You tell me that the Executive of Virginia refused the passports, because they deemed the commerce and intercourse with the enemy to be dangerous. There can be no doubt, that a commerce with the enemy is not only dangerous but highly reprehensible, and if the transaction in question could be considered as a commerce of that sort, I would readily join in the censure. But if there was a commerce, it was by the capitulation, and the present object relates only to the mode of paying a debt already contracted under that solemn agreement. You tell me, also, that it is the Governor's opinion, that the State should have the benefit resulting from the passports, because the undoubted power of granting such passports is in the State; and in another letter you say it has been urged in argument, that Congress have no right to grant the passports. As the right is thus brought in question, it is to be presumed, that should that right be in Congress, the Governor's argument must operate in their favor. If I am rightly informed, their right on this occasion is not only unquestionable, but it is exclusive; and I am told that numerous instances have occurred in which vessels having passports from one State have been captured by the privateers of another State, and been adjudged lawful prize. Judge Griffin, who is now in Virginia, can doubtless give information on this subject, and if one could be allowed to determine where the right is from where it ought to be, there can be no doubt but that it must be in Congress. If this be so, then the assertions about delivering the rights of Virginia into the hands of Congress, must be considered as nothing more than mere flowers of rhetoric, which are very good to please an audience, but ought not to influence or convince a legislative body.