John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

29. VII: At the President’s House, I met the Spanish Minister de Onis, at precisely one O’Clock, and presented him to the President. He delivered the Letter from the king of Spain, and after less than five minutes of conversation we withdrew. At these Audiences the President observes the usual forms practiced by European Sovereigns on similar occasions— That is he receives them standing, dressed in half military uniform, or a full suit of black. The Ministers are in full Court dresses— He stands in the centre of the Drawing room, and I accompany them keeping the right hand. On receiving the Letter the President hands it unopened to me— The English Prince Regent had the same practice with Lord Castlereagh— All the other Sovereigns to whom I have delivered Letters, opened and cast a cursory glance over them—The king of England, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, the President of the States General, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia. The President has a general answer to the short addresses which the Ministers make in delivering these Letters—namely that the United States take a great interest in every thing that concerns the happiness of their Sovereign, with very little variation adopted to each particular case. He makes no other Conversation; and of the Ministers, the Abbe Correa is the only one who makes it on his part by starting topics, for which he has a peculiar talent— He immediately after the office of etiquette is performed doffs the diplomat aside, and opens a discursive field of Conversation, upon which the President then readily enters. None of the others have the faculty or the inclination for this, and their interviews are merely formal and dull— After withdrawing from the President into the anti-chamber, I agreed with Onis to receive him, and Mr de la Serna, at the Department Office to-morrow, at 2. O’Clock. Onis told me that two or three days since he had seen a Mr Garrido, the Agent of the Duke of Alagon, who had just come from St. Augustine, where he had been put in possession for the Duke, by the Governor, and passed through here, being on his return to Spain— I asked Onis if he had told Garrido that the Duke’s grant was annulled by the Treaty? He answered that he had; and had told him that the Duke must obtain an equivalent elsewhere. There was plenty of Land in the Province of Texas— I asked him if he knew whether Garrido had sold any part of the Duke’s grant. He said, not a foot. Garrido told him that the Duke’s grant was dated the 17th. of December 1817. That those to Puñon Rostro and Vargas were subsequent to the 24th. of January 1818. That of the grants of Lands in Florida before the Duke’s there were only about one million eight hundred thousand acres of English grants, and 480,000 less than half a million of Spanish grants— That the Duke’s grant was of about seven Millions— I asked Onis if he had not seen a copy of any of the grants; he said he had not, and that he had not known what the date of either of them was— And he repeated that La Serna had never had anything to do with the business; and intimated that it was a transaction in which no honourable men would have taken a part. I told Onis that I should perhaps ask of him a Passport for a person to go to St. Augustine; which he said he would very readily give. Mr Richard Forrest, one of the Clerks in the Department wishes to go there upon his private concerns; to look up a man for whom he was security, and obliged to pay the money, and who he hears is gone there; and to examine the place to ascertain whether it would be advisable for one of his Sons to go, and settle there— It occurred to me that it would be advisable to send some person to St. Augustine, to obtain such information there, particularly in relation to the grants, and the documents to be delivered up as may hereafter prove useful. I mentioned it to the President, and asked him if some one of the Officers who were with General Jackson in his late campaign might not be employed in this service— He directed me to consult upon it with Mr Calhoun; but Calhoun thought an officer could not be sent, unless with a party of troops, and for a purpose of making a topographical survey, which it was not probable the Governor or Onis would or could authorize— Mr Forrest may perhaps still be employed for the service— After Onis went away I returned to the President in his Cabinet, and found Mr Calhoun with him. 73He said as he was going to-morrow Morning, he wished to have a Meeting of the Members of the Administration immediately, to determine what should be done, with the Article, suspended for reference to this Government, at the Negotiation of the Commercial Convention with Great-Britain, by Messrs. Gallatin and Rush last October. Mr. King had been averse to accepting the Article, and indeed to doing any thing further in the business at present. Mr Otis had been very anxious that the article should be accepted, or at least