Memorandum from Thomas Jefferson, 11 July 1793
Memorandum from Thomas Jefferson
[Philadelphia, c.11 July 1793]
to be read at the President’s leisure.
Governr H. Lee’s letter. June 28. concerning supposed pestilential disease in W. I.1
The Suckey. Th: J’s letter June 26. to mister Hammond.2
| Th: J. | to mister | Hammond. | June 25. | on insinuation concerning Western posts. |
| do | to | do | do | developemt of order about privateers arming.3 |
Philips’s letter June 7. cannot be received as Consul at Curaçoa.4
Chiappe’s letter Mar. 20. Th: J will read it to the President. Simpson’s do Apr. 30.5
Th: J.s letter to the President. on mister Young’s queries.6
AD, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters. GW reviewed this undated memorandum and the attached papers on 11 July (, 191). Tobias Lear returned the enclosed letters to Jefferson on 15 July, except Jefferson’s letter to GW (see note 6).
1. For the news that “a kind of plague prevails in the Windward Islands of the West Indies,” see Thomas Newton, Jr.’s letter to Henry Lee of 16 June 1793 (DLC: Jefferson Papers), which was enclosed in Lee to Jefferson, 28 June, , 26:391–92.
2. Jefferson’s letter to George Hammond of 26 June requested the diplomat’s assistance with the recovery of the American snow Suckey, which had been captured by the British privateer Maria (ibid., 375–77).
3. Jefferson’s first letter to Hammond of 25 June responded to Hammond’s protest of 20 June about a passage in Jefferson’s letter of 19 June concerning British retention of military posts on American soil. Jefferson’s second letter of 25 June reiterated the U.S. position on the arming of privateers in U.S. ports (ibid., 361–63).
4. In his letter to Jefferson of 7 June, Benjamin H. Phillips wrote that he needed the American minister at The Hague to apply for permission for him to serve as a consul at Curaçao. He also reported on the capture by a Dutch privateer of a Baltimore schooner, Robert Ross, master (ibid., 221–22).
5. See note 1 of James Simpson’s letter to GW of 30 April 1793 for Francisco Chiappe’s letter to GW of 20 Mar. 1793.
6. For Jefferson’s answers to questions posed by British agriculturist Arthur Young, see Jefferson to GW, 28 June 1793.