403

CHAPTER XV.

Third session of the first Congress. The commerce of the United States with France and England compared. St. Clair's defeat. Apportionment bill. Mr. Jefferson advises the President to negative it. Conversation with the President on his proposed retirement. Causes of the public discontents. The power to promote the general welfare. Collision between Jefferson and Hamilton. Official correspondence with Mr. Hammond, the British minister-Pagan's case -tampering with the Creek Indians-complaints of each government. Mr. Jefferson's answer to Mr. Hammond's charges. The Post-office. Surrendering of foreign fugitives. Relative powers of the legislative and executive branches. Negotiation with Algiers. Paul Jones.

1791-1792.

CONGRESS met on the 24th of October, according to adjournment, and proceeded to carry into execution other important powers on which they had not previously acted, or acted only by resolution; as in establishing the post-office and post-roads, establishing a mint and regulating the coins, and providing a uniform militia system throughout the United States.

In December, Mr. Jefferson laid before the President a comparative table of the extent and value of the commerce of the United States with France and England, which he had prepared with unwearied industry. His motive is thus stated in his note* to the President: "As the conditions of our commerce with the French and British dominions are important, and a moment seems to be approaching when it may be useful that both should be accurately understood, I have thrown a representation of them into the form of a * Jeff. Cor. III. p. 142.

table, showing at one view how the principal articles interesting to our agriculture and navigation stand in the European and American dominions of these two powers."

According to this table, the trade in wheat, flour, rice, and other grain, salted fish, beef and pork, whale oil, tar, pitch, and turpentine, are on a more favourable footing in France than in Great Britain, in which some of them are even prohibited; while indigo is the only article which is subjected to a higher duty than in Great Britain. But, notwithstanding this difference of encouragement, the exports are five times as great to England as to France, and the imports are nine times as great.

The French shipping employed in the trade is but half of the American, which is 19,000 tons. But the British shipping is three times as much as the American; the latter, however, is 39,000 tons.

In the West Indies the trade with the French colonies is more extensive, and the footing not materially different. With both nations it is subject to general prohibitions, which are occasionally removed. Our exports to the French islands amounted to 3,284,656 dollars; to the English, 2,357,583 dollars. The imports from the French islands are 1,913,212 dollars; from the English, 1,319,954 dollars. Our tonnage in the French trade is 97,236 tons, and with the English the trade is prohibited. The French tonnage employed in the trade is 3,959 tons, and the English is 107,959 tons.

From this comparison it was inanifect that in considering the united interests both of our agriculture, commerce, and navigation, that of England was most profitable, by being the most extensive, but that with France most deserved encouragement, as it was far the most beneficial for its extent, by affording more employment to our shipping.

The whole tonnage in the trade with Great Britain amounted to 266,124 tons, while the whole in the French trade was

less than half, 130,201 tons. But of the trade to the British islands they had more than five-sixths, or in the proportion of 226,953 tons to £9,171 tons; and of the French trade we had eight-ninths, or 116,409 to 13,792; and our tonnage in the French trade was more than three times as great as it was in the British.

It is well worth remark that cotton is not mentioned among our staples, though in less than ten years from that time it constituted the most valuable of our exports, and in thirty years was worth more than all the rest put together.

Tobacco, wood, pot, and pearl ash, flax seed, in the European trade, and Indian corn, salted pork, horses and mules, live provisions, tar, pitch, and turpentine, in the West Indies, are on the same footing with both nations.

At the close of the year, the government received information of General St. Clair's defeat by the Miami Indians, on the 4th of November, with the loss of upwards of 600 men. This battle was gained by an inferior force on the part of the red men, and accorded with the ordinary result in their first conflicts with the whites, until dear-bought experience has taught them that nothing less than a correspondent vigilance can protect them against a surprise, which the Indian warrior surpasses all others both in contriving and improving to the best advantage. The battle ground was on the western border of what is now the populous state of Ohio, but was then not even a territorial government.

A bill for a new apportionment of representatives, under the late census, afforded the first occasion for the President to exercise his negative on an act of the two houses of Congress. This bill had fixed the ratio of inhabitants at 30,000, and, instead of applying this number to the population of each state separately, it divided the whole population by the number 30,000, and then distributed the quotient 120 among the states according to their relative population: by which

process some of the states had a greater number of representatives than they were entitled to on the assumed ratio. In other words, there was inequality by this process as well as the other: it merely fell on different states, and happened to be less than by the other rule.

This subject had afforded occasion for warm debate, as it involved the question of the relative weight of the states. Various ratios had been proposed without success; and the question was not settled until after a conference of the two houses. When the bill was submitted to the President, his cabinet were as usual divided about it-Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Randolph thinking the law to violate the meaning of the constitution, and Mr. Hamilton and General Knox doubting about it, but advising the consent. The arguments of the former prevailed, and the bill was returned with the President's reasons; in consequence of which another bill was introduced, raising the ratio to 33,000, and assigning to each state its number of representatives, without regard to the fractions, as had been originally proposed in the Senate, and it thus finally passed both houses.

It appears from Mr. Jefferson's diary that on the last of February, 1792, he had a conversation with the President on the subject of the post-office, of which he remarked, that, since it appeared by the bill recently passed that it was not regarded as a revenue law, but one for the general accommodation of the citizens, he thought it appertained to the State Department: that it would be proper it should be so regarded for another reason, on account of the great influence and patronage already attached to the Treasury Department, which threatened to be too great for that of the President himself: that he could have no personal motive for this suggestion, as he had determined on withdrawing from public life whenever the President retired. Some interruptions to the conversation taking place, General Wash

:

ington asked him to breakfast the next morning: He attended accordingly, and they having retired to his room, Mr. Jefferson unfolded his plan for the post-office, to which General Washington having given "such an approbation of it as he usually permitted himself on any first suggestion," and desiring it to be committed to writing, he, during that pause of conversation which follows a business closed, said, in an affectionate tone, that he felt much concern at the intimation Mr. Jefferson had given of retiring when he did : that, as to himself, many motives obliged him to withdraw: that he had, through the war and at its close, uniformly declared his resolution to retire, and never to act in any public office that he had retired: that the new government, however, being found evidently too inefficacious, and his aid being supposed of some consequence towards bringing the people to acquiesce in a government of sufficient efficacy, he had consented to come into the convention, and afterwards, from the same motives, to take a part in the new government: that were he to continue longer, it might give room to say that, having tasted the sweets of office, he could not do without them: that he really felt himself growing old; his health less firm; his memory, always bad, becoming worse; and perhaps his other mental faculties showing a decay of which he himself was insensible: that in addition to this apprehension, he found his activity lessened; business, therefore, more irksome; and his desire for tranquillity and retirement irresistible: that, obliged as he was, from these considerations, to retire, he should consider it as unfortunate if that should bring on the retirement of the great officers of the government, as it might produce a shock on the public mind of dangerous consequence.

Mr. Jefferson replied that no man had ever been less desirous of public office than himself; that the circumstance of a perilous war, which had put the services of all in requi