credentials, shall be forwarded to you, and it
would be expected that you should proceed on the mission as soon as you
can have made those arrangements for your private affairs, which such
an absence may render indispensable. Let me only ask the favor of you to
give me an immediate answer, and by duplicate, by sea and post, that
we may have the benefit of both chances for receiving it as early as
possible. Though I have not the honor of a personal acquaintance with
you, yet I beg you to be assured, that I feel all that anxiety for your
entrance on this important mission, which a thorough conviction of your
fitness for it can inspire; and that in its relations with my office, I
shall always endeavor to render it as agreeable to you as possible.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the highest respect and
esteem, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXXXIII.--TO THE PRESIDENT, November 7, 1791

TO THE PRESIDENT.

Philadelphia, November 7, 1791.

Sir,

I have duly considered the letter you were pleased to refer to me, of
the 18th of August, from his Excellency Governor Pinckney to yourself,
together with the draught of one proposed to be written by him to the
Governor of Florida, claiming the re-delivery of certain fugitives from
justice, who have been received in that country. The inconveniences of
such a receptacle for debtors and malefactors in the neighborhood of the
southern States, are obvious and great, and I wish the remedy were as
certain and short as the latter seems to suppose.

The delivery of fugitives from one country to another, as practised by
several nations, is in consequence of conventions settled between them,
defining precisely the cases wherein such deliveries shall take place.
I know that such conventions exist between France and Spain, France and
Sardinia, France and Germany, France and the United Netherlands; between
the several sovereigns constituting the Germanic body, and, I believe,
very generally between co-terminous States on the continent of Europe.
England has no such convention with any nation, and their laws have
given no power to their executive to surrender fugitives of any
description; they are, accordingly, constantly refused, and hence
England has been the asylum of the Paolis, the La Mottes, the Calonnes,
in short, of the most atrocious offenders as well as the most innocent
victims, who have been able to get there.

The laws of