against any person who should attempt to take
her from their custody. If this opposition were founded, as is there
suggested, on the indulgence of the letters before cited, it was
extending that to a case not within their purview; and even had it been
precisely the case to which they were to be applied, is it possible to
imagine you might assert it within the body of the country by force of
arms?

I forbear to make the observations which such a measure must suggest,
and cannot but believe that a moment's reflection will evince to you
the depth of the error committed in this opposition to an officer of
justice, and in the means proposed to be resorted to in support of it.
I am therefore charged to declare to you, expressly, that the President
expects and requires that the officer of justice be not obstructed in
freely and peaceably serving the process of his court, and that in the
mean time, the vessel and her cargo be not suffered to depart till the
judiciary, if it will undertake it, or himself if not, shall decide
whether the seizure has been made within the limits of our protection.

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

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXX.--TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS, September 11, 1793

TO COLONEL HUMPHREYS.

Philadelphia, September 11, 1793.

Dear Sir,

I have to acknowledge yours of May the 19th and 29th, and July 20th;
being Nos. 72, 73, and 76. It is long since I wrote to you, because I
know you must be where you could not receive my letters: and perhaps it
may be some time before I write to you again, on account of a contagious
and mortal fever which has arisen here, and is driving us all away. It
is called a yellow fever, but is like nothing known or read of by the
physicians. The week before last the deaths were about forty; the last
week about eighty; and this week, I think they will be two hundred; and
it goes on spreading. All persons who can find asylum elsewhere, are
flying from the city: this will doubtless extend it to other towns, and
spread it through the country, unless an early winter should stop it.
Colonel Hamilton is ill of it, but is on the recovery.

The Indians have refused to meet our commissioners unless they would
agree to the Ohio as our boundary, by way of preliminary article. This
being impossible, because of the army locations and sales to individuals
beyond the Ohio, the war is to go on, and we may soon exp