Notes on Henry Aborn and Thomas Aborn, [after 10 April 1805]
Notes on Henry Aborn and Thomas Aborn
[after 10 Apr. 1805]
Aborn Henry. to be Consul. Martinique
Aborn Thomas was one of the Midnight appmts as Coml. Agent to Cayenne. he is of R.I. no comn. ever went. Henry Aborn must have assumed the deputn witht authority.
MS (DNA: RG 59, LAR); in TJ’s hand, undated; written as an endorsement to Tr of Robert Allyn and others to Henry Aborn, Saint-Pierre, Martinique, 8 Feb. 1805 (see below).
In their letter of 8 Feb., Robert Allyn and 16 shipmasters and American merchants urged Henry Aborn, who had previously functioned as deputy vice commercial agent at Cayenne in French Guiana, to seek the position as commercial agent at Saint-Pierre on Martinique. From Providence, Rhode Island, on 10 Apr., Benjamin West sent Gideon Granger the copy of their letter on which TJ made the notes printed above. Identifying Aborn as his pupil, West requested Granger to inquire with the State Department if TJ had already appointed someone to the post in Martinique (RC in same).
John Adams named Thomas Aborn as commercial agent at Cayenne on 24 Feb. 1801. TJ reappointed him in June 1801 and January 1802, but when Aborn arrived in Cayenne in February 1802, Governor Victor Hugues refused to recognize him as an official agent of the United States and Aborn, who was in poor health, returned to the United States (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 2:56; 3:347; Vol. 33:172; Vol. 34:146-7, 266; Vol. 36:332).