no substitute will be received. If the vessels which bring tobacco, rice and whale oil, do not find them in the ports of delivery, they must be sought where they can be found; that is, in England, at present. If they were made in France, they would be gladly taken in exchange there. The quantities annually used by this description of people, and their value, are as follows: Oznaburgs Plains 2,700,000 aunes, at sixteen sous the aune, worth Duffel blankets 300,000 aunes, at seven and four-fifths livres each livres. 2,160,000 2,700,000 2,160,000 7,020,000 It would be difficult to say how much should be added for the consumption of inhabitants of other descriptions; a great deal, surely. But the present view shall be confined to the one description named. Seven millions of livres are nine millions of days' work, of those who raise, spin and weave the wool and flax; and, at three hundred working days to the year, would maintain thirty thousand people. To introduce these simple manufactures, suppose government to give five per cent on the value of what should be exported of them, for ten years to come: if none should be exported, nothing would be to be paid: but on the other hand, if the manufactures, with this encouragement, should rise to the full demand, it will be a sacrifice of three hundred and fifty-one thousand livres a year, for ten years only, to produce a perpetual subsistence for more than thirty thousand people (for the demand will grow with our population); while she must expend perpetually one million two hundred and eighty-five thousand livres a year, to maintain the three thousand five hundred and seventy seamen, who would supply her with whale oil; that is to say, for each seaman, as much as for thirty laborers and manufacturers. But to return to our subject, and to conclude. Whether, then, we consider the Arret of September the 28th in a political or a commercial light, it would seem that the United States should be excepted from its operation. Still more so, when they invoke against it the amity subsisting between the two nations, the desire of binding them together by every possible interest and connexion, the several acts in favor of this exception, the dignity of legislation, which admits not of changes backwards and forwards, the interests of commerce, which requires steady regulations, the assurances of the friendly motives which have led the King to pass these acts, and the hope, that no cause will arise to change either his motives or his measures towards us. SIR, TO JOHN JAY. Paris, November 29, 1788. In the hurry of making up my letter of the 19th instant, I omitted the inclosed printed paper, on the subject of whale oil. That omission is now supplied by another conveyance, by the way of London. The explanatory Arret is not yet come out. I still take for granted it will pass, though there be an opposition to it in the Council. In the mean time, orders are given to receive our oils which may arrive. The apprehension of a want of corn has induced them to turn their eyes to foreign supplies; and to show their preference of receiving them from us, they have passed the inclosed Arret, giving a premium on wheat and flour from the United States, for a limited time. This you will doubtless think proper to have translated and published. The Notables are still in session; the votes of the separate bureaux have not yet been reduced to a joint act, in an assembly of the whole. I see no reason to suppose they will change the separate votes relative to the representation of the Tiers Etat, in the States General. In the mean time, the stream of public indignation, heretofore directed against the court, sets strongly against the Notables. It is not yet decided when the States will meet: but certainly they cannot till February or March. The Turks have retired across the Danube. This movement indicates their going into winter quarters, and the severity of the weather must hasten it. The thermometer was yesterday at eight degrees of Farenheit, that is, twenty-four degrees below freezing; a degree of cold equal to that of the year 1740, , which they count here among their coldest winters. This having continued many days, and being still likely to continue, and the wind from north-east, render it probable that all enterprise must be suspended between the three great belligerent powers. Poland is likely to be thrown into great convulsions. The Empress of Russia has peremptorily demanded such aids from Poland as might engage it in the war. The King of Prussia, on the other hand, threatens to march an army on their borders. The vote of the Polish confederacy for one hundred thousand men, was a coalition of the two parties, in that single act only. The party opposed to the King have obtained a majority, and have voted that this army shall be independent of him. They are supported by Prussia, while the King depends on Russia. Authentic information from England leaves not a doubt, that the King is lunatic; and that, instead of the effect, is the cause of the illness, under which he has been so near dying. I mention this, because the English newspapers, speaking by guess on that as they do on all other subjects, might mislead you as to his true situation; or rather, might mislead others, who know less than you do, that a thing is not rendered the more probable by being mentioned in those papers. I inclose those of Leyden to the present date, with the gazettes of France, and have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, TH: JEFFERSON. SIR, TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. Paris, December 4, 1788. Your favor of August the 31st came to hand yesterday; and a confidential conveyance offering, by the way of London, I avail myself of it, to acknowledge the receipt. I have seen, with infinite pleasure, our new constitution accepted by eleven States, not rejected by the twelfth; and that the thirteenth happens to be a State of the least importance. It is true, that the minorities in most of the accepting States have been very respectable; so much so, as to render it prudent, were it not otherwise reasonable, to make some sacrifice to them. I am in hopes that the annexation of a bill of rights to the constitution will alone draw over so great a proportion