To George Washington from Timothy Pickering, 15 October 1796
From Timothy Pickering
Department of State Octr 15. 1796.
Sir,
Yesterday I received another letter from Mr King—it is dated the 16th of August, covering a duplicate of the former, and saying that he had heard nothing from Mr Monroe respecting the letter from the Directory to Mr Barthelemy, so interesting to the commerce of neutral powers: and this silence was the only circumstance that left him a hope that the letter in question is not genuine.1
At the same time I received a letter from Messrs Gore & Pinkney. They had met the British Commissioners, Dr Nichol & Mr Anstey; and not agreeing on the choice either of a Briton or an American, they respectively made lists from which each selected one name. Our Commissioners took the name of Dr Swabey (an eminent Civilian) and the British Commissioners selected the name of John Trumbull Esqr. The two names being put into the urn, one was drawn, which was Colo. Trumbull’s. He was then in London, and has accepted the appointment. On the 26th of August the whole were sworn before the Lord Mayor.2
Thus far we have been fortunate in the choice of the odd Commissioners for adjusting our disputes with Britain; and therefore whatever may be the decisions of the respective boards, we may presume that our own citizens will be satisfied.3
Yesterday I received letters from our Consul at Cadiz (who is a very intelligent man) dated the 20th & 25th of August; in that of the 20th he says they are very apprehensive of a rupture with England.4 On the 4th of that month (Admiral Mann having retired on the 1st) the Spanish Admirals Langara & Socorro, with 20 ships, 8 frigates, 4 corvettes & 2 brigs, sailed as a convoy to Admiral Richery till they were near Cape St Vincents, when Richery (on the 5th at 5 P.M.) took leave, & steered towards Brest: his certain destination not known. On the 6th, 4 ships & 3 frigates seperated from the Division under the command of Admiral Socorro, destined to different ports in America, with troops & artillery under the orders of rear admiral Apodaca, with orders to join Admiral Aristizabel, in the West-Indies, after having landed their cargoes. All the rest of the fleet returned to Cadiz on the 12th—No armaments were carrying on at Cadiz on the 20th, nor any other war-like preparations: but if necessary, Mr Yznardi thinks that in six weeks 36 ships of the line might be put to sea.5
On the 25th of August the scene was changed. On that day, in consequence of orders from Court, all the English vessels in that harbour were embargoed; the rudders taken out & conveyed to the inward part of the bay. The number in the port happened to be only five: the crews were left on board. Mr Y. supposes similar orders were executed in all the ports.6 This unexpected event he says greatly damped the spirits of the people: all was confusion: not a single negociation in that great commercial city. Government notes, which on the 20th were at 11 ⅌Ct discount, rose to 18 ⅌Ct loss. The motives to this new measure were unknown: but among the reports in circulation, the most probable was, that the English had not given satisfaction to the repeated remonstrances of the Spanish Court, on many infringements of the law of nations & existing treaties, highly prejudicial to the interests & derogatory to the dignity of the Spanish nation.7
A letter recd yesterday from our Consul at Marseilles advised of the arrival there of the American captives from Algiers, in number 89, one having died on the passage; and all the rest (the plague being considered as on board the ship) must perform the tedious quarantine of 60 days. This letter is dated the 22d & 24th of July; the captives arrived the 20th. He adds, that if one should die at the place, the reckoning of the quarantine must begin anew.8 By the same letter it appears that the Boston brig capt. Graves, which was carried into Tunis, had been released.9
I am informed that the French at Guadaloupe have condemned one vessel of this port, wholly American property; and their proceedings at Hispaniola, as detailed in the news-papers, indicate the like result. Yet the hesitation of General Rigaud to direct final proceedings respecting the American vessels carried into Aux Cayes, induce me to think the captures there were made by orders only of the Colonial administration.10 I have the honor to be with the highest respect sir your most obt servant
Timothy Pickering
ALS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters. GW replied to Pickering on 21 October.
