From George Washington to Timothy Pickering, 23 September 1795
To Timothy Pickering
Mount Vernon 23d Sepr 1795
Dear Sir,
Two letters from you, dated the 18th instant, were received yesterday.
For the reasons you have assigned, I think it best that Mr Boudinot should fill the Directorship of the Mint; and request he may be informed so. At the same time, urge him to come forward, if for no other purpose than to arrange matters with the present occupant—and derive from him all the insight into the business his experience has acquired, and which he promised me he would communicate to his successor.1
Enclosed is a blank Commission for the Successor of Mr Dessausure which may take date at the close of his services; according to the arrangement proposed above.
I also send a letter from Mr Kinlock relative to his nephew; who, from his account is suffering in the cause of the unfortunate Fayette—I wish you to acknowledge the receipt of it—but what consolation to give him I know not: for if the citizens of the U. States in foreign countries commit acts which are repugnant to their laws or usages, they certainly expose themselves to punishment; nor, having any character in the Austrian dominions cloathed as a functionary do I know of any channel thro’ which a movement of any sort could be made.2
If the French letter, which goes under cover with this, requires any act of mine, let it be returned with a translation & your opinion thereon.3
I wait with some impatience to receive an official acct of the result of Wayne’s treaty with the Western Indians. When it is received at the War Office, give me the substance of it. By this however, I mean no more, than whether the representation on the part of the Indians was complete—and whether he has come fully up to his instruction—exceeded, or fallen short of them in advantages—and in what instances. What are the boundaries. Whether the proceedings went on harmoniously or were intermingled with difficulties, and of what sort, & from whom. With great esteem & regard I am—Dear Sir Your Affectionate
Go: Washington
ALS, MHi: Pickering Papers; Df, in Bartholomew Dandridge’s writing, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
1. Pickering noted on the cover of this letter that he on the “26th wrote Mr Boudinot as requested within.” That letter has not been identified. Pickering, in his second letter to GW of 18 Sept., had recommended that Elias Boudinot be named to succeed Henry William DeSaussure as director of the U.S. Mint.
2. The letter of 6 Sept. to GW from Francis Kinloch (1755–1826) of South Carolina has not been found. After receiving an English education at Eton College and studying law in London, Kinloch returned to the United States in 1778, initially to protect his property from confiscation. But later that year he joined the Continental army as a lieutenant, and in 1779 he was promoted to captain. Kinloch also enjoyed an active political career, serving multiple terms in the South Carolina legislature. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress, 1780–81, and attended the S.C. convention to ratify the Constitution in 1788.
Kinloch’s nephew Francis Kinloch Huger (1773–1855), of Charleston, S.C., traveled to England in 1781 for his education and then studied medicine in Vienna. In the fall of 1794 he joined in an unsuccessful attempt to free the Marquis de Lafayette from Austrian captivity at Olmütz. Details of the event are described in an account Kinloch forwarded to Pickering on 6 Nov. (MHi: Pickering Papers). After several months in prison, Huger returned to the United States, and in May 1797 he received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Pickering informed Kinloch on 26 Sept.: “The President’s benevolence, and his respect for the connections of Mr F. K. Huger your nephew, would prompt him to adopt any practicable measure for obtaining his release: but besides that the cause of Mr Huger’s confinement would render an application delicate and difficult; the united States having no public functionary in the Austrian Dominions … the President knows not any channel through which a movement of the kind could at present be made” (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters).
3. This letter has not been found. Pickering discussed its contents in his second letter to GW of 28 September.