Thomas Jefferson Papers
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To Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Pinckney, 27 April 1793

From Thomas Pinckney

Great Cumberland Place 27th April 1793

My Dear Sir

I send herewith the Gazettes to the present time which contain all the public intelligence.

I fear that some of your dispatches intended for me must have miscarried as your last letter received by me was dated the first day of this year and I have only got the newspapers up to the 17th. November 1792—although there are letters here from Philadelphia of the 18th. March.1 I am well informed that negociations are now on foot with a prospect of success to form a closer and more permanent connection between this country and Prussia and Austria. If the combined crowns should succeed against france it is impossible to tell what their detestation of popular governments, added to the intoxication of2 success, may induce them to attempt. I hope we keep a supply of articles essential for military uses; such as nitre &c. There are very few regular troops left in this island—so that none can yet be spared for distant expeditions.

I am induced to get the copper for our mint from hence and hope to send it by an early opportunity from Bristol. The French privateers have carried several of our Vessels into their ports but they have been dismissed and the captors awarded to pay damages. I have the honor to be with the utmost respect My dear Sir Your most faithful and most obedient Servant

Thomas Pinckney
[1st. May 1793

I have only to add to the above duplicate that I send herewith the newspapers received since that date and a packet which Mr. Richard Penn requested me to send with my dispatches which as it is of considerable importance to him and the papers must go by the mail coach I take the liberty of troubling you with.]

RC (DNA: RG 59, DD); written partly in code; decoded interlinearly by TJ and George Taylor, Jr. (see note 1 below); at foot of text: “The Secretary of State”; lacks postscript, supplied from Dupl; endorsed by TJ as received 27 June 1793 and so recorded in SJL. PrC (ScHi: Pinckney Family Papers); lacks decipherment. Dupl (DNA: RG 59, Duplicate Diplomatic Dispatches); in the hand of William A. Deas, with signature and postscript by Pinckney; written partly in code, but lacks decipherment; at head of text: “(Duplicate).” PrC (ScHi: Pinckney Family Papers); consists of postscript only. Tr (Lb in DNA: RG 59, DD); entirely en clair, with deciphered words in brackets; includes postscript.

For a discussion of British efforts to form a more permanent connection with prussia and austria in order to prosecute the war against France with greater vigor, which led to the signing of separate conventions for this purpose with these two powers in July and August 1793, see John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Reluctant Transition (London, 1983), 270–4.

1The remainder of the paragraph is in unidentified code, the first sentence being supplied from TJ’s decipherment, the rest from Taylor’s.

2Pinckney here canceled five codes.

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