To James Madison from Joseph Jones, 25 May 1783
From Joseph Jones
RC (LC: Madison Papers). Cover missing.
Richmd: 25th. May 1783.
Dr. Sir.
After resting at home1 two days I set out for this place where I arrived on Tuesday last and took my seat in the House some days before my Colleague, who made his appearance for the first time yesterday.2 my arrival was seasonable with respect to a Bill then before the House for Postponing the collection of the Taxes for the ease of the people untill December next, that, as it was said by Mr. H——y who supported the measure, they might enjoy a short respite from bearing the burthen of Taxes a kind of holy day to rejoice more cheerfully on the glorious termination of the War. this Bill was by order to be considered that day in a Comitee of the whole and I was in time to give such information to the Comtee: as to induce them to come to no conclusion then but to rise and ask leave to sit again that they might have an opportunity before they determined the que[sti]on to hear the contents of the proceedings relative to that subject which might be daily expected from Congress.3 A Bill which was called by some an exclusion bill was also before the House and has since passed the Delegates its object is the rendering Members of Congress in future ineligible to the legislature. I expect it will also obtain the assent of the Senate. You will be under no difficulty in discovering the policy of this Bill.4 It was proposed in the Comtee. of the House to reduce the number to three but the question was determined in the negative.5 the Laws agt. the importation of British merchandize are repealed and their Vessells have been permitted to land their Cargoes.6 A revision of the Salaries of the officers of Government was under considerat[ion] of a Committee yesterday. a small majority continued the 1000. £ P ann. to the Governor, the privy Councillors reduced to 2400. £. The Judges of the Court of Chancery could in the Com: be raised to only 400 each whether as much will be allowed the Judges of the General Court and of the Admirilty I have some doubt especially the latter as Z——h J——hn——n and his adherents are for reductions.7 The plan of Congress for obtaining funds from the States was laid before the House and read the day before yesterday.8 this System appears to me at present to have more friends than Enemies, and I think the former will increase the latter diminish. I may however be mistaken in my Conjecture and the result of our deliberations on it may prove that I am so, for you are not to learn how fickle and variable the conduct of this Body has been in this business. as a further proof of it I will only mention that when I came here I found a bill had been ordered in to reenact the 5 PCt. Some, R. H. L. and his adheren[ts] are opposed to the measure. others, who are opposed in part, dislike the clause declaring the act irrevocable and that the State is not to have credit for the surplus of Tax beyond her quota of the annual demand, if there shod. be a surplus. these are a kind of neutrals upon the whole, which each side hopes to gain. they express their wish to support the measure, but these objects repel them. the chief of these I have yet found out are J. T——yl——r and G——e N——l ——s.9 these are also strong advocates for a revision of the scale for loan office certificates. for the measure P. H——y, the Sp——k——r and several other respectable members.10 That part of the Delegates Letter as respected the Treaty of Commerce with Great Britain was refd. to the Com: on Trade with instruction to make a speedy report, which was done yesterday morning as an instruction to our Delegates in Congress. It proposed only entering into a treaty upon liberal & generous principles reserving a right to give bounties on Tonnage &c.: the Rept. not pleasing the House a debate ensued, which terminated in a Commitm[ent] of it to a Com: of the whole, into which the House was immediatly resolved. a large field was then opened and great commercial knowledge or rather a want of it displayed. finding the business taking the turn it did, and likely to be delayed and at last, perhaps, produce instructions rather hurtfull than usefull I took the liberty to recommend a short instruction to the purport of that you will receive I did this from a knowledge that something similar was the object of Congress and the best that at present and speedily could be given. a general concurence ensued, the other motions withdrawn and the one sent you passed immediately and unanimously.11 The Officers of our line and of Genl. Clarks regiment have presented Memorials stating that they understand the Lands on the Cumberld. reserved for the Officers has been great part of it (the best of the lands) taken up by others, that it was greatly short of the quantity necessary to answer the purpose and requesting a district of Country on the N. Wt. of the Ohio to be assigned them. th[ere] appears a general disposition to gratify them.12 I could wish if any thing is or is meant to be done in Congress respecting our Cession we shod. be informed of it withot. delay.13
Sr. Guy Carletons conduct respecting the Negro prop[erty] is considered by many here as a departure from the provision[al] articles, and will be made use of to justify a delay in paying the British debts.14
The Treasurer informs me a remittance to the Delegates has been made since I came away of £100[0] also of £200 to yourself on acct. of the balance due. un[til] an account is returned to him of the distribution of the sums remitted our accouts cannot be closed. you w[ill] therefore attend to this.15 pray make my Complts. to the Gent: of our Delegation and the Ladys of your fami[ly.]16 with real esteem
I am Yr. friend
Jos: Jon[es]
