To George Washington from Paul Joseph Guérard de Nancrède, 11 May 1796
From Paul Joseph Guérard de Nancrède
Boston May 11th 1796
Sir
In submitting to your patronage, the inclosed work, we flatter ourselves, that our particular application or its mode, will not be deemed presumptuous or intrusive, when you consider that, although it be acknowledged by those who have read it, one of the most ingenious and moral productions extant, yet there are very few copies of it in america; and as it is the particular province of men of taste in dignified stations, to discountenance the propagation of immoral works, or such as tend to wound the cause of religion or good order, so it is the peculiar satisfaction of men, whose virtues have acquired them unbounded influence, to patronise those productions, which are intended to promote the cause of virtue of science and of submission to the laws.1
We presume to sollicit your leave, to inscribe the work to you, sir, and fully sensible of what we ask, and sollicitous to use your patronage to the greatest advantage, our wish is to inscribe it simply to George Washington, President of the united states.2 With great respect we are sir Your most hble and most obedt Servants
for the publishers
Joseph Nancrede
ALS, DLC:GW.
Paul Joseph Guérard de Nancrède (1761–1841) was a Boston bookseller and printer.
1. Nancrède probably enclosed at least one volume of Henry Hunter’s translation of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s Studies of Nature, published in five volumes at London in 1796. Nancrède, in partnership with William Spotswood, another printer and bookseller, had proposed an American edition (see Federal Orrery [Boston], 5 May).
2. No reply from GW has been found, but Nancrède’s desired dedication appeared in the American edition when published in three volumes in 1797. The dedication in the first volume takes the form of a letter from Nancrède to GW dated February 1797. Nancrède expressed hope that he did “not take a disrespectful or unwelcome license. As a member of the human family, he finds a superior gratification, in testifying his respect for a character, equally known and revered among mankind. As an American Citizen, he feels a sweet satisfaction in paying the tribute of gratitude and veneration, in his power, to the MAN, whom his country delights to honour and to bless, as having eminently contributed to establish her independence, by his military command; to insure her peace and prosperity, by his civil administration; and to enhance her glory, by his public and private virtues.”