A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Edited by James D. Richardson
NOVEMBER 11, 1807.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
Some time had elapsed after the receipt of the late treaty between
the United States and Tripoli before the circumstance drew particular
attention that, although by the third article the wife and children of
the ex-Bashaw were to be restored to him, this did not appear either
to have been done or demanded; still, it was constantly expected that
explanations on the subject would be received. None, however, having
arrived when Mr. Davis went as consul to Tripoli, he was instructed to
demand the execution of the article. He did so, but was answered by the
exhibition of a declaration, signed by our negotiator the day after the
signature of the treaty, allowing four years for the restoration of the
family. This declaration and the letter of Mr. Davis stating what passed
on the occasion are now communicated to the Senate. On the receipt of
this letter I caused the correspondence of Mr. Lear to be diligently
reexamined in order to ascertain whether there might have been a
communication of this paper made and overlooked or forgotten. None such,
however, is found. There appears only in a journalized account of the
transaction by Mr. Lear, under date of June 3, a passage intimating that
he should be disposed to give time rather than suffer the business to be
broken off and our countrymen left in slavery; and again, that on the
return of the person who passed between himself and the Bashaw, and
information that the Bashaw would require time for the delivery of the
family, he consented, and went ashore to consummate the treaty. This was
done the next day, and being forwarded to us as ultimately signed, and
found to contain no allowance of time nor any intimation that there was
any stipulation but what was in the public treaty, it was supposed that
the Bashaw had, in fine, abandoned the proposition, and the instructions
before mentioned were consequently given to Mr. Davis.
An extract of so much of Mr. Lear's communication as relates to this
circumstance is now transmitted to the Senate, the whole of the papers
having been laid before them on a former occasion. How it has happened
that the declaration of June 5 has never before come to our knowledge
can not with certainty be said, but whether there has been a miscarriage
of it or a failure of the ordinary attention and correctness of that
officer in making his communications, I have thought it due to the
Senate as well as to myself to explain to them the circumstances
which have withheld from their knowledge, as they did from my own,
a modification which, had it been placed in the public treaty, would
have been relieved from the objections which candor and good faith can
not but feel in its present form.
As the restoration of the family has probably been effected, a just
regard to the character of the United States will require that I make
to the Bashaw a candid statement of facts, and that the sacrifices of
his right to the peace and friendship of the two countries, by yielding
finally to the demand of Mr. Davis, be met by proper acknowledgments and
reparation on our part.
TH. JEFFERSON.
NOVEMBER 19, 1807.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
According to the request expressed in your resolution of the 18th
instant, I now transmit a copy of my proclamation interdicting our
harbors and waters to British armed vessels and forbidding intercourse
with them, referred to in my message of the 27th of October last.
TH. JEFFERSON.
NOVEMBER 23, 1807.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
Agreeably to the assurance given in my message at the opening of
the present session of Congress, I now lay before you a copy of the
proceedings and of the evidence exhibited on the arraignment of Aaron
Burr and others before the circuit court of the United States held in
Virginia in the course of the present year, in as authentic form as
their several parts have admitted.
TH. JEFFERSON.
NOVEMBER 23, 1807.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
Some circumstance, which can not now be ascertained, induced a belief
that an act had passed at the last session of Congress for establishing
a surveyor and inspector of revenue for the port of Stonington, in
Connecticut, and commissions were signed appointing Jonathan Palmer,
of Connecticut, to those offices. The error was discovered at the
Treasury, and the commissions were retained; but not having been
notified to me, I renewed the nomination in my message of the 9th
instant to the Senate. In order to correct the error, I have canceled
the temporary commissions, and now revoke the nomination which I made
of the said Jonathan Palmer to the Senate.
TH. JEFFERSON.
DECEMBER 2, 1807.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In compliance with the request made in the resolution of the Senate
of November 30, I must inform them that when the prosecutions against
Aaron Burr and his associates were instituted I delivered to the
Attorney-General all the evidence on the subject, formal and informal,
which I had received, to be used by those employed in the prosecutions.
