University of Virginia Library

TO JAMES MONROE.

Dear Sir,—Finding from a letter of Mr. Mazzei
that you have never been furnished with a copy of
the Bill for establishing the Christian Religion in, this
State, I now inclose one, regretting that I had taken
it for granted that you must have been supplied thro'
some other channel. A very warm opposition will be
made to this innovation by the people of the middle
and back Counties, particularly the latter. They do
not scruple to declare it an alarming usurpation on
their fundamental rights and that tho' the Genl Assembly
should give it the form, they will not give it
the validity of a law. If there be any limitation to
the power of the Legislature, particularly if this limitation
is to be sought in our Declaration of Rights or
Form of Government, I own the Bill appears to me to
warrant this language of the people.

A gentleman' of credit lately from Kentucky tells
me that he fell in with two persons on the Ohio, who
were going down the River in the character of
Com̃issrs from Georgia, authorized to demand from
the Spanish Govr of N. Orleans, the posts within the
limits of that State, and a settlement of the boundary
in general between it and the Spanish possessions.
The Gentleman did not see their commission, but
entertains no doubt of their having one. He was informed
that two others were joined in it who had
taken a different route. Should there be no mistake
in this case, you will no doubt be able to get a full
account of the Embassy. I would willingly suppose

that no State could be guilty either of so flagrant an
outrage on the fœderal Constitution, or of so imprudent
a mode of pursuing their claims against a foreign
Nation.

I observe in a late Newspaper that the com̃ercial
discontents of Boston are spreading to New York
and Philada. Whether they will reach Virginia or
not I am unable to say. If they should, they must
proceed from a different interest; from that of the
planters, not that of the Merchants. The present
system here is as favorable to the latter as it is ruinous
to the former. Our trade was never more compleatly
monopolized by G. B., when it was under the
direction of the British Parliament than it is at this
moment. But as our Merchants are almost all connected
with that country & that only, and as we
have neither ships nor seamen of our own, nor likely
to have any in the present course of things, no mercantile
complaints are heard. The planters are dissatisfied,
and with reason, but they enter little into
the science of commerce, and rarely of themselves
combine in defence of their interests. If any thing
could rouse them to a proper view of their situation
one might expect it from the contrast of the market
here with that of other States. Our staple has of late
been as low as a guinea per ct. on Rappahannock, and
not above 32 or 33s. on James River. The current
prices in Philada during the same period have been
44s. of this currency for tobacco of the latter inspections
and in like proportion for that of the former.
The prices of imports of every kind in those two

Markets furnish a contrast equally mortifying to us.
I have not had the same information from other States
northward of us, but I have little doubt that it would
teach us the same lesson. Our planters cannot suffer
a loss of less that 50 per ct. on the staple of the Country,
if to the direct loss in the price of the staple be
added their indirect loss in the price of what they
purchase with their staple. It is difficult notwithstanding
to make them sensible of the utility of
establishing a Philada or[33] a Baltimore among ourselves,
as one indispensable step towards relief, and
the difficulty is not a little increased by the pains taken
by the Merchants to prevent such a reformation, and
by the opposition arising from local views. I have
been told that Arthur Lee[34] paved the way to his
election in Prince William by promising that, among
other things he would overset the Port Bill. Mr. Jefferson
writes me that the Port Bill has been published
in all the Gazettes in Europe, with the highest approbation
everywhere except in G. B. It would indeed
be as surprising if she should be in favor of it
as it is that any among ourselves should be against it.
I see no possibility of engaging other nations in a
rivalship with her without some such regulation of
our commerce.