Thomas Jefferson Papers

To Thomas Jefferson from John F. Mercer, 4 January 1802

From John F. Mercer

Annapolis Jan. 4th. 1802.

Dear Sir

Mr. Digges the President & Mr. Duckett a Member of the Council proposing to visit the City of Washington I beg leave to introduce them to your notice, if their personal qualifications & general estimation in Maryland have not already made them known to you—they are two main props of the Republican Administration in this State & altho’ I am sensible that any addresses of this nature, may too frequently recur, yet I may safely trust to the merits of these Gentlemen for my excuse in this instance without relinquishing any pretensions which can be founded on the affectionate & respectful attachment, with which I am always

Dr Sir yr Obed hb Serv.

John F: Mercer

RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 7 Jan. and so recorded in SJL with notation “Digges & Ducket.”

Francis Digges represented Charles County and Allen Bowie Duckett represented Prince George’s County in the Maryland House of Delegates in the 1790s, and both men served as members of the five-person advisory Governor’s Council from 1801 through 1805. TJ appointed Duckett assistant judge of the circuit court for the District of Columbia in 1806 (Edward C. Papenfuse and others, eds., Archives of Maryland: An Historical List of Public Officials of Maryland, new ser., 1 [Annapolis, 1990], 20, 21, 198, 237; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States … to the Termination of the Nineteenth Congress, Washington, D.C., 1828, 3 vols. description ends , 2:25).

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