To Thomas Jefferson from Albert Gallatin, 11 February 1804
From Albert Gallatin
[ca. 11 Feb. 1804]
This man is totally incompetent & ought not to have been appointed.
Yet to an application made in favour of a personal friend of mine & who is well qualified I have answered that considering the age & circumstances of Gibson it would be cruel to remove him. I was also led to form a better opinion of Gibson than ever I had before from his candour in giving his evidence in the Logan controversy, considering the time (1798) when he gave it.
A.G.
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); undated, but see TJ to Gallatin at this date; written on address sheet of John Gibson to Gallatin (see enclosure); endorsed by TJ: “Gibson John. to mr Gallatin. to be continued in office.” Enclosure: Gibson to Gallatin, Vincennes, 7 Jan., citing the remonstrance “signed by the Judges and most of the principal Inhabitants” of the territory and sent to the president (see Ephraim Jordan and Others to TJ, [before 7 Jan.]), Gibson requests reappointment to the office he now holds “or to any other the President may think me worthy of”; Gibson notes that he is “advanced in life” and has a family depending on him, and if he should not be reappointed “it would Expose them and myself to the greatest distress” (RC in same).
this man: John Gibson, appointed secretary of Indiana Territory by John Adams in May 1800 (Vol. 39:78n).
personal friend of mine: probably John Badollet. In March, William Findley, John Smilie, and Gallatin recommended Badollet as register of the land office at Vincennes (Gayle Thornbrough, ed., The Correspondence of John Badollet and Albert Gallatin: 1804-1836 [Indianapolis, 1963], 13, 25-6; Findley and Smilie to TJ, 28 Mch.; Gallatin to TJ, 28 Mch.).
For Gibson’s deposition in the logan controversy, dated 4 Apr. 1800, see Vol. 31:477-80.