To Thomas Jefferson from Gideon Granger, 4 February 1804
From Gideon Granger
Feb: 4. 1804
G Granger presents his Complimts to the President & returns the Letter from Mr. Ellery to Mr. Madison. he has permitted the Senators from R.I. to read the same. They1 appear to think the old Gentleman has coloured well.
G Granger incloses a Letter he recd. from New York last mail from a very respectable Merchant in that City.
Isaac Kibbe Esq. who is spoken of in the Letter was some 12 or 14 years Since a Citizen in the County of Hartford in Connecticut from which place he removed to New York where by intensive commercial pursuits, he has, as I have ever understood, acquired a fortune & pretty much retired from business 2 or three Years since. He is a middle aged Man, of a very ready and active Mind of fair character and I believe exceeded by but few if any in Knowledge of Accts. & of commercial Affairs, particularly with the Spaniards—
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); endorsed by TJ as received 4 Feb. and “Kibbe Isaac to be Commr. to Spain” and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) William Ellery to Madison, Collector’s Office, Newport, 19 Jan. 1804, expressing concern that efforts are afoot to remove him from office; he contends, “my official conduct has been faithful in every respect, and for the truth of this I dare appeal with confidence to the Treasury Department”; his political principles are the same as those he “avowed at a time which tried mens souls” and when he signed the Declaration of Independence; he never was “a partizan” and his old age disposes him “to rest and peace”; during his first years as collector of customs, his net income “was not equal to the salary of a boatman, and that to subsist my family I was obliged to sell that part of my real estate which the British had not destroyed during the revolutionary war”; at 76 years of age, he has not the resources to start a new business; with great economy, his office now affords a bare maintenance for his family; Ellery appeals to Madison to lay his letter before the president, acknowledging that “I cannot think so lightly of his humanity as to conceive it possible that he should remove me from office” (RC in DLC: Madison Papers, endorsed by TJ: “Ellery Wm. to mr Madison”; , Sec. of State Ser., 6:367-8). (2) William Kibbe to Granger, New York, 30 Jan. 1804; presuming “some respectable Republican Mercantile Gentlemen will be appointed” to the commission to implement the Convention with Spain, he recommends his brother Isaac Kibbe; his brother was “at the first origins of modern Federalism, a Republican” and continues “uniformly the same”; he is “as able a Negotiator & well informed Merchant” as any in New York City and “is as well informed in the Commerce between this Country & Spain and Europe in general as perhaps any Man in the Country”; Kibbe also notes that it will be “important to the Harmony, Stability and Security of Goverment” to appoint commissioners from New England and that no Republican “Mercantile Character can be found, whose appointment will have so favourable an impression” and “so much Influence” with the Connecticut River settlements (RC in DNA: RG 59, LAR).
William ellery, customs collector at Newport, Rhode Island, remained in office until his death in 1820 (, Sec. of State Ser., 6:368n). senators from r.i.: Christopher Ellery and Samuel J. Potter ().
In 1790, isaac kibbe represented Enfield, Connecticut, in the state’s general assembly. By 1794, he had relocated to New York City (Hartford Connecticut Courant, 17 May 1790, 24 Mch. 1794). Samuel Osgood, naval officer of the port of New York, also recommended Kibbe (Osgood to TJ, 22 Feb., recorded in SJL as received from New York on 1 Mch. with notation “Kibbe Isaac. Commr. to Spain,” but not found; Vol. 40:257n).
1. MS: “The.”