To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 3 October 1793
From Thomas Jefferson
Monticello [Va.] Oct. 3. 1793.
Th: Jefferson has the honor to inclose to the President a letter he has received from Mr Bournonville, & his answer. he is in hopes mister Dandridge will be able to translate the letter to the President, & if he approves of the answer he will be pleased to stick a wafer in it, as well as in the cover to mister Bankson.1
AL, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; AL (letterpress copy), DLC: Jefferson Papers; LB, DNA: RG 59, George Washington’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State.
1. Charles François Bournonville was second secretary of the French legation at Philadelphia. His letter to Jefferson of 18 Sept. has not been identified, but it evidently complained about the arrest of the British ship Roehampton, sent into Baltimore as a prize by the French privateer L’Industrie. Jefferson’s reply to Bournonville, dated 3 Oct., assured him that if the arrest had been made “on improper grounds,” the vessel would be liberated by whichever agency, executive or judicial, had given the arrest order (, 27:183–84). No cover letter to Benjamin Bankson on this topic has been identified.