be made; and that in whatever state this letter may find
the business, in that state it be left. I have it in charge at the same
time to assure you, that your conduct in these communications with the
British ministers has met the President's entire approbation, and to
convey to you his acknowledgments for your services.

As an attendance on this business must, at times, have interfered with
your private pursuits, and subjected you also to additional expenses,
I have the honor to enclose you a draft on our bankers in Holland for a
thousand dollars, as an indemnificatian for those sacrifices.

My letter of August the 12th desired a certain other communication to be
made to the same court, if a war should have actually commenced. If the
event has not already called for it, it is considered as inexpedient to
be made at all.

You will, of course, have the goodness to inform us of whatever may have
passed further, since the date of your last.

In conveying to you this testimony of approbation from the President of
the United States, I am happy in an occasion of repeating assurances
of the sentiments of perfect esteem and respect, with which I have the
honor to be, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XLVI.--TO JOSHUA JOHNSON, December 17, 1790

TO JOSHUA JOHNSON.

Philadelphia, December 17, 1790.

Sir,

Though not yet informed of your receipt of my letter, covering your
commission as Consul for the United States in the port of London, yet
knowing that the ship has arrived by which it went, I take for granted
the letter and commission have gone safe to hand, and that you have been
called into the frequent exercise of your office for the relief of our
seamen, upon whom such multiplied acts of violence have been committed
in England, by press-gangs, pretending to take them for British
subjects, not only without evidence, but against evidence. By what means
may be procured for our seamen, while in British ports, that security
for their persons which the laws of hospitality require, and which the
British nation will surely not refuse, remains to be settled. In
the mean time, there is one of these cases, wherein so wilful and so
flagrant a violation has been committed by a British officer, on the
person of one of our citizens, as requires that it be laid before
his government, in friendly and firm reliance of satisfaction for the
injury, and of assurance for the future, th