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

TO THE U. S. CONSUL AT LONDON (JOSHUA JOHNSON) - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 6 (Correspondence 1789-1792) [1905]

Edition used:

The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 6.

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

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THE U. S. CONSUL AT LONDON

(JOSHUA JOHNSON)

s. p.

Philadelphia, December 23. 1790.

Dear Sir,

—The vexations of our seamen and their sufferings under the press-gangs of England, have become so serious as to oblige our government to take serious notice of it. The particular case has been selected where the insult to the United States has been the most barefaced, the most deliberately intentional, and the proof the most complete. The enclosed letter to you is on that subject, and has been written on the supposition that you would show the original to the Duke of Leeds, and give him a copy of it, but as of your own movement, and not as if officially instructed so to do. You will be pleased to follow up this matter as closely as decency will permit, pressing it in firm but respectful terms, on all occasions. We think it essential that Captain Young’s case may be an example to others. The enclosed letters are important. Be so good as to have them conveyed by the surest means possible.

TO JAMES MONROE

j. mss.

Philadelphia Jan. 18. 1791.

My dear Sir,

—I have been so constantly afflicted at my inability to acknowledge the receipt of Dr. Mortimer’s letters & of those of my friends Mr. Fitzhugh & Mr. Page; but I have for some weeks past been forced by other business to suspend answering any letters whatever, unless indeed of indispensable magnitude and even now must beg you to make the answer for me. When I came into office I found the clerkships all filled by gentlemen who had been in them several years, and who to the title of possession added that of irreproachable conduct. I have therefore not had a single appointment to make. This answer has been given to near an hundred letters which I have had to write in reply to applications of this nature. I wish with all my soul I could have obliged my friends on this occasion.