ers.

aces, their efforts would stop there. These failing, they are ready to go every length for which they can train their followWithout foreign co-operation, revolt and separation will hardly be risked; and what the effect of so profligate an experiment would be, first, on misguided partizans, and next on those remaining faithful to the nation, who are respectable for their consistency, and even for their numbers, is for conjecture only. The best may be hoped, but the worst ought to be kept in view. In the mean time, the course to be taken by the Government is full of delicacy and perplexity, and the more so under the pinch which exists in our fiscal affairs, and the lamentable tardiness of the Legislature in applying some relief.

At such a moment the vigorous support of the well-disposed States is peculiarly important to the General Government, and it would be impossible for me to doubt that Virginia, under your administration of its Executive Government, will continue to be among the foremost in zealous exertions for the national rights and success.

TO WILLIAM EUSTIS.
(Private.)

WASHINGTON, December 15, 1814. DEAR SIR,-It has been in view for some time to counterplace Mr. Changion by an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to his Sovereign Prince, and I have had you in my thoughts for the service. I postponed, however, consulting you on the subject, on the calculation that it could be done at any time without inconvenient delay to the object. Circumstances now exist which render an immediate appointment expedient, and I have just sent in your name to the Senate. I must pray you to excuse my taking this liberty with it, and my hoping that it will be not inconsistent with your views to undertake the mission contemplated. You will oblige me by a few lines of as early a date as you can make convenient.

Accept assurances of my great esteem and friendly regards.

TO BENJAMIN W. CROWNINSHIELD.

WASHINGTON, December 15, 1814.

SIR, Mr. Jones having retired from the Secretaryship of the Navy, my thoughts have been turned to you as a desirable successor, and I have this day sent in your name to the Senate for the appointment. I hope you will excuse my doing it without your consent, which would have been asked if the business of that Department had less urged an avoidance of delay. The same consideration will apologize for my hoping that it will not be inconsistent with your views to aid your country in that station, nor with your conveniency to be prepared to repair to it as soon as you may receive notice that the Senate have given effect to the nomination.

Accept, Sir, assurances of my esteem and of my friendly respects.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

WASHINGTON, Decr 17th, 1814.

DEAR SIR,-Your favor of the 28th ultimo was duly received, though with more delay than usually attends the mail. I return the interesting letter from your son, with my thanks for the opportunity of perusing it.

I have caused the archives of the Department of State to be searched, with an eye to what passed during the negotiation for peace on the subject of the fisheries. The search has not furnished a precise answer to the enquiry of Mr. Adams. It appears, from one of your letters referring to the instructions accompanying the commission to make a Treaty of commerce with G. Britain, that the original views of Congress did not carry their ultimatum beyond the common right to fish in waters distant three leagues from the British shores. The negotiations, therefore, and not the instructions, if no subsequent change of them took place, have the merit of the terms actually obtained. That other instructions, founded on the Resolutions of Congress,

issued at subsequent periods cannot be doubted, though as yet they do not appear. But how far they distinguished between the common use of the sea and the use, then common also, of the shores, in carrying on the fisheries, I have no recollection.

The view of the discussions at Ghent presented by the private letters of all our Ministers there, as well as by their official despatches, leaves no doubt of the policy of the British Cabinet, so forcibly illustrated by the letter of Mr. Adams to you. Our enemy, knowing that he has peace in his own hands, speculates on the fortune of events. Should these be unfavorable, he can at any moment, as he supposes, come to our terms. Should they correspond with his hopes, his demands may be insisted on, or even extended. The point to be decided by our Ministers is, whether, during the uncertainty of events, a categorical alternative of immediate peace, or a rupture of the negotiation, would not be preferable to a longer acquiescence in the gambling procrastinations of the other party. It may be presumed that they will, before this, have pushed the negotiations to this point.

It is very agreeable to find that the superior ability which distinguishes the notes of our Envoys extorts commendation from the most obdurate of their political enemies. And we have the further satisfaction to learn that the cause they are pleading is beginning to overcome the prejudice which misrepresentations had spread over the continent of Europe against it. The British Government is neither inattentive to this approaching revolution in the public opinion there, nor blind to its tendency. If it does not find in it a motive to immediate peace, it will infer the necessity of shortening the war by bringing upon us, the ensuing campaign, what it will consider as a force not to be resisted by us.

It were to be wished that this consideration had more effect in quickening the preparatory measures of Congress. I am unwilling to say how much distress in every branch of our affairs is the fruit of their tardiness; nor would it be necessary to you, who will discern the extent of the evil in the symptoms from which it is to be inferred.

Extract of a letter from J. Q. Adams to his Father, dated Ghent. October 27, 1814.

"The whole compass of the diplomatic skill employed by the British Government in this negotiation has consisted in consuming time, without coming to any conclusion. Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell arrived at Gottenburg the 11th of April. The negotiation had been proposed by Lord Castlereagh in November; had been acceded to by the President in the beginning of January. The British Government were informed in February of the appointment of American Plenipotentiaries. Their first dilatory proceeding was to defer the appointment of their Commissioners until official notification should be given them, by the American Ministers themselves, that they were at the place of meeting which had been agreed upon. One full month was gained by this. The next device was, to propose the transfer of the negotiation to Ghent, which absorbed six weeks more; and then they left us from the 24th of June to the 6th of August waiting here for the appearance of their Plenipotentiaries."

TO GOVERNOR EARLY, OF GEORGIA.

Dec 18, 1814.

SIR, I have duly received your letter of the 2d instant, with the Resolutions of the Legislature of Georgia, expressing unanimously the sentiments inspired by the extravagant terms of peace demanded by the enemy, and the readiness of that State to make any sacrifice necessary to a vigorous prosecution of the war, till it can be brought to an honorable termination.

Resolutions of such a character are worthy of the real and public spirit of which so many other proofs have been given by the State of Georgia; and they have the greater merit as proceeding from a part of the Nation which presents so disproportionate an extent of frontier to the pressures of the war, with the other disadvantages incident to their situation in sustaining them.

It is under such circumstances that the patriotism and magnanimity of a people are put to the severest trial; and it will be a lasting honor to those of Georgia that the trial bears testimony to the manly spirit which presides in their public Councils.

Accept, sir, assurances of my great esteem and friendly respects.

TO MAJR GEN DEARBORN.

WASHINGTON, March 4th, 1815.

DEAR SIR,-Being desirous of obtaining for the Department of War services which I thought you could render with peculiar advantage, and hoping that, for a time, at least, you might consent to step into that Department, I took the liberty, without a previous communication, for which there was not time, to nominate you as successor to Mr. Monroe, who was called back to the Department of State. I had not a doubt, from all the calculations I could make, that the Senate would readily concur in my views; and if a doubt had arisen, it would have been banished by the confidence of the best informed and best disposed with whom I conferred, that the nomination would be welcomed where it was to be decided on. Contrary to these confident expectations, an opposition was disclosed in an extent which determined me to withdraw the nomination. But before the Message arrived, the Senate very unexpectedly had taken up the subject and proceeded to a decision. They promptly, however, relaxed, so far as to erase the proceeding from their Journal, and in that mode to give effect to the withdrawal.

I have thought this explanation due both to me and to yourself. I sincerely regret the occasion for it. But to whatever blame I may have subjected myself, I trust you will see in the course taken by me a proof of the high value I place on your public, and of the esteem I feel for your personal, character. Permit me to add, that I have been not a little consoled for the occurrence to which I have been accessary by the diffusive ex