University of Virginia Library

TO RUFUS KING.

My letter of the 15th of June acknowledged the receipt of
your communciations of April 20th and 21st by Mr. Sitgreaves.
Your several favors received prior to that date and
since and not acknowledged complete your new series including
No. 16 with the addition of No. 19.

Having already communicated to you the decision of the
President with regard to the proposed commutation of the
claims against the United States under Art VI of the Treaty of
1794, into a nett sum of six hundred thousand pounds sterling
I have nothing new to add on that subject beyond my wishes
that the negotiation may be brought to a speedy as well as a
final issue. Your letter of May 30th the last one received
countenances such an expectation more than the preceding
appearances. There is notwithstanding too much room to
remark that with due allowances for other pressures on the
attention of the British government, a due share of it has not
been given to a subject which they profess to consider of so
much importance to that good understanding between the two
countries, which they also profess to have so severely at heart.

But if complaint be justifiable for the delays attending
the proposed liquidation of the debts, on which a difference of
opinion, and a tedious discussion were to be apprehended, what
must be thought of the difficulties and delays thrown in the
way of other subjects; some of them acknowledged to be just
in the precise form given to them, others unsusceptible of any
specious controversy; and others of a nature and magnitude

to make the most trying appeal to the interests and sensibility
of the United States.

By your letter of March 10th 1800, it appears that the proposition
for explaining the list of contraband of war contained
in the XVIII Art. of the Treaty, and thereby instigating the
vexations of our lawful commerce under the pretext of that
article, tho' admitted as early as the summer of 1799, after full
examination and minute discussion, to be in a form proper to
be adopted has not even yet carried into effect, nor is it known
that any adequate measures have been taken to arrest or
redress the abuses.

The Articles proposed to be added to the Treaty for placing
our vessels trading in the Mississippi under the same security
with our other coasting vessels and declaring that neither
party shall impress on the high seas, seamen out of vessels
of the other, tho' resting on such solid grounds of reason, and
the latter so acknowledged by Lord St. Vincent himself, and
though known to have been for many years a source of peculiar
irritation in this country, have neither of them been formally
stipulated or practically enforced.

Even the proposed removal of the obstacles of form to the
restitution of the Maryland Bank Stock, a measure prescribed
by the clearest obligations of moral and legal right, has experienced
all the procrastination incident to the most doubtful
and intricate topics of negotiation.

Adding to these considerations, the perseverence of the
British Government in not effectually controlling the depredations
on our commerce, the immence amount of the depredations,
the violations of all principal, rule, and decorum in
many of their subordinate Tribunals, the difficulties, delay,
and ruinous expense of seeking redress in the higher ones, the
numerous instances in which insult has been added to injury,
during the seizures and condemnations of our vessels; adding
again the number and manner of impressments committed
on American Seamen, native as well as naturalized, with their
protections in their hands, and on neutral aliens voluntarily

engaged in the service of our vessels, together with the long
period thro' which this enormity, as well as that of the depredations
on our commerce, has been suffered to go on, in spite
of all the arguments expostulations, and remonstrances
which have been opposed to them; adding finally, that this
mass of injustice and aggression has fallen on a nation whose
proceedings towards the British nation and government have
been regulated by the most faithful attention both to the stipulations
arising from its neutral character; which [is] acknowledged
by that government to have furnished no just topic for
reproach or complaint; which is felt and admitted also to be
the greatest consumer of British exports the most valuable
source of those raw and bulky materials, which employ both
their manufacturers and the navigation, in fact in all senses,
the best customer, and latterly the fund in a great measure
of the necessaries of life to themselves, as it must be at all
times to a great part of their dependent dominions; all these
considerations thrown into one view make it difficult to decide
whether the greater wonder ought to be exacted by the steady
course of rectitude observed on the part of the United States,
or the wanton abuses of power on the part of Great Britain,
by the unexampled patience of the former or the unpolitic
experiment made on it by the latter.

To give full force to these remarks it would be requisite
to state the precise extent of the two principal injuries viz:
the spoliations on our trade, and the impressment of our
seamen. The materials however in this office give a more
limited information on the first of these, than such as are
probably in your hands or within your reach. The value of
the property unlawfully seized and condemned since the
Treaty of 1794, and consequently in violation of that Treaty,
must amount at a moderate computation to some millions
of dollars.

