To George Washington from Edmund Randolph, 18 October 1794
From Edmund Randolph
Philadelphia October 18. 1794
Sir
I mentioned in my letter of yesterday a slight indisposition of Mrs Washington.1 To day she is perfectly well.
She sent me two letters, which came with two packages of books. She had opened them, and I now inclose them.2
In Childs and Swaine’s paper of the 17th instant is this passage under the London head. “Mr Jefferson the American Minister, at present in Paris, is charged with a special message to the king of Prussia, in favor of la Fayette.”3
Mrs Washington sent me the inclosed letter from Mr Spotswood, on the supposition of its being of a public nature. The first paragraph satisfied me of the contrary, and I shut it up.4
Mr Hammond is said to have returned hither the night before last.
Since I wrote yesterday, Mr Fauchet has resumed by letter business of the smaller kind with my department.5 I have the honor sir to be with the highest respect and affectionate attachment yr mo. ob. serv.
Edm: Randolph
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. Randolph was referring to his private letter to GW of 17 October.
2. Randolph may possibly have enclosed Bernhard Christoph Faust’s letter to GW of 18 June and Arthur Young’s letter to GW of 2 June.
3. Francis Childs and John Swaine were printers of the Daily Advertiser (New York). They were repeating an item that was printed in The Oracle, and Public Advertiser (London) of 13 August. The garbled report may have been inspired by GW’s letter of 15 Jan. to Frederick William II of Prussia.
4. Presumably, Randolph enclosed Alexander Spotswood’s letter to GW of 14 October.
5. Jean-Antoine-Joseph Fauchet’s letter to Randolph of 17 Oct. complained of “the abuse made of the laws, in order to persecute our privateers,” and proposed that the government “require security from those who prosecuted prizes as illegal” to prevent frivolous delaying actions (, Foreign Relations, 1:589).