Mr. Smith will send you some British complaints on our fortifying Moose Islands, and the kind of answer recommended on consultation with the heads of departments. We have such complaints of the breach of embargo by fraud and force on our northern water line, that I must pray your co-operation with the Secretary of the Treasury by rendezvousing as many new recruits as you can in that quarter. The Osage brought us nothing in the least interesting. I salute you with affection and respect. TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR PINCKNEY. WASHINGTON, July 18, 1808. DEAR SIR,--Your favor of May 28 has been duly received, and in it the proceeding of the Court on the mandamus to the collector of Charleston. I saw them with great concern because of the quarter from whence they came, and where they could not be ascribed to any political waywardness. The Legislature having found, after repeated trials, that no general rules could be formed which fraud and avarice would not elude, concluded to leave, in those who were to execute the power, a discretionary power paramount to all their general rules. This discretion was of necessity lodged with the collector in the first instance, but referred, finally, to the President, lest there should be as many measures of law or discretion for our citizens as there were collectors of districts. In order that the first decisions by the collectors might also be as uniform as possible, and that the inconveniences of temporary detention might be imposed by general and equal rules throughout the States, we thought it advisable to draw some outlines for the government of the discretion of the collectors, and to bring them all to one tally. With this view they were advised to consider all shipments of flour _primâ facie_, as suspicious. Because, if pretended to be for a State which made enough within itself, it could not, in these times, but be suspicious, and, if for a State which needed importations, we had provided, by the aid of the Governors of those States, a criterion for that case. But your collector seems to have decided for himself that, instead of a general rule applicable equally to all, the personal character of the shipper was a better criterion, and his own individual opinion too, of that character.