To James Madison from Washington Peirce (Abstract), 23 April 1805
§ From Washington Peirce
23 April 1805, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “I have for a long time been confined to an arduous & perplexing business, & now am desirous to be engaged in an avocation which will be more congenial with my feelings, & therefore take the liberty to request that if there now is, or should be within three, or four months, a vacancy for a Clerk in Your Office, with a handsome compensation, that you would be pleased to give me an opportunity to fill such vacancy. Perhaps it is necessary to inform You that I kept in a Compting house till the age of Eighteen, in the year 1801, since which have been engaged in the stationary line & in the establishment of the New-Hampshire Gazette.1
“I have not as is customary forwarded recommendations, as it could not be accertained wither I should be wanted, when necessary will procure them from either Colo: Gardner (Loan Officer) Colo Whipple (Collector) or from his Excellency John Langdon Esquire.”2
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR, 1801–9, filed under “Peirce”). 1 p.
1. The Portsmouth New-Hampshire Gazette was founded in 1756 and passed through several owners before it was acquired by Nathaniel S. and Washington Peirce in 1802. By April 1805 Washington Peirce had left the paper (Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1:471–73).
2. William Gardner, former commissioner of loans for New Hampshire, who had been removed by John Adams, was reappointed to the position by Jefferson in 1802; Joseph Whipple, former collector at Portsmouth, who had also been removed by Adams, was also reappointed in 1802; John Langdon had recently been elected governor of New Hampshire ( 1:283, 403, 405; Stanley Griswold to JM, 4 Apr. 1805).