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NEPOTISM
The resolution you so properly approved had
long been formed in my mind. The public will never be made to
believe that an appointment of a relative is made on the ground of
merit alone, uninfluenced by family views; nor can they ever see
with approbation offices, the disposal of which they entrust to
their Presidents for public purposes, divided out as family
property. Mr. Adams degraded himself infinitely by his conduct on
this subject, as General Washington had done himself the greatest
honor. With two such examples to proceed by, I should be doubly
inexcusable to err. It is true that this places the relations of the
President in a worse situation than if he were a stranger, but the
public good, which cannot be affected if its confidence be lost,
requires this sacrifice. |
George
Jefferson
27 Mar 1801 |
NEW
ORLEANS
SIR,-This letter, with the very confidential
papers it encloses, will be delivered to you by Mr. Barrett with his
own hands. If there be no war between Spain and England, they need
be known to yourself alone. But if that war be begun, or whenever it
shall begin, we wish you to communicate them to the Marquis de La
Fayette, on whose assistance we know we can count in matters which
interest both our countries. He and you will consider how far the
contents of these papers may be communicated to the Count de
Monimorin, and his influence be asked with the court of Madrid.
France will be called into the war, as an ally, and not on any
pretence of the quarrel being in any degree her own. She may
reasonably require then, that Spain should do everything which
depends on her, to lessen the number of her enemies. She cannot
doubt that we shall be of that number, if she does not yield our
right to the common use of the Mississippi, and the means of using
and securing it. You will observe, we state in general the
necessity, not only of our having a port near the m9uth of the
river, (without which we could make no use of the navigation at all)
but of its being so well separated from the territories of Spain and
her jurisdiction, as not to engender daily disputes and broils
between us. It is certain, that if Spain were to retain any
jurisdiction over our entreport, her officers would abuse that
jurisdiction, and our people would abuse their privileges in it.
Both parties must foresee this, and that it will end in war. Hence
the necessity of a well-defined separation. Nature has decided what
shall be the geography of that in the end, whatever it might be in
the beginning, by cutting off from the adjacent countries of Florida
and Louisiana, and enclosing between two of its channels, a long and
narrow slip of land, called the Island of New Orleans. The idea of
ceding this, could not be hazarded to Spain, in the first step; it
would be too disagreeable at first view; because this island, with
its town, constitutes, at present, their principal settlement in
that part of their dominions, containing about ten thousand white
inhabitants of every age and sex. Reason and events, however, may,
by little and little, familiarize them to it. That we have a right
to some spot as an entrepot for our commerce, may be at once
affirmed. The expediency, too, may be expressed, of so locating it
as to cut off the source of future quarrels and wars. A
disinterested eye, looking on a map, will remark how conveniently
this tongue of land is formed for the purpose; the Iberville and
Amit channel offering a good boundary and convenient outlet, on the
one side, for Florida, and the main channel an equally good boundary
and outlet, on the other side, for Louisiana; while the slip of land
between, is almost entirely morass or sandbank; the whole of it
lower than the water of the river, in its highest floods, and only
its western margin (which is the highest ground) secured by banks
and inhabited. I suppose this idea too much even for the Count de
Montmorin at first, and that, therefore, you will find it prudent to
urge, and get him to recommend to the Spanish court, only in general
terms, "a port near the mouth of the river, with a circumjacent
territory sufficient for its support, well defined, and
extra-territorial to. Spain," leaving the idea to future
growth. |
William
Short
10 Aug 1790 |
NORTH
AMERICA / NATURAL STATE
It is sometime since I have understood that
there are large herds of horses in a wild state, in the country west
of the Mississippi, and have been desirous of obtaining details of
their history in that State. Mr. Brown, Senator from Kentucky,
informs me it would be in your power to give interesting information
on this subject, and encourages me to ask it. The circumstances of
the old world have, beyond the records of history, been such as
admitted not that animal to exist in a state of nature. The
condition of America is rapidly advancing to the same. The present
then is probably the only moment in the age of the world, and the
herds above mentioned the only subjects, of which we can avail
ourselves to obtain what has never yet been recorded, and never can
be again in all probability. I will add that your information is the
sole reliance, as far as I can at present see, for obtaining this
desideratum. You will render to natural history a very acceptable
service, therefore, if you will enable our Philosophical Society to
add so interesting a chapter to the history of this animal. |
Philip
Nolan
24 Jun 1798 |
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