LETTER XLVI.--TO JOSHUA JOHNSON, December 17, 1790

TO JOSHUA JOHNSON.

Philadelphia, December 17, 1790.

Sir,

Though not yet informed of your receipt of my letter, covering your
commission as Consul for the United States in the port of London, yet
knowing that the ship has arrived by which it went, I take for granted
the letter and commission have gone safe to hand, and that you have been
called into the frequent exercise of your office for the relief of our
seamen, upon whom such multiplied acts of violence have been committed
in England, by press-gangs, pretending to take them for British
subjects, not only without evidence, but against evidence. By what means
may be procured for our seamen, while in British ports, that security
for their persons which the laws of hospitality require, and which the
British nation will surely not refuse, remains to be settled. In
the mean time, there is one of these cases, wherein so wilful and so
flagrant a violation has been committed by a British officer, on the
person of one of our citizens, as requires that it be laid before
his government, in friendly and firm reliance of satisfaction for the
injury, and of assurance for the future, that the citizens of the United
States, entering the ports of Great Britain, in pursuit of a lawful
commerce, shall be protected by the laws of hospitality in usage among
nations.