iscussions as may
be most likely to produce the desired effect, and secure to our commerce
that protection against British violence, which it has never experienced
from any other nation. No law forbids the seaman of any country to
engage in time of peace on board a foreign vessel: no law authorizes
such seaman to break his contract, nor the armed vessels of his nation
to interpose force for his rescue. I shall be happy to hear soon, that
Mr. B. has gone on the service on which he was ordered.

I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your
most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXX.--TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT, October 14,1792

TO MESSRS. CARMICHAEL AND SHORT.

Philadelphia, October 14,1792.

Gentlemen,

Since my letters of March the 18th and April the 24th (which have been
retarded so unfortunately), another subject of conference-and convention
with Spain has occurred. You know that the frontiers of her provinces,
as well as of our States, are inhabited by Indians holding justly the
right of occupation, and leaving to Spain and to us only the claim of
excluding other nations from among them, and of becoming ourselves the
purchasers of such portions of land, from time to time, as they choose
to sell. We have thought that the dictates of interest as well as
humanity enjoined mutual endeavors with those Indians to live in peace
with both nations, and we have scrupulously observed that conduct.
Our agent with the Indians bordering on the territories of Spain has
a standing instruction to use his best endeavors to prevent them from
committing acts of hostility against the Spanish settlements. But
whatever may have been the conduct or orders of the government of
Spain, that of their officers in our neighborhood has been indisputably
unfriendly and hostile to us. The papers enclosed will demonstrate
this to you. That the Baron de Carondelet, their chief Governor at New
Orleans, has excited the Indians to war on us, that he has furnished
them with abundance of arms and ammunition, and promised them whatever
more shall be necessary, I have from the mouth of him who had it from
his own mouth. In short, that he is the sole source of a great and
serious war now burst out upon us, and from Indians who, we know,
were in peaceable dispositions towards us till prevailed on by him to
commence the war, there remains scarcely room to doubt. It has become
necessary that