From George Washington to the United States House of Representatives, 30 December 1793
To the United States House of Representatives
United States
December 30th 1793.
Gentlemen of the House of Representatives,
I now transmit you a report by the Secretary of State, of such laws, decrees and ordinances, or their substance respecting commerce in the countries, with which the United States have commercial intercourse, as he has received, and had not stated in his report of the sixteenth instant.1
Go: Washington
Copy, DNA: RG 233, Third Congress, 1793–95, House Records of Legislative Proceedings, Journals; LB, DLC:GW. This letter was received by the House on 31 Dec. (, 6:50).
1. Thomas Jefferson’s supplementary report on commerce, issued this date, was a response to the request made to GW by a House resolution of 24 Dec. (see Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., to Jefferson, 26 Dec., and n.1). The report provided a translation of the French decree of 26 March exempting U.S. vessels from various duties and restrictions; mentioned a French decree of 27 July allowing U.S. vessels “to be carried against their will into the ports of France” and to have enemy goods on board seized as prizes, although it had not been “received officially”; gave the substance of a Spanish decree of 9 June regulating the commerce of Louisiana and the Floridas; and took note of a 1788 British act about commerce with the West Indies that previously “had escaped his researches” (, 27:639–43). For Jefferson’s report on commerce of 16 Dec., see , 27:567–79.