To George Washington from John Brown Cutting, 25 July 1789
From John Brown Cutting
Bordeaux [France] 25 July 1789
Sir,
I have the honor to transmit you some papers containing details of a revolution in the government of France which if they shou’d reach New York before the official account of this great transaction by Mr Jefferson may probably afford you some satisfaction.1 With the highest respect & purest esteem I have the honor to be your fellow citizen and most obedt sert
John Brown Cutting
ALS, DNA:PCC, item 78.
John Brown Cutting served during the Revolution as an apothecary in the Hospital Department, 1777–79, service that probably accounts for the title of “doctor” that he frequently used in later years. By the mid–1780s Cutting was studying law in London, and in May-June 1787 he accompanied John Adams to Amsterdam as a temporary secretary (S.C. Magazine of History and Biography, 10:97, 99–101). He returned to Europe later in the year, living briefly in Paris and Bordeaux while he worked on the settlement of outstanding Revolutionary War accounts, and by 1790 had become involved in the plight of American seamen impressed by the British navy ( 18:276, 313; 19:517–18). Between 1794 and 1798 Cutting spent considerable time in Charleston but probably at some point moved to Virginia. Highly regarded by some Americans in Europe—William Stephens Smith considered him a “Gentleman of genius and merit”—his correspondence, particularly with William Short and John Rutledge, Jr., indicates that he also was a master gossip. Gouverneur Morris indicated after one encounter that Cutting had, as usual, “a World of News” ( 18:313–14; 1:557; NcU: Rutledge Papers; DLC: Short Papers, 1789–90, passim).
3:202). In 1788 and early 1789 Cutting appeared in Charleston, S.C., as an agent for the prince of Luxembourg to settle the prince’s claims against South Carolina (1. Cutting’s enclosures have not been identified.