can. tion. As to all others, do them by letter or otherwise, as you It will be necessary for you, doubtless, sometimes to ask the attention of the Marquis, by letter; and where you think the moment requires essentially your presence, it is understood you will come to Paris express, returning again to Amsterdam as quickly as circumstances will admit. The facilities of travelling, in Europe, admit of this. Should you think it necessary, you may appoint a secretary during your absence, to remain at Paris and communicate with allowyou, ing him a salary of four thousand livres a year. If you think this not necessary, you of course will not make the appoint ment. Since mine to you of August the 12th, yours of July the 3rd, August the 16th, and September the 18th, have come to hand. They suffice to remove all doubts which might have been entertained as to the real intentions of the British cabinet, on the several matters confided to you. The view of government in troubling you with this business, was, either to remove from between the two nations all causes of difference, by a fair and friendly adjustment, if such was the intention of the other party, or to place it beyond a doubt that such was not their intention. In result, it is clear enough that further applications would tend to delay, rather than advance our object. It is therefore the pleasure of the President, that no others be made and that in whatever state this letter may find the business, in that state it be left. I have it in charge, at the same time, to assure you that your conduct in these communications with the British ministers, has met the President's entire approbation, and to convey to you his acknowledgments for your services. As an attendance on this business must, at times, have interfered with your private pursuits, and subjected you also to additional expenses, I have the honour to inclose you a draft on our bankers in Holland for a thousand dollars, as an indemnification for those sacrifices. My letter of August the 12th desired a certain other communication to be made to the same court, if a war should have actually commenced. If the event has not already called for it, it is considered as inexpedient to be made at all. You will, of course, have the goodness to inform us of whatever may have passed further, since the date of your last. In conveying to you this testimony of approbation from the President of the United States, I am happy in an occasion of repeating assurances of the sentiments of perfect esteem and respect, with which I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, SIR, TO JOSHUA JOHNSON. Philadelphia, December 17, 1790. Though not yet informed of your receipt of my letter, covering your commission as consul for the United States, in the port of London, yet knowing that the ship has arrived by which it went, I take for granted the letter and commission have gone safe to hand, and that you have been called into the frequent exercise of your office for the relief of our seamen, upon whom such multiplied acts of violence have been committed in England, by press-gangs, pretending to take them for British subjects, not only without evidence, but against evidence. By what means may be procured for our seamen, while in British ports, that security for their persons which the laws of hospitality require, and which the British nation will surely not refuse, remains to be settled. In the mean time, there is one of these cases, wherein so wilful and so flagrant a violation has been committed by a British officer, on the person of one of our citizens, as requires that it be laid before his government, in friendly and firm reliance of satisfaction for the injury, and of assurance, for the future, that the citizens of the United States, entering the ports of Great Britain, in pursuit of a lawful commerce, shall be protected by the laws of hospitality in usage among nations. It is represented to the President of the United States, that Hugh Purdie, a native of Williamsburg, in Virginia, was, in the month of July last, seized in London by a party of men, calling themselves press-officers, and pretending authority from their government so to do, notwithstanding his declarations and the evidence he offered of his being a native citizen of the United States; and that he was transferred on board the Crescent, a British ship of war, commanded by a Captain Young. Passing over the intermediate violences exercised on him, because not peculiar to his case (so many other American citizens having suffered the same,) I proceed to the particular one which distinguishes the present representation. Satisfactory evidence having been produced by Mr. John Brown Cutting, a citizen of the United States, to the Lords of the Admiralty, that Hugh Purdie was a native citizen of the same States, they, in their justice, issued orders to the Lord Howe, their Admiral, for his discharge. In the mean time, the Lord Howe had sailed with the fleet of which the Crescent was. But, on the 27th of August, he wrote to the Board of Admiralty, that he had received their orders for the discharge of Hugh Purdie, and had directed it accordingly. Notwithstanding these orders, the receipt of which at sea Captain Young acknowledges, notwithstanding Captain Young's