George Washington Papers

To George Washington from Stephen Gregory, 6 July 1789

From Stephen Gregory

Bordx [France] July 6th 1789

Mr fenwick is the Bearer of a Small two deck Ship which I Beg your Excellency to accept as a feable present this mignature will answer for a Chimney peace of Large Room Before a Looking Glass.1 Altho not Compleat in Every thing yet it is Neatly finish’d, I wish your Excellency health happiness & Success in Every of your Undertaking⟨s⟩ & in particular that of promoting the happiness of the people of america. I Remain Your Excellency’s most Devoted humble Sert

Stepn Gregory

ALS, ViMtvL.

Stephen Gregory was master of the Comte d’Artois, trading between Bordeaux and Virginia. His ship was occasionally used by Thomas Jefferson in the late 1780s to transport wine to friends in America, and Jefferson had found Gregory, he wrote Francis Eppes, to be “a good humoured agreeable man” (26 May 1787, in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. 41 vols. to date. Princeton, N.J., 1950–. description ends 11:378–79). Gregory visited Mount Vernon in July 1788, bearing a letter from Robert Morris introducing him as a “Gentleman that has served with Reputation as a Lieutenant in our late Infant Navy under Capt. [John] Barry & others and who since the Peace has Commanded a ship of mine & so Conducted himself as to induce me to give favourable testimony to his merit” (Morris to GW, 3 July 1788; Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 5:359, 386, 387). For Gregory’s application for public appointment, see his letter to GW, 12 Aug. 1789.

1Joseph Fenwick (d. 1823) was planning a trip to the United States on business for the Bordeaux firm of Fenwick, Mason & Company and to pursue his ambitions for appointment as United States consul in Bordeaux. See George Mason to GW, 19 June 1789, and notes.

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