From George Washington to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, 15 April 1794
To the United States Senate and House of Representatives
United States 15 April 1794.
Gentlemen of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives.
I lay before you a Letter from the Minister plenipotentiary of his britannic majesty to the Secretary of State;1 a Letter from the Secretary of the territory South of the river Ohio, enclosing an ordinance and proclamation of the Governor thereof;2 the translation of so much of a petition of the Inhabitants of Post Vincennes, addressed to the President, as relates to Congress;3 and certain dispatches lately received from our Commissioners at Madrid. These dispatches from Madrid being a part of a business, which has been hitherto deemed confidential, they are forwarded under that view.4
Go: Washington
LS, DNA: RG 46, Third Congress, 1793–95, Senate Records of Legislative Proceedings, President’s Messages; LB, DNA: RG 233, Third Congress, 1793–95, House Records of Legislative Proceedings, Journals; LB, DLC:GW.
1. For the letter from George Hammond to Edmund Randolph of 11 April, defending the British right “to detain, and even seize” provisions transported on American ships bound for France, see , 1:432–33.
2. Gov. William Blount’s ordinance of 19 Oct. 1793 provided for the election of representatives to the first general assembly of the Southwest Territory. The proclamation of 1 Jan. 1794 announced that the newly elected assembly would convene at Knoxville on 24 February. For both documents and the cover letter from Daniel Smith to Randolph of 1 March, see , 4:309, 319, 330.
3. For the enclosed petition, see Post Vincennes citizens to GW, 20 Nov. 1793.
4. The enclosed dispatches from Madrid, reporting on the state of U.S. negotiations with Spain, were from William Carmichael and William Short to the secretary of state, 7 Dec. 1793, and from Short to the secretary of state, 9, 17, and 21 Jan. 1794. For these letters and their enclosures, see , 1:438–46. On Randolph’s receipt of these letters, see his letter to GW of 3 April.