1. At his estate of Spring Hill in King George County.
2. “Tuesday last” was 20 May, four days before his “Colleague” Arthur Lee first attended the House of Delegates (, May 1783, p. 19).
3. Randolph to JM, 24 May, and n. 3. Governor Harrison submitted the congressional plan for restoring public credit to the House of Delegates on 22 May (Instruction to President, 9 May, n. 2; , May 1783, p. 16).
4. Randolph to JM, 15 May, and n. 8. The “policy,” which had been embodied in law from 28 June 1777 to 11 June 1779, was revived in order to weaken the Lee faction in the Virginia General Assembly by making Arthur Lee ineligible for reelection to the House of Delegates as long as he continued to be a delegate in Congress. See , May 1777, p. 112; May 1779, p. 42; , IX, 299; X, 75.
5. Randolph to JM, 24 May 1783, and n. 8.
6. Randolph to JM, 9 May, and n. 14; 24 May; Pendleton to JM, 17 May 1783, and n. 6.
7. Randolph to JM, 24 May 1783, and n. 7. The £2,400 was the annual total allotted to the eight “privy Councillors” to be apportioned among them on the basis of how often each of them attended the meetings of the Council of State (, IV, 29, nn. 2, 6; 232, n. 8).
Zachariah Johnston (1742–1800), a captain of militia in the Revolutionary War, was a delegate from Augusta County in the House of Delegates in 1778–1791, and from Rockbridge County in 1792, 1797, and 1798. He supported the ratification of the Constitution of the United States in the Virginia Convention of 1788, and was a presidential elector in 1788–1789. Among his correspondents were Jefferson, John Marshall, and George Mason. Johnston owned much land in Augusta and Rockbridge counties and in Kentucky. In Virginia politics he was conspicuous for his dislike of slavery and his support of religious liberty. He seems always to have tried to shape his policy in conformance with what he believed would best help the “common man” (, pp. 5–38 passim, 49; Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, V [1923–24], 185–92; Howard McKnight Wilson, The Tinkling Spring, Headwater of Freedom: A Study of the Church and Her People, 1732–1952 [Fisherville, Va., 1954], pp. 222–36).
8. Jones should have written 22 May rather than “day before yesterday” (, May 1783, p. 16). See n. 3, above.
9. Jones was not wholly accurate in stating that the bill was “to reenact the 5 PCt.” See Randolph to JM, 15 May, and nn. 2, 3; 24 May, and nn. 5, 6; Jameson to JM, 24 May, and n. 3; Pendleton to JM, 26 May 1783, and n. 5. “R. H. L.” was Richard Henry Lee; J. T——yl——r and G——e N——l——s, John Taylor and George Nicholas.
10. “P. H——y, and the Sp——k——r” were Patrick Henry and John Tyler. On 16 and 20 May two remonstrances and petitions of similar purport were submitted to the House of Delegates. The one from “sundry inhabitants” of Amelia County, after complaining that “want of system, rather than the want of ability” probably explained why the state had defaulted in paying the interest due on “Loan Office certificates and other public” securities, asked that they be made “negotiable” so as to “add new motion and vivacity to the wheels of circulation and commerce” by increasing the money supply. On 22 May the House of Delegates referred these petitions to a committee and instructed Jacquelin Ambler, the treasurer, to report the amount of outstanding loan-office certificates and unpaid interest due on them, using the “table of depreciation” so as to equate the total in terms of specie (, May 1783, pp. 8–9, 16).