of the minorities, as to leave little danger in the opposition of the residue; and that this annexation may be made by Congress and the Assemblies without calling a convention, which might endanger the most valuable parts of the system. Calculation has convinced me, that circumstances may arise, and probably will arise, wherein all the resources of taxation will be necessary for the safety of the State. For though I am decidedly of opinion we should take no part in European quarrels, but cultivate peace and commerce with all, yet who can avoid seeing the source of war, in the tyranny of those nations, who deprive us of the natural right of trading with our neighbors? The produce of the United States will soon exceed the European demand: what is to be done with the surplus, when there shall be one? It will be employed, without question, to open, by force, a market for itself, with those placed on the same continent with us, and who wish nothing better. Other causes, too, are obvious, which may involve us in war; and war requires every resource of taxation and credit. The power of making war often prevents it, and in our case would give efficacy to our desire of peace. If the new government wears the front which I hope it will, I see no impossibility in the availing ourselves of the wars of others to open the other parts of America to our commerce, as the price of our neutrality. The campaign between the Turks and two empires has been clearly in favor of the former. The Emperor is secretly trying to bring about a peace. The alliance between England, Prussia and Holland, (and some suspect Sweden also) renders their mediation decisive wherever it is proposed. They seemed to interpose it so magisterially between Denmark and Sweden, that the former submitted to its dictates, and there was all reason to believe that the war in the north-western parts of Europe would be quieted. All of a sudden, a new flame bursts out in Poland. The King and his party are devoted to Russia. The opposition rely on the protection of Prussia. They have lately become the majority in the confederated diet, and have passed a vote for subjecting their army to a commission independent of the King, and propose a perpetual diet, in which case he will be a perpetual cypher. Russia declares against such a change in their constitution, and Prussia has put an army into readiness, for marching at a moment's warning, on the frontiers of Poland. These events are too recent to see, as yet, what turn they will take, or what effect they will have on the peace of Europe. So is that also of the lunacy of the King of England, which is a decided fact, notwithstanding all the stuff the English papers publish, about his fevers, his deliriums, &c. The truth is that the lunacy declared itself almost at once, and with as few concomitant complaints as usually attend the first developement of that disorder. I suppose a regency will be established, and if it consists of a plurality of members, it will probably be peaceable. In this event it will much favor the present wishes of this country, which are so decidedly for peace, that they refused to enter into the mediation between. Sweden and Russia, lest it should commit them. As soon as the convocation of the States General was announced, a tranquillity took place through the whole kingdom; happily no open rupture had taken place in any part of it. The parliaments were reinstated in their functions at the same time. This was all they desired; and they had called for the States General only through fear that the crown could not otherwise be forced to reinstate them. Their end obtained, they began to foresee danger to themselves in the States General. They began to lay the foundation for cavilling at the legality of that body, if its measures should be hostile to them. The court, to clear itself of the dispute, convened the Notables, who had acted with general approbation on the former occasion, and referred to them the forms of calling and organising the States General. These Notables consist principally of Nobility and Clergy; the few of the Tiers Etat among them being either parliament men, or other privileged persons. The court wished, that in the future States General the members of the Tiers Etat should equal those of both the other orders, and that they should form but one House altogether, and vote by persons, not by orders. But the Notables, in the true spirit of Priests and Nobles, combining together against the people, have voted, by five bureaux out of six, that the people, or Tiers Etat, shall have no greater number of deputies than each of the other orders separately, and that they shall vote by orders; so that two orders concurring in a vote, the third will be overruled; for it is not here as in England, where each of the three branches has a negative on the other two. If this project of theirs succeeds, a combination between the two Houses of Clergy and Nobles will render the representation of the Tiers Etat merely nugatory. The bureaux are to assemble together to consolidate their separate votes; but I see no reasonable hope of their changing this. Perhaps the King, knowing that he may count on the support of the nation, and attach it more closely to him, may take on himself to disregard the opinion of the Notables in this instance, and may call an equal representation of the people, in which precedents will support him. In every event I think the present disquiet will end well. The nation has been awaked by our revolution, they feel their strength, they are enlightened, their lights are spreading, and they will not retrograde. The first States General may establish three important points without opposition from the court; 1. their own periodical convocation; 2. their exclusive right of taxation (which has been confessed by the King); 3. the right of registering laws, and of previously proposing amendments to them, as the parliaments have, by usurpation, been in the habit of doing. The court will consent to this from its hatred to the parliaments, and from the desire of having to do with one, rather than many legislatures. If the States are prudent, they will not aim at more than this at first, lest they should shock the dispositions of the court, and even alarm |