To George Washington from Timothy Pickering, 18 May 1796
From Timothy Pickering
Department of State May 18. 1796.
The Secretary of State respectfully lays before the President of the United States a list of names for public offices, in the form of a message to the Senate.1 The Secretary expected to have added to the list the name of a consul for Bremen: but his doubts as to the person among the candidates entitled to a preference not having been otherwise resolved, he had recourse to Mr R. Morris, who possessed information concerning one of them, & from circumstances could probably obtain immediately information of the others, which he promised to communicate, & which the Secretary expects to receive to-day.
Timothy Pickering
P.S. George Knox is recommended for Consul at Kingston upon Hull by so many respectable merchants of New-York, as to leave no room to doubt of his fitness, or of the utility of the appointment.2
ALS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, GW’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State.
1. The enclosed list has not been found; it was evidently a draft for GW’s second message to the U.S. Senate on 19 May.
2. An undated “Petition of the Merchants, Shipowners, and Masters of Ships trading from the City and Port of NewYork to the Port of Kingston upon Hull in Great Britain, and others,” addressed to the president is filed in DNA: RG 59, Letters of Application and Recommendation during the Administration of John Adams. The petitioners asserted that trade between New York and Kingston upon Hull “is very extensive and is rapidly increasing,” but complained “That Disputes often arise at Kingston upon Hull between the Masters and Mariners of Ships belonging to the United States—that the Mariners of such Ships often desert—and that Instances not unfrequently occur of their being impressed at Kingston upon Hull aforesaid to the great Inconvenience and Damage of your Petitioners and to the Detriment of the Citizens of the United States in general.” Such “Grievances” might be “greatly remedied” by the appointment of a consul, and George Knox, a Kingston merchant “extensively concerned in the Trade,” was recommended as “of much Respectability of Character and … in every Respect a proper Person.”