The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 38

1 July to 12 November 1802

Thomas Jefferson, Barbara B. Oberg, Barbara Oberg

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780691153230
• eBook ISBN: 9781400840038
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Volume 38 opens on 1 July 1802, when Jefferson is in Washington, and closes on 12 November, when he is again there. For the last week of July and all of August and September, he resides at Monticello. Frequent correspondence with his heads of department and two visits with Secretary of State James Madison, however, keep the president abreast of matters of state. Upon learning in August of the declaration of war by Mawlay Sulayman, the sultan of Morocco, much of the president's and the cabinet's attention is focused on that issue, as they struggle to balance American diplomatic efforts with reliance on the country's naval power in the Mediterranean. Jefferson terms the sultan's actions "palpably against reason." In September, he addresses the concerns of the mayor of New York City and the governor of South Carolina that free blacks expelled from Guadeloupe by the French will be landed onto American shores. Although he believes the matter will be dealt with by the states, he also instructs Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin to direct custom house officers to be watchful. In late August, Jefferson is alerted that he has been touched by the "breath of Slander, " when James T. Callender's accusations appear in the Richmond Recorder and make public his relationship with Sally Hemings. The president offers no comment, and a month later returns to Washington, where he continues planning for an impending visit by his daughters.Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

THE PAPERS OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON

To William Bache

Washington July 1. 1802.

DEAR DOCTOR

Your’s of June 19. was not recieved till the 28th. I immediately consulted with mr Gallatin and we concluded that it would be best that you should proceed immediately, or as early as you can, to New Orleans, where you will be able by your advice to assist mr Clarke in making such arrangements for the season, as it’s advancing state and our limited funds will permit. you consequently recieve letters by this post from the Secretary of the Treasury, one addressed to yourself, and the other to mr Clarke, with authority to draw on the treasury for a quarter’s salary (250. D.) in advance. the reasons for silence being now at an end you are free to mention the subject as you shall think proper. I am afraid it is but too probable the French will become masters of Louisiana. I presume they will render it a more agreeable residence; altho’ it would have been safer for our peace that it should not change masters. Accept my best wishes for a safe & pleasant journey with assurances of my great esteem & friendship, and be so good as to present me respectfully to mrs Bache.

TH: JEFFERSON

P.S. will you be so good as to notify me in the moment of your actual departure?

RC (facsimile in Adam A. Weschler & Son, Washington, D.C., Catalogue for May 22-24, 1970, Item 411); addressed: “Doctr. William Bache at Franklin near Charlottesville”; franked and postmarked. PrC (DLC).

For Bache’s appointment as the physician for the projected marine hospital at new orleans, see his letter to TJ of 19 June. For the 3 May 1802 act to provide assistance to sick and disabled seamen, including river boatmen at New Orleans, see Vol. 36:632n.

LETTERS BY THIS POST: in a letter to Bache dated 2 July, Gallatin stated that Bache’s pay as physician at New Orleans had been fixed by TJ at $1,000 per year. The salary would begin on 12 July, on the assumption that Bache would depart for Louisiana by that day. Bache could draw on Gallatin for his salary for the first quarter, with the remaining quarterly payments to come from Daniel Clark. Gallatin also wrote to Clark, the United States consul at New Orleans, enclosing that letter in the one to Bache. The act for the relief of ailing seamen, Gallatin explained to Clark, allowed an expenditure of no more than $3,000 at New Orleans. As that amount was considered insufficient for the construction of a hospital, Gallatin authorized Clark to pay Bache’s salary and to disburse funds, within the limits of the appropriation, for the occasional and temporary relief of the medical needs of sailors and boatmen (Gallatin, Papers, 47:559, 560-2).

To Charles Bulfinch

Washington July 1. 1802.

SIR

The bearer hereof, mr Mills, a native of South Carolina, has passed some years at this place as a Student in architecture. he is now setting out on a journey through the states to see what is worth seeing in that line in each state. he will visit Boston with the same view, and knowing your taste for the art, I take the liberty of recommending him to your notice, and of asking for him whatever information on the subject may be useful to his views while in Boston. Accept assurances of my esteem & respect.

