ADDRESS TO PRESIDENT JEFFERSON-1803.1

To the President of the United States.

Sir,-Tho' opposed to frequent addresses to those who fill important stations in our government, yet there are times when it would be improper to refrain from expressing our grateful acknowledgments to the Ruler of the Universe for the prosperous situation of our common country, and our approbation of those who guide the helm of state. While we view the United States, individually and collectively-rapidly increasing in wealth and population, secured in the uninterrupted enjoyment of life, liberty and property, and almost without contention with any foreign nation; we cannot forbear congratulating you, sir, on the happy effects of those principles, put in operation, which have so frequently appeared in your official communications.

The late suspension of our right of deposit at New Orleans excited an universal spirit of indignation; a spirit which must convince the world that while we earnestly desire to maintain peace with the whole family of mankind, we will not tamely submit to injury or insult from any nation on earth.

While we contemplate the acquisition of an extensive and fertile territory, with the free navigation of the river Mississippi, we cannot but venerate that spirit of moderation and firmness, which among divided councils finally enriched our country without the effusion of blood: and it is with much satisfaction we learn from the highest authority, that no new taxes will be requisite for the completion of the payment for this valuable acquisition. Permit us then to tender to you, sir, our warmest thanks for the conspicuous part you have taken in this important arrangement.

We gratefully contemplate those humane and benevolent measures which civilize our once savage neighbors, and learn them to exchange their hostile weapons for the implements of agriculture and household manufacture.

We recognize with sentiments of esteem, that vigilance and parental care which has enlarged our territory by a negotiation with one of the friendly tribes of Indians.

From knowing that our maritime force is diminished, and that our trade is still protected, we obtain imposing proof, that vigilance and economy go hand in hand in the management of our governmental affairs.

The flourishing state of our treasury demonstrates our growing greatness, and must convince every good citizen that the indecent and vilifying expressions too frequently uttered through the medium of the press against the administration of our government, must finally, with equal certainty as justice, revert on the authors.

Your advice to the house of representatives respecting our conduct towards the contending powers of Europe, merits our highest appro

bation.

From our own feelings, as well as from the general knowledge we possess of the sentiments of our constituents, you may be assured that the hardy sons of Vermont, though earnestly engaged in their peaceable pursuits, will be ready to fly, on the call of their country, at the risk of their lives, their fortunes and domestic felicity, to maintain their rights as an independent nation-preferring every consequence to insult and habitual wrong.

'Printed Vermont Assembly Journal, 1803, pp. 264–266.

Permit us to assure you of our most earnest wish that every possible happiness may attend you through life, and that you may finally receive the plaudit of the great Judge of all.

REPLY OF PRESIDENT JEFFRSON.1

To the General Assembly of the State of Vermont.

I join you, follow citizens, in grateful acknowledgments to the Ruler of the universe, for the prosperous situation of our common country, its rapid increase in weaith and population, and our secure and uninterrupted enjoyment of life, liberty and property. He conducted our fathers to this chosen land, he has maintained us in it in prosperity and safety, and has opened the hearts of the nations, civilized and savage, to yield to us enlargement of territory, as we have increased in numbers; to fill it with the blessings of peace, freedom and self government. It must be a great solace to every virtuous mind, that the countries lately acquired are for equivalents honestly paid, and come to us unstained with blood.

Sensible as we are of the superior advantages of civilized life, of the nourishment which industry provides for the body, and science for the mind and morals, it is our duty to associate our Indian neighbors in these blessings, and to teach them to become members of organized society.

The spirit which manifested itself on the suspension of our rights of deposit at New Orleans, the cool and collected firmness with which our citizens awaited the operations of their government, for its peaceful restoration, their present approbation of a conduct strictly neutral and just between the powers of Europe now in contention, evince dispositions which ought to secure their peace, to protect their industry from new burthens, their citizens from violence, and their commerce from spoliation.

The falsehoods and indecencies you allude to, in which certain presses indulge themselves habitually, defeat their own object before a just and enlightened public. This unenviable and only resource, be it our endeavor to leave them, by an honest and earnest pursuit of the public prosperity.

I thank you, fellow citizens, for the affectionate expressions of your concern for my happiness, present and future; and I pray heaven to have yourselves, as well as our common country, in its holy keeping. THOMAS JEFFERSON.

December 18th, 1803.

'Printed Assembly Journal of January session 1804, pp. 6 and 7.

APPENDIX I.

OBITUARY NOTICES OF GOV. THOMAS CHITTENDEN AND DOCT. JONATHAN ARNOLD.

ON THE DEATH OF GOV. CHITTENDEN.-Aug. 25 1797.1

"Take him for all in all

"We ne'er shall look upon his like again."

To preserve from oblivion such characters as have been eminently useful to society, ought to be the business of the biographer. And we should be happy if the limits we are restricted to in the present essay, did not too narrowly circumscribe us in our attempt to draw the outlines of the character of our late worthy governor. We hope some abler pencil will add all the fine strokes to the portrait, which it justly merits; and when newspaper paragraphs shall be forgotten, the impartial page of history shall place his honored name among the list of heroes, philosophers, and statesmen, who adorned the American revolution and dignify human nature.

THOMAS CHITTENDEN descended from a respectable family, who were among the first settlers in the then colony of New Haven. His mother was sister to the late Rev. Doctor Johnson, father to President Johnson of Columbia college, New York.'

He was born in East Guilford, state of Connecticut, in the year 1730, and received a common school education in his native town, which in those times was but indifferent.

Agreeable to the custom of New England he married early in life, viz. in his twentieth year, into a reputable family by the name of Meigs, and removed with his young spouse to Salisbury, in the county of Litchfield. Here, as he advanced in years his opening worth attracted public attention, and by a regular advance he passed through the several grades in the militia, to the command of a regiment. He many years repre

'From the Vermont Gazette of Sept. 12 1797.

Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the uncle of Gov. Chittenden, was the first president of King's (now Columbia) college, New York; an Episcopal clergyman of great learning, judgment, and benevolence; and author of several works, two of which were printed in Philadelphia, by Dr. Franklin, as text books for the University of Pennsylvania.-Drake's Dictionary of American Biography. For a notice of Hon. Dr. William Samuel Johnson, a cousin of Gov. Chittenden, and also president of Columbia college, see Vol. II, p. 149, 3. note 3

sented his town in the general assembly and discharged the office of a justice of the peace for the county of Litchfield. Destitute of a finished education, without a learned profession, he applied himself to the study of agriculture, and laboured personally in the field. By his natural stability, good sense, affability, kindness, and integrity, he gained the confidence of his fellow citizens, and many important offices which the town of Salisbury had to bestow were secured to him. With a numerous and growing family, a mind formed for adventures, and a firmness which nothing could subdue, he determined to lay a foundation for their future prosperity by emigrating on to the Newhampshire grants: In the year 1773 he removed to Williston on Onion river; some part of the way was through an almost trackless wilderness; here he settled on fine lands which opened a wide field for industry, and here he assisted and encouraged many new settlers. In the year 1776 the troubles occasioned by the late war rendering it necessary for him to remove, he purchased an estate in Arlington, and continued in that town until 1787, when he returned to his former residence in Williston. During the troubles occasioned by the claims of New-York on the Newhampshire grants, Governor Chittenden was a faithful adviser, and a strong supporter of the feeble settlers. During the American revolution, while Warner, Allen, and many others were in the field, he was assiduously engaged in the Council of Safety at home, where he rendered essential service to his country. In the year 1778, when the state of Vermont assumed the powers of government and established a constitution, the eyes of the freemen were immediately fixed on Mr. Chittenden as their first magistrate: He was accordingly elected to that difficult and arduous office, and continued therein, one year only excepted, until his death. To presume to say how well he conducted in the most trying times would be arrogance in an individual; let the felicity of his constituents evince, let the history of Vermont declare it. From a little band of associates, he saw his government surpass a hundred thousand souls in number; he saw them rise superior to oppression, brave the horrors of a foreign war, and finally taking her oppressor by the hand, receive her embrace as a sister state, and rise a constellation in the federal dome.

He enjoyed an excellent constitution until about a year before his death. In October last he took an affecting leave of his compatriots in general assembly, feelingly imploring the benediction of heaven on them and their constituents. He some time since announced his declining the honor of being esteemed a candidate at the ensuing election, and died on the 24th [25th] ult. as we are informed, without apparent distress, and even without a groan.

That governor Chittenden was possest of great talents and a keen discernment, in affairs relative to men and things, no one can deny. His conversation was easy, simple, and instructive, and although his enemies sometimes abused his open frankness, yet it is a truth, that no person knew better how to compass great designs with secrecy than himself. His particular address and negociations during the late war, were master-strokes of policy. His talents at reconciling jarring interests among the people were peculiar. His many and useful services to his country, to the state of Vermont, and the vicinity wherein he dwelt, will be long remembered by a grateful public, and entitle him to be named with the Washingtons, the Hancocks, and Adamses of his day. Nor were his private virtues less conspicuous: In times of scarcity and distress, too common in new settlements, never did a man display more rational or more noble benevolence. His granary was open to all the needy. He was a professor of religion, a worshipper of God, believing in the Son to the glory of the Father. Such was the man, and such the citizen Vermont has lost. Superior to a PRINCE, A GREAT MAN here has fallen.

ON THE DEATH OF DR. JONATHAN ARNOLD.-Feb. 1 1793.1 The following was extracted from a Providence [R. I.] paper of March 9 [1793.]

The Hon. JONATHAN ARNOLD, Esq. (whose death was mentioned in our last) departed this life at his house in St. Johnsbury, in the state of Vermont, on the 1st ult. in the 53d year of his age. He was a native of this town, and descended from one of its first settlers. For some time he was one of its representatives in the General Assembly, and afterwards filled the place of an assistant to the Governor in Council. In the late war, he commanded the independent company of grenadiers of this town; and was a delegate from this state to Congress under the old confederation. He was educated a Physician, and chosen by this state, in the late war, director of their Hospitals. At the time of his death, he was Chief Justice of the court of common pleas for the county of Orange, and a member of the Governor's Council in Vermont. Among the first traits of his character, was a peculiar accuracy in penmanship, and excellence in composition-this qualification, at an early period in his life, recommended to the office of Clerk of the Superior Court [of Rhode Island,] a place which he filled, as he did every other office, with singular ability, integrity, and applause. He had a rare taste for music and poetry, and was himself a proficient in both. His knowledge was practical, and the objects of it the best interests of society. The improvements made by him in mechanics evince the force of an original genius. His capacities were general and variegated as the arts of human life, all of which he seemed calculated to advance and improve. He took an active and zealous part in establishing the independence of this country. He was a republican of the genuine stamp. He hailed men of all nations as his brethren; and gloried in the doctrine of their natural equality. His social virtues are not to be forgotten. He was an entertaining companion, and a faithful friend. He had power to strike the attention, engage the affections, and attach the heart in the bands of friendship to smooth the wrinkled front of care, and calm the mind in friendly relaxation. In fine, let the reader figure the most extraordinary assemblage of virtues and abilities-these were all seen in the real life of Dr. ARNOLD.

"Slave to no Sect, who takes no private Road,
"But looks thro' Nature up to Nature's God—
"And knows where Faith, Law, Morals all began,
"All end-in Love of God, and Love of Man.”

'From Spooner's Vermont Journal of July 8 1793.