On the receipt of the resolution of the Senate I referred it to the
Attorney-General, with a request that he would enable me to comply with
it by putting into my hands such of the papers as might give information
relative to the conduct of John Smith, a Senator from the State of Ohio,
as an alleged associate of Aaron Burr, and having this moment received
from him the affidavit of Elias Glover, with an assurance that it is the
only paper in his possession which is within the term of the request of
the Senate, I now transmit it for their use.
TH. JEFFERSON.
DECEMBER 7, 1807.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
Having recently received from our late minister plenipotentiary at
the Court of London a duplicate of dispatches, the original of which
has been sent by the _Revenge_ schooner, not yet arrived, I hasten
to lay them before both Houses of Congress. They contain the whole
of what has passed between the two Governments on the subject of
the outrage committed by the British ship _Leopard_ on the frigate
_Chesapeake_. Congress will learn from these papers the present
state of the discussion on that transaction, and that it is to be
transferred to this place by the mission of a special minister.
While this information will have its proper effect on their
deliberations and proceedings respecting the relations between the two
countries, they will be sensible that, the negotiation being still
depending, it is proper for me to request that the communications may
be considered as confidential.
TH. JEFFERSON.
DECEMBER 18, 1807.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
The communications now made, shewing the great and increasing dangers
with which our vessels, our seamen, and merchandise are threatened
on the high seas and elsewhere from the belligerent powers of Europe,
and it being of the greatest importance to keep in safety these
essential resources, I deem it my duty to recommend the subject to
the consideration of Congress, who will doubtless perceive all the
advantages which may be expected from an inhibition of the departure
of our vessels from the ports of the United States.
Their wisdom will also see the necessity of making every preparation
for whatever events may grow out of the present crisis.
TH. JEFFERSON.
DECEMBER 30, 1807.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I communicate to Congress the inclosed letters from Governor Hull,
respecting the Indians in the vicinity of Detroit residing within our
lines. They contain information of the state of things in that quarter
which will properly enter into their view in estimating the means to
be provided for the defense of our country generally.
TH. JEFFERSON.
JANUARY 8, 1808.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I now render to Congress the account of the fund established for
defraying the contingent expenses of Government for the year 1807.
Of the sum of $18,012.50, which remained unexpended at the close
of the year 1806, $8,731.11 have been placed in the hands of the
Attorney-General of the United States, to enable him to defray sundry
expenses incident to the prosecution of Aaron Burr and his accomplices
for treasons and misdemeanors alleged to have been committed by them,
and the unexpended balance of $9,275.39 is now carried according to
law to the credit of the surplus fund.
TH. JEFFERSON.
JANUARY 15, 1808.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
The posts of Detroit and Mackinac having been originally intended by the
Governments which established and held them as mere depots for commerce
with the Indians, very small cessions of land around them were obtained
or asked from the native proprietors, and these posts depended for
protection on the strength of their garrisons. The principles of our
Government leading us to the employment of such moderate garrisons in
time of peace as may merely take care of the post, and to a reliance on
the neighboring militia for its support in the first moments of war,
I have thought it would be important to obtain from the Indians such a
cession in the neighborhood of these posts as might maintain a militia
proportioned to this object; and I have particularly contemplated, with
this view, the acquisition of the eastern moiety of the peninsula
between lakes Michigan and Huron, comprehending the waters of the latter
and of Detroit River, so soon as it could be effected with the perfect
good will of the natives. Governor Hull was therefore appointed a
commissioner to treat with them on this subject, but was instructed to
confine his propositions for the present to so much of the tract before
described as lay south of Saguina Bay and round to the Connecticut
Reserve, so as to consolidate the new with the present settled country.
The result has been an acquisition of so much only of what would have
been acceptable as extends from the neighborhood of Saguina Bay to the
Miami of the Lakes, with a prospect of soon obtaining a breadth of 2
miles for a communication from the Miami to the Connecticut Reserve.
