From George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 11 December 1790
To Thomas Jefferson
Decr 11th 1790
Sir,
Herewith you will receive the Powers & Instructions with which Gouvr Morris Esqr. is invested and his communications consequent thereof.1 You will give them the consideration their importance merit, and refer your opinion of the measures proper to be taken thereupon.2
The following extract from one of my private letters to Mr Morris contains all the notice I have yet taken of his public communications. I give it that you may have the whole matter before you.3
Go: Washington
ALS, DLC: Thomas Jefferson Papers.
1. GW enclosed copies of his letters to Morris of 13 Oct. 1789 (first and second) and Morris’s to GW of 22 Jan. (first and second), 7 and 13 April, 1 and 29 May, 3 July, 16 Aug., and 18 Sept. 1790.
2. For Jefferson’s report, see Jefferson to GW, 15 Dec. 1790. For GW’s decision to lay the record of the Morris mission before Congress, see GW to Jefferson, 9 Feb. 1791.
3. At this point GW appended the first two paragraphs of his letter to Morris of 7 July 1790, which acknowledged receipt of Morris’s letters of 7 and 13 April and 1 and 2 May, all dealing with public business, as well as Morris’s letters of 12 April and 3 May involving GW’s private affairs. In the 7 July 1790 letter GW expressed his intention to “wait the answer which your address of the 30th of April will extort from the Duke of Leeds (of he does not mean to be silent)” before writing to Morris more fully on his mission.