George Washington Papers

From George Washington to Joseph Barrell, 8 June 1788

To Joseph Barrell

Mount Vernon June 8th 1788.

General Washington, having lately received with great satisfaction the medal which the Owners of the adventure to the Pacific Ocean have been pleased to transmit to him, begs leave to return his best acknowledgments to those Gentlemen for the very acceptable Compliment, and to assure them that his hearty wishes for success attend their enterprise, he hopes and even flatters himself that the day will arrive (at no very distant period) when the sources of commerce shall be enlarged and replenished; and when the new Constellation of this Hemisphere shall be hailed and respected in every quarter of the terraqueous globe!1

LB, DLC:GW.

Joseph Barrell (1739–1804), one of the merchants whose economic position in Boston was greatly enhanced during the Revolution by his privateering activities and the removal of Loyalist competitors, was one of the partners in the joint-stock plan founded in Boston in 1787 to establish a China-northwest coast trade. See Barrell to GW, 20 Mar. 1790, and notes.

1Copyist Howell Lewis wrote “globle.”

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