RC (DLC); in a clerk’s hand, signed by Clinton and with an insertion in his hand (see note 1); at foot of text: “Thomas Jefferson Esqe. President of the Ud: States”; endorsed by TJ as received 13 Nov. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: Samuel Dexter to John Jay, 28 June 1800, acknowledging a copy of an act by the legislature of New York concerning harbor fortifications for New York City; Dexter naming Jean Xavier Bureaux de Pusy to prepare a plan for submission to the president; suggesting, since Dexter himself was “so little of a Military Man,” that it was “best to let a plan be taken without any particular instructions” from the War Department; cautioning, however, that foreign-trained engineers were inclined “to prepare their plans on too extensive a scale & with too little regard to Œconomy” (Tr in DLC; in a clerk’s hand; at head of text: “Copy”).

Under federal statutes, the state of New York could retire its debt to the United States by fortifying the port of new york. In 1800, Jean Xavier Bureaux de Pusy, who had come to the U.S. as a member of Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours’s extended family and had training as a military engineer in France, obtained the appointment to draw up a plan for new harbor fortifications. His assessment, which Clinton sent to the War Department as indicated in the letter above, had an estimated cost of $3,968,658, far more than the state’s $1,852,035 debt to the federal government. Bureaux de Pusy’s plan also called for the primary fortifications to be at Sandy Hook, New Jersey—not within the state of New York (ASP description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1832–61, 38 vols. description ends , Military Affairs, 1:193; Kline, Burr description begins Mary-Jo Kline, ed., Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr, Princeton, 1983, 2 vols. description ends , 1:527–8; Vol. 31:265n; Vol. 32:56–7; Vol. 33:308–9).

On 17 Nov., Dearborn responded to Clinton about the submitted plan. Citing the projected cost as an “insuperable objection,” Dearborn also expressed concerns about relying on the opinions of “any one or two Engineers” for such a large expenditure. It was “the wish of the President,” Dearborn wrote, that Clinton should “select from five to seven Citizens of New York, who from their weight of Character in Society, their general information, and Knowledge of the subject may be able, on a full investigation, to make such a report as will be likely to afford good and sufficient grounds for commencing the Business as soon as the nature of the case will admit.” The costs of whatever plan was recommended, the secretary of war added, would have to fall “within the means provided by law, it being very doubtful whether Congress will think proper to make any further provision at present” (Lb in DNA: RG 107, MLS).