Chapter XXI: Part I: Letters Written Before His Mission to Europe (7)

There is one circumstance very distressing, that of our
moneys being discredited, to all intents and purposes, by
the great number of traders who come here in my absence, each
outbidding the other, giving prices unknown in this country
by five hundred per cent., by which the people conceived it
to be of no value, and both French and Spaniards refused to
take a farthing of it. Provision is three times the price it
was two months past, and to be got by no other means than
my own bonds, goods, or force. Several merchants are now
advancing considerable sums of their own property, rather
than the service should suffer, by which I am sensible they
must lose greatly, unless some method is taken to raise the
credit of our coin, or a fund be sent to Orleans, for the
payment of the expenses of this place, which would at once
reduce the price of every species of provision; money being
of little service to them, unless it would pass at the ports
they trade at. I mentioned to you, my drawing some bills
on Mr. Pollock in New Orleans, as I had no money with me.
He would accept the bills, but had not money to pay them
off, though the sums were trifling; so that we have little
credit to expect from that quarter. I shall take every
step I possibly can, for laying up a sufficient quantity of
provisions, and hope you will immediately send me an express
with your instructions. Public expenses in this country,
have hitherto been very low, and may still continue so,
if a correspondence is fixed at New Orleans for payment of
expenses in this country, or gold and silver sent. I am glad
to hear of Colonel Todd's appointment. I think government
has taken the only step they could have done, to make
this country flourish, and be of service to them. No other
regulation would have suited the people. The last account I
had of Colonel Rogers, was his being in New Orleans, with six
of his men. The rest he left at the Spanish Ozack, above the
Natches. I shall immediately send him some provisions, as I
learn he is in great want. I doubt, he will not be able to
get his goods up the river except in Spanish bottoms. One
regiment would be able to clear the Mississippi, and do great
damage to the British interests in Florida, and, by properly
conducting themselves, might perhaps gain the affection
of the people, so as to raise a sufficient force to give a
shock to Pensacola. Our alliance with France has entirely
devoted this people to our interest. I have sent several
copies of the articles to Detroit, and do not doubt but they
will produce the desired effect. Your instructions I shall
pay implicit regard to, and hope to conduct myself in such a
manner as to do honor to my country.

I am, with the greatest respect, your humble servant,

G. R. CLARKE.

P. S. I understand there is a considerable quantity of cannon
ball at Pittsburg. We are much in want of four and six pound
ball. I hope you will immediately order some down.

IN COUNCIL, June 18, 1779.

The board proceeded to the consideration of the letters
of Colonel Clarke, and other papers relating to Henry
Hamilton, Esq., who has acted for some years past as
Lieutenant Governor of the settlement at and about Detroit,
and commandant of the British garrison there, under Sir
Guy Carleton, as Governor-in-chief; Philip Dejean justice
of the peace for Detroit, and William Lamothe, captain
of volunteers, prisoners of war, taken in the county of
Illinois.

They find, that Governor Hamilton has executed the task of
inciting the Indians to perpetrate their accustomed cruelties
on the citizens of the United States, without distinction of
age, sex, or condition, with an eagerness and avidity which
evince, that the general nature of his charge harmonized with
his particular disposition. They should have been satisfied,
from the other testimony adduced, that these enormities
were committed by savages acting under his commission; but
the number of proclamations which, at different times, were
left in houses, the inhabitants of which were killed or
carried away by the Indians, one of which proclamations is in
possession of the board, under the hand and seal of Governor
Hamilton, puts this fact beyond a doubt. At the time of his
captivity, it appears, he had sent considerable bodies of
Indians against the frontier settlements of these States, and
had actually appointed a great council of Indians, to meet
him at Tennessee, to concert the operations of this present
campaign. They find that his treatment of our citizens and
soldiers, taken and carried within the limits of his command,
has been cruel and inhuman; that in the case of John Dodge, a
citizen of these States, which has been particularly stated
to this board, he loaded him with irons, threw him into a
dungeon, without bedding, without straw, without fire, in
the dead of winter and severe climate of Detroit; that, in
that state, he wasted him with incessant expectations of
death: that when the rigors of his situation had brought him
so low, that death seemed likely to withdraw him from their
power, he was taken out and somewhat attended to, until a
little mended, and before he had recovered ability to walk,
was again returned to his dungeon, in which a hole was cut,
seven inches square only, for the admission of air, and
the same load of irons again put on him: that appearing, a
second time, in imminent danger of being lost to them, he
was again taken from his dungeon, in which he had lain from
January till June, with the intermission of a few weeks
only, before mentioned. That Governor Hamilton gave standing
rewards for scalps, but offered none for prisoners, which
induced the Indians, after making their captives carry their
baggage into the neighborhood of the fort, there to put them
to death, and carry in their scalps to the Governor, who
welcomed their return and success by a discharge of cannon.
That when a prisoner, brought alive, and destined to death
by the Indians, the fire already kindled, and himself bound
to the stake, was dexterously withdrawn, and secreted from
them by the humanity of a fellow prisoner, a large reward was
offered for the discovery of the victim, which having tempted
a servant to betray his concealment, the present prisoner
Dejean, being sent with a party of soldiers, surrounded the
house, took and threw into jail the unhappy victim and his
deliverer, where the former soon expired under the perpetual
assurances of Dejean, that he was to be again restored into
the hands of the savages; and the latter, when enlarged, was
bitterly reprimanded by Governor Hamilton.

