To George Washington from William Loughton Smith, 17 July 1790
From William Loughton Smith
New York, 17 July 1790. Recommends Peter Bounetheau and Daniel Stevens1 as loan commissioner for South Carolina under the funding bill;2 Edward Trenot, Col. John Mitchell, Daniel Stevens, and Peter Bounetheau as revenue inspectors should the excise bill pass;3 and captains William Hall4 and Jacob Milligan5 as commanders of revenue cutters.6
AL, DLC:GW.
1. Daniel Stevens (1746–1835), a Charleston, S.C., merchant and planter, was an officer in the city’s artillery during the Revolution and was imprisoned by the British when Charleston fell in 1780. Later exchanged, he saw action at Guilford Courthouse and Eutaw Springs. Stevens served in the state house of representatives in the 1780s and in the state senate in 1791. He voted for the federal Constitution as a delegate to South Carolina’s ratifying convention in 1788 and also sat on the state constitutional convention of 1790. GW named Stevens as supervisor of distilled spirits for the district of South Carolina on 4 Mar. 1791, which office Stevens held until it was abolished in 1801, and on 1 Nov. 1791 GW also appointed him supervisor and inspector of South Carolina’s excise district no. 1 (GW to the U.S. Senate, 6 Aug. 1790, second letter; 3:1546–47; 2:127, 128, 129, 130, 545; 1:87–88),
3. For the excise bill, see Samuel Bard to GW, 26 Aug. 1790, n.1.
4. William Hall (1759–1814) served as a lieutenant on the South Carolina brig Notre Dame in 1777 and was later promoted to captain. At the end of September 1790, Alexander Hamilton sent Hall’s name to the president as the most likely candidate for the South Carolina revenue cutter, noting that Smith recommended him on information and not personal knowledge. Hamilton informed Hall of GW’s approval of his appointment before 28 Oct. 1790 (see Hamilton to GW, 29 Sept. 1790, n.3, GW to Hamilton, 6 and 28 Oct. 1790; 134; 2:1280).
5. Jacob Milligan (Mulligan) was an officer of South Carolina marines who, with his men in June 1776, boarded a burning British vessel abandoned by its crew during an attack on Charleston, fired its guns at the retreating enemy, and made off with its anchor, colors, sails, and stores before it exploded. The privateer he later commanded was captured off the coast of Georgia in 1788. He was exchanged but captured again by the British while commanding the Savannah River galley Lee. Milligan did not receive command of a revenue cutter but did later obtain the post of harbormaster at Charleston and also was made assistant to South Carolina federal marshal Isaac Huger in 1793 (Milligan to GW, 27 Oct. 1789, source note, and 8 Aug. 1791, DLC:GW; 215).
6. For the establishment of the Revenue Cutter Service by Congress on 4 Aug. 1790, see Hamilton to GW, 10 Sept. 1790, source note and note 1.