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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XII (1790-1794) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. XII (1790-1794).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE.

Mount Vernon, 1 April, 1791.

Dear Sir,

I have had the pleasure to receive your letter of the 27th ultimo, with the papers which accompanied it. Referring to your judgment, whether a commission similar to that intended for Mr. Barclay1 may be given without the agency of the Senate, I return both papers to you signed, in order that the one you deem most proper may be used.

Your opinions respecting the acts of force, which have already taken place, or may yet take place, on our boundaries, meet my concurrence as the safest mode of compelling propositions to an amicable settlement; and it may answer a good purpose to have them suggested in the way you mention. Should this matter assume a serious aspect during my absence, I beg you to communicate particulars with all possible despatch.2

The most superb edifices may be erected, and I shall wish their inhabitants much happiness, and that too very disinterestedly, as I shall never be of the number myself.1

It will be fortunate for the American public, if private speculations in the lands still claimed by the aborigines do not aggravate those differences, which policy, humanity, and justice concur to deprecate.2

I am much indebted to your kind concern for my safety in travelling. No accident has yet happened, either from the high hanging of the carriage, or the mode of driving. The latter I must continue, as my postilion is still too much indisposed to ride the journey. It occurs to me that you may not have adverted to Judge Putnam’s being in the western country at present. Perhaps General Knox can furnish you with the maps you want, or they may be found among those that are in my study at Philadelphia.

I expect to leave Mount Vernon, in prosecution of my southern tour, on Tuesday or Wednesday next. I shall halt one day at Fredericksburg and two at Richmond; thence I shall proceed to Charleston by the way of Petersburg, Halifax, Tarborough, Newbern, Wilmington, and Georgetown, without making any halts between Richmond and Charleston, but such as may be necessary to accommodate my journey. I am sincerely and affectionately yours.

[1 ]Going on a mission to Morocco, but with the commission of a consul only.

[2 ]Difficulties had arisen among the settlers on the eastern and northwestern boundaries. It was reported that acts of force had been committed. “The impossibility,” said Mr. Jefferson, “of bringing the court of London to an adjustment of any differences whatever, renders our situation perplexing. Should any applications from the States, or their citizens, be so urgent as to require something to be said before your return, my opinion would be, that they should be desired to make no new settlements on our part, nor suffer any to be made on the part of the British, within the disaffected territory; and, if any attempts should be made to remove them from the settlements already made, that they are to repel force by force, and ask aid of the neighboring militia to do this and no more. I see no other safe way of forcing the British government to come forward themselves, and demand an amicable settlement.”—March 27th.

[1 ]It was from this sentence, probably, that Jefferson drew the inference that Washington “meant to retire from the government ere long.”—Anas.

A bill had been ordered to be brought into the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania for granting money to build a Federal Hall and President’s House.

[2 ]Alluding to the large purchases of new lands, situate in the western part of New York, which had recently been made by Robert Morris of Gorham and Phelps. The quantity as stated by Mr. Jefferson, was one million three hundred thousand acres at five pence an acre; with an additional tract, for the gross sum of one hundred thousand pounds.