TH: JEFFERSON

RC (photostat in MH); at foot of text: “Mr. Bulfinch.” PrC (DLC); endorsed by TJ in ink on verso. Recorded in SJL with notation “by mr Mills.”

TJ met architect Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844) in Paris in 1786, during Bulfinch’s grand architectural tour of Europe. Largely self-taught, Bulfinch returned to his native Boston in 1787 and spent the next three decades designing some of that city’s most prominent architectural works, including the Massachusetts State House and several elegant residences for Boston attorney Harrison Gray Otis. Elected to the city’s board of selectmen in 1791, he served as its chairman from 1799 to 1817. In 1818, he was appointed architect of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, in which capacity he oversaw completion of the Senate and House wings and redesigned the building’s central dome and rotunda. He returned to Boston in 1830 and shortly thereafter retired from active practice (ANB; Vol. 10:211; Vol. 15:484-5).

Robert MILLS had been studying ARCHITECTURE in Washington under the tutelage of James Hoban. TJ continued to assist Mills with his education and career, granting the young South Carolinian access to his library and introducing him to Benjamin Henry Latrobe, with whom Mills later worked as an assistant for several years (ANB; Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, Altogether American: Robert Mills, Architect and Engineer, 1781-1855 [Oxford, 1994], 10-15; Latrobe to TJ, 2 Oct. 1803; Mills to TJ, 3 Oct. 1806).

To Mary Jefferson Eppes

Washington July 1. 1802.

MY DEAR MARIA

Mr. Eppes’s letter of May 11. is the last news I have heard of you. I wrote to him June 13. your sister has been disappointed in her visit here by the measles breaking out in her family. it is therefore put off to October. I propose to leave this on the 21st. inst. and shall be at Monticello on the 24th. or 27th. according to the route I take; where I shall hope to find you on my arrival; I should very much apprehend that were you to continue at the Hundred till then, yourself, mr Eppes or the little one might be prevented by the diseases incident to the advancing season, from going up at all. it will therefore give me great pleasure to hear of your leaving the Hundred as soon as mr Eppes’s affairs will permit. mr Trist and Doctr. Bache will both set out within a few days for the Missisipi with a view to remove their families thither in the fall: so we shall lose those two late accessions to our neighborhood. however in the Summer season our complaint is not the want of society; and in the winter there can be little even among neighbors. Dabney Carr was married on Monday (28th.) and set out yesterday (30th.) with his new wife for Albemarle where he will join his mother now keeping house at Dunlora, till he can fix himself in Charlottesville which will be soon. Sam Carr returns decidedly to live at Dunlora. the marriage of the other sister to Dabney seems to have effected this. Peter and his wife are expected here daily on their way to Baltimore. from this Sketch you may judge of the state of our neighborhood when we shall meet there it will be infinitely joyful to me to be with you there, after the l[ong se]paration we have had for years. I count from one meeting to another as we do between port & port at sea: and I long for the moment with the same earnestness. present me affectionately to mr Eppes and let me hear from you immediately. be assured yourself of my tender and unchangeable affections.

TH: JEFFERSON

RC (DLC); torn; addressed: “Mrs. Maria Eppes at Bermuda Hundred near City point”; franked and postmarked.

I WROTE TO HIM: TJ’s letter to John Wayles Eppes, recorded in SJL at 13 June, has not been found.

For the planned journey of Hore Browse TRIST to the Mississippi Territory, see Vol. 36:389.

DUNLORA: the Carr family estate in Albemarle County, located just south of the fork of the Rivanna River (Bryan Clark Green and others, Lost Virginia: Vanished Architecture of the Old Dominion [Charlottesville, 2001], 59; K. Edward Lay, The Architecture of Jefferson Country: Charlottesville and Albemarle County [Charlottesville, 2000], 126; Vol. 30:406).

From Albert Gallatin,
with Jefferson’s Notes

[1 July 1802]

DEAR SIR

You omitted mentioning the Post office where to direct the Letter to Dr. Bache. I have filled the blank of the commencement of his salary on 12th instt. allowing him a week after receiving your letter to prepare.

Enclosed is a recommendation for “Surveyor of the customs for the district of East River in Virginia.” None has been received for the office of collector; but if the surveyor shall be appointed, he may be directed to do the duties of collector until one shall be appointed. The place designated “East river Warehouse” is the proper spot where to fix the port of entry & delivery for the district. An act for that purpose is enclosed for your signature.

