To James Madison from Thomas Jefferson, 16 September 1806
From Thomas Jefferson
Monticello Sep. 16. 06.
Dear Sir
I inclose you a letter & sundry papers recieved from mr. Gallatin of which I will ask the return.1 1. as to the refractory Tunisians I think we should pay their passage & get rid of them.2 If they would stipulate to deliver themselves to any Tunisian or other Barbary Agent in England, it would excuse us to the Bey of Tunis.
The case of an American citizen impressed on board the Chichester, & information regularly given to you, as Colo. Newton says,3 requires I think a specific demand of him, and will not admit of our taking only the general step agreed on, yesterday. Still I think the general recommendation to mr. Merry should accompany the specific demand. Accept affectionate salutations.
Th: Jefferson
P. S. Mr. Gallatin leaves N. York on his return the 22d. inst.
RC (DLC); FC (DLC: Jefferson Papers).
1. Jefferson evidently enclosed Albert Gallatin’s 9 Sept. 1806 letter to him (5 pp.; DLC: Jefferson Papers), in which Gallatin discussed funding for the Cumberland Road; the location of roads from Vincennes, Indiana Territory; and his recent decision to authorize DeWitt Clinton to continue to support the three members of Soliman Melimeni’s staff still in New York, at government expense, for two weeks or until Jefferson’s decision on whether or not the government would pay their passage to Europe could be received. The “sundry papers” may have included some or all of the enclosures in Gallatin to Jefferson, 6 Sept. 1806 (ibid.), having to do with Creek Indian trade with Florida, public lands in Louisiana Territory, Philadelphia cases of illegal trade with Haiti, and appointments of lighthouse keepers in Virginia and land commissioners in Orleans Territory. Gallatin also enclosed letters from Thomas Newton on the subject of impressed American seamen at Norfolk, regarding which Gallatin commented to Jefferson that “the question is of some importance, as it is whether we shall by any legal or other forcible process rescue our seamen when brought within our jurisdiction.”
2. On 25 Sept. 1806 Jacob Wagner informed New York collector David Gelston of this decision and asked him to obtain passage to London for the three Tunisians and to pay “any trifling debt” they may have incurred, for all of which Gelston would be reimbursed. Wagner added that “steerage passages would do for them, if they could be secure from the affronts of the crew, about which it would be well to caution the Captain” (DNA: RG 59, DL, vol. 15).
3. See note 1 above, and Thomas Newton to JM, 23 and 28 Aug. and 2 Sept. 1806.