It appears to them, that the prisoner Dejean was on all
occasions the willing and cordial instrument of Governor
Hamilton, acting both as judge and keeper of the jails, and
instigating and urging him, by malicious insinuations and
untruths, to increase, rather than relax his severities,
heightening the cruelty of his orders by his manner of
executing them; offering at one time a reward to one man to
be hangman for another, threatening his life on refusal,
and taking from his prisoners the little property their
opportunities enabled them to acquire.

It appears that the prisoner Lamothe was a captain of the
volunteer scalping parties of Indians and whites, who went,
from time to time, under general orders to spare neither
men, women, nor children. From this detail of circumstances,
which arose in a few cases only, coming accidentally to the
knowledge of the board, they think themselves authorized by
fair deduction, to presume what would be the horrid history
of the sufferings of the many who have expired under their
miseries, (which, therefore, will remain forever untold,)
or, who have escaped from them, and are yet too remote and
too much dispersed, to bring together their well-founded
accusations against the prisoners.

They have seen that the conduct of the British officers,
civil and military, has in the whole course of this war been
savage, and unprecedented among civilized nations; that our
officers taken by them, have been confined in crowded jails,
loathsome dungeons and prison ships, loaded with irons,
supplied often with no food, generally with too little for
the sustenance of nature, and that little sometimes unsound
and unwholesome, whereby such numbers have perished, that
captivity and death have with them been almost synonymous;
that they have been transported beyond seas, where their
fate is out of the reach of our inquiry, have been compelled
to take arms against their country, and by a refinement in
cruelty, to become murderers of their own brethren.

Their prisoners with us have, on the other hand, been treated
with humanity and moderation; they have been fed, on all
occasions, with wholesome and plentiful food, suffered to go
at large within extensive tracts of country, treated with
liberal hospitality, permitted to live in the families of
our citizens, to labor for themselves, to acquire and enjoy
profits, and finally to participate of the principal benefits
of society, privileged from all burdens.

Reviewing this contrast, which cannot be denied by our
enemies themselves, in a single point, and which has now been
kept up during four years of unremitting war, a term long
enough to produce well-founded despair that our moderation
may ever lead them to the practice of humanity; called on by
that justice we owe to those who are fighting the battles
of our country, to deal out, at length, miseries to their
enemies, measure for measure, and to distress the feelings
of mankind by exhibiting to them spectacles of severe
retaliation, where we had long and vainly endeavored to
introduce an emulation in kindness; happily possessed, by
the fortune of war, of some of those very individuals who,
having distinguished themselves personally in this line of
cruel conduct, are fit subjects to begin on, with the work of
retaliation; this board has resolved to advise the Governor,
that the said Henry Hamilton, Philip Dejean and William
Lamothe, prisoners of war, be put in irons, confined in the
dungeons of the public jail, debarred the use of pen, ink and
paper, and excluded all converse, except with their keeper.
And the Governor orders accordingly.

ARCH: BLAIR, C. C.

[85] IN COUNCIL, September 29th, 1779.