The imperfect lists of impressed seamen which have been
obtained by our Agents and reported to this Department
swell the number to near two thousand, more than four fifths

of whom are natives of the United States, not more than
seventy are British subjects, and more than seventy Aliens
both to Great Britain and the United States, and consequently
so distinguishable by the language and other signs as to take
away all color of apology for the outrage. Of the whole
number of seamen thus deprived of their rights and forced into
the hardships and dangers of a foreign service in time of war,
about one third only have been set at liberty; notwithstanding
the time, the pains and the expense which have been used for
that purpose by their country.

Examples might be multiplied, both of depradations and
impressments, showing also in the strongest manner that the
extent of them is not the only offensive light in which they are
to be viewed. Your own recollection and researches can
readily supply these examples. You will find several of the
first kind in the hands of Mr. Williams referred to him by the
Consul at Lisbon. In relation to impressments it will not be
improper to cite a very marked instance which has lately been
transmitted. By a letter from Mr. Smith the Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States at Lisbon it appears "that on
the night of the 7th April last, between the hours of 11 & 3
oclock three American vessels were boarded while at anchor
in that Harbour, by a boat belonging to the British frigate
Diana, Captain Stephenson, manned by an officer and several
men, who armed with pistols and drawn cutlasses after committing
sundry acts of outrage and menacing the lives of
unarmed men in their beds, forcibly pressed and carried away
a seaman from one of the said ships."

It is to be observed that in aggravation of this atrocious assault,
it was made during the middle of the night, within the
jurisdiction of a friend both to Great Britain and the United
States, that it proceeded from a ship of war, commanded by
a commissioned officer, and was executed by a party headed
by an officer: A greater indignity could scarcely be offered
to the United States or to Portugal, or a more flagrant outrage
to individuals. It is indeed said that the Captain of the Frigate

disclaimed all knowledge of the transaction: But have the
real authors of it been brought to punishment? Has the unfortunate
seaman been restored? An apology without these
satisfactions is a mockery and nothing more. As it appears
by Mr. Smith's letter to the Department of State, that you
have been furnished with an account of this atrocity, it is not
doubted that you will have presented it in its true light to
the British Government and as the fact is so precise and so
indisputable, and the officers can be so easily identified, it
would be but a reasonable reliance that instant trial and
punishment must have ensued, if the inefficacy of demands on
the justice of the British Government on such subjects, had
not so much familiarized the United States to disappointment.

The complaints daily arriving at this office show that our
mariners are impressed without the least respect for their
legal protections, certified, in the most authentic forms; that
after impressment they are often menaced or maltreated into
enlistments, and then (in direct contradiction to the principle
on which British seamen voluntarily engaged on board American
vessels are taken off as British subjects) claimed as regular
members of British crews, that they are in fine, not only subject
to the discipline and dangers of the foreign service, but exposed
to be made prisoners by the powers at war with Great Britain,
and involved with British subjects in all the calamities of that
situation.

Of this last fact the following proof is selected out of a
number that might be produced, because being the last received
it is the first that offers itself, and because it includes a very
singular aggravation of the original tresspass.

Mr. Mountflorence writes from Paris on the 15th of April
1801 "that many of our seamen are daily captured on board
English vessels by French cruisers, and brought into the ports
of France. The British Commissary of Prisoners of war here
had constantly claimed such American sailors as English, to
have them exchanged as such. These Americans being put
on board of a Cartel, were not suffered to land on their arrival

in a British port, but were immediately taken on board some
tender and carried to the nearest English man of war By
these means these poor fellows were deprived of the possibility
of making their cases known to our Agent for seaman in
London. Such at least is the information given me by some
sailors."

It cannot be pleaded that the seamen in question were taken
in vessels where they had entered voluntarily. These instances
if they exist at all are so few that the supposition
cannot be admitted. Nor does it mitigate the wrong on the
part of Great Britain, that they have suffered another wrong
from the French Republic in not being set at liberty on arriving
within its jurisdiction, according to the law and practice of
nations. A redress of the latter wrong will be pursued, thro'
the Minister Plenipotentiary, who is shortly to go to that
country and with the less doubt of success as Mr. Mountflorence
says, that an interposition in his ex-official character has
obtained the discharge of a number of our seamen mingled
with British prisoners.

