To Thomas Jefferson from David Stuart, 26 February 1793
From David Stuart
Hope-Park 26th: Febry: 93
Dear Sir
The Bearer of this letter is Mr. Kennedy from King and Queen County, whose claim to the estate and title of Earl of Cassilis in Scotland, you have probably heard of. His chief object in going to Philadelphia, is to obtain proper credentials of his Father’s marryage. He thinks, it may be of some service to him, to be made acquainted with the British Minister. Not doubting your disposition to render this, or any other service in your power, I take the liberty of introducing him to your notice. I must observe, that tho’ my acquaintance with him has been but short, I have heard him mentioned with respect, by several of his neighbours from King and Queen. I am with great esteem Your most Obt. Serv
Dd: Stuart
RC (MoSHi: Bixby Collection); endorsed by TJ as received 5 Mch. 1793 and so recorded in SJL as delivered “by Mr. Kennedy.”
Mr. Kennedy has not been identified. After the tenth earl, David Lord Kennedy, died in December 1792 without direct heirs, the title and estates of the Earl of Cassillis devolved through entail to Captain Archibald Kennedy of the Royal Navy, a distant cousin whose father of the same name had been a noted British official and pamphleteer in colonial New York (George E. Cokayne, Vicary Gibbs, and others, eds., The Complete Peerage …, new ed., 13 vols. in 14 [London, 1910–59], iii, 79–80; ).