George Washington Papers
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From George Washington to the United States Senate, 3 May 1792

To the United States Senate

United States [Philadelphia]
May the 3d 1792.

Gentlemen of the Senate,

I nominate Edward Church of Georgia,1 heretofore appointed but not received as Consul for the United States at Bilboa, to be Consul for the United States at the Port of Lisbon in the Kingdom of Portugal, and for such other parts within the allegiance of her most Faithful Majesty as shall be nearer to the said port, than to the residence of any other Consul, or Vice-Consul of the United States within the same allegiance.2

And, Elias Vanderhorst of South Carolina, now resident in Great Britain, to be Consul for the United States for the port of Bristol in the Kingdom of Great Britain, and for such other parts within the allegiance of his Britannic Majesty as shall be nearer to the said Port than to the residence of any other Consul or Vice-Consul of the United States within the same allegiance.3

Go: Washington

DS, DNA: RG 46, Second Congress, 1791–1793, Records of Executive Proceedings, President’s Messages—Executive Nominations; Df (letterpress copy), in Thomas Jefferson’s hand, DLC: Jefferson Papers. The draft in the Jefferson Papers is dated 24 Dec. 1791.

1At this place in the draft, Jefferson identifies Edward Church as being “of Massachusets.” Church, who had been born in the Azores, lived in Massachusetts from the late 1750s to the late 1780s. By 1789, however, he had moved to Georgia.

2On 5 May, Tobias Lear wrote Jefferson that the Senate had that day concurred with Church’s nomination (DNA: RG 59, George Washington’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State; see also Executive Journal, description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America: From the commencement of the First, to the termination of the Nineteenth Congress. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C., 1828. description ends 1:122). Church served as U.S. consul to Portugal until June 1797 (ibid., 248).

3Lear wrote Jefferson on 4 May that the Senate had that day concurred with Vanderhorst’s nomination (DNA: RG 59, George Washington’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State; see also ibid., 121–22). Elias Vanderhorst (b. 1735) was a South Carolina merchant who had immigrated to England in 1772. For the background to his appointment, see Memorandum of Thomas Jefferson, 22 Dec. 1791.

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