To George Washington from Timothy Pickering, 19 February 1797
From Timothy Pickering
[Philadelphia] Feby 19. 1797.
The Secretary of State respectfully lays before the President of the U. States the draught of an answer to the Grand Master of Malta. If approved & signed, the Secretary proposes to commit the same to the care of M. Maisonneuve who desires to be Consul at Malta, who forwarded the letter from the Grand Master,1 and to whom Mr La Colomb (who is settled in Philadelphia) will send the packet by a vessel going for Hamburg to-morrow morning.2
AL, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters. No reply from GW to Pickering has been found.
1. Pickering’s draft has not been identified. However, it probably was a draft of >GW’s reply to the letter to him of 25 Feb. 1796 from François Marie-des-Neiges Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc, the grand master of Malta (see Joseph de Maisonneuve to GW, 1 May 1796, n.2). On 18 Feb. 1797, Pickering had written Maisonneuve: “By the direction of the President of the United States, I have the honor to commit to your care his letter to the Grand Master of Malta here enclosed.
“In two weeks General Washington will quit the helm of State his fellow citizens having at his request yielded to his desire to pass the remainder of a life which has been devoted to public cares and labours, in that tranquility which a delightful rural residence, rest from toil, and grateful reflections on the useful services which during forty years he has ⟨been⟩ rendering to his Country, are calculated to produce.
“I take this opportunity to inform you, that the distinguished citizen who has been chosen by the people of the United States of America to succeed to the office of President, is John Adams, so well known in the important scenes of the American revolution, and formerly the minister of the United States at Paris, the Hague, and London.” Pickering added a postscript that reads: “The letter from the President is an answer to that of the Grand Master dated the 25th of February 1796 which was accompanied by yours of the first of May” (DNA: RG 59, Diplomatic and Consular Instructions, 1791–1801).
GW’s reply to Rohan-Polduc, written on 18 Feb. 1797 from Philadelphia, reads: “The period not being yet arrived when the extension of the commerce of the United States in the Mediterranean may render a formal connection between them & Malta important and reciprocally useful, I have only to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 25th of february 1796; and to inform you that it will be transferred to my Successor in Office, who will consider when it will be proper to resume the subject.
“In a few days I shall enter on that retirement which I have long wished for, and in which I hope to pass in tranquility the remainder of my life” (copy, DNA: RG 59, Credences).
In his letter of 25 Feb. 1796, Rohan-Polduc had expressed an interest in forming a treaty of alliance between the Order of Malta and the United States upon the restoration of peace in Europe.
2. The next ship bound from Philadelphia to Hamburg was the America, Capt. James Ewing, which sailed on 25 Feb. (see Aurora General Advertiser [Philadelphia], that date). Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia) for 20 Feb. had announced that the “Letter Bag” of the America would remain “at the Post-Office until” the afternoon of 21 February.
Louis-Saint-Ange Morel, chevalier de La Colombe, a former aide-de-camp to the marquis de Lafayette, was now a member of the Philadelphia mercantile firm of La Colombe Cadignan & Company, located at 97 South Water Street (see , 108).