present, they ought to accept payment for the
captives, as a satisfaction. They accordingly declared to the French
consul, that they would put him, and all his countrymen there, into
irons, unless the sixty thousand sequins were paid: the consul told
them, his instructions were, positively, that they should not be paid.
In this situation stood matters between that pettifogging nest of
robbers and this great kingdom, which will finish, probably, by
crouching under them, and paying the sixty thousand sequins. From the
personal characters of the present administration, I should have hoped,
under any other situation than the present, they might have ventured to
quit the beaten track of politics hitherto pursued, in which the honor
of their nation has been calculated at nought, and to join in a league
for keeping up a perpetual cruise against these pirates, which, though a
slow operation, would be a sure one for destroying all their vessels and
seamen, and turning the rest of them to agriculture. But a desire of not
bringing upon themselves another difficulty, will probably induce the
ministers to do as their predecessors have done.

August 12. The enclosed paper of this morning gives some particulars
of the action between the Russians and Swedes, the manifesto of the
Empress, and the declaration of the court of Versailles, as to the
affair of Trincomale.

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

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLIV.--TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL, August 12, 1788

TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.

Paris, August 12, 1788.

Dear Sir,

Since my last to you, I have been honored with yours of the 18th and
29th of May, and 5th of June. My latest American intelligence is of the
24th of June, when nine certainly, and probably ten States, had accepted
the new constitution, and there was no doubt of the eleventh (North
Carolina), because there was no opposition there. In New York, two
thirds of the State were against it, and certainly if they had been
called to the decision, in any other stage of the business, they
would have rejected it; but before they put it to the vote, they would
certainly have heard that eleven States had joined in it, and they
would find it safer to go with those eleven, than put themselves into
opposition, with Rhode Island only. Though I am much pleased with this
successful issue of the new constitution, yet I am more so,