University of Virginia Library

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Your favr. of the 15th. Inst: came to hand yesterday.
I will procure you the "definition of parties"

and one or two other things from the press which
merit a place in your archives. Osnabrigs can be had
here. Negro Cotton I am told can also be had: but
of this I am not sure. I learn nothing yet of Blake.

The inclosed paper will give you the correspondence
of E. R. & Hammond on an occurrence particularly
interesting. You will be as able to judge as we
are of the calculations to be founded on it. The embargo
expires to-day. A proposition some days ago
for continuing it was negatived by a vast majority;
all parties in the main concurring. The Republican
was assured that the Embargo if continued would
be considered by France as hostility. The other had
probably an opposite motive. It now appears that
throughout the Continent the people were anxious
for its continuance, & it is probable that its expiration
will save the W. Inds from famine, without
affording any sensible aid to France. A motion
was put on the table yesterday for re-enacting it.
Measures of this sort are not the fashion. To supplicate
for peace, and under the uncertainty of success,
to prepare for war by taxes & troops is the
policy which now triumphs under the patronage of
the Executive. Every attack on G. B. thro' her
comerce is at once discomfited; & all the taxes,
that is to say excises, stamps, &c. are carried by
decided majorities. The plan for a large army has
failed several times in the H. of Reps. It is now to
be sent from the Senate, and being recommended
by the Message of the P., accompanying the intelligence
from the Miami, will probably succeed.

The influence of the Ex. on events, the use made of
them, and the public confidence in the P. are an
overmatch for all the efforts Republicanism can
make. The party of that sentiment in the Senate is
compleatly wrecked; and in the H. of Reps in a
much worse condition than at an earlier period of
the Session.[97]