John Quincy Adams began keeping a diary in 1779 at the age of 12 and continued doing so until shortly before his death in 1848. On November 30th, 1805 John Quincy Adams captured a conversation he had with then President Thomas Jefferson and Senator John Gaillard from South Carolina at Jefferson's home. The Barbary war had ended, and attention was turning to the safety and security of our coasts. Jefferson and Gaillard were discussing a recent act of hostility committed by a French privateer (pirate) near Charleston South Carolina. Jefferson made a bold statement that "we out to assume as a principle that the neutrality of our territory should extend to the Gulf Stream, which was a natural boundary, and within which we ought not to suffer any hostility to be committed. Senator Gallard reminded Jefferson that in 1793 correspondents with Edmond Charles Genêt, the disgraced French minister to the United States, Jefferson, had stated that the United States should only be able to claim a distance of three miles, or what can be plainly seen by the naked eye, from the coast (known as "territorial sea") President Jefferson then replied, that he had assumed that principle only because Genet had put the U.S. on the spot, and we were unprepared to assert actual claims of jurisdiction that we are reasonably entitled to. Jefferson was now ready to assert his new doctrine of jurisdiction out to the Gulf Stream. John Quincy Adams, suggested that it would be better to wait until we have naval force ready and prepared. Jefferson agreed, but replied that the meantime, "it was advisable to squint at it, and to accustom the nations of Europe to the idea that we should claim it in the future". (John Quincy Adams underlined the words "squint at it")
"Squint at it" ... as if squinting would make John Quincy Adams see things clearer. Or as if by squinting one could actually see out to the stretch of the Gulf Stream. So, Jefferson set out to change international law regarding jurisdiction on the seas. Today, based upon international laws we have at most only 24 nautical miles of contiguous sea where U.S. laws can be used to prevent or punish infringements of laws such as customs, fiscal, immigration and sanitary. And Territorial Sea, where we have full sovereignty is only 3 miles out. But here, Jefferson was claiming jurisdiction all the way out to the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a strong offshore force or current that starts from the beaches of Key West, Florida and continues all thew way up to Iceland. It stretches out 40 to 50 miles off the coast, much further than the 3 miles of territorial seas, or even 24 miles of contiguous seas. Yet this is the area that Thomas Jefferson wanted to control. It would take a lot of "squinting" for other nations to see.
John Quincy Adams had this conversation with Jefferson on November 30th, just 4 days before Jefferson announces to Congress that he "found it necessary to equip a force to cruise within our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions found hovering on our coasts within the limits of the Gulf Stream and to bring the offenders in for trial as pirates." Did Jefferson pull together a Navy within 4 days? Were the European nations now accustomed to it? Probably not, but those were his words to Congress. In his 1805 annual address to Congress, Thomas Jefferson made his case before Congress why he had to take such drastic action, and why America required jurisdiction on the seas out to the Gulf Stream.
"Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has considerably changed. Our coasts have been infested and our harbors watched by private armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing practical acts beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured in the very entrance of our harbors, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own also. They have carried them off under pretense of legal adjudication, but not daring to approach a court of justice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way or in obscure places where no evidence could arise against them, maltreated the crews, and abandoned them in boats in the open sea or on desert shores without food or clothing. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any control of their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to cruise within our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions found hovering on our coasts within the limits of the Gulf Stream and to bring the offenders in for trial as pirates."Nonetheless, John Quincy Adams seemed to think nothing of the President's message that day. It got only a brief mention in his diary.
"[December] 3. At Twelve O' Clock this day, the President's message was delivered by his Secretary, Mr. Coles (Isaac A. Coles, Jefferson's private secretary) It was read and order to be printed - no other business was done and the Senate adjourned very early. I went in to the House of Representatives, where there was nothing important. They also soon adjourned"
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29447
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/oceancommission/documents/full_color_rpt/append_6.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gaillard
http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/popup?id=jqad27_192
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Franklingulfstream.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Reproduction-of-the-1805-Rembrandt-Peale-painting-of-Thomas-Jefferson-New-York-Historical-Society_1.jpg
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