The board having been, at no time, unmindful of the
circumstances attending the confinement of Lieutenant
Governor Hamilton, Captain Lamothe and Philip Dejean, which
the personal cruelties of those men, as well as the general
conduct of the enemy, had constrained them to advise:
wishing, and willing to expect, that their sufferings may
lead them to the practice of humanity, should any future
turn of fortune, in their favor, submit to their discretion
the fate of their fellow-creatures; that it may prove an
admonition to others, meditating like cruelties, not to rely
for impunity in any circumstances of distance or present
security; and that it may induce the enemy to reflect, what
must be the painful consequences, should a continuation of
the same conduct on their part, impel us again to severities,
while such multiplied subjects of retaliation are within our
power: sensible that no impression can be made on the event
of the war, by wreaking vengeance on miserable captives; that
the great cause which has animated the two nations against
each other, is not to be decided by unmanly cruelties on
wretches, who have bowed their necks to the power of the
victor, but by the exercise of honorable valor in the field:
earnestly hoping that the enemy, viewing the subject in the
same light, will be content to abide the event of that mode
of decision, and spare us the pain of a second departure
from kindness to our captives: confident that commiseration
to our prisoners is the only possible motive to which can
be candidly ascribed, in the present actual circumstances of
the war, the advice we are now about to give; the board does
advise the Governor to send Lieutenant Governor Hamilton,
Captain Lamothe and Philip Dejean, to Hanover courthouse,
there to remain at large, within certain reasonable limits,
taking the parole in the usual manner. The Governor orders
accordingly.

ARCH: BLAIR, C. C.

Ordered, that Major John Hay be sent, also, under parole, to
the same place.

ARCH: BLAIR, C. C.

[86] IN COUNCIL, October 8th, 1779.

The Governor is advised to take proper and effectual measures
for knowing, from time to time, the situation and treatment
of our prisoners by the enemy, and to extend to theirs,
with us, a like treatment, in every circumstance; and,
also, to order to a proper station, the prison ship fitted
up on recommendation from Congress, for the reception and
confinement of such prisoners of war as shall be sent to it.

ARCH: BLAIR, C. C.

[87] [General de Riedesel, who commanded the Hessian troops,
was among the prisoners removed to Albemarle, in 1779, after
the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Mr. Jefferson did
everything in his power to render the situation of these
prisoners comfortable, and the educated and refined officers
were often his guests. Among the number was General de
Riedesel, who seems to have entertained a grateful sense of
the kindness extended to him. The example of Mr. Jefferson
was followed by most of the wealthy gentlemen of the
surrounding country; the officers, both English and German,
have borne testimony to the polite and hospitable attentions
which they received in Virginia.]--ED.

[88] [The following memorandum is inserted in the MS. at the
close of this letter.

FEMALE CONTRIBUTIONS, IN AID OF THE WAR, PROBABLY IN 1780.

Mrs. Sarah Cary, of Scotchtown, a watch-chain, cost £7 sterling.

Mrs. ---- Ambler, five gold rings.

Mrs. Rebecca Ambler, three gold rings.

Mrs. ---- Nicholas, a diamond drop.

Mrs. Griffin, of Dover, ten half joes.

Mrs. Gilmer, five guineas.

Mrs. Anne Ramsay (for Fairfax), one half joe, three guineas,
three pistereens, one bit.

Do. for do. paper money, bundle No. 1, twenty thousand dollars,
No. 2, twenty-seven thousand dollars, No. 3, fifteen thousand
dollars, No. 4, thirteen thousand five hundred and eighteen
dollars and one-third.

Mrs. Lewis (for Albermarle), £1559 8s. paper money.

Mrs. Weldon, £39 18s. new, instead of £1600, old paper money.

Mrs. Blackburn (for Prince William), seven thousand five hundred
and six dollars, paper money.

Mrs. Randolph, the younger, of Chatsworth, eight hundred dollars.

Mrs. Fitzhugh and others, £558.

[89] [This letter has no direction, but was probably
addressed to General Gates, then commanding the Southern
army. It was written by Mr. Jefferson in his character of
Governor of Virginia, to which office he was elected on the
1st of June, 1779.--ED.]

[90] [The circumstances of the defeat of General Gates's
army, near Camden, in August, 1780, being of historical
notoriety, this statement is omitted.]

[91] [Battle of Camden, August 16th, 1780.]

[92] TO LIEUTENANT COLONEL NISBET BALFOUR, COMMANDER AT
NINETY-SIX.

