1. Pickering’s draft letters to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, David Humphreys, and John Quincy Adams have not been identified. On this date, Pickering wrote Pinckney, the U.S. minister to France, to inform him that he had “another letter draughted, but wish to submit it to the President for which there is not time, as this must go by the mail today for New york, and it is on the point of closing” (DNA: RG 59, Diplomatic and Consular Instructions, 1791–1801). GW’s 14 Feb. reply to Pickering, recommending that his letter to Pinckney be written in cipher, and discussing French spoliations and rumors of a potential cession to France of Louisiana and the Floridas, suggests that Pickering sent GW a draft of either his letter to Pinckney of 11 Feb. or that of 25 February. Both letters reference similar themes.

Pickering’s 11 Feb. letter to Pinckney reads: “The spoliations on our commerce by French privateers are daily increasing, in a manner to set every just principle at defiance. … their outrages extend to the capture of our vessels merely because going to or from a British port: nay more, they take them when going from a neutral to a French port. … It will therefore be highly important to both countries, and the President earnestly desires you would endeavour to engage the attention of the French Government … to put an end to such atrocities.” Pickering closed his letter by informing Pinckney of the election of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as president and vice president of the United States, respectively (DNA: RG 59, Diplomatic and Consular Instructions, 1791–1801).

Pickering’s missive to Pinckney, dated 25 Feb. and “written in cypher,” reads: “Reports have for some time been current that Louisiana and the Floridas are or would be ceded to France. Mr [Pierre-Auguste] Adet, on the 29th of June 1795 expressly confessed … that he knew that the cession of Louisiana to France was a preliminary to be insisted on in a treaty of peace with Spain. … If the project still exists, it will be very desirable that the French Government should know how much the cession would displease the United States.” Pickering advised Pinckney on the means to dissuade France from taking control of Louisiana and the Floridas. Pickering recommended that Pinckney report the desire of the United States for “perfect harmony with the French, which might be endangered by their becoming our Continental neighbours. The energy and activity of the two nations would … produce … quarrels mutually injurious.” The French should also be warned that severed relations between the two countries would cause the United States to “associate themselves with Great Britain, and make a common cause against France.” Pickering ended the letter by stating potential problems that might arise from French-controlled territory adjacent to the United States: “Another very interesting reason for excluding the French from any possessions north of the Gulph of Mexico, cannot fail to occur to you—the danger of communicating their principles of unqualified and premature liberation of the negroes; which if brought into operation in the Southern States especially South-Carolina and Georgia, would be their total ruin. Although the original enslaving of the blacks is deeply to be deplored, their hasty emancipation would produce greater evils than their continuance in a state which may be gradually ameliorated” (DNA: RG 59, Diplomatic and Consular Instructions, 1791–1801). For the erroneous rumors about Spain’s cession of Louisiana and the Floridas to France, see Pickering to GW, 20 Oct. 1796, and n.5.

Pickering may have enclosed a draft of his letter of 17 Feb. to Adams, the acting U.S. minister to the Netherlands, which discussed salary and other issues. That letter also enclosed Adams’s commission as the newly appointed U.S. minister to Portugal and provided him with instructions about matters he should broach with officials upon his arrival in Lisbon. These matters included potential trade opportunities between the United States and Portuguese colonies such as Brazil. Pickering wrote: “I have only one thing more to mention at this time—The President desires that … you will particularly inquire into those [objects of interest to the United States] by which our commercial intercourse may be extended. The condition and circumstances of Portugal and of the United States naturally incline them to cultivate peace with all the world.” Pickering closed the letter by discussing Adams’s salary: “… the Salary of their [U.S.] foreign Ministers should commence, not on the day of their appointment, but with the day of their departure from home to enter on their mission. Hence the President concludes that your salary … should begin with the time of your leaving the Hague for Lisbon. This application of the rule will also correspond with the disposition to rigid economy now peculiarly prevalent in Congress; and it is hoped that it will be satisfactory to you and to Colo. [David] Humphreys” (DNA: RG 59, Diplomatic and Consular Instructions, 1791–1801). For Adams’s appointment as minister to Portugal, an office in which he never served, see GW to Maria I of Portugal, 17 Feb., and n.1.

Pickering probably also sent GW his letter of 17 Feb. to David Humphreys, minister to Portugal. In that letter, Pickering enclosed Humphreys’s commission as minister to Spain and issued the following instructions: “Although you have already had much trouble with the affairs of the United States in relation to the barbary powers, yet the President desires to continue them under your direction: You are fully impowered and instructed, and by your long attention and correspondence concerning them, you are fully possessed of the subject; and it is hoped that the negociations are drawing to a close. If they require any services at Lisbon, Mr Adams will certainly render them with pleasure at your request; and he will be desired to do so.” Pickering encouraged Humphreys to seek trade opportunities between the United States and the “Spanish Colonies, at least by way of experiment.” Pickering next addressed the 1795 treaty between Spain and the United States, which called for the appointment of commissioners “for the purpose of adjusting the claims of our citizens against the Spanish Government for captures made by its armed vessels and privateers during the war with France [War of the First Coalition].” After discussing French spoliations at length, Pickering informed Humphreys of the salary regulations for U.S. ministers abroad, namely that their salary would begin “with the day of their departure from home to enter on their mission.” Pickering added: “You will draw your Salary from our Bankers in Holland, as heretofore.” The remainder of the letter covered the presidential election results and the arrival in the United States of “Upwards of sixty of our captives from Algiers … about the 7th instant” (DNA: RG 59, Diplomatic and Consular Instructions, 1791–1801). For more on Humphreys’s appointment as minister to Spain and his delayed arrival there, see GW to Charles IV of Spain, 20 February.

2. Pickering probably enclosed Alexander Hamilton’s letter to him of 6 February. The final paragraph of that letter reads: “Is it not proper to call upon the Merchants to furnish your Department with statements & proofs of the spoliations which we have suffered from the French as was done when the English were in their mischievous Carreer?” (Hamilton Papers description begins Harold C. Syrett et al., eds. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 27 vols. New York, 1961–87. description ends , 20:508–9). GW referred to these “statements and proof of British Spoliations” in his reply to Pickering of 14 February.