To George Washington from Reuben Wilkinson, 26 July 1789
From Reuben Wilkinson
Savannah the 26th of July 1789
Sir
Inclosed is the charge exhebited against me in my absence, and also the determination of the Honorable the Executive thereon, for your excellency’s consideration untill I shall have had a hearing which will be the 3rd of August next, at which time I shall do my self the honor of transmitting to your Excellency the determination thereon.1 I have the Honor to be Your Excellencys most Obt Hble Sert
R. Wilkinson
ALS, DLC:GW.
Reuben Wilkinson had written GW on 30 April 1789, asking to be continued in the post of collector of customs at Savannah. For adverse comments concerning his tenure in office under the state government, see Anthony Wayne to GW, 10 May 1789, Lachlan McIntosh to GW, 14 Feb. 1789, n.4, and John Berrien to GW, 10 May 1789.
1. Wilkinson was replaced in the spring of 1789 in the state customs office at Savannah by Benjamin Fishbourn. Wilkinson protested his dismissal. In the hearing before the Georgia executive council on 4 Aug. 1789 he was charged with “1st Neglect of Duty. 2d Corruption in Office. 3d Defrauding the revenue, and 4th extorting unlawful fees.” On 18 Aug. the council found that Wilkinson had “neglected to transmit to this Board monthly Returns of Impost &c.” and “therefore Ordered that the said Reuben Wilkinson esquire do immediately pay into the Treasury all the Monies he has received on account of Impost and Duties, and that he complete his Returns up to the day the Office was delivered to Benjamin Fishbourn” (MS journal of the Georgia executive council, 449, 489, 496, 527, in Microfilm Collection of Early State Records). Fishbourn found his brief tenure as collector equally stormy. See GW to the United States Senate, 6 Aug. 1789, and Fishbourn to GW, 25 Sept. 1789.