From Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., to Timothy Pickering, 11 April 1795
Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., to Timothy Pickering
11. April 1795
By the Presidents order Bw Dandridge respectfully returns to The Secy of War the letter of Mr Monvel signifying his wish to resign his Commission, & informs the Secretary that the President knows no alternative but to accept it.1
Bw D. also transmits herewith a letter & enclosures from Gov: Mifflin to the President, upon the subject of which The President desires the Secretary to report to him after having given them due consideration.2
P.S. A commission has been signed by the President for an Accountant to the Dept. of War.3
ADf (letterpress copy), DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
1. The letter from Noel Bartholomew Monvel has not been identified. Monvel had received appointment as a lieutenant in the U.S. corps of artillerists and engineers, on 2 June 1794. He served in the Northwest Territory. Pickering wrote GW on this date and enclosed a letter from Monvel for GW’s decision. The secretary stated that Monvel “has lately (after an intermission of four or five years) received letters from his friends in France, which oblige him to return thither … The loss of an officer of his intelligence & good character is to be regretted” (ALS, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW).
2. Dandridge was referring to Thomas Mifflin’s letter to GW of 10 April. Pickering’s report has not been identified.
3. William Simmons currently served as chief clerk of the auditor’s office in the Treasury Department. On the cover of his 11 April commission as accountant to the War Department is a notation that it took place “in recess.” Simmons’s appointment remained in effect “during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being, and until the end of the next Session of the Senate of the United States and no longer” (copy, DLC:GW). GW presented Simmons’s formal nomination to the Senate on 12 June. For Simmons’s earlier efforts to obtain promotion to auditor for the United States and then accountant to the War Department, see his letter to GW, 4 July 1791, n.1.