To George Washington from Timothy Pickering, 1 July 1797
From Timothy Pickering
Philadelphia July 1. 1797.
Sir,
I was honoured with your letter of the 28th ult. by this days post. A copy of the laws neatly bound, and of my letter to General Pinckney with the documents to which it refers, have been some time packed up for you. The workman who undertook to make rollers for your copying press, has been called on many times; and he has often promised to complete them. At the last call, about two days since he promised to complete them in a week. I shall continue the applications until his promise is performed.
In respect to the journals of Congress, I do not recollect whether you wished for an entire set, or such volumes as were necessary to complete what you have. The volumes will not be uniform; as of late they are printed in octavo only. If you will be so good as to send me a memorandum of the volumes you now possess, the residue shall be provided without delay.1
I shall have the pleasure to deliver & forward the several letters you inclosed, according to your desire: and am most respectfully yr obt servt
Timothy Pickering
ALS, DLC:GW; retained copy, MHi: Pickering Papers.
1. GW wrote Pickering on 28 June reminding him that he had promised, evidently before GW left Philadelphia, to send to Mount Vernon certain bound volumes of the journals of Congress and of the U.S. statutes, as well as the device that GW used to make copies of his letters as soon as the repairs being made to it were completed. Pickering had assured GW several times that he was seeing to these things before writing him on 24 Aug. that the “journals and acts of Congress in one box, and the copying press in another” were being sent by sea to Alexandria. For further details about the repair of the letterpress, see Pickering to GW, 19 Aug. and 8 September. The sets in GW’s possession, both that of the journals of the House of Representatives and the Senate and that of the laws of the United States, apparently were sold in the nineteenth century (see 533–34).