To Thomas Jefferson from Paul Alliot, 14 April 1804
From Paul Alliot
a Neuveyork ce 14 avril 1804
Monsieur le president
j’ay L’honneur de vous envoyer un manuscrit qui a pour titre, reflexions historiques et politiques sur la Louysiane en deux parties. n’ayant fait ce petit ouvrage que dans de bonnes vues, et vous l’ayant dedié; j’espere que vous l’acceuillerez. je souhaitte ardemment qu’en le lisant, vous puissiez par votre sagesse, par vos grands talens, et par vos vertus qui font aujourdhuy l’admiration de toute l’europe, donner a ce bon pays dont vous avez fait l’acquisition ce dont il a besoin pour devenir un jour ce qu’est la mére patrie que vous gouvernez si bien.
monsieur le president.
je vous envoye aussi un memoire de faits qui vous prouvera la persecution et les grands malheurs que ma femme, mes enfans et moi avons éprouvé a la nouvel Orleans.
le gouvernement français devant lequel nous avons été conduit comme de grands criminels, a reconnu mon innocence, a improuvé la conduite de son agent, m’a rendu la liberté et m’a permis par un passeport que j’ai en main de retourner avec ma femme et mon enfant aux etats unis de l’amerique.
L’attentat commis dans ma maison et sur ma personne a la nouvel Orleans le dix huit mars dix huit cent trois a onze heures du soir par l’alcade Meirieux son greffier et quelques chirurgiens qui etaient de la bande est une de ces atrocités ignorées, dieu merci, aux etats unis, même avant leur independance.
pourquoi ces hommes sont ils la cause de ma ruine, et de l’etat deplorable de mon epouse. pour deux raisons. la premiere, parce que je suis patriote et que je mourrais plutôt que d’embrasser le parti de l’aristocratie ou de la monarchie. la seconde parce qu’a la Nouvel orleans j’exercais avec des talens superieures mon état de medecin. c’est donc leur opinion politique, c’est donc la jalousie des medecins qui les a determiné a violer pendant la nuit mon azile, a me voler, et a etre cause du grand malheur arrivé a Lorient a mon epouse, qui n’en reviendra peut etre jamais, parcequ’elle a encore aujourdhuy de tems en tems de ces crises qui annoncent la perte de sa raison.
Comme un tel attentat ne peut et ne doit rester impuni, que ceux qui m’ont arrêté, enfoncé mes portes pendant la nuit, incarceré et persecuté et volé demeurent encore a la nouvel Orleans qui est aujourdhuy gouvernée par les lois americaines, et que je ne puis les poursuivre en reparations, domages, et interets devant la puissance espagnole, ny devant la puissance des francais parceque leur loix n’y ont aucune force, et que demeurant sous celle des etats unis de l’amerique je ne puis et ne dois les poursuivre devant d’autres que devant elle, en consequence je vous en demande la permission j’espere, vu mon affligeante situation vous me l’accorderez et que j’obtiendrai une prompte justice.
il m’est encore du par differens particuliers que j’ai traité et medicamenté environ quatre mil francs qu’ils se sont refusé de me payer, lorsqu’ils ont eu connaissance de notre deportation, je demande encore a etre autorisé à poursuivre mes debiteurs. s’ils ne m’avaient pas privé de cette somme, nous n’aurions pas été obligés en france de vendre jusqu’a nos chemises pour pouvoir passer et arriver dans le pays de la liberté ou nous sommes decidé ay finir nos jours
Monsieur le president.
Comme j’ai des talens dans la medecine, j’ai L’honneur de vous envoyer par ecrit le nom de toutes les maladies que je traite avec succés et que je gueris, a fin qu’en votre qualité de chef de la grande nation que vous gouvernez, vous puissiez annoncer mon nom et les differentes maladies que je traite, à tous vos administrés.
je traite et gueris les maladies suivantes
Les cancers ou chancres seraient ils cangrenés.
Les coliques en general
le charbon.
La dissenterie et le tenesme le plus opiniatre.
L’escorbut.
