To Thomas Jefferson from Tobias Lear, 26 February 1793
From Tobias Lear
February 26th: 1793
By the President’s command T. Lear has the honor to send1 to the Secretary of State a Copy of the proceedings of the Executive Department of the Government of the North Western Territory—and a copy the laws passed there from the 1st. day of July to the 31st. of december 1792, which the President requests the Secretary to look over, and to report to him any thing that may therein appear to require the agency of the President, or2 that may be necessary to be known to him.
The President wishes to know whether Judge Turner has gone to the Territory or not. And if he should not be gone, that he may be pressed to go immediately.
The President likewise wishes to know when Governor St. Clair intends to go to his Government, as he conceives it highly proper that he should repair thither without delay.
Tobias Lear
Secretary to the President
of the United States
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 26 Feb. 1793. Dft (DNA: RG 59, MLR); contains several emendations, the most significant of which are noted below; endorsed by Lear. FC (Lb in same, SDC); wording follows Dft. Enclosures: (1) Journal of Executive Proceedings in the Northwest Territory, July-December 1792 (printed in , iii, 380–90). (2) Laws of the Northwest Territory, July-December 1792 (printed in Theodore Calvin Pease, ed., The Laws of the Northwest Territory, 1788–1800, Illinois State Historical Library, Collections, xvii [1925], 57–119).
The proceedings of the executive department of the Northwest Territory and the laws passed for the period had been received this day by the President from Winthrop Sargent (, 69). See also Report on the Proceedings of the Northwest Territory, 2 Mch. 1793.
1. Sentence to this point interlined in Dft in place of “The President sends.”
2. In the Dft Lear initially wrote the remainder of the sentence as “to be made known to him” before interlining “that is necessary” at the beginning of the passage.