To Thomas Jefferson from Albert Gallatin, 21 September 1802
From Albert Gallatin
New York Septer. 21st 1802
Dear Sir
I intend leaving this city this evening & expect to meet you at Washington the last of this month. As I take my family along, we will travel but slowly.
I should suppose that your intention to countermand the sailing of the Adams came too late: both ships indeed, were prepared for sea in a much shorter time than could have been expected.
Your letter informing of the favorable aspect in the Mediterranean gave me true satisfaction: it will enable us to diminish our naval expenditures, but to what extent must be left to a future discussion & will rest on the prospect of our revenue. Of this, it is very difficult to form, as yet, a correct idea: it has diminished, and, in my opinion, will experience a greater decrease next year: but our data are not sufficient to draw positive inferences. Before the meeting of Congress, we will have a comparative view of imports & exports for the year ending 30th of this month, which will give us on the whole the best account we can prepare. I can ascertain with precision how much the importation has diminished; but although we can have also an account of exports for the same period, the greater part of these arises from the importations of the preceeding year; & the difficulty lies in judging of the quantity of the importations destined for exportation & which will be exported generally next year. Upon the whole, all I can yet say is that we cannot think for this year of giving up any taxes, and that we must reduce our expence (naval, military & foreign) to the estimates we had made and on which rested the propriety of the repeal of the internal taxes.
Mr Christie, late member of Congress for Maryland, has just arrived from London & brought dispatches from Mr King which he put in the post office—also the ratification of the Convention. Mr King told him he intended asking to be recalled next year.
I enclose a letter from Mr Symmes—How shall we ascertain the true conduct of Govr. St. Clair? Nothing of the decision in his case has been communicated to the parties. This will not be considered by them as perfectly just.
My health is not yet perfectly good. I hope travelling & then winter will restore it; but I cannot do as much work in the same time as I did last fall. Hoping to have soon the pleasure of seeing you, I remain with sincere respect & attachment
Your obedt. Servt.
Albert Gallatin
Mr. Burr has communicated to me a letter which he writes to Govr. Bloomfield in which he makes an explicit denial of the charges & assertions of his having either intrigued with the federal party or in any other way attempting, during the late election or balloting, to counter act your election. That transaction, I mean the attack on Mr B. by Cheetham, has deeply injured the republican cause in this State.
RC (DLC); at foot of text: “Thomas Jefferson President U.S.”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Treasury Department on 26 Sep. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) John Cleves Symmes to Gallatin, New Germanton, New Jersey, 30 Aug. 1802, requesting that the Treasury secretary transmit the enclosed papers (see Enclosures Nos. 2 and 3) to the president (, 7:514). (2) Daniel Symmes to John Cleves Symmes, Cincinnati, 5 Aug. 1802, informing his uncle that to the “mortification and astonishment” of the local Republicans, Governor St. Clair on his return to the Northwest Territory in July set “every tool and machine at work to distract and intimidate the people from going into a State Government”; Republicanism is progressing rapidly and there is certain support for a Republican ticket unless defeated by the ambiguity of the election law; Symmes requests that his uncle obtain the opinion of the attorney general or secretary of state on whether Congress intended the counties to vote in their own districts as “in case of members of the Legislature under the Supplemental act; or whether at the Court-house as the law before stood”; Republican interests will suffer if they are not permitted to vote in districts (same, 7:515). (3) The 31 July 1802 issue of the Cincinnati Western Spy, which includes the first of a series of essays by former congressional delegate William McMillan as “Frank Stubblefield” to the people of Hamilton County, with queries about the method of electing delegates to the convention considering statehood under the 30 Apr. 1802 enabling act (same, 7:516; 271; , 2:173–5).
YOUR LETTER: TJ to Gallatin, 8 Sep. TJ brought up the subject of revenues and taxes in his 13 Sep. letter to Gallatin. For the ESTIMATES of expenditures for 1802, see Vol. 35:631–3; Vol. 36:48–9.
The 20 Sep. issue of the New York Commercial Advertiser carried news of the arrival of Gabriel CHRISTIE in New York after a 38 day passage from London. PUT IN THE POST OFFICE: the State Department acknowledged receipt of the dispatches on 1 Oct. (., 3:605). The diplomatic correspondence included a 16 July letter from Rufus King informing the secretary of state that ratifications of the 1802 CONVENTION were exchanged with Lord Hawkesbury on 15 July and that Christie was delivering an original copy of the British ratification and a certificate of exchange to the State Department. For the convention negotiated by King, see TJ to the Senate, 29 Mch. 1802. The Senate ratified the convention on 26 Apr. ASKING TO BE RECALLED: King wrote Madison on 5 Aug. requesting that the president accept his resignation as minister to Great Britain effective April 1803 (, 4:148, 154–5; ., 3:398, 457–8; , 1:421–2).
On 20 Mch. 1802, shortly after his arrival in London, Christie wrote Madison soliciting the appointment of his son Charles as consul at Madeira. He requested that Madison speak to the president on his behalf (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR, endorsed by TJ: “Gabriel Christie to mr Madison his son to be Consul at Madeira”; ., 3:52–3). For other correspondence with the State Department on the appointment for his son, see same, 3:128–9, 605; 4:26, 239–40. On 23 July, Robert Smith informed Madison that he had received “intimations” from a friend that led him to think that the son was not qualified “for the appointment of Consul.” Smith added: “This may be a subject of some delicacy. But to such unpleasant situations we are frequently exposed” (RC in same; endorsed by TJ: “Christie as Consul. R. Smith to mr Madison”). Charles Christie did not receive the consulship.
The vice president’s letter to his friend Joseph BLOOMFIELD of 21 Sep. is printed in , 2:739. Burr was responding to the New Jersey governor’s letter of 17 Sep. in which Bloomfield requested a refutation of the charge in James Cheetham’s publications that Burr had “combined with the Federal party to defeat the election of Mr. JEFFERSON.” Burr authorized Bloomfield to publish his denial “if you shall think proper.” Both letters were printed in the newspapers. At the same time, Cheetham began submitting a series of letters to the press, which were published as a pamphlet in early 1803 entitled, Nine Letters on the Subject of Aaron Burr’s Political Defection (same, 2:737–8).