It has been felt as a duty to the public rights, and also
as a just respect to the public sensibility, not to pass lightly
over the spoliations and impressments which the British
Government has so long authorized or tolerated. Hitherto,
the patience here has been nourished by a hope that right and
reason would by degrees be consulted by power, or at least
that peace might quickly close the scene of its abuses. This
hope has not lost altogether its influence. But it is proper
to be known that the wrongs have made a deep impression
on the American mind, and that if no satisfactory change of
conduct be soon apparent, and the war be likely to go on, the
policy of this Country, can scarcely fail to take some shape
more remedial than that hitherto given to it. Should any
necessity of this sort be imposed, the inconvenience which
may result from it cannot in any degree be chargeable to the
United States. The desire not being more than the same respect
for their rights which they scrupulously pay to the rights

of Great Britain. They have manifested every disposition
to cultivate good will and liberal intercourse between the
two Countries. The sacrifices made to this disposition are
indubitable proofs of its sincerity. The President wishes
it to be understood, that his disposition is in perfect concurrence
with that of the community, and that every proper
demonstration of it, will be found in the course of his administration.
At the same time he equally wishes it to be understood
and impressed, that whilst nothing is necessary on the
part of Great Britain to the establishment of a thorough and
lasting cordiality in the United States but a return of the
justice and respect of which they offer the example it is not
less certain, that without such a return, their cordiality must
not be expected to be either entire or lasting.

I had written thus far when your letters of May 15 and 19
and June 1 came to hand, all at the same time. The contents
of them, tho' much is left to be done, for the removal of our
complaints, especially on the subject of our seamen, afford
very great and sincere pleasure.

If the measures for suppressing the licentious proceedings
of the Cruisers and Courts in the West Indies, be carried into
full effect, they will cut off no inconsiderable source of the
ravages on our trade. It is somewhat apprehended however,
that the orders may be evaded as heretofore, whilst the present
establishment of Courts continues, and that the tediousness
of the parliamentary reform of these may conspire with the
lateness of its date, to afford a long period for the harvest of
abuses, and to shorten that within which they are to be
corrected. Nevertheless it is of great importance in every
view, that your endeavors should not be relaxed in urging all
these measures of reform. The amendments which you have
suggested to the Bill introduced into the House of Commons
seem well calculated to render it more effectual, and consequently
more conciliatory, and will on both accounts improve
its character. As the British Government has now repeatedly
and so solemnly disavowed the principle on which so many

condemnations have been made to the West Indies, it may be
reasonably expected that it will provide a summary and
complete redress for the individuals injured by them. In
most of the cases, the principle of condemnation is expressed
in the sentence and removes all difficulty, and when this has
been omitted it will not be difficult to deduce it from the libel
or other circumstances of the case. You will conform to the
injunctions of the President by pursuing this object with the
attention which is due to the parties interested. Whenever
it shall be known that a summary provision has been assented
to, this Department will give all the assistance it can, towards
extending the benefit of it to the individual claimants. The
removal of Admiral Parker, and Captain Pollen from the
American station, and on the grounds assigned for it, is
another indication of a juster policy towards the United
States which deserves to be acknowledged.

No time was lost in presenting more particularly to the
attention of the President, your letter of June 1st stating the
interview with Lord H. in which he communicated to you for
the information of the President, the orders given at the
British ports in the Mediterranean, in favor of the American
squadron sent into that sea. The President has received
this communication with a lively satisfaction, and charges
you to assure his British Majesty, that he feels all the value of
the good offices he has been pleased to interpose, both as they
afford a seasonable accommodation to the little squadron
dispatched for the protection of our Mediterranean Trade, and
as they are a pledge of those friendly sentiments and that
liberal policy which the United States sincerely wish to be
reciprocal and perpetual between the two nations.

The cession of Losisiana from Spain to France, as intimated
in you letter of 29 March had been previously mentioned
from several quarters, and has since been repeated from others
as an arrangement believed to have taken place. Although
no official or regulation confirmation of the fact has been
received, it is more than a probability and has been the

subject of instructions to Mr. Pinckney the Minister of the
United States at Madrid, as it will also be to Mr. Livingston
the Minister going to Paris. They will both make use of the
proper [means] to prevent a change of our Southern neigbours,
that is to say the means of peace and persuasion. Should
Great Britain interpose her projects also in that quarter, the
scene will become more interesting, and require still greater
circumspection on the part of the United States. You will
doubtless be always awake to circumstances which may
indicate her views, and will lose no time in making them
known to the President. Considering the facility with which
her extensive Navy can present itself on our part, that she
already flanks us on the North, and that if possessed of Spanish
countries contiguous to us, she might soon have a range of
settlements in our rear, as well as flank us on the South also,
it is certainly not without reason that she is the last of Neighbours
that would be agreeable to the United States.

It will be agreeable and may be useful for you to know that
the Seasons on which our summer harvests depended have
been unaccountably favorable, and particularly the crops of
Wheat throughout the United States are estimated to exceed
by one half the produce of any preceding year, at the same
time, that the quality is uncommonly excellent.

With sentiments &c.