To James Madison from Henry Hill Jr., 7 July 1806 (Abstract)
From Henry Hill Jr., 7 July 1806 (Abstract)
§ From Henry Hill Jr. 7 July 1806, New York. “I had the honor of addressing you a letter from Halifax the 10th may last, wherein I informed you of my capture and detention by the British Ship Leander, Whitby commander, and that I should collect and transmit to your department some proofs ⟨of⟩ his recent conduct.1 These I have now the honor to accompany with this letter.2
“I likewise stated the reason my returns had not been forwarded, which I transmit by this days mail [not found]. I expected to have had the honor of delivering these myself; but being necessarily delayd here by my private affairs, I am deprived of the sattisfaction I should have felt in complying with that part of my duty—particularly as I am totally in the dark, in what light the president may have viewed some parts of my official conduct, which may have been considered intemperate, and requires perhaps some explanations more than appears from any of my letters, or the docum⟨ts⟩ I have forwarded.3
“Such explanations can only be rendered personally; and if any unfavorable impressions are formed as respects any part of my conduct, I trust I shall be able fully to sattisfy the president and do them away for whilst I feel that I have executed my trust with integrity, and been actuated by the purest motives, I am convinced that no premature conclusions will take place to militate against me.
“My uniform object has been to serve my country and fellow citizens to the extent of my power and abilities in the situation in which the president was pleased to place me, and to give to the government the information respecting the Island of Cuba and our trade with it I conceived interesting and important for them to know; in which respect I flatter myself I shall acquit myself to their sattisfaction, on presenting a map of that Island, and a communication formed from documents in my possession, which I shall have the honor of delivering into your hands so soon as the convenience of my affairs will permit my being at Washington, which will not exceed a month. But, if my appearance there should be required sooner, I shall obey your summons.
“I am informed that several applications have been made for the consulate of Havana, on the supposition that I had resigned, or that my conduct had become disagreeable to the president. Also, that intrigues have been on foot to undermine me. Without endeavoring to dissipate these at present, I beg leave to say that my wish is to hold the office, and to obtain permission to be out of the consulate for a few months—but, should this be objected to, and the former permitted, I should return to Havana without delay. And should the president deem it necessary to supercede me, still I shall venerate his character, and approve of the principles which govern the general administration of my country, and should endeavor to believe I have deserved so severe a censure.”
RC and enclosures (DNA: RG 59, CD, Havana, vol. 1). RC 4 pp.; docketed by Wagner. For enclosures, see n. 2.
1. 11:553. Hill arrived at New York from Halifax on 4 July 1806, in the British packet Windsor Castle (New-York Gazette & General Advertiser, 7 July 1806).
2. The enclosures were 1) a copy of Hill to Capt. Henry Whitby, 12 May 1806 (1 p.), threatening, unless Whitby apologized in writing, to give local publicity to the “insult and indignity” Whitby had perpetrated upon Hill in his “public character” and upon Capt. Hamlet Fairchild in detaining the Aurora, and declaring that Hill intended to inform the U.S. government of those actions in any case; 2) a copy of Whitby’s reply of the same date (1 p.), stating that “the decree of the Vice Admiralty court alone, can alter the opinion first formed of the Ship Aurora, and all that relates to her,” and that it was beneath him to “enter into an unnecessary correspondence with a person who cannot claim any official capacity, whilst trading in a merchant Ship, from one of the ports in enmity with Great Britain”; 3) a copy of a 15 May 1806 deposition sworn at Halifax by Thomas Henry Maddox, “late mate of the Brig Troy” (2 pp.), which stated that Maddox had been held aboard Whitby’s ship Leander after it had captured the Troy; that James Wilson, who Whitby had impressed from the Troy, had served in the U.S. Navy for two years, and his family had resided in New York for the last four years; that Maddox had also observed the impressments from the ship Jane and Maria of John Marshall, with whom Maddox had grown up in Maryland, and a man whose name Maddox did not know; that both men gave their protections to Whitby, who tore them up; and that Maddox kept some of the pieces, which he gave to Hill; 4) a 16 May 1806 certification by Halifax notary public James Stewart (1 p.) of the accuracy of the copy and validity of Maddox’s original deposition; 5) a 10 June 1806 deposition by Thomas Pemberton, master of the brig Mars (4 pp.), which stated that on 22 Apr. 1806 the Mars was captured by the Leander, and Pemberton detained aboard the British ship until 9 May, when it arrived in Halifax; that on 25 Apr. 1806 he had observed the captures of the schooner Nimrod and the Aurora, both of which were “not more than two miles” from Sandy Hook, as were several other ships at which the Leander fired “a great number of shot … in a wanton manner,” killing John Pierce aboard the Richard; that Whitby thereupon threatened New York until 29 Apr., when his officers who had been held in the city were returned; that he then impressed two seamen from the ship Hardware and tore up their protections, and used unwarranted force to stop the ship Projector, from which he impressed a seaman and a sixty-year-old carpenter who begged, in vain, to be allowed to return to his family in New York; and that throughout Pemberton’s captivity, Whitby treated him “in the most abusive, ungentlemanly and unofficer-like manner,” and did the same to “every American who fell into his power”; and 6) a copy of Hill to commander at Halifax Capt. John Poo Beresford, 23 June 1806 (3 pp.), enclosing copies of the above documents along with a copy of a “protest” from Fairchild and Hill, noting that the vice-admiralty court had found that Hill was simply moving his own property to the United States rather than “trading in a merchant ship” as Whitby suspected, and that Hill had considered it beneath his dignity to continue corresponding with Whitby.
3. For Hill’s summary of his quarrels with the marqués de Someruelos, captain general of Cuba, see his 30 Aug. 1805 letter to JM, 10:258–63 and nn.