To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 5 November 1793
From Thomas Jefferson
[Germantown, Pa.] Tuesday Nov. 5. 1793.
Th: Jefferson with his respects to the President sends for his perusal some of the letters which had been accumulating at his office, & which he received yesterday.1 he will wait on the President to-day to translate the Spanish papers sent by mister Short, as also with some other letters in foreign languages.
Th: J. sends to the President a supply he received yesterday of paper, of which the President will be pleased to take any proportion he may have occasion for. he sends him wafers also & wax, & could furnish him copying ink, but he believes the President has no press here. Th: J. did not understand yesterday whether any meeting was desired to-day or at any other particular time.
AL, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, George Washington’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State.
1. The enclosures included a letter from William Carmichael and William Short to Jefferson, 15 Aug., enclosing copies of their correspondence with Diego de Gardoqui about accusations that Spanish agents were exciting Indian animosity toward the United States ( , 26:668–71); a letter from Short to Jefferson, 20 Aug., enclosing a copy of the convention between Spain and Great Britain signed at Aranjuez, 25 May ( , 26:732; for the convention, see , 1:277); Thomas Pinckney’s letter to Jefferson of 27 Aug. discussing his efforts to assist Philip Wilson, whose ship Mentor had been destroyed by British vessels near Cape Henlopen in 1783 ( , 26:770–71); Pinckney to Jefferson, 28 Aug., enclosing both his correspondence with Lord Grenville about the rights of neutral vessels and the slowness of admiralty decisions on vessels seized and a letter from Thomas Digges discussing a plot to counterfeit American currency ( , 26:776–82); a letter from David Humphreys to Jefferson of 1 Sept. reporting his plans to leave for Gibraltar and miscellaneous news ( , 27:4–5); a letter from Ezra Fitz Freeman to Jefferson, 5 Sept. (not identified), enclosing Abraham Freeman to GW, 5 Sept.; Stephen Moylan to Jefferson, 19 Sept., notifying that he would not accept his appointment as federal marshal for Pennsylvania ( , 27:137–38); Christopher Gore to Jefferson, 21 Oct., discussing grand jury proceedings in the case of the French privateer Roland ( , 27:261); Tobias Lear to Jefferson, 1 Nov. (not identified), enclosing a representation by Keyran Walsh (Walch) of the brig Maria about his capture by a French frigate and recapture by a British privateer; and two letters from Elias Vanderhorst to Jefferson, 1 and 3 Sept., discussing the improper capture of American vessels and their detention in British ports (DNA: RG 59, Dispatches from U.S. Consuls in Bristol; abstracted in , 27:10–12, 29). GW’s receipt and return of these letters is recorded in his journal under the date 4 Nov., GW having made no entry for 5 Nov. ( , 244–46).