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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory

GALLATIN TO MONROE. - Albert Gallatin, The Writings of Albert Gallatin, vol. 2 [1879]

Edition used:

The Writings of Albert Gallatin, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1879). 3 vols.

Part of: The Writings of Albert Gallatin, 3 vols.

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GALLATIN TO MONROE.

Paris, 4th February, 1822.

Dear Sir,—

I answered two days ago Mr. Adams’s letter of 6th November, and beg leave to reiterate the expression of my sense of your continued confidence and friendship. I wrote hastily, and did not do justice to my real motives for wishing at this moment to continue here some time longer. They are very far from being purely personal; but, thinking I saw a better prospect than heretofore to succeed in the arrangement of our various reclamations and of our commercial relations, I felt that my intimate knowledge of the subjects in question, and the experience I have acquired of the machinery of this government and of the men employed, might enable me, better than a new minister, to take advantage of any favorable circumstances. But, after having explained the cause which has produced a change in my resolution, I must add that I am perfectly aware that you may have acted on my letter of last summer, and that although a nomination to the Senate of a successor may not, on receipt of this, have taken place, yet such tenders of the office, arrangements, or other preliminary steps may have been made or taken as would render it improper or inconvenient not to make a new appointment. I beg you, in that case, to consider my last answer to Mr. Adams as if it had not been written, and I only request the favor of an immediate answer, in order that I may make arrangements accordingly either for staying or returning.

I have also written to Mr. Adams the substance of a conversation on the slave-trade. Referring to this and to the modifications there suggested, I beg leave to submit an observation to your consideration. The total suppression of that traffic has become such a popular topic in England that the Ministers are compelled to follow the stream, and to use everywhere every possible endeavor to obtain from other nations their assent to some measure tending to produce the desired effect. It seems to me, therefore, that if it was once judged convenient and practicable so to restrict and modify an arrangement on that subject with Great Britain as to render it consistent with national and private rights, it would not be impossible to obtain, in consideration thereof, some favorable adjustment of other concerns. The extension of our northern boundary—the 49th degree of latitude—is but of secondary importance; but our commerce with the British West Indies is an object of immediate and great interest. You have concluded to have, in that respect, all or nothing. All we will ultimately obtain: we have now nothing; and I think that we do not by that sacrifice hasten in any degree the time when we shall obtain everything we want. The sacrifice is, in the mean while, very great. I do not allude to the representations from Norfolk, but to the general depression of the price of provisions, particularly grain, which affects the whole country from James River to Vermont, and which, the accident of bad crops in Europe excepted, nothing can relieve but a free intercourse with the West Indies. That no permanent relief can be expected from the European market appears demonstrated. The mean price of wheat in France does not exceed, and has not for some years much exceeded, a dollar per bushel. In some districts it is less than three-fourths of a dollar. In England the price is only 40 per cent. higher. In both countries the corn-laws prevent the importation nine years out of ten. The markets of Portugal and Spain will grow every day worse for us. An arrangement with Great Britain, founded on the basis she had offered, would give us a free market in their West Indies for our provisions, instead of carrying, as we now do, our flour to England to be thence re-exported in British vessels to her islands, thereby lessening the consumption and reducing the price below the cost of production and freight. That arrangement would also secure us at least one-half of the navigation employed in the intercourse between those islands and the United States. I think it therefore worthy of consideration to examine whether it might not be proper, taking that proposal as a basis, to attempt (in case an arrangement respecting the slave-trade is thought practicable) to obtain modifications in it which would render it admissible; that is to say, that Great Britain should abandon the collateral conditions attached to her proposal (non-permission to export sugar, right without reciprocity to favor her provisions in the West Indies, &c., &c.) for the sake of making the agreement which they so earnestly wish on the subject of the slave-trade.

Mrs. Gallatin requests to be affectionately remembered to Mrs. Monroe. We have all heard with great satisfaction that your health was restored. I request you to accept the assurances of my high respect and sincere attachment.

Your most obedient servant.