The law which the General Assembly enacted on 28 June 1783 left the scale of depreciation unaffected (, May 1783, pp. 84, 85, 89, 90, 99; , XI, 268–69). This omission is explained by the preamble of the resolutions, which noted that “from the destruction of some of the public books and papers by the enemy, the monies borrowed on public account cannot be ascertained with precision.” For this reason, the resolutions called upon holders of loan-office certificates to enable the Board of Auditors to write on each certificate its specie value and the amount of interest due and unpaid. The auditors were further instructed to provide “the next session of Assembly” with “an alphabetical list” of the holders (, May 1783, pp. 95–96, 98). Although the plea of the petitioners to have the evidences of debt made “negotiable” was not granted, the statute relieved their immediate economic distress by delaying until 1 February 1784 the due date of those taxes for which at least some of the petitioners had hoped that loan-office certificates could be tendered (, XI, 268).
11. Instruction to Delegates, 23–24 May 1783, and n. 1.
12. Separate memorials, one from the officers of the Virginia line on continental establishment, the other from those of Brigadier General George Rogers Clark’s former “Illinois regiment,” both being on behalf of themselves and their men, were received by the House of Delegates on 21 May (, May 1783, p. 15). The continental officers noted the “insufficiency” of an act of 5 January 1782 which had set aside for them and their men “all that tract of land included within the rivers Mississippi, Ohio, and Tenissee, and the Carolina boundary line” (ibid., Nov. 1781, p. 74; , X, 465), and asked the legislature to replace that tract with lands “on the north westerly side of the Ohio.” The “Illinois” officers requested that they and their men might be permitted to locate the 150,000 acres, previously promised them, “opposite to the town of Louisville,” and establish a town there. On 28 May the House received a third memorial, from the officers of the state line, who, on behalf of themselves and their men, set forth that they were “in the same predicament with the officers and soldiers of the Virginia continental line, with respect to their claims to the bounty of land.” All three memorials were committed to the Committee of Propositions and Grievances, Patrick Henry chairman (, May 1783, p. 24).
For the reply to the memorial from the officers of the Virginia line on continental establishment adopted by the House of Delegates and Senate, see Instruction to Delegates, 27 June 1783. See also , May 1783, pp. 32, 53, 78, 90, 93; Jones to JM, 31 May; 8 June 1783, and n. 14.
13. JM to Jefferson, 20 May, and n. 8; JM to Randolph, 10 June 1783.
14. JM to Jefferson, 13 May, and n. 10; Randolph to JM, 15 May, and n. 5; JM Notes, 19 May, and n. 1; Delegates to Harrison, 20 May 1783, and n. 3.
15. Ambler to JM, 17 May, and n. 2; 24 May; Randolph to JM, 24 May; Delegates to Auditors, 28 May 1783.
16. JM, Bland, and Mercer were the Virginia delegates in Philadelphia. The “Ladys” to whom Jones referred certainly included Mrs. Mary House and Mrs. Nicholas Trist (, VI, 429; 460, n. 8).
17. Jefferson to JM, 7 May 1783, and nn. 12, 13.
18. The “president” of the College of William and Mary was the Reverend James Madison (, VI, 49; 50, n. 4; Rev. James Madison to JM, 4 June 1783). For Chancellor George Wythe, see Jefferson to JM, 7 May, and n. 14. See also Pendleton to JM, 4 May 1783, n. 1.
The “Seal” was for the college. See Receipt of Robert Scot, 16 June 1783. This new seal, of a design unlike that employed during the colonial period and long since returned to use, caused confusion when impressed by the faculty of the college on an official document in January 1784 (Benjamin Harrison to the Reverend James Madison “and other professors of the university of William and Mary,” 27 Jan. 1784, Executive Letter Book, 1783–1786, p. 264a, MS in Va. State Library).