To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 30 May 1793
From Thomas Jefferson
[Philadelphia] May 30. 93.
Th: Jefferson has the honor to inclose to the President French copies of the communications of mister Genet on the subject of our debt to France, as they will convey his sense perhaps more faithfully to the Secretary of the treasury should the President think proper to refer them to him.1 he has changed the expression in the close of the 2d paragraph of the letter to mister Van Berkel, so as to leave less room to doubt but that indemnification to the individual may be required should the case require it, as such an indemnification will be an accomodation of our strict right.2
AL, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, George Washington’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State; LB (photocopy), DLC:GW.
1. On these papers from Edmond Genet, the new French minister to the United States, and their conveyance to Hamilton, see Jefferson to GW, 27 May, and note.
2. Jefferson had enclosed in his letter to GW of 27 May the first draft of a reply to Franco Petrus Van Berckel’s letter to Jefferson of 22 May, which concerned the Dutch embargo and detention of the American ship Hope and its crew (see Rodolph Vall-travers to GW, 15–29 Mar., and notes 7–8). GW approved this latest draft on this date ( 155; see also Jefferson to Van Berckel, 29 May, 26:143–44).