To George Washington from Timothy Pickering, 23 September 1795
From Timothy Pickering
Department of State Septr 23. 1795.
Sir,
I have the honour to inclose a copy of Governor Fenner’s letter of the 12th instant which will show in what manner he has complied & will comply with your requests respecting Mr Moore the British Vice Consul at New-port, and Captain Home; and the sense of the people on your measures in this case. I think they will be universally acceptable.1
Mr Wolcott went last Friday to Elizabeth-town to meet Mrs Wolcott with whom he returned last evening.2 I then stated to him my ideas in regard to the communications proper to be made to Mr Pinckney on the subject of commerce with the Spanish dominions; in which he concurred.3 From all the information we can obtain, we conclude that no definitive instructions can be given; there is so little ground to expect any material relaxation in her narrow colonial system: but if any considerations whatever, particularly those which appear strongly to have impressed Mr Short, should induce any favourable change, then the information we shall transmit will show Mr Pinckney what objects are really desirable to obtain, and which merit a preference, if partial benefits only can be secured. All this will be accomplished to-day; and the dispatches be ready to send off by the first conveyances:4 & if none offer more direct, they will go by the way of England; a route which, according to Mr Taylor’s information, Mr Short has formerly recommended. With the greatest respect I am sir, your obt servant
Timothy Pickering.
ALS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, GW’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State; LB, DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters.
1. Rhode Island governor Arthur Fenner informed Pickering that he had forwarded the letter to Thomas William Moore of 5 Sept. that was enclosed in Pickering’s letter to Fenner of the same date. The governor published GW’s revocation of Moore’s exequatur in the Providence Gazette of that day. He then stated that Capt. Roddam Home had left Rhode Island “some Days ago.” If he returned, Fenner would “without Delay by one or more Gentlemen of Reputation and Discretion notify” Home of GW’s demands. In closing, Fenner mentioned that GW’s measures were received in Rhode Island “with the highest Approbation” (DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters). For the letter to Moore and the revocation of his exequatur, see Pickering to GW, 4 Sept., notes 1 and 2.
2. The previous Friday was 18 September.
3. An undated document in the Pickering Papers (MHi) contains a statement of Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott, Jr., giving his approval of the letter which, Pickering noted, concerned “Commercial negociations.”
4. In his letter of 23 Sept. to Thomas Pinckney, envoy to Spain, Pickering noted the effort to collect information about commerce with Spanish territories in America. “The nature of the case now appears,” wrote Pickering, “to preclude any definite instructions. The great object will be to obtain as extensive an intercourse with those possessions as possible: and the comparative importance to us of different ports is probably stated pretty accurately in the inclosed ‘notes on the Spanish west India Colonies’” (not identified).
Pickering informed Pinckney that William Short, U.S. commissioner for negotiating a treaty with Spain regarding navigation of the Mississippi River, had written in May and thought the situation “peculiarly favorable for obtaining by treaty with Spain, very important commercial advantages.” In addition to trade privileges for agricultural products of the United States, Pickering urged Pinckney to obtain permission to trade American manufactured items and the “right to receive specie or bullion in payment for all our commodities furnished to the Spanish Colonies.” Pickering also desired that the United States obtain the right to convey goods from East India in U.S. ships, since “Spain has formerly renounced a right to a direct trade with India, by the Cape of Good Hope, in several of her treaties with European powers.”
Other possible trade topics included the use of the Juan Fernandez Islands as a base for American whalers, and the trade of flour. Pickering referred Pinckney to Short’s letter of 7 May (DNA: RG 59, Despatches from U.S. ministers to Spain) relating to commercial transactions with Spain.
The secretary conveyed GW’s desire “to bring the long protracted negociation to a conclusion. He hopes this will be accomplished in such time as that the treaty may arrive here seasonably to lay before the Senate on its first meeting in the beginning of next December” (DNA: RG 59, Diplomatic and Consular Instructions, 1791–1801).