From George Washington to the U.S. Senate, 27 February 1797
To the United States Senate
United States
February 27th 1797.
Gentlemen of the Senate,
I nominate William Vans Murray of Maryland to be Minister Resident of the United States of America to the United Netherlands.1
Allan McLean of Delaware, to be Collector for the District of Delaware and Inspector of the Revenue for the Port of Wilmington.2
John Gibbons of Georgia, to be Surveyor for the Port of Savannah and Inspector of the Revenue for the same.3
Go: Washington
LS, DNA: RG 46, entry 52; LB, DLC:GW.
The Senate read GW’s message on 27 Feb., and ordered it to “lie for consideration.” On 1 March, the Senate approved Allen McLane’s appointment but rejected John Gibbons’s nomination. It authorized Vans Murray’s nomination on 2 March (, 228).
1. On 2 March, GW and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering signed a letter of credence to the Batavian Republic’s National Assembly, which had convened on 1 March 1796 and consisted of 127 deputies. The letter of credence, written at Philadelphia, reads: “To maintain the friendship and harmony so happily subsisting between our Republics, I have appointed William Vans Murray, one of our distinguished citizens to be Minister Resident of the United States of America, near you. From my confidence in virtues and talents I assure myself that he will embrace every occasion to fulfil those very interesting objects of his mission. I beseech you, therefore, to give entire credence to whatever he shall say to you on the part of the United States; and particularly when he shall represent to you the sincerity of our friendship, and our wishes for your prosperity and I pray God to have you, Great and good friends, in his holy keeping” (LB, DNA: RG 59, entry 33, Credences). A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland, Vans Murray resigned from Congress on 3 March 1797, sailed for Amsterdam on 9 April aboard “the ship Good Friends,” and arrived in the Netherlands on 7 June (Gazette of the United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser, 11 April 1797). Vans Murray and his secretary, Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., reached Amsterdam on 9 June. On 20 June, Vans Murray presented his credentials to the Batavian National Assembly, thereby replacing John Quincy Adams as U.S. minister to the Netherlands. He served in that post until 1801 (see MHi: John Quincy Adams’s Diary; see also GW to Maria I of Portugal, 17 Feb., and n.1; and Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., to GW, 18 June 1797, in 1:195–96).
2. In a letter of this date, GW advised McLane of his appointment as customs collector for the District of Delaware.
3. GW’s unsuccessful nomination of Gibbons led President John Adams to appoint Edward White as surveyor and inspector at Savannah in June 1797 (see , 245–46; see also GW to the U.S. Senate, 21 Dec., and n.12).
John Gibbons served as vendue master for Savannah and auditor of accounts for Georgia during the Revolutionary War. A merchant and planter, Gibbons represented Chatham County, Ga., in the state legislature in the early 1780s. In the 1790s, he was treasurer of Georgia and of Savannah.