From Thomas Jefferson to Certain Diplomats of the United States, 3 January 1794
To Certain Diplomats of the United States
Philadelphia Jan. 3 1794.
Dear Sir
I have the honor to inform you that I have resigned the office of Secretary of state, and that Mr. Randolph late Attorney Genl. of the US. is appointed by the President and approved by the Senate as Secretary of state. He will be so good as to1 acknolege the receipt of your several letters not yet acknoleged by me, and will answer in detail such parts of them as may require special answer2 I beg leave to conclude this last act of my public correspondence with you with very sincere assurances of the great esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be Dear Sir Your most obedt & most humble sevt
Th: Jefferson
RC (NjP: Andre deCoppet Collection); with date added; at foot of text: “Colo. Humphreys”; endorsed by David Humphreys. PrC (DLC); dated in ink: “Jan. 1794.” RC (N); with date added; at foot of text: “Mr. Dumas”; with minor variation in last sentence; endorsed by C. W. F. Dumas as received 1 Dec. 1794. PrC (DLC); dated in ink: “Jan. 1794.” RC (ICN); with date added; at foot of text: “Mr. Short”; endorsed by William Short as received 3 Apr. 1794. PrC (DLC); dated in ink: “Jan. 1794.” PrC of another RC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Morris”; dated in ink: “Jan. 1794”; contains slip of the pen. PrC of another RC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Pinckney”; dated in ink: “Jan. 1794”; with variation (see note 1 below). PrC of another RC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Carmichael”; dated in ink: “Jan. 1794”; with variation (see note 2 below; and note to William Carmichael to TJ, 19 Aug. 1791). Trs (DLC); 19th-century copies addressed to Dumas and Carmichael; both misdated “Jan. 1793.” All recorded in SJL under January 1794 above 3 Jan. entry for the following letter.
The Senate approved President Washington’s nomination of Edmund Randolph as Secretary of State on 2 Jan. 1794 (, i, 144). Randolph enclosed TJ’s letters to William Carmichael and William Short in a dispatch to them of 10 Jan. 1794 in which he said that TJ’s resignation “was accompanied with a general regret, founded on his acknowledged qualities for that Department, and the important services, rendered by his labours” (DNA: RG 59, DCI).
From the Ile de France on 15 Jan. 1794 William Macarty wrote a letter to TJ as Secretary of State that, as an official communication reporting on the detention of American merchant ships, TJ never saw (RC in DNA: RG 59, CD; printed in A. Toussaint, ed., Early American Trade with Mauritius [Port Louis, Mauritius, 1954], 24–5).
1. Preceding five words omitted in PrC to Thomas Pinckney.
2. Sentence omitted in PrC to William Carmichael.