Mr. Jefferson's unreserved correspondence during this session shows that he deeply felt the perplexities of his situation, and that the office of chief magistrate, after its novelty is worn off, is to him who is at once anxious to do right and is sensitive of blame, one of more care and vexation than enjoyment. He on the 13th January discloses to his old friend John Dickinson some of the sources of his anxiety. He speaks of the local discontents in the territory of New Orleans, arising from the prohibition to import slaves; from the administration of justice in our forms, principles, and language, with all of which they are unacquainted; and lastly, from the call on them by the land commissioners to produce the titles to their lands, the object and effect of which they misunderstood; all of which had conspired to produce great dissatisfaction. He says he has suggested a grant of land to 30,000 voluntary emigrants to the west of the Mississippi, on condition of defending the country for seven years, by which the Americans would constitute the majority. He is silent on Burr's conspiracy, though that as well as our foreign negotiations must have then been subjects of unceasing solicitude, and no doubt dictated the last paragraph of his letter in a strain very foreign to his sanguine and cheerful temper.

"I have tired you my friend with a long letter. But your tedium will end in a few lines more. Mine has yet two years to endure. I am tired of an office where I can do no more good than many others, who would be glad to be employed in it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but unceasing drudgery, and daily loss of friends. Every office becoming vacant, every appointment made, me donne un ingrat, et cent ennemis. My only consolation is in the belief that my fellow-citizens at large give me credit for good intentions. I will certainly endeavour to merit the continuance of the good-will which follows well intended actions, and their approbation will be the dearest reward I can carry into retirement."

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CHAPTER X.

Negotiations and Treaty with England. Character of the Treaty. The President declines submitting it to the Senate. Further negotiations. Burr's Conspiracy. His arrest and trial. The President's Correspondence with the Attorney of the United States. The right to summon the President. Conduct of the Federalists. Burr's Acquittal. The British ship Leopard attacks the Frigate Chesapeake. Popular excitement-measures of the Administration.-Demand of satisfaction.-Prudent course pursued. Impost on wines. Appointment to Offices. Abuses of the Press. Cabinet consultations. Letter to Governor Sullivan. Sends his grandson to Philadelphia. His opinions on the Medical Science.-On removals from office. The Emperor Alexander.

1807.

FROM the time that Mr. Jefferson heard that Mr. Fox had a place in the new ministry, after the death of Mr. Pitt, he entertained lively hopes of concluding a treaty with Great Britain, derived from the known candour of that eminent statesman, his liberal principles, and supposed friendly sentiments towards the United States. But whether Mr. Fox would have thought this a fit occasion of manifesting his enlarged views and conciliatory temper, or though he had, whether he would not have been overruled by his more cautious and cal culating associates in the cabinet, cannot now be known; for he was prevented by indisposition from taking part in the negotiation, and before it had made much progress, followed his great rival to the tomb.

It soon appeared from the despatches received from Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, after they had entered upon the negotiation, that there was little probability of making a satis

factory adjustment of the great questions of impressment, indemnity for spoliations, or the West India trade. Anticipating a change of ministry after Mr. Fox's death, and with his hopes of a successful negotiation greatly moderated, the president thought it prudent to give more explicit instructions to the American envoys. They were therefore informed of his views on the subjects of impressments, neutral commerce, blockades, East and West India trade, and indemnification, and they were instructed not to enter into any treaty which did not provide some security against the impressment of American seamen.

These despatches were, however, too late. They were dated the 3rd of February, 1807, and the treaty was signed in London on the 31st of December preceding.

The day before Congress rose, the president received from Mr. Erskine a copy of the treaty, and it fell so far short of what he conceived to be the just claims of the United States, as well as of his instructions, that he decided at once on not submitting it to the senate, but to try the effect of further negotiation. Besides other objections, there were two that were insuperable. These were, that the treaty contained no provision whatever on the subject of impressment; and because it was accompanied with a note from the British ministers, by which the British government reserved to itself the right of releasing itself from the stipulations in favour of neutral rights, if the United States submitted to the Berlin decree, or other invasion of those rights by France.

The treaty consisted of twenty-six articles. It confirmed the permanent and unexpired articles in the treaty of 1794. On the subject of the East India trade, rights of neutrals and

* This gentleman had been appointed under the Grenville administration to succeed, or rather to take the place of Mr. Merry, as minister from Great Britain to the United States. He reached Washington in the preceding November.

belligerents, appointment of consuls, surrender of criminals, equalization of duties, and regulation of privateers, the two instruments were substantially the same. The new features in the treaty of 1806 were, that Great Britain consented that the United States should have a circuitous trade with the colonies of her enemies, during the existing hostilities. The limit of maritime jurisdiction is extended to five miles from the coast provision is made in favour of those who may be shipwrecked: advantages in navigation or trade granted by either party to any nation to extend to the other all laws passed and measures taken against the African slave trade to be communicated to the other.

:

This treaty was more favourable to the United States than the treaty of 1794, in adding tar and pitch to the exceptions from contraband; in enlarging the bounds of exclusive jurisdiction on the coast, from three marine miles to five; in not recognising provisions as contraband; in extending the reservation of the right of one party to countervail the tonnage duties of the other party to the United States; and, in place of the former reservation to Great Britain of the right to countervail the discriminating duties in America, equality of duties, of drawbacks and bounties on merchandise, whether in British or American vessels, was expressly stipulated. It was less advantageous in limiting the trade to the British settlements in India to direct voyages, outward as well as homeward; and in providing no compensation for illegal captures. The article by which Great Britain agrees to a trade with her enemies' colonies, for a time, and under certain restrictions, cannot perhaps be properly placed under either head, but certainly not under the first, as the American negotiators regarded it. It was the result of a compromise, by which the United States conceded at least as much as they gained. They had always claimed the right to a direct trade between any nation and its colonies, whenever

permitted by such nation, in war or peace, and this claim they surrendered; but Great Britain merely conceded to the United States the trade between her enemies and their colonies, when the continuity of the voyage was broken, and this trade her admiralty had, until recently, deemed legitimate. Of the same neutralized character was the omission of the article concerning provisions, for while the United States conceded that they might be stopped as contraband, Great Britain agreed to waive the forfeiture, and to indemnify the neutral for stopping them. As a treaty of navigation and commerce, then, it was not better than that negotiated by Mr. Jay;* and Mr. Jefferson could not, with any regard either to the equal rights of his country, or to his own consistency, have given it the sanction of his approbation, even had it been free from the two insuperable objections that have been mentioned.

The course which the president prescribed to himself on this occasion was soon publicly known, as he had informally communicated it to Mr. Adams and another member of the senate, who waited on him with a message from that body on the last day of the session; and his conduct of course at once became a subject of newspaper attack and defence. He adverts to these criminations in his first letter to Mr. Monroe, after he received the original treaty; and says, that his reasons for writing himself, in addition to the official letters that were written by the secretary of state, were the uncommon efforts that were made by the federal papers to produce mischief between himself personally and the negotiators;

* It may be fairly presumed that Lord Grenville, who was then premier, and had negotiated the treaty of 1794 with Mr. Jay, would have been particularly unwilling to subject himself to the reproach of sanctioning a worse treaty now than he had negotiated then, or of conceding to an administration suspected of predilections for France what he had refused to another that was supposed to be friendly to England, and was avowedly antigallican.