To Thomas Jefferson from Samuel Bennett, 29 December 1804
From Samuel Bennett
New-York Decr. 29th. 1804—
Sir—
I venture to write to you in hopes it may find faviour in your sight—I am truly under the Necessity of Making a friend, and I apply to your Honour the first—I shall in the first Place give you an account of my self—I was Born in the State of Rodiland, in the Town of Providence; and am an On ly son—My Father is Dead; My Mother is Yet alive, and Lives with Me—I am a Widower left with three small Children, my Youngest is not two Years old and, My age is thirty four on the 4th. Instant. I have bin a Grocery Merchant for about ten Years—and two Years Ago I faild by bad Luck, and on the 10th. Day of April last I was Discharg’d by our ¾ Act—and sence that, I have strove every way that I could to git in good Business again, but cannot. I am still at the foot of the Hill, as to giting a living—and on Reading several good Books, I find nothing is Impossible. I venture to to, ask your aid and Assistance—I must confess that this is a Bold push, and that I have no wright to call on You in this way, for which I ask your Pardon—But Still I know that grait things is in Your Power—I venture to ask little ones, and I was always of that opinion that if any one wanted faviours to ask them of whom was Able to give—Therefore I now Venture to say my wants—
As their is Many Lucrative Offices in this State, and many other, Plaices; I wish one of them so that I may live—by My Pen, and Industry; or Otherwish I wish a small Loan of money from Your Honour at a Reasonable time to be paid with Interest, so that I may again Recommence My Old Business in the Grocery line; and pray that one of these two faviours may be granted by you—I have wrote this to you, without the Knowledge of any one—therefore their is no Recommend with it—therefore have only to add that my Heart is Honest, and fair, and pray Your Answer Directed to me at No 44 Church Street—and Oblige Your Real friend and Humble Srvt.
Samuel Bennett
Dear Presedent—
On Reading My broken Peace of complaint I find it cols’d with saying my Heart is Honest and fair which you have only my word for it—
And I wishing to suckseed with you as it is of so Grait Importance to me—I venture to add this half sheet which I trust you will not think I’ll tim’d—I cannot say any thing in this way I well know but what you are sensible of—but pray you to let this Bair wait on your tender feelings and Remember that when we leave this world we carry but little with us—and it is uncertain when we are to go—I again add that I am Honest and Poor—and Pray to my President for his Assistance to Office or a small Loan of His Riches—and in Either of those Cases I here Promiss to be faithfull and Honest forever—
RC (MHi); at head of text: “Thomas Jefferson Esqre. Presedent of the United States—”; endorsed by TJ as received 3 Jan. 1805 and so recorded in SJL.
Before his insolvency, Samuel Bennett (1770-1859) operated a grocery and then an accounting business on 28 Front Street, the same address where Polly Bennett died of yellow fever during the city’s 1803 epidemic. In 1805, the city directory listed him as a laborer. He died of “old age,” a widowed farmer in Boston, New York (New-York Gazette & General Advertiser, 10 Nov. 1803; New York Daily Advertiser, 18 Feb. 1804; Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City-Directory, for the Twenty-Sixth Year of American Independence [New York, 1801], 117; Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City-Directory, for the Twenty-Eighth Year of American Independence [New York, 1803], 88; Jones’s New-York Mercantile and General Directory for the 30th Year of American Independence and of Our Lord, 1805-6 [New York, 1805], 137; U.S. Census Mortality Schedules, 1860, Erie County, N.Y.).
The three-fourths Act was the common name of New York’s law for the relief of insolvent debtors, so called because under the original 1788 legislation, relief from debt could be sought only upon the petition of three-fourths of an insolvent’s creditors. In 1801, the law was amended so that debtors could petition on their own behalf (William S. Keiley, The Law and Practice of Insolvent Assignments in the State of New York, with Forms and Rules, 3d ed. [New York, 1879], 239).