ALS, DLC:GW.

Nathaniel Barrett (1743–1793), of Braintree and Boston, was Continental loan officer for Massachusetts from 1778 to 1781. In late 1785 he went to France to negotiate contracts for the sale of American whale oil and for deductions by France on the duties on American oil and signed a profitable six-year contract by the end of 1786. John Adams and James Bowdoin both wrote letters of introduction for him to Jefferson, although Adams commented on his “Singular Character, irritable, fiery, avaricious, parcimonious, to a degree, that made me always doubtfull whether he would succeed” (Boyd, 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 8:662–63, 9:46, 73–75, 117, 262–63). He returned to America in 1786 but was back in France by the end of the year, continuing his efforts for the whaling industry and becoming involved in schemes to make Honfleur a free port and to market rice from South Carolina (ibid., 10:541, 11:315). In March 1789 he wrote Jefferson requesting that he be recommended to GW as a candidate for a diplomatic post in France (ibid., 15:149). GW appointed Barrett consul at Rouen in June 1790 (Executive Journal, description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America: From the commencement of the First, to the termination of the Nineteenth Congress. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C., 1828. description ends 1:48–49).