I have the happiness to inform you, that on Wednesday the
16th instant, I totally defeated General Gates's army. One
thousand were killed and wounded, about eight hundred taken
prisoners. We are in possession of eight pieces of brass
cannon, all they had in the field, all their ammunition
wagons, a great number of arms, and one hundred and thirty
baggage wagons; in short, there never was a more complete
victory. I have written to Lieutenant Colonel Turnbull,
whom I sent to join Major Johnson on Little river, to push
on after General Sumpter to the Waxhaws, whose detachment
is the only collected force of rebels in all this country.
Colonel Tarleton is in pursuit of Sumpter. Our loss is about
three hundred killed and wound, chiefly of the thirty-third
regiment and volunteers, of Ireland. I have given orders that
all the inhabitants of this province, who have subscribed
and taken part in this revolt, should be punished with the
greatest rigor; also, that those who will not turn out, may
be imprisoned, and their whole property taken from them,
and destroyed. I have also ordered that satisfaction should
be made for their estates, to those who have been injured
and oppressed by them. I have ordered, in the most positive
manner, that every militia man who has borne arms with us and
afterwards joined the enemy, shall be immediately hanged. I
desire you will take the most rigorous measures to punish the
rebels in the district in which you command, and that you
will obey, in the strictest manner, the directions I have
given in this letter, relative to the inhabitants of this
country.

CORNWALLIS.

August, 1780.

[93] [About the 22d of Oct. 1780, a British fleet made its
appearance in the Chesapeake, having on board some three
thousand troops, under the command of General Leslie.
Different detachments were landed near Portsmouth, Hampton,
and on the bay-side of Princess Anne. The whole force was
subsequently collected at Portsmouth; but Leslie, probably
disappointed in his expectation of forming a juncture with
Cornwallis, suddenly re-embarked for South Carolina. On the
29th of the following December, Arnold made his appearance,
with twenty-seven sail of vessels, within the Virginian
capes, and commenced his invasion. On 26th of March, 1781, he
was superseded in his command by General Phillips, who joined
him at Portsmouth with some two thousand troops.--ED.]

[94] TO LORD CORNWALLIS.

PORTSMOUTH, Virginia, November 4th, 1780.

MY LORD,--I have been here near a week, establishing a post.
I wrote to you to Charleston, and by another messenger, by
land. I cannot hear, for a certainty, where you are: I wait
your orders. The bearer is to be handsomely rewarded, if he
brings me any note or mark from your Lordship.

A. L.

[95] [Probably addressed to General Gates.]

[96] [After the battle of Camden--August 16th, 1780--Congress
removed General Gates from the command of the Southern army,
and placed General Green at its head. In December, 1780, he
assumed the command.]

[97] [One of the Convention prisoners, in Albemarle.]

[98] [This letter has no address, but it was probably to
General Muhlenburg.]

[99] [Governor of North Carolina.]

[100] [General Greene, after taking command of the Southern
army, divided his force, and sent one division of it, under
General Morgan, to the western part of South Carolina.
Cornwallis, who was now nearly prepared to invade North
Carolina, unwilling to leave Morgan in his rear, sent
Tarleton in pursuit of him. The two detachments met on the
17th of January, 1781, when the battle of Cowpens was fought,
and Tarleton defeated. Cornwallis, after the defeat of
Tarleton, abandoned the invasion of North Carolina for the
present, and started in pursuit of Morgan. Greene, suspecting
his intention, hastened to join Morgan, and, after a
fatiguing march, effected a junction at Guilford Court House.
During this march he was closely pursued by Cornwallis,
who, as stated in the above letter, "burnt his own wagons in
order to enable himself to move with greater facility." After
this junction at Guilford Court House, Greene crossed the
Dan, into Virginia--again narrowly escaping the pursuit of
Cornwallis, who now retired to Hillsborough, where, erecting
the royal standard, he issued his proclamation, inviting the
loyalists to join him, and sent Tarleton with a detachment to
support a body of them collected between the Havre and Deep
Rivers. Greene, having despatched Generals Pickens and Lee to
watch the movements of Tarleton, and having been reinforced
in Virginia, now returned into North Carolina, and fought
the battle of Guilford Court House on the 8th of March,
1781.--ED.]

[101] [M. de Marbois was attached to the French Legation in
Philadelphia.--ED.]

[102] [On the 15th of June, 1781, Mr. Jefferson was
appointed, with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr.
Laurens, Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then
expected to be effected through the mediation of the Empress
of Russia--ED.]

[103] [In 1781, the depredations of the enemy, and the
public and private losses which they occasioned, produced the
ordinary effect of complaint against those who had charge of
the public defence, and especially against Mr. Jefferson (the
Governor of Virginia). A popular clamor was excited against
him, and, under the impulses of the moment, Mr. George
Nicholas, a member from Albermarle, moved his impeachment.

