George Washington Papers
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Timothy Pickering to George Washington Craik, 19 November 1796

Timothy Pickering to George Washington Craik

Saturday ½ past 2 p.m. [19 Nov. 1796]1

Mr Craik,

I will thank you to send me a letter to be addressed to Mr Adet, concerning some prizes sent into Charleston & Wilmington; if the President approves of the draught.2 Mr Adets last long note will be in Brown’s paper on Monday morning; & I wish to acknowledge its receipt before hand.3 yr obt

T. Pickering

ALS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters. No reply to Pickering from either GW or Craik has been found.

1The date is taken from the docket, which reads “From The Secy of State 19th Novr 1796.”

2The “draught” has not been identified. Pickering had written French minister Pierre-Auguste Adet in a letter dated 15 Nov., composed in response to Adet’s letter to him of 12 Oct., which had discussed the sale of French prizes in U.S. ports. On this date (19 Nov.), Pickering wrote Adet in part: “Although you have declared your ministerial functions suspended, I have conceived it not improper to transmit to you an answer to your letter of the 12th Ult. relative to certain French prizes carried into Charleston and Wilmington, which I promised to send you, and which has been delayed by causes intimated in the letter itself” (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters). For the suspension of Adet’s duties as French minister, see Alexander Hamilton to GW, this date.

In his letter to Adet of 15 Nov., Pickering wrote: “On the 13th Ult. I had the honor to receive your letter of the 12th but not being possessed of any information on the subject, I laid it before the Secretary of the Treasury. … He has favored me with the letters of the Collectors of Charleston and Wilmington, … with sundry documents describing their proceedings in regard to the British ship Amity (which you call the Mary) that was carried into the port of Charleston [by the French privateer Leo] … and to the British ship Betty Cathcart and the Snow Aaron … carried into the port of Wilmington, as prizes to the French privateer Bellona. … On the 7th of April last the privateer Leo carried her prize, the Amity, into Charleston. The prize was entered at the Custom house,” but British vice consul Benjamin Moodie “obtained an injunction” prohibiting its sale. The prize having been deemed unseaworthy, its cargo “was shipped in neutral bottoms.” Pickering added: “the Captors or their agents, in defiance of the laws of the United States … sold the prize ship to American citizens. … The purchasers immediately repaired the prize Ship … and applied to the Collector for her clearance as an American vessel.” The collector refused to comply. In response to Adet’s query pertaining to the sale of prizes “made by the privateers of the [French] Republic upon others than the English,” Pickering wrote: “As the original permission to sell prizes, extended to those taken from all the enemies of the French Republic; and as the restraint lately imposed [captures by privateers], refers merely to British vessels … so the indulgence, in other respects, is to be considered as remaining at present on its original footing.” Pickering concluded the letter: “This letter, in substance as it now appears, was prepared to be sent you in the last month: but doubts arose on some points concerning which legal opinions were taken and occasioned the further delay to this time” (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters; see also ASP description begins Walter Lowrie et al., eds. American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. 38 vols. Washington, D.C., Gales and Seaton, 1832–61. description ends , Foreign Relations, 1:655–56). For Adet’s letter to Pickering of 12 Oct., see ASP description begins Walter Lowrie et al., eds. American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. 38 vols. Washington, D.C., Gales and Seaton, 1832–61. description ends , Foreign Relations, 1:654–55; see also Pickering to GW, 15 July, and n.5; and Levi Lincoln’s Opinion on the Betsy Cathcart, 3 July 1801, in 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 , 34:497–503.

The Philadelphia Gazettte & Universal Daily Advertiser for 9 Aug. 1796 printed a report dated 26–27 July from Charleston: “The ship Betsey, Cathcart, and a snow … both from Jamaica, with their cargoes of rum, sugar and coffee, have lately been sent into Wilmington, N.C. by a French privateer, fitted out at Port-de-Paix. These vessels were part of a fleet from Jamaica, bound to London, and had lost their convoy.”

3Adet’s letter to Pickering of 15 Nov. was published in Andrew Brown’s The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser for Monday, 21 November. For more on the contents of that letter, see Hamilton to GW, this date, n.5. Pickering merely noted its receipt in his letter to Adet of this date, which begins: “I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Note of the 15th instant, detailing the complaints of the French Republic against the Government of the United States” (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters).

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