To Thomas Jefferson from Albert Gallatin, 16 February 1804
From Albert Gallatin
Feby. 16 1804
Dear Sir
Gen. Jackson called last night and stated that a true bill having been found agt. Putnam, although he believed him innocent & persecuted, yet he thought he ought to resign: and he wishes that idea to be communicated to him. Is that proper under present circumstances? I have sketched a letter to the Collector, which, if it shall meet with your approbation, I will show in the first place to Gen. Jackson & then transmit.
The General is warm against Morse for having coalesced with Gibbons. Him I have once seen, and that he is a bitter federalist and was so not twelvemonth ago I do know. Morse’s object appears, however, to have been altogether laudable & his motives are certainly pure.
Gen. Jackson says that he will recommend a successor who is now harbour master of Savannah; his name I think Wymbley or Wimbleton, he will write on the subject. Choate would not do—He is also very desirous that the dist. atty. Mitchell should be judge supreme court; if taken in S. Cara., he recommends Gaillard the late Speaker.
Respectfully Your obt. Servt.
Albert Gallatin
RC (DLC); at foot of text: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Treasury Department on 16 Feb. and “Putnam. Wibley. Mitchell. Gilliard” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure not found.
It is not clear if Gallatin actually sent a letter regarding the Henry Putnam case to Thomas de Mattos Johnson, the collector at Savannah (Vol. 39:158n). On 5 Mch., Putnam wrote Gallatin that he had submitted his resignation on 17 Feb., effective the first day of April 1804, the end of the quarter. He assured the Treasury secretary that he had always faithfully discharged his duties, noting that he had “made more Seizures during the time” than “by any Officer in the same department on the Continent.” He was being driven from office by “the Enemies of the Present Administration” and was resigning “to prevent the possibility of the Slightest imputation, arriseing only from the Tongue of Slander Touching the President That unequald good man.” Putnam requested that Gallatin show his letter to James Jackson (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR; endorsed by TJ: “To mr Gallatin” and “Putnam Henry. resigns cutter in Georgia”).
harbour master of savannah: Benjamin Webley. In an undated note, Gallatin wrote: “If the President intends that Wybley should be appointed Master of the revenue cutter, it will be sufficient for him to direct that a commission be prepared in his name—The appointment is, by law, in the President alone—A.G.” (MS in same; entirely in Gallatin’s hand). TJ entered Webley’s appointment on his list at 26 Mch. (see Vol. 43: Appendix I).
Jackson influenced TJ in the appointment of David Brydie mitchell in 1802 (Vol. 37:52, 391, 409).