The treaty for this purpose entered into with the Ottoways, Chippeways,
Wyandots, and Pottawattamies at Detroit on the 17th of November last is
now transmitted to the Senate, and I ask their advice and consent as to
its ratification.
I communicate herewith such papers as bear any material relation to
the subject.
TH. JEFFERSON.
JANUARY 15, 1808.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
Although it is deemed very desirable that the United States should
obtain from the native proprietors the whole left bank of the
Mississippi to a certain breadth, yet to obliterate from the Indian
mind an impression deeply made in it that we are constantly forming
designs on their lands I have thought it best where urged by no
peculiar necessity to leave to themselves and to the pressure of
their own convenience only to come forward with offers of sale to
the United States.
The Choctaws, being indebted to certain mercantile characters beyond
what could be discharged by the ordinary proceeds of their huntings, and
pressed for payment by those creditors, proposed at length to the United
States to cede lands to the amount of their debts, and designated them
in two different portions of their country. These designations not at
all suiting us, their proposals were declined for that reason, and with
an intimation that if their own convenience should ever dispose them to
cede their lands on the Mississippi we should be willing to purchase.
Still urged by their creditors, as well as by their own desire to be
liberated from debt, they at length proposed to make a cession which
should be to our convenience. James Robertson, of Tennessee, and Silas
Dinsmore were thereupon appointed commissioners to treat with them on
that subject, with instructions to purchase only on the Mississippi. On
meeting their chiefs, however, it was found that such was the attachment
of the nation to their lands on the Mississippi that their chiefs could
not undertake to cede them; but they offered all their lands south of
a line to be run from their and our boundary at the Omochita eastwardly
to their boundary with the Creeks, on the ridge between the Tombigbee
and Alabama, which would unite our possessions there from Natchez
to Tombigbee. A treaty to this effect was accordingly signed at
Pooshapekanuk on the 16th of November, 1805; but this being against
express instructions, and not according with the object then in view,
I was disinclined to its ratification, and therefore did not at the last
session of Congress lay it before the Senate for their advice, but have
suffered it to lie unacted on.
Progressive difficulties, however, in our foreign relations have brought
into view considerations other than those which then prevailed. It is
now, perhaps, become as interesting to obtain footing for a strong
settlement of militia along our southern frontier eastward of the
Mississippi as on the west of that river, and more so than higher up
the river itself. The consolidation of the Mississippi Territory and
the establishing a barrier of separation between the Indians and our
Southern neighbors are also important objects. The cession is supposed
to contain about 5,000,000 acres, of which the greater part is said to
be fit for cultivation, and no inconsiderable proportion of the first
quality, on the various waters it includes; and the Choctaws and their
creditors are still anxious for the sale.
I therefore now transmit the treaty for the consideration of the Senate,
and I ask their advice and consent as to its ratification. I communicate
at the same time such papers as bear any material relation to the
subject, together with a map on which is sketched the northern limit of
the cession, rather to give a general idea than with any pretension to
exactness, which our present knowledge of the country would not warrant.
TH. JEFFERSON.
JANUARY 20, 1808.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
Some days previous to your resolutions of the 13th instant a court of
inquiry had been instituted at the request of General Wilkinson, charged
to make the inquiry into his conduct which the first resolution desires,
and had commenced their proceedings. To the judge-advocate of that court
the papers and information on that subject transmitted to me by the
House of Representatives have been delivered, to be used according to
the rules and powers of that court.
The request of a communication of any information which may have been
received at any time since the establishment of the present Government
touching combinations with foreign agents for dismembering the Union
or the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the United States
from the agents of foreign governments can be complied with but in a
partial degree.
It is well understood that in the first or second year of the Presidency
of General Washington information was given to him relating to
certain combinations with the agents of a foreign government for the
dismemberment of the Union, which combinations had taken place before
the establishment of the present Federal Government. This information,
however, is believed never to have been deposited in any public office,
or left in that of the President's secretary, these having been duly
examined, but to have been considered as personally confidential, and
therefore retained among his private papers. A communication from the
governor of Virginia to President Washington is found in the office
of the President's secretary, which, although not strictly within the
terms of the request of the House of Representatives, is communicated,
inasmuch as it may throw some light on the subjects of the
correspondence of that time between certain foreign agents and citizens
of the United States.