1. Pickering accurately summarized the letter of 16 Aug. 1796 that he received from Rufus King, the U.S. minister to Great Britain. That letter enclosed both a duplicate of King’s 10 Aug. letter to Pickering and a copy of a 31 July letter from Fulwar Skipwith, consul-general at Paris, to Joshua Johnson, the U.S. consul at London, regarding the Tunisian capture of the schooner Eliza (DNA: RG 59, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to Great Britain). For King’s 10 Aug. letter and for Skipwith’s other correspondence on the subject of the Eliza, see Pickering to GW, 13 Oct., and notes 3 and 6 to that document; see also Pickering to GW, 5 Oct., and n.4 to that document. For the official note from French foreign minister Charles Delacroix to François, marquis de Barthélemy, the French ambassador to Switzerland, see Pickering to GW, 11–12 Oct., and n.12.
2. The letter from Christopher Gore and William Pinkney to Pickering has not been identified. However, in their letter to Pickering of 27 Aug. 1796, Gore and Pinkney summarized the selection process for the final member of the five-man commission authorized under Article VII of the Jay Treaty to settle the claims of U.S. and British merchants. In their 27 Aug. letter, Gore and Pinkney, the U.S. members of that commission, mentioned that they had met on 18 Aug. with British commissioners John Nicholl and John Anstey, in order to appoint the fifth and final commissioner. During the meeting, the British and U.S. members of the commission submitted a total of eight candidates for the post, but indecision prompted “the alternative mode of choosing by lot.” The commissioners forced “each side” (i.e., British and American) to “propose a name from the list which the other had prepared.” Gore and Pinkney selected Maurice Swabey while Nicholl and Anstey selected John Trumbull. The names were “deposited in an urn … and the urn being presented by Dr. Nicholl to Mr. Pinkney, the latter drew out the name” of Trumbull (, 1:320–21). Residing in Europe since 1794, Trumbull accepted the appointment in a letter of 26 Aug. to the other members of the commission, and evidently took an oath before Sir William Curtis, lord mayor of London (see , 193–95). For Gore’s and Pinckney’s appointments under Article VII of the Jay Treaty, see GW to the U.S. Senate, 31 March 1796.
John Nicholl (1759–1838) attended Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in civil law in 1785. In November of that year, he entered as an advocate at Doctors’ Commons. He also later served as king’s advocate, member of Parliament, and judge of the high court of admiralty.
Born in England and educated at Cambridge University, John Anstey (c.1757–1819) was a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn and later worked as a commissioner for auditing public accounts and as an investigator into American Loyalist claims. Anstey also was a poet and wrote under the pseudonym of John Surrebutter.
Maurice Swabey (1753–1826), an advocate of Doctors’ Commons and a chancellor of the Rochester diocese, eventually joined the five-man commission under Article VII when Nicholl resigned.
Sir William Curtis (1752–1829) served as lord mayor of London from 1795 to November 1796 and was a member of Parliament for numerous years.
3. Pickering refers to the selection of the commissioners required under articles V and VI of the Jay Treaty (see GW to Pickering, 28 Sept., and n.4 to that document; see also GW to the U.S. Senate, 31 March 1796; and GW to James Innes, 4 April 1796, and n.1 to that document).
4. The letters of 20 and 25 Aug. to Pickering from Joseph M. Yznardi, Jr., the U.S. consul at Cadiz, Spain, since 1793, have not been identified.
Spain had declared war on Britain on 5 Oct. (see Pickering to GW, 13 Oct., and n.9 to that document).