Les ecrouelles ou glandes scrophuleuses.
Les dartres quand même elles seraient rentrées
L’epilepsie, ou le mal quaduc quand il n’est point de naissance
Les esquinancies ou maux de gosier
les fluctions de poitrine
les fistules en general
la goute
la gravelle et la pierre
L’hidropisie
les hemorodides
la jaunisse
les maladies veneriennes les plus inveterées sans mercure
les loupes
le lait repandu
les blessures de toute espece meme les nerfs coupés
la paralisie
la peste
la piquure des betes venimeuses.
la phtisie.
les retentions durine
la perte d’urine involontaire
la Sourdité
la Suppression des regles
la teigne
toutes sourtes de tumeurs seraient elle aux parties naturelles et genitalles
Le vers solitaire
la verete et pour en empecher les progrés.
Le mal d’yeux tayes ou dragons.
Si je m’etais trouvé dans les etats unis au moment de la fievre jaune, je suis presque certain que j’aurais pu en suspendre les progrés et rendre a la vie des milliers de citoyens qui n’existent plus. ne voulant plus porter le nom francais et voulant mourir homme libre, et voulant etre util a mes Semblables, je vous declare que je professerai mon etat, et afin de vous donner une idée de ce que je suis et de ce que je scais faire, je vais vous mettre sous les yeux la maniere dont je definis la fievre jaune, et vous connaîtrez par la si depuis que cette maladie s’est manifestée dans les états unis, on en a donné une telle definition.
definition de la fievre jaune
Cette fievre est aigue, accompagnée de pourpre et de vers qui sont des signes assurés d’une grande corruption: un feu brulant qui seche la langue et la charge de suie; le poux lent et le coeur en continuele deffaillance.
cette maladie est ordinairement mortelle et plus dangereuse en été qu’en hiver, parce qu’au premier abord de la chaleur les humeurs corrompues offensent par leur venin toutes les parties nobles.
C’est aussi pour cela que je me crois obligé de pourvoir a la conservation des personnes, en leur prescrivant dans la suite Lorsque j’aurai reussi dans le traitement de quelques personnes, des memoires pour les instruire des choses necessaires et de les tirer de l’ignorence ou ils sont des remedes contre ces sortes d’afflictions.
je compte Sur votre justice, votre bonté, et Sur votre protection.
je suis en attendant la reponse de votre excellence avec respect Monsieur le president Votre trés humble et trés soumis
Alliot medicin
Editors’ Translation
New York, 14 Apr. 1804
Mr. President,
I have the honor of sending you a manuscript entitled “Historical and Political Reflections on Louisiana,” in two parts. I hope you will accept this modest work, which I wrote with good will and dedicated to you. I ardently hope that, by reading it, you will, through your wisdom, exceptional talent, and the virtues that are admired throughout Europe, give the great country you have acquired what it needs so that it can someday resemble the mother country you govern so well.
Mr. President, I am also sending you an account of facts that document the persecution and misfortunes my wife, my children, and I have suffered in New Orleans. The French government, before whom we were brought as if we were criminals, has acknowledged my innocence, disproved the conduct of its representative, freed me, and authorized my return to the United States of America with my wife and children. I have a passport in hand.
Among the atrocities of a kind unknown in the United States, thankfully, even before its independence, is the attack that took place in my house and to my person in New Orleans on 18 Mch. 1803, at 11:00 in the evening, by the alcalde Jean François Merieult, his clerk, and a few surgeons who were part of his gang.
Why are these men the cause of my downfall and my wife’s woeful state? For two reasons. First, because I am a patriot and would rather die than embrace the party of the monarchy or aristocracy. Second, because in New Orleans I excelled at my profession as a doctor. Their political views and medical jealousy impelled them to attack my home during the night, plunder, and cause the great misfortune in L’Orient to my wife, who may never recover. To this day she still has periodic crises that signal insanity.
