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I am, with very great esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXVII.—­TO JOHN JAY, November 14, 1788

TO JOHN JAY.

Paris, November 14, 1788.

Sir,

In my letter of December the 21st, 1787, I had the honor of acknowledging the receipts of your two favors of July the 27th, 1787, which had come to my hands December the 19th, and brought with them my full powers for treating on the subject of the consular convention.  Being then much engaged in getting forward the Arret which came out the 29th of December, and willing to leave some interval between that act, and the solicitation of a reconsideration of our consular convention, I had declined mentioning it, for some time, and was just about to bring it on the carpet, when it became necessary for me to go to Amsterdam.  Immediately after my return, which was about the last of April, I introduced the subject to the Count de Montmorin, and have followed it unremittingly, from that time.  The office of Marine, as well as that of Foreign Affairs, being to be consulted in all the stages of the negotiation, has protracted its conclusions till this time:  it is at length signed this day, and I have now the honor to enclose the original, for the ratification of Congress.  The principal changes effected are the following: 

The clauses of the Convention of 1784, clothing consuls with privileges of the law of nations, are struck out, and they are expressly subjected, in their persons and property, to the laws of the land.

That giving the right of sanctuary to their houses, is reduced to a protection of their chancery room and its papers.

Their coercive powers over passengers are taken away; and over those, whom they might have termed deserters of their nation, are restrained to deserted seamen only.

The clause, allowing them to arrest and send back vessels, is struck out, and instead of it, they are allowed to exercise a police over the ships of their nation generally.

So is that, which declared the indelibility of the character of subject, and the explanation and extension of the eleventh article of the treaty of amity.

The innovations in the laws of evidence are done away:  and the convention is limited to twelve years’ duration.  Convinced that the fewer examples, the better, of either persons or causes unamenable to the laws of the land, I could have wished, still more had been done; but more could not be done, with good humor.  The extensions of authority given by the convention of 1784, were so homogeneous with the spirit of this government, that they were prized here.  Monsieur de Reyneval has had the principal charge of arranging this instrument with me; and, in justice to him, I must say, I could not have desired more reasonable and friendly dispositions, than he demonstrated through the whole of it.