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I adopted in the present case the mode of separate consultation.  The opinion of each member, taken separately, was, that the addition of a third negotiator was not at this time advisable.  For the present, therefore, the question must rest.  Mr. Bowdoin, we know, is anxious to come home, and is detained only by the delicacy of not deserting his post.  In the existing temper between him and his colleague, it would certainly be better that one of them should make an opening for re-composing the commission more harmoniously.  I salute you with affection and respect.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER L.—­TO GEORGE HAY, June 12, 1807

TO GEORGE HAY.

Washington, June 12, 1807.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of the 9th is this moment received.  Reserving the necessary right of the President of the United States to decide, independently of all other authority, what papers, coming to him as President, the public interests permit to be communicated, and to whom, I assure you of my readiness, under that restriction, voluntarily to furnish, on all occasions, whatever the purposes of justice may require.  But the letter of General Wilkinson, of October the 21st, requested for the defence of Colonel Burr, with every other paper relating to the charges against him, which were in my possession when the Attorney General went on to Richmond in March, I then delivered to him; and I have always taken for granted he left the whole with you.  If he did, and the bundle retains the order in which I had arranged it, you will readily find the letter desired, under the date of its receipt, which was November the 25th:  but lest the Attorney General should not have left those papers with you, I this day write to him to forward this one by post.  An uncertainty whether he is at Philadelphia, Wilmington, or New Castle, may produce delay in his receiving my letter, of which it is proper you should be apprized.  But, as I do not recollect the whole contents of that letter, I must beg leave to devolve on you the exercise of that discretion which it would be my right and duty to exercise, by withholding the communication of any parts of the letter, which are not directly material for the purposes of justice.

With this application, which is specific, a prompt compliance is practicable.  But when the request goes to ’copies of the orders issued in relation to Colonel Burr, to the officers at Orleans, Natchez, &c. by the Secretaries of the War and Navy departments,’ it seems to cover a correspondence of many months, with such a variety of officers, civil and military, all over the United States, as would amount to the laying open the whole executive books.  I have desired the Secretary of War to examine his official communications; and on a view of these, we may be able to judge what can and ought to be done towards a compliance with the request.  If the defendant