1. Pinckney, the former U.S. minister to Great Britain, sent GW the third volume of Scottish agriculturalist James Anderson’s Essays Relating to Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Edinburgh, 1796). Anderson had asked Pinckney to transmit the work to GW (see Anderson [of Scotland] to GW, 30 May 1796). In early April, GW acknowledged receipt of the book, which had been sent “through the Channel of our Minister in London” (see GW to Anderson [of Scotland], 7 April 1797, and n.1, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 1:79–82).

After departing Cowes, England, in mid-October 1796, Pinckney arrived at Charleston on 17 December. The City (Gazette and Daily Advertiser (Charleston) for 19 Dec. 1796 printed a report of the same date, which announced that on Saturday, 17 Dec., “the ship Winyaw … arrived in this port from London, last from Cowes, which she left on the 17th of October. In this ship came passengers, Major Pinckney, our late Minister Plenipotentiary at the court of Great-Britain, and his family.” The same newspaper for 18 Nov. 1796 reported that the Winyaw had left London approximately forty-two days earlier and stopped at Cowes “to take Major Pinckney and his family on board.”

2. Pinckney enclosed his letter to GW written from Charleston on 10 Jan.: “My absence from America at the time when the United Voice of our fellow citizens testified their gratitude for your past services, & their regret that they were about to be deprived of a Chief Magistrate so deservedly the object of their approbation & affection will I hope apologize for intruding my individual assent to these sentiments, and permit me without impropriety to indulge myself in the expression of that veneration for your public character & attachment to your personal merits with which I am sincerely impressed.

“That you may long enjoy the gratification which must result to you from an impartial retrospect is [my] fervent wish” (ALS, DLC:GW). Pinckney marked the letter “Private.” Following the publication of GW’s Farewell Address of 19 Sept. 1796, state legislatures, localities, individuals, and newspapers had produced articles, addresses, and resolutions expressing sentiments such as those given by the Federal Gazette & Baltimore Daily Advertiser for 26 Sept. 1796: “We are persuaded there is nothing we can say, that will fully express the estimation in which his [GW’s] illustrious and important services are held by the citizens … or … their regret at being deprived of the continuance of his paternal watchfulness and care” (see also Reactions to the Farewell Address, 30 Sept. 1796–27 Jan. 1797). For Congress’s expressions of regret over GW’s announced retirement, see U.S. Senate to GW, 12 Dec. 1796; and U.S. House of Representatives to GW, 16 Dec. 1796.

3. GW replied to Pinckney’s 10 Jan. and 12 Feb. letters on 28 May 1797. GW attributed his delayed response to his preoccupation with public and personal affairs at the end of his presidency (see Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 1: 157–58).