that attempts should be made to obtain such a modification of it, as would make it acceptable— He has written me a long Letter from New-Haven, on his way home from Congress; urging the affair again; and some days since I laid the Letter before the President— I now went over to the Office, and brought to the Presidents all the papers relating to the Negotiation, with the Resolution of the Senate, referring a Report of their Committee upon the suspended Article, and the subject generally to the Secretary of State— The Article, or rather Articles, for there are two—one relating to the Commerce of the U.S. with the West Indies, and the other to their intercourse with the North-American Colonies; these Articles as presented by the British Plenipotentiaries would have the effect of leaving the whole intercourse at the discretion of the British Government— We examined and discussed them until we became unanimously convinced to this; and consequently that we ought not to accept the British project, without considerable modifications—what these should be, we had not time to determine. Mr Crawford made several proposals; which upon examination he thought himself would not be safe or effectual on our part. Finally the President desired him, and Mr Wirt to meet with me again, to come to some conclusion, with which he declared he should be satisfied and directed me to instruct Mr Rush accordingly. It was about half past four when the meeting adjourned, and I returned to my Office to open the Letters by the Mail— The French Minister Hyde de Neuville, immediately afterwards came in, and told me that he had received despatches from the new French Minister of foreign Affairs the Marquis Dessolles; instructing him to make new and urgent representations on two subjects—one of them was the piratical depredations committed by armed vessels, fitted out in the United States, and especially at the Port of Baltimore; and sailing under the South-American flags— The other was the desertion of Seamen from French Vessels in the Ports of the United States, upon which he has made many and earnest remonstrances before— As to the piratical privateers he read me a passage from the Marquis Dessolles’s despatch, stating that the Government of Portugal had presented to the Congress at Aix La Chapelle a Memorial, complaining in the most energetic manner against these Baltimore privateers, and also against the Governor of the Swedish Island of St. Bartholomews, for shelter, harbour and encouragement afforded to those same pirates— It further stated that the Sovereigns after entering up on the protocol of their conferences a declaration of their displeasure and indignation at these practices, and agreed that amicable expostulations concerning it should be made to the Swedish Government, and by the Powers who had Ministers at Washington, to that of the United States. He also read me the answer which had been received from Sweden, which was very full of compliments and professions, and promises to punish the Governor of St. Bartholomews. Mr De Neuville told me that he had a copy of the Memorial from the Court of Portugal to the Congress, which was exceedingly energetic— I asked him if he could not shew it to me; and he promised that he would— I told him that as to those piratical privateers, we had them in as great abhorrence as the Congress could have— Our own Commerce suffered from them nearly as much as that of any other Nation— But it was very notorious that they were fitted out from the Ports of other Nations as well as from ours; and besides the repeated Laws which had before been enacted in the United States against that description of persons, the Act of the last Session of Congress would shew the continued solicitude of this Government for the suppression of such Offences— De Neuville asked me, if Mr Bagot had made any representation here, conformably to the entry on the Protocol at the Congress— I said none. He then intimated very broadly that Great-Britain had no real aversion to these Piracies— That she agreed with the rest pro forma at the Congress; but gave herself no further trouble concerning it afterwards. 74As to the desertion of French Sailors, his Government were the more anxious on that subject, because even now, by the French Laws, American Merchants and Masters of Vessels enjoyed there the advantage of having all deserting Seamen delivered up to them— He was instructed to say that if any obstacle to the establishment of the like principle here, arose from a doubt with regard to the certainty of enjoying the reciprocal benefit in France, he was ready to enter into a formal Convention to that effect. I asked him if he had a full-power. He said he had one for that purpose— I told him I would immediately submit the question to the President, and give him an answer as soon as possible; and in the meantime asked him to draw up, and send to me the form of an Article, such he would wish to have adopted; which he promised— I then called again the third time, this day at the