operated with a dislike
to Justice, in defeating the District Bill happened
to be in favour of the subsequent attempt, it went
through the House of Delegates by a large Majority.
The Senate have disappointed the majority infinitely
in putting a negative on it, as we just learn that they
have done, by a single voice. An amendment of the
County Courts has also been lost, through a disagreement
of the two Houses on the subject. Our merit
on the score of Justice has been entirely of the negative
kind. It has been sufficient to reject violations
of this cardinal virtue, but not to make any positive
provisions in its behalf.

The revised code has not been so thoroughly passed
as I hoped at the date of my last. The advance of
the Session, the coldness of a great many, and the dislike
of some to the subject, required that it should be
pressed more gently than could be reconciled with a
prosecution of the work to the end. I had long foreseen
that a supplemental revision as well of some of
the articles of the Code, as of the laws passed since it
was digested, would become necessary, and had settled
a plan for the purpose with myself. This plan was
to suspend the laws adopted from the code, until the
supplement could be prepared, and then to put the
whole in force at once. Several circumstances satisfied
me of late that if the work was put within the
reach of the next assembly, there would be danger
not only of its being left in a mutilated state, but of

its being lost altogether. The observations in your
favor above acknowledged, encouraged me to propose
that the parts of the code adopted should take effect
without waiting for the last hand to it. This idea has
been pursued, and the bills passed at the last Session
are to com̃ence as then determined, those passed at
the present being suspended until July next. I would
myself have preferred a suspension of the former also
till July, for the sake of a more thorough promulgation,
and of a cotemporary introduction of the laws
many of which are connected together; but the Senate
thought otherwise, and in a ticklish stage of the Session,
the friends of the code in the H. of D. joined
me in opinion that it would be well to create no unnecessary
delays or disagreements. I have strong
apprehensions that the work may never be systematically
perfected for the reasons which you deduce from
our form of Government. Should a disposition however
continue in the Legislature as favorable as it has
been in some stages of the business, I think a succession
of revisions, each growing shorter than the preceding,
might ultimately bring a completion within
the compass of a single Session. At all events, the
invaluable acquisition of important bills prepared at
leisure by skilful hands, is so sensibly impressed on
thinking people by the crudeness and tedious discussion
of such as are generally introduced, that the expence
of a continued revision will be thought by all
such to be judiciously laid out for this purpose alone.
The great objection which I personally feel arises from
the necessity we are under of imposing the weight of
these projects on those whose past services have so
justly purchased an exemption from future labours.
In your case the additional consideration of ill health,
became almost an affair of Conscience, and I have
been no otherwise able to stifle the remorse of having
nominated you along with Mr. Wythe and Mr. Blair
for reviewing the subject left unfinished, than by reflecting
that your colleagues will feel every disposition
to abridge your share of the burden, and in case of
such an increase of your infirmity as to oblige you to
renounce all share, that they are authorised to appoint
to, I will not say to fill, the vacancy. I flatter
myself that you will be at least able to assist in general
consultations on the subject, and to adjust the
bills unpassed to the changes which have taken place
since they were prepared. On the most unfortunate
suppositions my intentions will be sure to find in your
benevolence a pardon for my error.

The Senate have saved our commerce from a
dreadful blow which it would have sustained from a
bill passed in the H. of D. imposing enormous duties,
without waiting for the concurrence of the other States
or even of Maryland. There is a rage at present for
high duties, partly for the purpose of revenue, partly
of forcing manufactures, which it is difficult to resist.
It seems to be forgotten in the first case that in the
arithmetic of the customs as Dean Swift observes 2
& 2 do not make four; and in the second that manufactures
will come of themselves when we are ripe
for them. A prevailing argument among others on
the subject is that we ought not to be dependent on

foreign nations for useful articles, as the event of a
war may cut off all external supplies. This argument
certainly loses its force when it is considered that in
case of a war hereafter, we should stand on a very
different ground from what we lately did. Neutral
Nations, whose rights are becoming every day more
& more extensive, would not now suffer themselves
to be shut out from our ports, nor would the hostile
Nation presume to attempt it. As far as relates to
implements of war which are contraband, the argument
for our fabrication of them is certainly good.

Our latest information from the Eastwd. has not removed
our apprehensions of ominous events in that
quarter. It is pretty certain that the seditious party
has become formidable in the Govt. and that they have
opened a com̃unication with the viceroy of Canada.
I am not enough acquainted with the proceedings of
Congress to judge of some of the points, which you
advert to. The regulations of their land office have
appeared to me nearly in the light in which they do
to you. I expect to set out in a few days for N.
York, when I shall revive my claim to a correspondence
which formerly gave me so much pleasure and
which will enable me perhaps to answer your queries.
The end of my paper will excuse an abrupt but
affecte Adieu.