To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 22 May 1793
From Thomas Jefferson
[Philadelphia] May 22. 1793.
Th: Jefferson has the honor to submit to the President a letter to the Govr of Georgia, & two others on the occasion of mister Ternant’s recall.1 he sends at the same time the letters which were written on the recall of Mr De Moustier, as it is necessary to preserve a certain proportion between the expressions used on these occasions.2
AL, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, George Washington’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State; LB (photocopy), DLC:GW. GW received this letter on 23 May (see 147).
1. For Jefferson’s letter to Gov. Edward Telfair of 22 May, regarding fugitive slaves and relations with the Spanish colony of East Florida, see 26:89. The letters concerning the recall of Ternant as the French minister to the United States were drafts of GW’s letter to the Provisional Executive Council ofFrance of 24 May and Jefferson’s letter to Ternant of 22 May (ibid., 90–91).
2. Jefferson enclosed copies of GW’s letter to Louis XVI of 2 Mar. 1791 and Jefferson’s letter to Eléanor-François-Elie, comte de Moustier, of 2 Mar. 1791 (ibid., 19:357; see also Ternant to GW, 17 May 1793). France had recalled the unpopular Moustier as its minister to the United States in 1789 (Moustier to GW, 5 Oct. 1788, source note; Louis XVI to GW, 28 May 1791, and note 1).