Tobias Lear to John Lamb, 4 December 1792
Tobias Lear to John Lamb
Philadelphia December 4: 1792.
I was this day honored with your letter of the 30th ultimo, enclosing one for Mrs Washington, the receipt of which she requests me to acknowledge, and beg your acceptance of her best thanks for the nuts and Apples which you have had the politeness to send to her, & which have come safe to hand.1
The Box, which was at the same time sent to the President, and which you mention to have arrived from London in the Ship Betsy, contained two Charts of the Sea-Coast of North America, sent to the President for his acceptance by John Hamilton Moore, Esqr. of London, the executor of them. No account of the price of these Charts was sent and as I do not know of any of the same kind being imported or sold here I cannot form an opinion of their cost; but if it can be hereafter ascertained by any means you shall receive an acct of it.2 I have the honor to be very respectfully Sir Your most Obedt Sert
Tobias Lear.
ALS (letterpress copy), DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DLC:GW.
1. Former Revolutionary War officer John Lamb was currently the collector of customs at New York City. His letter to Lear of 30 Nov. has not been identified. The enclosed letter to Martha Washington, dated 30 Nov., covered a receipt for “the delivery of two Barrels Apples, and one Barrel Nuts, which, I have put on board the Schooner Dolphin” (DLC:GW). For Lamb’s earlier gifts of apples to Mrs. Washington, see Lamb to Lear, 22 Mar. 1792, note 1.
2. The two charts that the British hydrographer John Hamilton Moore sent GW were Chart of Navigation from the Gulf of Honda to Philadelphia and Chart to Bay of Fundy. Both were in GW’s library at the time of his death (see 561). For GW’s letter to Moore of 2 Dec. 1792 thanking him for the charts, see Alexander Spotswood to GW, 4 Dec. 1791, note 2.