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

TO COLONEL JAMES INNES - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 3 (Notes on Virginia I, Correspondence 1780-1782) [1905]

Edition used:

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols.

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TO COLONEL JAMES INNES

v. s. a.

Richmond. May 2d 1781.

Sir,

—Having received information that divers Citizens of this Commonwealth in the Counties of James City and York, have lately committed Acts, some of which amount to high Treason and others to Misprision of Treason, and that some tho’ they may have been able to disguise and conceal their Transactions as that legal evidence cannot be obtained by which they may be subjected to prosecution for Treason or Misprision of Treason in a due course of law, yet have so conducted themselves as to furnish the most pregnant circumstances of Suspicion that they have been guilty of those offences, or are disaffected to the Independence of the United States, and will, whenever they shall have opportunity, aid or advise the measures of the public Enemy, which persons, in the critical situation of this Commonwealth, it is indispensably necessary to punish for their Crimes by way of Example to others and to disable from doing mischief: I must therefore, as you are proceeding to that part of the Country, desire and authorize you to make enquiry into the premises, and where you shall have probable cause to believe that any persons have been guilty of Treason or misprision of Treason, that there is legal evidence to commit them thereof, and that an examining Court can be had on them in the County where the offence was committed before there shall be any danger of a Rescue by the Enemy, you have them delivered to the Warrant of a Justice of the Peace, in order that they may be prosecuted in the usual Forms of law and be aiding in their safe conveyance to the public Jail in Richmond, if they be ordered to be conveyed: But where you shall be of Opinion that legal evidence cannot be obtained, that an examining Court cannot be procured in the County before there will be Danger of a Rescue by the Enemy and that there are pregnant circumstances of suspicion that they have been guilty of the offences of Treason or Misprision of Treason, or where there shall be pregnant causes of suspicion that persons in these Counties are disaffected to the Independence of the United States; and when occasion serves, aid or advise the Operations of the Enemy, that in those Cases you apprehend such Persons, & send them in safe Custody to the Jail of this County reporting to the Executive the facts and Circumstances of Suspicion whereon you proceed. In the executions of these Powers, I must recommend to You that you have no retrospect to any fact prior to the 17th of April last, being the day the Enemy embarked at Portsmouth; that you single out only those who have been foremost or most daring in their offences, and that even these be treated by those into whose hands they shall be committed with no Insult or Rudeness unnecessary for their safe Custody.