Such an attack cannot and should not remain unpunished. Those who arrested me, broke down my doors during the night, imprisoned, persecuted, and pillaged are still in New Orleans, which is now governed by American law. I cannot press charges against them before the Spanish authorities for damages and reparations, nor before the French, since neither has jurisdiction there. Living under American legislation, I cannot and should not pursue the attackers under any authority but yours. I therefore ask your permission to do so. Given my afflictions, I hope you will grant it and that justice will be swift.
I am also owed 4,000 francs from various patients whom I diagnosed and treated. When they heard about my deportation they refused to pay me. I ask your additional authorization to pursue my debtors. If they had not deprived me of this sum, we would not be forced to sell even our shirts, in France, in order to travel to the free country where we have decided to live out our days.
Mr. President, since I have medical training, I have the honor of listing the names of all the illnesses I can successfully treat and cure, so you can tell your fellow citizens my name and the different conditions I treat.
I treat and heal the following illnesses:
Growths and cankers, including gangrene
Colic of all kinds
Anthrax
The most resistant dysentery and tenesmus
Scurvy
Scrofula
Scurf in all forms
Epilepsy and non-congenital epileptic symptoms
Throat ailments
Pulmonary congestion
Fistulas of all kinds
Gout
Kidney stones
Edema
Hemorrhoids
Jaundice
The most recalcitrant venereal diseases, treated without mercury
Lupus
Postpartum inflammation
All kinds of wounds, including severed muscles
Paralysis
Plague
Poisonous insect bites
Tuberculosis
Bladder retention
Incontinence
Deafness
Missed menstrual periods
Ringworm
All kinds of tumors, including genital tumors
Tapeworm
Treating other worms and stopping them from spreading
Eye ailments, leukoma
If I had been in the United States at the time of the yellow fever epidemic, I am almost certain I could have stopped its spread and saved the lives of thousands of citizens who perished. I no longer wish to be called French. I seek to die a free man and to be useful to those around me. For these reasons, I assure you that I will exercise my profession. To give you an idea of who I am and what I can do, I shall explain my definition of yellow fever. You will be able to judge whether anyone has described it this way since the sickness first appeared in the United States.
Definition of Yellow Fever
This fever is acute, accompanied by: purpura and worms that are sure signs of major infection, a raging fever that burns the tongue and covers it with black marks, and slow pulse and weak heartbeat.
The disease is typically fatal and more dangerous in summer than winter because at the first sign of warm weather, the corrupted humors infect the noble parts of the body with their venom.
This also impels me to treat people right away, to try to save them. After I have succeeded in healing some patients, there can be manuals to bring them out of their ignorance and describe the remedies for these afflictions.
I count on your justice, goodness and protection. In anticipation of your excellency’s response, I am respectfully, Mr. President, your very humble and obedient
Alliot, doctor
RC (DLC); at head of text: “Alliot medecin de present a Neuveyork avec sa femme et son enfant a son excellence monsieur Gefferson president des etats unis de l’amerique”; following signature: “Logé a Neuveyork chez mr halsey tenant auberge no 125 prés les boucheries et le marché des legumes fly Market” (residing in New York at the inn of Mr. Halsey, No. 125 Fly Market near the butcher shops and vegetable market). Recorded in SJL as received 23 Apr. Enclosures: (1) Paul Alliot, “Reflexions historiques et politiques sur la Louysiane, en deux parties,” dated L’Orient, 1 July 1803, and New York, 13 Apr. 1804; with dedicatory address to TJ (see below); printed with English translation in James Alexander Robertson, ed., Louisiana under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States, 1785-1807: Social, Economic, and Political Conditions of the Territory Represented in the Louisiana Purchase as Portrayed in Hitherto Unpublished Contemporary Accounts by Dr. Paul Alliot and Various Spanish, French, English, and American Officials, 2 vols. (Cleveland, 1911), 1:32-143. (2) Paul Alliot, Alliot, médecin, propriétaire en nègres et en terres de St.-Domingue, déporté de la Louysiane; Aux habitans de la commune de Lorient et à tous les Français (L’Orient, [ca. 1803]; in DLC: TJ Papers, 110:18861-4).