In the first or second year of the Administration of President Adams
Andrew Ellicott, then employed in designating, in conjunction with the
Spanish authorities, the boundaries between the territories of the
United States and Spain, under the treaty with that nation, communicated
to the Executive of the United States papers and information respecting
the subjects of the present inquiry, which were deposited in the
Office of State. Copies of these are now transmitted to the House of
Representatives, except of a single letter and a reference from the
said Andrew Ellicott, which, being expressly desired to be kept secret,
is therefore not communicated, but its contents can be obtained from
himself in a more legal form, and directions have been given to summon
him to appear as a witness before the court of inquiry.
A paper on "The Commerce of Louisiana," bearing date the 18th of
April, 1798, is found in the Office of State, supposed to have been
communicated by Mr. Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, then a subject of
Spain, and now of the House of Representatives of the United States,
stating certain commercial transactions of General Wilkinson in New
Orleans. An extract from this is now communicated, because it contains
facts which may have some bearing on the questions relating to him.
The destruction of the War Office by fire in the close of 1800 involved
all information it contained at that date.
The papers already described therefore constitute the whole of the
information on the subjects deposited in the public offices during the
preceding Administrations, as far as has yet been found; but it can
not be affirmed that there may be no other, because, the papers of the
office being filed for the most part alphabetically, unless aided by the
suggestion of any particular name which may have given such information,
nothing short of a careful examination of the papers in the offices
generally could authorize such an affirmation.
About a twelvemonth after I came to the administration of the Government
Mr. Clark gave some verbal information to myself, as well as to the
Secretary of State, relating to the same combinations for the
dismemberment of the Union. He was listened to freely, and he then
delivered the letter of Governor Gayoso, addressed to himself, of which
a copy is now communicated. After his return to New Orleans he forwarded
to the Secretary of State other papers, with a request that after
perusal they should be burnt. This, however, was not done, and he was so
informed by the Secretary of State, and that they would be held subject
to his orders. These papers have not yet been found in the office.
A letter, therefore, has been addressed to the former chief clerk, who
may perhaps give information respecting them. As far as our memories
enable us to say, they related only to the combinations before spoken
of, and not at all to the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of
the United States; consequently they respected what was considered as
a dead matter, known to the preceding Administrations, and offering
nothing new to call for investigations, which those nearest the dates
of the transactions had not thought proper to institute.
In the course of the communications made to me on the subject of the
conspiracy of Aaron Burr I sometimes received letters, some of them
anonymous, some under names true or false, expressing suspicions and
insinuations against General Wilkinson; but one only of them, and that
anonymous, specified any particular fact, and that fact was one of those
which had been already communicated to a former Administration.
No other information within the purview of the request of the House is
known to have been received by any department of the Government from the
establishment of the present Federal Government. That which has been
recently communicated to the House of Representatives, and by them
to me, is the first direct testimony ever made known to me charging
General Wilkinson with the corrupt receipt of money, and the House of
Representatives may be assured that the duties which this information
devolves on me shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality. Should any
want of power in the court to compel the rendering of testimony obstruct
that full and impartial inquiry which alone can establish guilt or
innocence and satisfy justice, the legislative authority only will be
competent to the remedy.
TH. JEFFERSON.
JANUARY 30, 1808.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
The Choctaws, being indebted to their merchants beyond what could be
discharged by the ordinary proceeds of their buntings, and pressed for
payment, proposed to the United States to cede lands to the amount of
their debts, and designated them in two different portions of their
country. These designations, not at all suiting us, were declined. Still
urged by their creditors, as well as by their own desire to be liberated
from debt, they at length proposed to make a cession which should be to
our convenience. By a treaty signed at Pooshapuckanuck on the 16th of
November, 1805, they accordingly ceded all their lands south of a line
to be run from their and our boundary at the Omochita eastwardly to
their boundary with the Creeks, on the ridge between the Tombigbee and
Alabama, as is more particularly described in the treaty, containing
about 5,000,000 acres, as is supposed, and uniting our possessions there
from Adams to Washington County.