President’s, and told him the Conversation I had just had with De Neuville. He said as to the Representation against the Baltimore privateers it was what he had been for some time expecting. One of Mr Gallatin’s late despatches had given notice that such remonstrances would be made, and he directed me to write to Mr Glenn the District Attorney at Baltimore, and urge him to take suitable measures for suppressing this enormous scandal— But this direction was general. The misfortune is not only that this abomination has spread over a large portion of the merchants, and of the population of Baltimore, but that it has infected almost every Officer of the United States in the place. They are all fanatics of the South-American cause— Skinner the Post-master has been indicted for being concerned in the piratical privateers— Glenn the District Attorney, besides being a weak incompetent man, has a son said to be concerned in the privateers. M’Culloh the collector, Crawford says is a very honest man, but only an enthusiast for the South-Americans, and easily duped by knaves because he thinks all other men as honest as himself— Not long since Glenn wrote to Crawford, that he had been informed, all the Inspectors of the Revenue at Baltimore, were in the habit of receiving Presents, from the importing Merchants; and that Crawford said accounted for another fact; namely that there never was any detection of Smugglers at Baltimore— So Crawford wrote very indignant Letters both to the Collector and the District Attorney, directing them to take every measure according to the duties and powers of their respective Offices to bring these offenders to punishment— But Glenn replied that on pressing the persons who had given the information, they were unwilling to testify publicly to the facts, and M’Culloh answered that all the Inspectors were perfectly honest men, and faithful Servants of the public; and there the matter drops— The District Judge Houstoun, and the Circuit Judge Duval are both feeble inefficient men, over whom William Pinkney, employed by all the Pirates as their Counsel domineers like a Slave-driver over his negroes— After the pirates were indicted last September, and before they were tried, a piece was published in the National Intelligencer, threatening that any judge who should condemn them could not be expected to live long either as a judge or as a man. The paper containing this piece was sent under a blank cover to judge Houstoun just before he opened his Court— He read the paragraph in open Court, blustered about his Independence; and how impossible it was to intimidate him; and then as well as judge Duval, Wirt says, was perfectly subservient to whatever Pinkney chose to dictate— Middleton told me that he saw that threatening piece, in the hand-writing of Skinner the Post master, one of the parties indicted. When trials came on, Glenn wrote to me, asking to be assisted in the management of the Causes— I prevailed upon the President to direct the Attorney General Wirt to assist him; but Wirt considered it as extra-official, and made the public pay him fifteen hundred dollars for losing the Causes— The Grand Jury indicted many; and the petit Jury convicted one man; but every one of the Causes fell through upon flaws in Glenn’s bills of indictment— The conduct of the Juries, proves the real soundness of the public mind— The Soldiers are good men and true— But the Officers! the Commanders! what with want of honesty in some and want of energy in others the political condition of Baltimore is as rotten as corruption can make it. Now that it has brought the whole body of the European allies upon us in the form of remonstrance, the President is somewhat concerned about it; but he had nothing but directions altogether general to give me concerning it— I must take the brunt of the Battle upon myself, and rely upon the Justice of the Cause. As to De Neuville’s proposal to conclude a Convention upon the single point of Seamen deserting from their vessels, the President directed me immediately and positively to decline it. He said there were many objects all of the far more important to be adjusted in our commercial relations with France, and the people of this Country, would be very much dissatisfied, if we should go through the formality of making a Treaty upon that alone, agreeing to an arrangement, the whole benefit of which would be on the side of France, and leaving every thing else 75unsettled. The great object of his concern now he added, would be the carrying into Execution of the new Treaty with Spain. He expected its operation would be to strengthen the administration at home, and to increase the consideration of the Country abroad. It would enable us to give the direction to the public sentiment with regard to South-American affairs, and to keep our own policy under our own controul— I told him I should have no difficulty in giving a satisfactory answer to Mr de Neuville— I took leave of the President, and it was past seven O’Clock when I came home to dinner.