By his own testimony, Paul Alliot lived for a time in Saint-Domingue, where he likely owned land and slaves and where he claimed to have suffered a four-month imprisonment in Cap-Français in 1792 for the “cause of men of color.” Returning to France, he became embroiled in political controversies and spent at least the next two years alternating between stints in prison and service in minor offices, including a revolutionary commission in the embattled Lyons area. At the end of the decade, he advised the consular government against attempting to reimpose slavery in Saint-Domingue. By December 1802, Alliot had settled in New Orleans, where he practiced medicine and continued his penchant for making political enemies. He was arrested on 18 Mch. 1803 for practicing without a license. Local authorities accused him also of fomenting rebellion and convinced the incoming French prefect, Pierre Clément Laussat, to exile him to France. Alliot eventually returned to New Orleans, where he advertised his medical services in 1807 (Paul Alliot, à ses con’citoyens [Ville-Affranchie (Lyon), ca. 1793]; Page, commissaire de Saint-Domingue à Paul Alliot, maire de Levroux [Lille, ca. 1793]; Louis Vignon, ed., Annales d’un village de France: Charly-Vernaison en Lyonnais, 5 vols. [Vernaison, France, 1978-93], 5:282, 305-6, 624-5; Philippe R. Girard, “Napoléon Bonaparte and the Emancipation Issue in Saint-Domingue, 1799-1800,” French Historical Studies, 32 [2009], 596-7; Jeremy D. Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution [Malden, Mass., 2012], 105-6; Gabriel Debien and René Le Gardeur, “The Saint-Domingue Refugees in Louisiana, 1792-1804,” in Carl A. Brasseaux and Glenn R. Conrad, eds., The Road to Louisiana: The Saint-Domingue Refugees, 1792-1809, trans. David Cheramie [Lafayette, La., 1992], 172-3).
reflexions: Alliot wrote his two-part manuscript while imprisoned in New Orleans. The first part focused mostly on that city and presented Alliot’s highly critical view of Spanish governance and his observations on the area’s social, cultural, and economic characteristics. The second part encompassed other areas of Louisiana—along the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi and Red Rivers, with discussions of Mobile, Pensacola, Pointe Coupee, Natchitoches, and St. Louis, among other noteworthy locales. vous l’ayant dedié: in a dedication to TJ dated 1 July 1803 from a L’Orient prison but likely revised upon Alliot’s arrival in New York, Alliot praised the purchase of Louisiana as evidence of TJ’s wisdom, noted Spanish administrators’ failure to develop properly the colony’s resources, and hoped that American rule would make New Orleans “unrecognizable” from its present state. Alliot also included a preface that offered advice on rendering New Orleans more healthful, an analysis that he had likely sent to Laussat from the New Orleans jail. Appended to the manuscript was an additional address to TJ, dated 13 Apr. 1804, which explained that his original manuscript had been damaged during the voyage by sea, making it necessary for him to produce a new manuscript, which unfortunately contained some erasures and orthographical errors. Alliot trusted that TJ would overlook these flaws and “take into consideration all that I have said as good and useful for a country which without exaggeration, is going to become under your rule the best country in the world” (Robertson, Louisiana under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States, 1:32-143; Gilles-Antoine Langlois, “La Nouvelle Orléans: État Sommaire des Espaces Urbains et Sociaux à l’Époque de Pierre Clément Laussat [Mars 1803-Avril 1804],” French Colonial History, 5 [2004], 121).
mémoire de faits: in his other enclosure (cited above), Alliot detailed his imprisonment and expulsion from New Orleans. The judicial examination he faced before a New Orleans alcalde, reproduced in the pamphlet, indicated concerns that he had been attempting to spread revolutionary ideas to the city’s black population, charges that Alliot denied vehemently. He secured an affidavit signed by a number of citizens in his defense and also appealed to the recently arrived Laussat, but opposition from the chief doctor in the city led to his exile on 17 Apr. 1803 (partial translation and summary printed in Robertson, Louisiana under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States, 1:147-9).