States upon the Colombian government, which were given in charge to Mr. Todd, and concerning which he has been often promised by Dr. Gual that satisfactory proceedings would be had. Some of these are already of several years' standing, and indemnity was acknowledged to be due upon them so long since as when the late Commodore Perry was at Angostura. Mr. Todd will put you in possession of the papers relating to them, and you will follow up the demand of indemnities with all the earnestness and perseverance which their justice and the delays already interposed may require.

Many of them are complaints which have arisen from maritime captures. Before the establishment of the Republic of Colombia the Venezuelan revolutionary authorities for some time countenanced an irregular system of maritime warfare, which soon degenerated into absolute piracy. It became a subject of very earnest remonstrance by the government of the United States, whose citizens suffered severely under its depredations, whose laws were continually outraged by its operative agents, and whose good faith and justice towards other nations it tended very seriously to implicate. Since the organization of the new republic, there has been less reason for complaints, but satisfaction has not yet been made for those which had arisen before. A list of the cases committed to Mr. Todd, and copies of papers recently received at this Department from the Delaware Insurance Company at Philadelphia, relating to the schooner Minerva, are now furnished you.

Our intercourse with the Republic of Colombia and with the territories of which it is composed, is of recent origin, formed while their own condition was altogether revolutionary, and continually changing its aspect. Our information concerning them is imperfect, and among the most

important objects of your mission will be that of adding to its stores; of exploring the untrodden ground, and of collecting and transmitting to us the knowledge by which the friendly relations between the two countries may be extended and harmonized to promote the welfare of both, with due regard to the peace and good will of the whole family of civilized man. It is highly important that the first foundations of the permanent future intercourse between the two countries should be laid in principles, benevolent and liberal in themselves, congenial to the spirit of our institutions and consistent with the duties of universal philanthropy.

In all your consultations with the government to which you will be accredited, bearing upon its political relations with this union, your unvarying standard will be the spirit of independence and of freedom, as equality of rights and favors will be that of its commercial relations. The emancipation of the South American continent opens to the whole race of man prospects of futurity, in which this union will be called in the discharge of its duties to itself and to unnumbered ages of posterity to take a conspicuous and leading part. It invokes all that is precious in hope and all that is desirable in existence to the countless millions of our fellow creatures, which in the progressive revolutions of time this hemisphere is destined to rear and to maintain. That the fabric of our social connections with our southern neighbors may rise in the lapse of years with a grandeur and harmony of proportions corresponding with the magnificence of the means, placed by providence in our power and in that of our descendants, its foundations must be laid in principles of politics and of morals new and distasteful to the thrones and dominations of the elder world, but co-extensive with the surface of the globe and lasting as the changes of time. I have, etc.

TO CHARLES JARED INGERSOLL

DEAR SIR:

WASHINGTON, 19 June, 1823.

I have but one excuse for acknowledging the receipt of your letters of 8 and 19 of May at this time, and that is so worn out by long and frequent use that I am ashamed to offer it. The field opened by them was so extensive that I was unwilling to answer you in a few words, and the time necessary for answering at large has not yet [been], and I now flatter myself will be soon at my disposal. The information concerning the copyrights and the patents shall be furnished very shortly. I believe your question relating to the comparative state of literary institutions, schools, colleges, and theatres of public speaking, may all be answered affirmatively to the advantage of this country. There is however a philosophical point of view in which this comparative state of things may be exhibited, which might present very interesting results, but which you or I could scarcely treat in a popular discourse without being liable to the charge of partiality, and which would be closely proximate to and perhaps inseparable from considerations of a character somewhat invidious. All our institutions partake of the nature of our government. All have a tendency to the level. Our average of intellect and intellectual power is higher than in any part of Europe, but the range above and below the horizontal line is not so great. In the physical and mathematical sciences, in the fine arts, and in the literature of imagination, we are far below the standards of England, France, Germany, and perhaps Italy, and very disadvantageously so, inasmuch as speaking the language of England we cannot contribute a tolerable proportion to her literature.

Our great superiority is in political science, government and political morality. The European and South American nations which have received and are acting under the impulse given by us seem destined only to illustrate that superiority. They have all caught from us the infection of making constitutions, and not one of them has yet been able to make a constitution which will work to secure the enjoyment of liberty, property and peace. Their constitutions result in nothing but civil war. In forty years we have not had one execution for treason, with a population multiplied from three to ten millions. The Europeans improve upon our theories till they become impracticable. In 1793 France set herself and the world on fire for a legislature in a single assembly. In 1823 Spain is doing the same thing. They are unable to form the conception of a legislature in two branches without privileged orders. We have reduced it universally to practice. The influence of our example has unsettled all the ancient governments of Europe. It will overthrow them all without a single exception. I hold this revolution to be as infallible as that the earth will perform a revolution around the sun in a year. But whether Europe will ever establish governments capable of securing to individuals all the benefits of good government, almost without use of force, and altogether without violence, is doubtful. If ever, certainly not within half a century. Your sentiments with regard to the Russian ukaze are to me spirited and rational. I would call them wise, had not my own entirely coincided with them. They have yielded to a system more cool, probably more profound, certainly more safe, upon the principle of preserving peace in our time. The present administration of the general government is drawing towards a close, and as it has been passed in a period of uncommon tranquillity in the European world, it has itself partaken of

the character. Servatur adimum is now its motto, and the ambition of the incumbent is to deliver over the trust in peace as well as in prosperity to his successor. I share so much in this feeling that although my first impressions were very distinctly avowed and agreed perfectly with your advice, I have more than acquiesced in the course determined upon after full advisement, the result of which you have seen in a newspaper paragraph. I hope we shall ultimately lose nothing by the adoption of this alternative. I am, etc.

TO RICHARD RUSH 1

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D. C., 24 June, 1823.

SIR,

A resolution of the House of Representatives, almost unanimously adopted at the close of the last session of Congress, requested "the President of the United States to enter upon, and to prosecute from time to time, such negotiations with the several maritime powers of Europe and America, as he may deem expedient, for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy

1 This is one of a series of elaborate statements prepared by the Secretary of State for Rush's guidance on matters in controversy between the United States and Great Britain, such as the commerce between the United States and British Colonies in North America, the disagreements of the commissioners under the fifth article of the Treaty of Ghent, the admission of consuls in colonial ports, the Russian pretensions on the northwest coast of North America, the impressment of seamen and other topics incident to maritime war and neutrality, and the suppression of the slave trade. Of these statements only two are printed in these volumes, that on the slave trade and that on neutral rights.