confessed knowledge that Hugh Purdie was a citizen of the United States, from whence it resulted that his being carried on board the Crescent, and so long detained there, had been an act of wrong, which called for expiatory conduct and attentions, rather than new injuries on his part towards the sufferer, instead of discharging him, according to the orders he had received, on his arrival in port, which was on the 14th of September, he, on the 15th, confined him in irons for several hours, then had him bound and scourged in presence of the ship's crew, under a threat to the executioner, that if he did not do his duty well, he should take the place of the sufferer. At length he discharged him on the 17th, without the means of subsistence for a single day. To establish these facts, I inclose you copies of papers communicated to me by Mr. Cutting, who laid the case of Purdie before the Board of Admiralty, and who can corroborate them by his personal evidence. He can especially verify the letter of Captain Young, were it necessary to verify a paper, the original of which is under the command of his Majesty's ministers, and this paper is so material, as to supersede of itself all other testimony, confessing the orders to discharge Purdie, that yet he had whipped him, and that it was impossible, without giving up all sense of discipline, to avoid whipping a free American citizen. We have such confidence in the justice of the British government, in their friendly regard to these States, in their respect for the honour and good understanding of the two countries, compro mitted by this act of their officer, as not to doubt their due notice of him, indemnification to the sufferer, and a friendly assurance to these States that effectual measures shall be adopted in future, to protect the persons of their citizens while in British ports. By the express command of the President of the United States, you are to lay this case, and our sense of it, before his Britannic Majesty's minister for Foreign Affairs, to urge it on his particular notice by all the motives which it calls up, and to communicate to me the result. I have the honour to be, with great esteem, DEAR SIR, TO JOSHUA JOHNSON. Philadelphia, December 23, 1790. The vexations of our seamen and their sufferings under the press-gangs of England, have become so serious, as to oblige our government to take serious notice of it. The particular case has been selected where the insult to the United States has been the most barefaced, the most deliberately intentional, and the proof the most complete. The inclosed letter to you is on that subject, and has been written on the supposition that you would shew the original to the Duke of Leeds, and give him a copy of it, but as of your own movement, and not as if officially instructed so to do. You will be pleased to follow up this matter as closely as decency will permit, pressing it in firm but respectful terms, on all occasions. think it essential that Captain Young's case may be an example to others. The inclosed letters are important. Be so good as to have them conveyed by the surest means possible. I am, with great esteem, Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, We TH. JEFFERSON. SIR, TO CHARLES HELLSTEDT, SWEDISH CONSUL. Philadelphia, February 14, 1791. I now return you the papers you were pleased to put into my hands, when you expressed to me your dissatisfaction that our Court of Admiralty had taken cognizance of a complaint of some Swedish sailors against their captain, for cruelty. If there was error in this proceeding, the law allows an appeal from that to the Supreme Court; but the appeal must be made in the forms of the law, which have nothing difficult in them. You were. certainly free to conduct the appeal yourself, without employing an advocate, but then you must do it in the usual form. Courts of justice, all over the world, are held by the laws to proceed according to certain forms, which the good of the suitors themselves requires they should not be permitted to depart from. It I have further to observe to you, Sir, that this question lies altogether with the courts of justice; that the constitution of the United States having divided the powers of government into three branches, legislative, executive, and judiciary, and deposited each with a separate body of magistracy, forbidding either to interfere in the department of the other, the executive are not at liberty to intermeddle in the present question. must be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. If you think proper to carry it into that, you may be secure of the strictest justice from them. Partialities they are not at liberty to shew. But for whatever may come before the executive, relative to your nation, I can assure you of every favour which may depend on their dispositions to cultivate harmony and a good understanding with it. I have the honour to be, with great esteem, Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, TO M. DE PINTO. SIR, Philadelphia, February 21, 1791. I have duly received the letter of November the 30th, which your Excellency did me the honour to write, informing me that her most faithful Majesty had appointed Mr. Freire her minister resident with us, and stating the difficulty of |