The location contemplated in the instructions to the commissioners was
on the Mississippi. That in the treaty being entirely different, I was
at that time disinclined to its ratification, and I have suffered it to
lie unacted on. But progressive difficulties in our foreign relations
have brought into view considerations other than those which then
prevailed. It is now, perhaps, as interesting to obtain footing for a
strong settlement of militia along our southern frontier eastward of the
Mississippi as on the west of that river, and more so than higher up the
river itself. The consolidation of the Mississippi Territory and the
establishment of a barrier of separation between the Indians and our
Southern neighbors are also important objects; and the Choctaws and
their creditors being still anxious that the sale should be made, I
submitted the treaty to the Senate, who have advised and consented to
its ratification. I therefore now lay it before both Houses of Congress
for the exercise of their constitutional powers as to the means of
fulfilling it.
TH. JEFFERSON.
JANUARY 30, 1808.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
The posts of Detroit and Mackinac having been originally intended by the
Governments which established and held them as mere depots for commerce
with the Indians, very small cessions of land around them were obtained
or asked from the native proprietors, and these posts depended for
protection on the strength of their garrisons. The principles of our
Government leading us to the employment of such moderate garrisons in
time of peace as may merely take care of the post, and to a reliance on
the neighboring militia for its support in the first moments of war,
I have thought it would be important to obtain from the Indians such a
cession in the neighborhood of these posts as might maintain a militia
proportioned to this object; and I have particularly contemplated,
with this view, the acquisition of the eastern moiety of the peninsula
between the lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie, extending it to the
Connecticut Reserve so soon as it could be effected with the perfect
good will of the natives.
By a treaty concluded at Detroit on the 17th of November last with the
Ottoways, Chippeways, Wyandots, and Pattawatimas so much of this country
has been obtained as extends from about Saguina Bay southwardly to the
Miami of the Lakes, supposed to contain upward of 5,000,000 acres, with
a prospect of obtaining for the present a breadth of 2 miles for a
communication from the Miami to the Connecticut Reserve.
The Senate having advised and consented to the ratification of this
treaty, I now lay it before both Houses of Congress for the exercise
of their constitutional powers as to the means of fulfilling it.
TH. JEFFERSON.
FEBRUARY 2, 1808.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
Having received an official communication of certain orders of the
British Government against the maritime rights of neutrals, bearing date
the 11th of November, 1807, I transmit them to Congress, as a further
proof of the increasing dangers to our navigation and commerce, which
led to the provident measure of the act of the present session laying an
embargo on our own vessels,
TH. JEFFERSON.
FEBRUARY 4, 1808.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
In my message of January 20 I stated that some papers forwarded by Mr.
Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, to the Secretary of State in 1803 had not
then been found in the Office of State, and that a letter had been
addressed to the former chief clerk, in the hope that he might advise
where they should be sought for. By indications received from him they
are now found. Among them are two letters from the Baron de Carondelet
to an officer serving under him at a separate post, in which his views
of a dismemberment of our Union are expressed. Extracts of so much of
these letters as are within the scope of the resolution of the House are
now communicated. With these were found the letters written by Mr. Clark
to the Secretary of State in 1803. A part of one only of these relates
to this subject, and is extracted and inclosed for the information of
the House. In no part of the papers communicated by Mr. Clark, which are
voluminous and in different languages, nor in his letters, have we found
any intimation of the corrupt receipt of money by any officer of the
United States from any foreign agent. As to the combinations with
foreign agents for dismembering the Union, these papers and letters
offer nothing which was not probably known to my predecessors, or which
could call anew for inquiries, which they had not thought necessary to
institute, when the facts were recent and could be better proved. They
probably believed it best to let pass into oblivion transactions which,
however culpable, had commenced before this Government existed, and had
been finally extinguished by the treaty of 1795.