To George Washington from Oliver Wolcott, Jr., 3 August 1796
From Oliver Wolcott, Jr.
Philadelphia Augt 3. 1796
Sir
I have recd your favour of July 29th—the one refered to in answer of mine dated the 11th never came to hand: to what cause the accident is to be attributed I cannot conjecture.1
We have no news more than appears in the papers; our Country was never more tranquil than at present: so far as I know the public business is in a good train, except that the Treasury is in want of Loans. I shall be able to prevent injury to the public credit, but the building of Frigates, will proceed more slowly than I could wish, & some arrears in the War Department will accumulate.
There will be a meeting of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund to consider whether circumstances do not require Sales of the Bank Stock held by the United States.2 nothing will be done without the most mature consideration, in which I shall be assisted by the advice & opinion of the Chief Justice & Attorney General.3
I take the liberty to enclose a Copy of an Oration delivered by Mr Smith at Charleston which I understand was well received by a numerous audience of all descriptions of people.4 This I consider as a proof that the prejudices which lately existed in that City have greatly moderated.5 I have the honour to be with perfect respect Sir, your most obedt servt
Oliver Wolcott Jr
ALS, DLC:GW; copy, CtHi: Oliver Wolcott, Jr., Papers. GW replied to Wolcott on 10 August.
1. For GW’s letter to Wolcott dated 29 July, see Wolcott to GW, 23 July, n.5.
3. Charles Lee was then-U.S. attorney general, and Oliver Ellsworth presided as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
4. Wolcott enclosed William [Loughton] Smith, An Oration, Delivered in St. Philip’s Church, Before the Inhabitants of Charleston, South-Carolina, on the Fourth of July, 1796, in Commemoration of American Independence. By Appointment of the American Revolution Society, and Published at the Request of that Society, and also of the South-Carolina State Society of Cincinnati (Charleston, 1796), held in GW’s library at his death (see 189). In his oration, Smith praised Revolutionary War veterans and American women but primarily defended GW and his policies. He declaimed in a characteristic passage: “To reconcile a prudent temporizing with the rapidity of ever shifting events, and with the considerations justly due to our foreign relations, to resist the shocks continually produced by the exaggerated insinuations of intrigue and malevolence, or of an inconsiderate patriotism, to calm resentments, explain and remove difficulties, and draw a reflecting and judicious people around a single rallying point, the scrupulous observance of a fair neutrality; this was the arduous and sublime conduct which our federal executive has displayed; the maintenance of peace has been the grand pivot on which all his actions have turned, and on which he was content to hazard that, which, after his love for his country, holds the first place in his breast, its affection. Illustrious citizen! will posterity believe, that while you were thus struggling with difficulties before unknown, in a situation before untried, and straining all the vigorous faculties of your energetic mind, to shield the happiness of your country from impending danger, some of your very countrymen, with base ingratitude, and shameless indecency, not only reviled your judgment, but dared to impeach your purity.
“You once astonished the world by your military fame; you have since astonished it by your civil virtues; what will the astonished world exclaim at ingratitude like this?” (pp. 36–37).
5. Wolcott likely recalled opposition to the Jay Treaty (see Charleston, S.C., Citizens to GW, 22 July 1795, and Edmund Randolph to GW, 29 July 1795, n.1).