  ALEXANDER HAMILTON TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE. Treasury Department, February 22, 1794. Sir,—I have received a late order of the Senate on the subject of a petition of Arthur Hughes. Diligent search has been made for such a petition, and it has not been found. Neither have I now a distinct recollection of ever having seen it. Whether, therefore, it may not have originally failed in the transmission to me, or may have become mislaid by a temporary displacement of the papers of my immediate office, occasioned by a fire which consumed a part of the building in the use of the Treasury, or by some of those accidents which in an extensive scene of business will sometimes attend papers, especially those of inferior importance, is equally open to conjecture. There is no record in the office of its having been received, nor does any of my clerks remember to have seen it. A search in the auditor’s office has brought up the enclosed paper, which it is presumed relates to the object of the petition; but this paper, it will appear from the memorandum accompanying it, was placed in that office prior to the reference of the petition. The auditor of the Treasury is of opinion, though his recollection is not positive, that the claim had relation to the services of John Hughes as forage-master. Two objections opposed its admission: 1, the not being presented in time; 2, the name of John Hughes in the capacity in which he claimed not appearing upon any return in the Treasury. If these be the circumstances, I should be of opinion that it would not be advisable by a special legislative interposition to except the case out of the operation of the acts of limitation. The second order of the Senate on the subject of this petition leads to the following reflections: Does this hitherto unusual proceeding (in a case of no public and no peculiar private importance) imply a supposition that there has been undue delay or negligence on the part of the Secretary of the Treasury? If it does, the supposition is unmerited; not merely from the circumstances of the paper, which have been stated, but from the known situation of the officer. The occupations necessarily and permanently incident to the office are at least sufficient fully to occupy the time and faculties of one man. The burden is seriously increased by the numerous private cases, remnants of the late war, which every session are objects of particular reference by the two Houses of Congress. These accumulated occupations, again, have been interrupted in their due course by unexpected, desultory, and distressing calls for lengthy and complicated statements, sometimes with a view to general information, sometimes for the explanation of points which certain leading facts, witnessed by the provisions of the laws and by information previously communicated, might have explained without those statements, or which were of a nature that did not seem to have demanded a laborious, critical, and suspicious investigation, unless the officer was understood to have forfeited his title to a reasonable and common degree of confidence. Added to these things, it is known that the affairs of the country in its external relations have for some time past been so circumstanced as unavoidably to have thrown additional avocations on all the branches of the Executive Department, and that a late peculiar calamity in the city of Philadelphia has had consequences that cannot have failed to derange more or less the course of public business. In such a situation was it not the duty of the officer to postpone matters of mere individual concern to objects of public and general concern, to the preservation of the essential order of the department committed to his care? Or is it extraordinary that in relation to cases of the first description there should have been a considerable degree of procrastination? Might not an officer who is conscious that public observation and opinion, whatever deficiencies they may impute to him, will not rank among them want of attention and industry, have hoped to escape censure, expressed or implied, on that score? I will only add that the consciousness of devoting myself to the public service to the utmost extent of my faculties, and to the injury of my health, is a tranquillizing consolation of which I cannot be deprived by any supposition to the contrary. With perfect respect, I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant, Signed Alexander Hamilton, The Vice-President of the United States True copy. Attest: Samuel A. Otis, S. Secretary. “J’ai vu Brakenridge À Cat-fish oÙ j’ai ÉtÉ À l’occasion d’Archey, et je puis dÉclarer en conscience que de mes jours je n’ai vu un si complet impertinent fat. Peut-Être ne seras-tu pas fÂchÉ de lire une partie d’une conversation qu’il eut devant moi. Un inconnu (À moi du moins) voulant le faire parler, À ce que je suppose, lui adresse ainsi la parole: “N. I think, Mr. Brakenridge, you are one of the happiest men in the world. “B. Yes, sir; nothing disturbs me. I can declare that I never feel a single moment of discontent, but laugh at everything. “N. I believe so, sir; but your humor.... “B. Oh, sir, truly inexhaustible; yes, truly inexhaustible,—et tout en disant ces mots avec complaisance il tirait ses manchettes et son jabot, caressait son visage de sa main, et souriait en Narcisse,—truly inexhaustible. Sir, I could set down and write a piece of humor for fifty-seven years without being the least exhausted. I have just now two compositions agoing.... “N. Happy turn of mind! “B. You may say that, sir. I enjoy a truly inexhaustible richness and strength of mind, &c., &c.” SPENCER PERCEVAL TO SPEAKER ABBOT. ... The business of recasting the law of trade and navigation, as far as belligerent principles are concerned, for the whole world, has occupied me very unremittingly for a long time; and the subject is so extensive, and the combinations so various, that, even supposing our principles to be right, I cannot hope that the execution of the principle must not in many respects be defective; and I have no doubt we shall have to