Notes on a Cabinet Meeting, 8 July 1805
Notes on a Cabinet Meeting
1805. July 8. Present the 4. Secretaries. privateers are now blockading Charleston, the capes of Chesapeake & Dealaware and capturing vessels without the smallest pretext, merely because they are rich. it is determd by unanimous consent (except mr Gallatin who dissents) that the vessels being some without commns. some with insfft. commns. & some doing what their commns. do not warrt. all of which is within the definition of piracy, & the act of Congr. authorising us to keep 6. frigates in commn. in time of peace with ⅔ their ordinary compliment, & having authorised the buildg. equippg. &c 2. brigs without confining them to specific objects, we are authorised from this force to take what may be necessary to suppress these pyracies, & accdly. that the Adams1 and the brig Hornet building at Baltimore, shall be got ready & sent out, & confined entirely to the suppression of these piracies on our Atlantic coast, chusing prudent officers and giving cautious instructions. there are funds sufficient & regularly appropriated to the fitting out, but for manning the proper funds are already exhausted. consequently we must borrow from other funds, and state the matter to Congress. our general opinion is that as soundings on our coast cease at the beginning of the gulph stream, we ought to endeavor to assume all the waters within the gulph stream as our waters as far as to exclude privateers from hovering within them.
MS (DLC: TJ Papers, 131:22677); entirely in TJ’s hand; follows, on same sheet, Notes on a Cabinet Meeting of 8 Oct. 1804.
For the French privateer blockading Charleston, see TJ to Robert Smith, 19 June.
capes of Chesapeake & Dealaware: for the actions of the Spanish privateer La Maria, see TJ to Smith, 11 June.
act of Congr.: the 1801 naval Peace Establishment Act provided for six frigates to be kept in commission in times of peace. An 1804 act authorized the construction of two 16-gun warships (, 2:110-1, 291-2).
cautious instructions: in late July, Robert Smith drafted orders for Alexander Murray and Isaac Chauncey, commanding the Adams and the Hornet, respectively, that “Within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, i, e, within a marine league of the margin of our Coast, you will protect all vessels whatever, as well foreign as American, against the aggressions of the armed vessels public or private of any nation whatever.” The commanders were also to “repress all infractions of law” that “any such armed vessels” might attempt, and should take or send into a U.S. port for examination and trial any privateer that lacked a valid commission (, 6:199; Smith to TJ, 30 Aug.).
gulph stream: Smith’s orders to the naval officers stated that their “cruising range or station” would run from the coast “to the distance of the Gulf Stream.” In May 1806, Madison asked James Monroe and William Pinkney to propose to Great Britain that the area out to the Gulf Stream should serve as a coastal zone in which armed ships would be prohibited from “roving or hovering” (, 11:582-3).
1. TJ here canceled “shall be.”