ld be punished as a pirate, were she to take
the smallest thing of the enemy that should fall in her way. Indeed, the
place of the delivery of a commission is immaterial. As it may be sent
by letter to any one, so it may be delivered by hand to him any where.
The place of signature by the Sovereign is the material thing. Were that
to be done in any other jurisdiction than his own, it might draw the
validity of the act into question. I mention these things, because I
think it would be proper, that after considering them and such other
circumstances as appear in the papers, or may occur to yourself, you
should make it the subject of a conversation with the Minister. Perhaps
it may give you an opportunity of touching on another subject. Whenever
Mr. Hammond applies to our government on any matter whatever, be it ever
so new or difficult, if he does not receive his answer in two or three
days or a week, we are goaded with new letters on the subject. Sometimes
it is the sailing of the packet, which is made the pretext for forcing
us into premature and undigested determinations. You know best how far
your applications meet such early attentions, and whether you may
with propriety claim a return of them: you can best judge too of the
expediency of an intimation, that where despatch is not reciprocal, it
may be expedient and justifiable that delay should be so.

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

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLVII.--TO MR. GENET, June 17, X

TO MR. GENET.

Philadelphia, June 17, 1793.

Sir,

I shall now have the honor of answering your letter of the 1st instant,
and so much of that of the 14th (both of which have been laid before
the President) as relates to a vessel armed in the port of New York and
about to depart from thence, but stopped by order of the government. And
here I beg leave to premise, that the case supposed in your letter, of
a vessel arming for her own defence, and to repel unjust aggressions,
is not that in question, nor that on which I mean to answer, because
not having yet happened, as far as is known to the government, I have
no instructions on the subject. The case in question is that of a vessel
armed, equipped, and manned in a port of the United States, for the
purpose of committing hostilities on nations at peace with the United
States.

As soon as it was perceived that such enterprises would be attem