watch it with new provisions and regulations for some time. The short principle is that trade in British produce and manufactures, and trade either from a British port or with a British destination, is to be protected as much as possible. For this purpose all the countries where French influence prevails to exclude the British flag shall have no trade but to or from this country or from its allies. All other countries, the few that remain strictly neutral (with the exception of the colonial trade, which backwards and forwards direct they may carry on), cannot trade but through this being done as an ally with any of the countries connected with France. If, therefore, we can accomplish our purposes, it will come to this, that either those countries will have no trade, or they must be content to accept it through us. This is a formidable and tremendous state of the world; but all the part of it which is particularly harassing to English interests was existing through the new severity with which Buonaparte’s decrees of exclusion against our trade were called into action. Our proceeding does not aggravate our distress from it. If he can keep out our trade he will, and he would do so if he could, independent of our orders. Our orders only add this circumstance: they say to the enemy, if you will not have our trade, as far as we can help it you shall have none. And as to so much of any trade as you can carry on yourselves, or others carry on with you through us, if you admit it you shall pay for it. The only trade, cheap and untaxed, which you shall have shall be either direct from us, in our own produce and manufactures, or from our allies, whose increased prosperity will be an advantage to us.... Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester, vol. ii. p. 134. See also the Life of Spencer Perceval, by Spencer Walpole, vol. i. p. 263 ff., for the further history and Cabinet discussions of this subject. Washington, 11th April, 1878. My dear Sir,—In March, 1836, I was the guest of Mr. Madison for several days. He knew the object of my visit, and kept me at his side during many hours of each day, sometimes starting topics, sometimes answering my questions and allowing me to take down his words from his lips in his presence. The memorandum annexed is, for the most part, in his own words, and committed to paper as they were uttered. Ever yours, [Memorandum.] March, 1836.—Madison was a friend of peace. But he told me “that the British left no option; that war was made necessary; that under the circumstances of the negotiations with England war was unavoidable.” He further said, “he knew the unprepared state of the country, but he esteemed it necessary to throw forward the flag of the country, sure that the people would press onward and defend it.” “In reviewing the events which have preceded and more or less contributed to a result so much to be regretted, there will be found three grounds upon which we are most assailable. 1st. In our too long and too tenaciously resisting the right of Great Britain to impose protecting duties in her colonies. 2d. In not relieving her vessels from the restriction of returning direct from the United States, after permission had been given by Great Britain to our vessels to clear out from the colonies to any other than a British port; and, 3d. In omitting to accept the terms offered by the Act of Parliament of July, 1825, after the subject had been brought before Congress and deliberately acted upon by our government. It is, without doubt, to the combined operation of these (three) causes that we are to attribute the British interdict; you will therefore see the propriety of possessing yourself fully of all the explanatory and mitigating circumstances connected with them, that you may be able to obviate, as far as practicable, the unfavorable impression which they have produced. “The opportunities which you have derived from a participation in our public counsels, as well as other sources of information, will enable you to speak with confidence (as far as you may deem it proper and useful so to do) of the respective parts taken by those to whom the administration of this government is now committed, in relation to the course heretofore pursued upon the subject of the colonial trade. Their views upon that point have been submitted to the people of the United States; and the counsels by which your conduct is now directed are the result of the judgment expressed by the only earthly tribunal to which the late Administration was amenable for its acts. It should be sufficient that the claims set up by them, and which caused the interruption of the trade in question, have been explicitly abandoned by those who first asserted them, and are not revived by their successors. If Great Britain deems it adverse to her interests to allow us to participate in the trade with her colonies, and finds nothing in the extension of it to others to induce her to apply the same rule to us, she will, we hope, be sensible of the propriety of placing her refusal on those grounds. To set up the acts of the late Administration as the cause of forfeiture of privileges which would otherwise be extended to the people of the United States, would, under existing circumstances, be unjust in itself, and could not fail to excite their deepest sensibility. The tone of feeling which a course so unwise and untenable is calculated to produce would doubtless be greatly aggravated by the consciousness that Great Britain has, by order in council, opened her colonial ports to Russia and France, notwithstanding a similar omission on their part to accept the terms offered by the Act of July, 1825. You cannot press this view of the subject too earnestly upon the consideration of the British ministry. It has bearings and relations that reach beyond the immediate question under discussion. “I will add nothing as to the impropriety of suffering any feelings that find their origin in the past pretensions of this government to have an adverse influence upon the present conduct of Great Britain.”
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