I observe your tory papers make much of the Berceau.  As that is one of the subjects to be laid before Congress, it is material to commit to writing, while fresh in memory, the important circumstances.  You possess more of these than any other person.  I pray you, therefore, immediately to state to me all the circumstances you recollect.  I will aid you with the following hints, which you can correct and incorporate.  Pichon, I think, arrived about the 12th of March.  I do not remember when he first proposed the question about the Insurgente and Berceau.  On the 20th of March, Mr. Stoddart wrote to his agent at Boston to put the Berceau into handsome order to be restored, but whether he did that of his own accord, or after previous consultation with you or myself, I do not recollect.  I set out for Monticello April the 1st.  About that time General Smith sent new directions to put her precisely into the state in which she was before the capture.  Do you recollect from what fund it was contemplated to do this?  I had trusted for this to Stoddart who was familiar with all the funds, being myself entirely new in office at that time.  What will those repairs have cost?  Did we not leave to Le Tombe to make what allowance he thought proper to the officers, we only advancing money on his undertaking repayment?  I shall hope to receive from you as full a statement as you can make.  It may be useful to inquire into the time and circumstances of her being dismantled.  When you shall have retraced the whole matter in your memory, would it not be well to make a summary statement of the important circumstances for insertion in the Chronicle in order to set the minds of the candid part of the public to rights?  Mr. Madison has had a slight bilious attack.  I am advising him to get off by the middle of this month.  We who have stronger constitutions shall stay to the end of it.  But during August and September, we also must take refuge in climates rendered safer by our habits and confidence.  The post will be so arranged as that letters will go hence to Monticello, and the answer return here in a week.  I hope I shall continue to hear from you there.

Accept assurances of my affectionate esteem and high respect.

Th:  Jefferson.

P. S. The French convention was laid before the Senate December the 16th.  I think the Berceau arrived afterwards.  If so, she was dismantled when it was known she was to be restored.  When did she arrive?  By whose orders was she dismantled?  T.J.

LETTER CCLXXXVII.—­TO GOVERNOR MONROE, July 11, 1801

TO GOVERNOR MONROE.

Washington, July 11, 1801.

Dear Sir,