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and protection of commerce. You know that a consul is the creature of treaty. No nation without an agreement, can place an officer in another country, with any powers or jurisdiction what ever. But as the States have renounced the separate power of making treaties with foreign nations, they cannot separately re ceive a consul : and as Congress have, by the Confederation, no immediate jurisdiction over commerce, as they have only a power of bringing that jurisdiction into existence by entering into a treaty, till such treaty be entered into, Congress themselves cannot re ceive a consul. Till a treaty then, there exists no power in any part of our government, federal or particular, to admit a consul among us : and if it be true, as the papers say, that you have lately sent one over, he cannot be admitted by any power in existence, to an exercise of any function. Nothing less than a new article, to be agreed to by all the States, would enable Congress, or the particu lar States, to receive him. You must not be surprised then, if he be not received.
I think I have by this time tired you with American politics, and will therefore only add assurances of the sincere regard and esteem, with which I have the honor to be, Dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
TH : JEFFERSON.
LETTER CV.
TO BARON GEISMER.
Paris, September G, 1785
DEAR SIR,
Your letter of March the 28th, which I received about a month after its date, gave me a very real pleasure, as it assured me of an existence which I valued, and of which I had been led to doubt. You are now too distant from America, to be much interested in what passes there. From the London gazettes, and the papers copying them, you are led to suppose that all there is anarchy, discontent and civil war. Nothing, however, is less true. There are not, on the face of the earth, more tranquil governments than ours, nor a happier and more contented people. Their commerce has not as yet found the channels, which their new relations with the world will offer to best advantage, and the old ones remain as yet unopened by new conventions. This occasions a stagnation in the sale of their produce, the only truth among all the circum-