The charges were, 1. That he had not, as soon as advised
by General Washington of the meditated invasion, put the
country in a state of preparation and defence; 2. That
during the invasion, he did not use the means of resistance
which were at his command; 3. That he too much consulted
his personal safety, when Arnold first entered Richmond,
by which others were dispirited and discouraged; 4. That
he ignominiously fled from Monticello to the neighboring
mountain on Tarleton's approach to Charlottesville; and 5.
That he abandoned the office of Governor as soon as it became
one of difficulty and danger.

Mr. Jefferson has been long since acquitted of these charges
by the almost unanimous voice of his countrymen.--ED.]

[104] [The battle of Yorktown.]

[105] [The title of Virginia to the Northwestern territory
was controverted, as early as 1779, by some of the other
States, upon the ground that all lands, the title of
which had originally been in the crown and had never been
alienated, were the common property of the Confederation,
by right of conquest--the revolution having transferred the
title from the British sovereign to the Confederation. This
view was resisted by Virginia in an able remonstrance to
Congress in October, 1779. The question, however, never came
to an issue; for Virginia, moved by a patriotic impulse, and
ready to sacrifice her individual interest to the general
good, made a voluntary cession of the whole territory to the
Confederation.]

[106] [Mr. Jefferson's reasons for now accepting this
appointment, which he had previously declined, are thus
explained by himself:--"I had, about two months before,
lost the cherished companion of my life [his wife], in whose
affection, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten
years in unchequered happiness." On the 19th of December,
1782, he left Monticello for Philadelphia, where he intended
to embark for Europe; but the French Minister Luzerne,
offering him a passage in the French frigate Romulus, then
lying below Baltimore, he accepted the offer. The sailing
of this frigate being delayed by ice, and a British fleet
on the coast, information, in the meantime, reached America
that a provisional treaty of peace had been signed by the
American Commissioners, to become absolute on the conclusion
of peace between France and England. On the arrival of this
information, Mr. Jefferson was released from his mission, and
returned to his home in Virginia on the 15th May, 1783.--ED.]

[107] [The death of Mrs. Jefferson.]

[108] BY THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

February 14, 1783.

The committee consisting of Mr. Jones, Mr. Rutledge, and
Mr. Wilson, to whom was referred a letter of the 7th from
the Honorable Thomas Jefferson, reported thereon, whereupon
on motion of Mr. Gorham, seconded by Mr. Wolcott, ordered:
That the Secretary for Foreign Affairs inform Mr. Jefferson,
that it is the pleasure of Congress, considering the advices
lately received in America and the probable situation of
affairs in Europe, that he do not proceed on his intended
voyage until he shall receive their further instructions.

CHARLES THOMPSON, (copied)

_Secretary_.

[109] [The following resolution was passed by Congress
relative to Mr. Jefferson's mission to Europe.--ED.]

BY THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

April 1st, 1783.

_Resolved_, That the Secretary for Foreign Affairs inform the Hon.
Thomas Jefferson, in answer to his letter of the 13th of March,
that Congress consider the object of his appointment so far
advanced as to render it unnecessary for him to pursue his voyage,
and that Congress are well satisfied with the readiness he has
shown in undertaking a service which from the present situation
of affairs they apprehend can be dispensed with.

Extracts from the minutes,

CHARLES THOMPSON, (copied)

_Secretary_.

[110] [Mr. Jefferson being released from his mission to
Europe on account of the news of peace, and having returned
to Virginia, was again appointed by the Legislature a
delegate to Congress on the 6th of June, 1783. On the 3d
of the following November he arrived at Trenton, where
Congress was then sitting, and took his seat on the 4th, on
which day that body adjourned to meet at Annapolis on the
26th. Mr. Jefferson remained in the discharge of his duties
as a delegate until the 7th of May, 1784, when Congress,
having determined to add a third minister plenipotentiary
to Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin, conferred the appointment
on him. On the 6th of August, 1784, he reached Paris. The
purpose for which he had been associated with Mr. Adams
and Dr. Franklin was to negotiate commercial treaties with
the European nations. In June, 1785, Mr. Adams removed
to London as our minister at that court, and Dr. Franklin
obtained permission to return to America, thus leaving Mr.
Jefferson our only representative at Paris in the character
of minister plenipotentiary. Here he remained until the 26th
of September, 1789, something more than five years, when he
took leave of Paris, and landed at Norfolk in the latter part
of November.--ED.]