the reduction of taxes. Gallatin pointed out that the English seizures alone would affect the revenue, and any measure of retaliation would still further diminish it; while the navy had increased its estimates from six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to one million and seventy thousand dollars. As for the hint at a reduction of taxes, Gallatin at once struck it out. [1] "As it relates to foreign nations, it will certainly destroy the effect intended by other parts of the Message. They never can think us serious in any intentions to resist, if we recommend at the same time a diminution of our resources." The President made these corrections, and returned the draft for revisal, with a note:[2]—
- "On reviewing what had been prepared as to Great Britain and Spain, I found it too soft toward the former compared with the latter, and that so temperate a notice of the greater enormity of British invasions of right might lessen the effect which the strong language toward Spain was meant to produce at the Tuileries. I have therefore given more force to the strictures on Britain."
In studying "the effect which the strong language toward Spain was meant to produce at the Tuileries," Jefferson had in mind the effect which his strong language produced at the Tuileries in 1803.