For the collector of the¹ port of Marietta, the only recommendation I have is from Mr Fearing also enclosed, but the first on the list was mentioned by Mr Worthington as the² best choice; his name Griffen Greene—he received the coolest recommendation from Mr Fearing.

Have any appointments been made, or recommendations received for the offices of Surveyor of customs at Tombstone in the district of Edenton, N. Cara., and at Slade’s creek in the dist. of Washington same state?³ Those two offices, that of Marietta, & those of East River commence this day under the act of last Session approved May 1st. entituled “An Act to provide for the establishment of certain districts &a.”

A commission has been sent to John Rowan as surveyor of the port of Windsor in N. Carolina. His predecessor’s name was William Benson: I never heard of his death or resignation, nor that it was intended to remove him. May not a mistake have taken place & the port intended, be that of Winton in same state whose surveyor Lawrence Mooney was represented to have been absent five years?

Your’s respectfully

ALBERT GALLATIN

[Notes by TJ:]

Mooney returned & was continued

Benson was Surveyor of Edenton

Rowan was recommended by mr Stone in the place of a Surveyor of Windsor whom he does not name, but says he is dead.

I find in the Roll of officers no such port as Windsor in N.C.

RC (DLC); undated; with notes by TJ adjacent to Gallatin’s closing and signature and in the left margin (see note 3); at foot of text: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Treasury Department on 1 July and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: undated list of three names—Griffin Greene, David Putnam, and Mathew Backus—written on a scrap of paper, perhaps in Paul Fearing’s hand, and connected by a brace, with a notation in Gallatin’s hand, “Recommended as Collector Marietta by Mr Fearing” (MS in DNA: RG 59, LAR, 4:0730-1; endorsed by Gallatin on verso: “Recommendation Marietta”; endorsed by TJ: “Greene Griffin to be Collector of Marietta recommended by mr Fearing approved by Worthington”). Other enclosures not found.

For Gallatin’s LETTER TO William bache, see TJ to BACHE, 1 July.

William White was evidently the person recommended as surveyor of customs for the new district of EAST RIVER IN VIRGINIA. He received the appointment (Gazette of the United States, 12 July 1802; Appendix i). PROPER SPOT: the 1802 act, which established the new district in Virginia, stipulated that the president “designate a proper place” to serve as the port of entry and delivery (U.S. Statutes at Large, 2:181).

Paul FEARING, a Federalist, served as the delegate from the Northwest Territory to the Seventh Congress and led the fight against Ohio statehood. In January 1802, Gideon Granger appointed his friend Griffin GREENE, who became a Republican party organizer, postmaster at Marietta in place of David Putnam, a Federalist. Gallatin immediately informed Rufus Putnam, surveyor general at Marietta, of Greene’s appointment as collector (Biog. Dir. Cong.; Stets, Postmasters, 211; Brown, “Frontier Politics,” 436; Donald J. Ratcliffe, Party Spirit in a Frontier Republic: Democratic Politics in Ohio, 1793-1821[Columbus, Ohio, 1998], 54; Gallatin, Papers, 7:290, 408).

ACT OF LAST SESSION: see Memorandum from Albert Gallatin and Notes on the Establishment of New Revenue Districts, printed at 1 May.

For the appointment of JOHN ROWAN, see Memorandums to Albert Gallatin, 10 June 1802. In May, while Gallatin was in New York, the Treasury Department received a letter from Senator David Stone to the Treasury secretary, which reported the death of the surveyor at Windsor, North Carolina, and recommended Rowan. The department evidently sent the letter directly to the president (same).

For the return of Laurence MOONEY after a long absence, see Memor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Editorial Method And Apparatus
• Illustrations
• Jefferson Chronology
• To William Bache, 1 July
• From Albert Gallatin, 17 July
• To Thomas Munroe, 8 August
• From Albert Gallatin, 20 August
• From Henry Dearborn, 3 September
• From John Harvie, 28 September
• Memorandum to James Madison, [ on or before 18 October ]
• From Robert R. Livingston, 28 October
• Opinions on the Common Law: The Case of William Hardin
• Appendices
• INDEX