1Patrick Gibson to Thomas Jefferson, 15 August 1821 (Jefferson Papers)
If in the request I am about to make, there is the smallest impropriety, I trust in your goodness to excuse it—I am extremely desirous of procuring for one of my boys a midshipman’s warrant, and should feel myself much indebted to you if you would afford me your influence in obtaining it—the lad is in his fourteenth year, very active and robust, and anxious to go to sea—and altho in time of...