Enclosure: Petition of Adam Gantz, with Jefferson’s Order, 12 April 1805
Enclosure: Petition of Adam Gantz,
with Jefferson’s Order
To the Honerable Albert Gallatin Secrety.
of the Treasury of the United States
Adam Gantz of the City of Baltimore respectfully shewes to your Honor that being encouraged by the Honorable Judge Winchester from intimations of relief given to him by his Excellency the President, your Petitioner is encouraged to beg your attention to this his petition and to the enclosures submited with it, The distress and actual suffering of a wife and several helpless Children who are dependant upon your Petitioners personal Exertions for the necessaries of Life are the real Excuses offered by your Petitioner for the pressing solicitude with which he entreats the interference of your Honor, your Petitioners case was lately submited to his Excellency the President with a hope that he could, and if so your Petitioner did not doubt, but that he would grant your Petitioner relief—He was pleased to intimate as your Petitioner is informed that application ought to be made to the Treasury Department but that, altho’, your petitioner should be entirely unable to pay yet it might not be proper to interfere to relieve him, from all punishment, and your Petitioner having been for some time locked up in Jail where he must at mercy remain, unless by the Clemency of your Honor directed to be Liberated it is therefore most respectfully and earnestly prayed that your Honor will be pleased so to order
Adm Gantz
12 Apl. 1805
I hereby certify that Adam Gantz of the City of Baltimore hath been for thirty days past and now is confined in the prison of Baltimore County upon a writ of capias ad satisfaciendum at the suit of the United States—.
Tho: Rutter
Marshal of Maryld District
10 April 1805
To the Honoble: James Winchester
Maryland district. April 11. 1805.
I do hereby certify, that in my opinion Adam Gantz has been sufficiently punished by the term of imprisonment he has suffered for the offence of which he was convicted, provided he indemnify the United States from Costs of conviction and imprisonment.
J Winchester
Judge Maryd. dist
[Order by TJ:]
Apr. 20. 05.
Let a pardon issue
Th: Jefferson
MS (DNA: RG 59, GPR); petition in a clerk’s hand, signed by Gantz; Thomas Rutter’s and James Winchester’s certifications in their hands, on a separate sheet, with order added by TJ at foot. Certifications enclosed in Winchester to Gallatin, Baltimore, 11 Apr. (RC in same).
intimations of relief: Winchester’s 11 Apr. letter to Gallatin, now mutilated, stated that “In conversation with the President of the [United States], on the subject of a petition of Adam [. . .] my statement of facts, he stated to [. . .] the prayer of the petition could not be [. . .] but that under all circumstances the [. . .] should [be] reduced as far as was [consistent] with justice to the public, and the [. . .] of Gantz—and desired me to certify [. . .] opinion of the extent of punishment which the offence of Gantz required.”
In a letter to Jacob Wagner, 22 Apr., Edward Jones wrote that “Mr. Gallatin to whom the petition in question was referred by the President, is inclined to think that Gantz had been concerned in landing of goods without a permit from the Custom House, but as his recollections on that point [. . .] too imperfect to be relied on,” he advised inquiring of William MacCreery for more information (RC in same; torn).
TJ pardoned Gantz on 1 May and remitted his $400 fine “so far as the United States are interested in the same” (FC in Lb in same).