From George Washington to Jeremy Belknap, 12 July 1798
To Jeremy Belknap
Mount Vernon 12th July 1798
Revd Sir
Agreeably to the promise contained in my last,1 I put your “Proposal for continuing and enlarging the Subscription for the American Biography &ca” into the hands of a friend of mine in Alexandria, for the purpose of obtaining Subscribers, and enclosed you will receive the result. With great esteem & respect I am Sir Your Obedt & Very H. Ser.
Go: Washington
ALS, MHi: Belknap Papers; ALS (letterpress copy), DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW; copy, MHi: Belknap papers.
1. See GW to Belknap, 15 June, and GW’s letter to William Fitzhugh, 17 June, printed in note 1 of GW’s letter to Belknap. Belknap’s son Andrew E. Belknap acknowledged receipt of GW’s two letters to his father and informed GW of his father’s death in his letter of 27 July from Boston: “Your letters of 15th ulto and 12th July directed to my father came to hand since the melancholly event of his death. The latter enclosed his ‘proposals for continuing and enlarging the American Biography’ with a large number of subscribers annexed. The family return you their sincere thanks for this and every mark of your attention to their deceased head. My Father had completed the second volume of this work which is now in the Press and will speedily be published. Be pleased to accept the enclosed sermon preached at his interment” (DLC:GW). See also Andrew Belknap’s letter to GW of 20 Sept. 1798, printed in a note to GW’s response of 8 October. A copy of A Sermon, Delivered at the Interment of the Rev. Jeremy Belknap, D.D. Minister of the Church in Federal Street, Boston, June 22, 1798 (Boston, 1798) by John Thornton Kirkland (1770–1840) was in GW’s library at the time of his death.