To Alexander Hamilton from John Guillemard, 22 February 1803
From John Guillemard1
Gower Street. [London] 22 feb. 1803.
Sir
I take the liberty of introducing to your acquaintance and recommending to your attentions the Earl of Selkirk2 a young Nobleman whose merits you will soon be able to appreciate and respect. I shall be excused for my motive’s sake, which is not only to render him Service but to assure you that neither time nor distance have diminished the high sense I entertain of the attentions with which you sometimes honoured me during my residence in the United States. I have the honour to be Sir your obliged and obedt. humble servant.
J. Guillemard.
Gen. A. Hamilton &c &c
ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. Guillemard, a member of a family of Huguenot silk merchants who had settled in England, was born in England on August 31, 1764, and was graduated from St. John’s College, Oxford, in 1786. On May 25, 1797, while in Philadelphia, he was chosen as the fifth commissioner to settle pre-Revolutionary War debts under Article 6 of the Jay Treaty (John Bassett Moore, ed., International Adjudications: Ancient and Modern, History and Documents, Together with Mediatorial Reports, Advisory Opinions, and the Decisions of Domestic Commissions, on International Claims [New York, 1929–1936], III, 18, 22). See Oliver Wolcott, Jr., to H, August 9, 1798, note 3.
2. Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, Baron Daer and Shortcleuch, was a student at Edinburgh University between 1768 and 1790. While on a tour of the Scottish Highlands in 1792 he became interested in the plight of Scottish peasants who were being forced off the land as a result of the growth of sheep raising. In 1802 Selkirk obtained a large grant of crown lands on Prince Edward Island to provide a settlement for Scottish emigrants. He arrived on the island in August, 1803, and in September began a tour of the United States and Canada.