5. French admiral Joseph de Richery’s squadron had been blockaded at Cadiz since October 1795 after unsuccessful efforts to sail to Newfoundland. However, in late summer 1796, plans to reattempt naval operations off the North American coast prompted French officials to request that a Spanish fleet escort Richery’s squadron clear of British rear admiral Robert Man’s fleet, which had maintained the blockade off Cadiz. Unbeknownst to the French, Man already had left that port in late July 1796 in order to reinforce a fleet near Corsica. On 4 Aug. 1796, Richery, with about ten ships, departed Cadiz accompanied by Adm. Juan de Langara y Huarte’s Spanish fleet of over thirty vessels. A detachment of ten ships of the line and six frigates under the command of Rear Adm. José Solano y Bote, marqués of Socorro, escorted Richery to an area about 300 miles west of Spain’s coast. Part of this Spanish fleet evidently joined Gabriel de Aristizabal, lieutenant general of the Royal Armada of Spain, in the West Indies. Richery proceeded to Newfoundland, where he arrived around 28 Aug., before returning to Rochefort, France, in November. French naval operations in and near Newfoundland involved the plundering and destruction of huts and fishing boats, and the capture of inhabitants at the Bay of Bulls in September. The French also plundered Saint-Pierre and Miquelon in an effort to reclaim that British colony (see , 4:277, 286–87, 290–91; see also 305–7).
Various newspapers circulated rumors about Richery’s fleet. The Centinel of Freedom (Newark, N.J.) for 19 Oct. 1796 reported: “From Cadiz we learn, that 4 Spanish ships of the line, and the frigates Helena and Cecile, escorted as far as Cape St. Vincent [Portugal], Richery’s division, bound to America.” Polar Star: Boston Daily Advertiser for 19 Oct. printed the following report: “The names of the four Spanish ships that have accompanied Admiral Richery when the rest of the Spanish fleet parted with him off Cape St. Vincents, are the Santo Damasco, the St. Vincent, the Arrogant, and the Gaillard. It is conjectured, they are bound to St. Domingo.” The Newport Mercury for 1 Nov. printed an extract of a letter dated 16 Sept. that claimed that Richery had “arrived at Brest about the middle of last month, with his fleet and four Spanish ships, that had accompanied him from Cadiz.”
The Columbian Museum & Savannah Advertiser for 25 Oct. printed an extract of a letter of 2 Oct. from a Boston mercantile house. The extract alleged that the “squadron under the command of Richery, has landed a body of troops and destroyed the English town of St. John’s, in Newfoundland.”
Robert Man (c.1748–1813) was then a rear admiral in the Royal Navy.
José Solano y Bote, marqués del Socorro (1726–1806), served in the Spanish navy and later was general captain of the Spanish Royal Navy.
Rear Adm. Juan Ruiz de Apodaca (Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, conde del Venadito; 1754–1835), of Cadiz, later served as captain general of Cuba and viceroy of Mexico and New Spain.
Gabriel de Aristizabal y Espinosa (1743–1805) rose through the ranks in the Spanish navy from ensign to captain and in 1782 began to command a division of a fleet. He was named lieutenant general of the Spanish Royal Navy in 1791. When Spain ceded to France two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola under the 1795 Treaty of Basle, Aristizabal’s squadron sailed to Santo Domingo in December 1795. There, it assisted with the transfer of the population from the West Indies to Cuba, where the Spanish West Indian inhabitants were promised property.
6. The London Packet or New Lloyd’s Evening Post for 12–14 Sept. 1796 printed an item headed “LONDON,” which reads: “This morning arrived three Mails from Corunna [Spain], which had been withheld by the operation of an embargo. … Intelligence is brought by the Princess Elizabeth, that on her arrival at Corunna on the 3d inst. she found an embargo had taken place upon all English ships, and among the rest, two packets, the Dutchess of York and the Princess of Brunswick, had had their rudders taken off, but which were restored to them on the following day.” The Whitehall Evening Post (London) for 13–15 Sept. confirmed that the Spanish had laid the embargo on British ships on 25 August. The same paper reported a retaliatory measure taken by the British: “An embargo … will be … laid upon all Spanish vessels in the British ports, in consequence of that hostile measure having been previously adopted by the Spanish Government.” The Times (London) for 26 Sept. reported that, according to “A letter from Bayonne,” the Spanish Court, “independent of the embargo … on British vessels, … has also sequestrated all kinds of merchandize, and other effects of the English.”
7. Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia) for 1 Oct. 1796 published a manifesto from the Spanish Court, presented to Lord Grenville, the British foreign secretary, which listed several of Spain’s complaints against British policies and actions. The Spanish cited the 1793 siege and evacuation of Toulon, “on which occasion … the British commanders … carried off several French ships, without allowing the Spaniards any part of the prizes.” The manifesto also protested “the stoppage of several Spanish vessels; the vexatious proceedings daily exercised against them by the commanders of the squadrons of his Britannic majesty, as well in the Mediterranean, as in other seas.” For more on the tensions between Spain and Britain due to alleged British harassment of Spanish navigation, which ultimately led to Spain’s declaration of war on Britain, see , 84–90.
8. The letter to Pickering from Stephen Cathalan, Jr., the U.S. vice-consul at Marseille, France, written on 22–24 July from that port, reads: “I have the honour of advising you of the happy arival in the Island of (Pomegue)(where the vessels ariving from Levant & Barbary are obliged to lay in, to Perform their quarantine) of the Ship Fortune Saml Calder of Boston, with all the Americans on Board redeemed at algiers by Joel Barlow Esqr.” A bill of health delivered at Marseille estimated that the plague claimed thirty to forty lives per day in Algiers. The prevalence of that disease, noted Cathalan, threatened illness among the liberated American prisoners during their crossing from Algiers to France aboard the ship Fortune. As a result, officials at Marseille took measures to quarantine the passengers: “it has been determined that all the People … should be landed into the lazareto, into the Peculiar walled place destined for People ariving with Such Contumacy.” Cathalan was charged with providing for the needs of the Americans. Barring complications, officials estimated a quarantine period of sixty days. On 24 July, Cathalan concluded the letter with information regarding the 1795 U.S.-Algiers treaty and with the following remarks about the liberated American captives: “I beg you to be well Persuaded, Sir, & to assure the honourable President Genl Washington, that neither from the Side of the health office, nor from mine, nothing will be neglected nor Spared in Cares and In attentions towards our Unfortunate Americans citizens” (DNA: RG 59, Consular Despatches, Marseilles).
For the agreement under which the American captives at Algiers were ransomed, see Pickering to GW, 27 July. The ship Fortune had sailed from Algiers on 12 July with released U.S. and Neopolitan prisoners on board. Initially destined for Leghorn, the vessel sailed to Marseille because of that port’s superior quarantine facilities, and arrived there on 20 July. One liberated prisoner by the name of Joseph Rogers had died ashore from the plague on 13 July, while another, Samuel E. Bailey, died aboard the Fortune. For more on the ordeal of the released prisoners, including their stay in the lazaretto and their arrival in the United States in February 1797, see , 286–89, 303; see also The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser for 7 Feb. 1797.
9. In his 22–24 July letter, Cathalan advised Pickering about the capture of the “Schooner Eliza,” Capt. Samuel Graves “of Boston,” by a “Tunisian Privateer.” For the seizure of the Eliza, see Pickering to GW, 5 Oct., and n.4 to that document.
10. The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser for 14 Oct. 1796 printed an extract of a letter from Gardner Lillibridge to a Philadelphia merchant, dated 13 Sept. from Aux Cayes, Saint Domingue (now Les Cayes, Haiti), reporting the capture of Lillibridge’s Philadelphia-based brig Kerumhappuch: “I informed you of my being captured by the republican privateer Santhonax … on the 28th of August, since which time I have come hither, where there are now nine American captains in the same situation, who have all been taken in consequence of orders issued at this place to the privateers, by the delegation from France. … We have demanded a trial, but they have refused; neither will they let us depart, but say that we may agree with the agents of the privateers, and take the cargoes out and sell them at public sale, and lodge the money in the public treasury until a decision shall take place; to which I have refused my assent, and have sent in another petition this day, praying a speedy determination. The orders are to capture all vessels bound to and from English ports in Hispaniola.”
André Rigaud (1761–1811) was a mulatto born in Les Cayes and educated in France. Rigaud participated in the 1779 siege of Savannah. In the 1790s he became one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution. By 1797, his forces controlled Saint Domingue’s southern region. Later imprisoned in France, Rigaud eventually returned to Les Cayes, where he died.