1. By a warrant before a single magistrate, to
recover the money paid by the servant under a process declared void
by law. Herein the servant must be the actor, and the government not
intermeddle at all. The smallness of the sum to be redemanded will
place this cause in the class of those in which no appeal to the higher
tribunal is permitted, even in the case of manifest error, so that if
the magistrate should err, the government has no means of correcting the
error. 2. The second mode of proceeding would be, to indict the officer
in the Supreme Court of the United States; with whom it would rest to
punish him at their discretion, in proportion to the injury done and the
malice from which it proceeded; and it would end in punishment alone,
and not in a restitution of the money. In this mode of proceeding, the
government of the United States is actor, taking the management of the
cause into its own hands, and giving you no other trouble than that
of bearing witness to such material facts as may not be otherwise
supported. You will be so good as to decide in which of these two
ways you would choose the proceeding should be; if the latter, I will
immediately take measures for having the offender prosecuted according
to law.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of respect, Sir, your most
obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
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