Enclosure: Memorial of Merchants of New Haven, with Jefferson’s Query, 13 July 1804
Enclosure: Memorial of Merchants of New Haven,
with Jefferson’s Query
New Haven 13th July 1804
Sir.
We are informed that Mr. Henry Cooper, lately American Consul at St. Croix has resigned his functions.
As the principal commerce of this State, & especially of this District is at St. Croix, we shall esteem ourselves highly favor’d by the appointment of a Consul, of whose integrity & ability we have had experience.
Mr. Peter Totten, who has acted as Vice Consul, since the first of April 1801, and who has done the principal business is personally known to us, and we beleive him highly worthy of the appointment as Consul for that Island.
[Query by TJ:]
What does mr Granger know of Totten, & what are the politics of the Petitioners?
Th:J.
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); in a clerk’s hand, signed by Shipman & Denison, Alling, Hotchkiss & Co., Bradley & Mulford, James Henry, Solomon Collis, Gillet & Townsend, Atwater & Daggett, Justus Hotchkiss, Anthony Perit, Frederick Hunt, John & Jesse Hunt, Smith, Woodward & Co., Hotchkiss, Townsend & Co., Ebenezer Huggins, John Nicoll, Eneas Monson, Jr., Joseph Drake, Isaac Beers, Abraham Bradley, Jr., Thaddeus Beecher, Elijah Thompson, William Lyon, Elnathan Attwater, Samuel Huggins, Jr., H. Belden & Co., Edmund Finch, Jr., Samuel Hughes, William McCrackan & Son, L. & W. Hubbard, Jeremiah Townsend, Elias Beers, I. & K. Townsend, Eben Townsend, Jr., and Abel Burritt; TJ’s note in pencil at foot; at head of text: “To the President of the United States.”
Citing ill health, Henry Cooper requested to resign as U.S. consul for the Danish West Indies in December 1802 and again in July 1803 (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 5:139; 8:570). In a letter of 21 Jan. 1804, Richard H. Wilcocks applied to Madison for the post (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR; endorsed by TJ: “to be consul St. Croix a red hot Federalist, young & wild”). Samuel Smith recommended Wilcocks in a letter of 7 Feb., indicating that “the politicks of his family have not been Such as we respect, but never Violent” (same; endorsed by TJ: “to be consul St. Croix”). Writing the secretary of state from St. Croix on 17 Apr., Edward Dewhurst applied for the post, citing the support he had from friends in Philadelphia. TJ nominated Dewhurst (same; endorsed by TJ: “to be Consul St. Croix, St. Thomas St. John v. Cooper”; TJ to the Senate, 11 Dec. 1804).
politics of the Petitioners: about half of the individuals and firms who signed the memorial had also signed the June 1801 remonstrance of New Haven merchants against the appointment of Samuel Bishop as collector at that port (Vol. 34:381-4).