To George Washington from Timothy Pickering, 10 June 1796
From Timothy Pickering
[Philadelphia, 10 June 1796]
Sir
I inclose draughts of instructions for Mr Trumbull and Colo. Talbot. The latter will not be able to sail for the West Indies until about the 20th of July. Reflecting on Mr Trumbull’s situation in England, and the nature of the service to be performed there, I have not a doubt but that 2500 dollars will be a satisfactory compensation. I mentioned to his brother Jonathan £500. Sterling, who did not suggest that this would form an objection. Mr Trumbull in England, while ingaged in his agency, will still be in the way of his private pursuits. Colo. Talbot engages solely for the public service, in a more expensive scene, and where the risque of life is not inconsiderable. If the President approves of this distinction, the sums proposed in the instructions will remain. Then there will be 500 dollars left to answer any contingency, or to forward to one or the other agent as shall be needful.1
I have recd this morning a design for our Mediterranean passports from Mr Blodget, which with a British passport accompany this.2 A draught of a letter to Mr Viar is also submitted.3 With the greatest respect I am sir your obt servt
Timothy Pickering
ALS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, GW’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State.
1. For the appointment of John Trumbull and Silas Talbot as agents to aid American seamen, see GW to the U.S. Senate, 30 May, and n.1. Trumbull eventually declined his appointment.
Pickering’s draft instructions have not been identified, but he prepared similar instructions, both dated 9 June, for Talbot (sent to the West Indies) and for Trumbull (sent to Great Britain; both documents in MHi: Pickering Papers). Pickering’s instructions to Talbot read: “The President desiring to avail the United States of your Services, has with the advise and consent of the Senate, appointed you one of their Agents, for the purposes expressed in the act for the relief and protection of American Seamen. …
“The particular duties of the Agency being designated in the Act itself, little more remains, by way of instruction, than to hint at the mode of performing those duties, and to express to you the earnest desire of the President that you will use great diligence and perseverence in your endeavours to effect the humane and interesting objects of your appointment.
“You will correspond with such persons in the different Islands as you shall judge proper, to obtain the requisite information to enable you to administer relief and protection to our citizens and others. …
“More effectually to fulfil the objects of your appointment, you will find it necessary personally to visit at least the principal ports and places where American Seamen are impressed or detained, your inquiries will indicate these; And nothing is to be confided to others which it will be practicable for you to accomplish yourself.
“You will keep this Department constantly advised of the state of the business committed to your care; more especially when obstacles occur to retard or prevent your affording our Seamen the expected relief and protection, in order that proper representations may be made to the Government whose officers or subjects continue the oppression of which we complain. …
“That our Seamen once relieved may not again be exposed to impressment, they should be furnished with certificates in a form which the British Officers and impress-gangs will respect. …
“It will be proper to tender your respects to the commanding Officer on each station and in each port, to make known the authority under which you act, and to endeavor to form a just and friendly arrangement for the liberation of our Seamen. While great firmness will be necessary in pursuing the proper measures for relieving our Seamen, much prudence and mildness in the manner will be indispensable. Resentment unnecessarily excited, may refuse what cool judgement would yield to a becoming solicitation.
“You will be allowed for your services and for your personal expenses, including your voyages and journies a compensation at the rate of three thousand dollars a year.
“Every necessary disbursement of money to obtain the liberation of an impressed or detained seamen, and in providing for the support of such of them as shall be sick or disabled, will be allowed you. In providing for the sick or disabled, care must be used to prevent impositions. …
“On the subject of expenditures, you will take notice that the whole appropriation for this service is limited to fifteen thousand dollars a year: Hence it will be necessary that your part of the expenditures do not exceed two thousand dollars a year; it is presumed they will not rise to that sum, exclusively of your salary. … P.S. The above limitation of your expenditures to two thousand dollars is for the purpose of leaving in the hands of the Executive the means of providing for a third Agency: but you will from time to time transmit to this Office a statement of your disbursements; and if necessary, and the fund will admit of it, additional funds will be furnished” (see also Pickering to GW, 12 June, n.1). Pickering’s instructions for Trumbull directed that he correspond with consuls for information and that he advise regularly with the U.S. minister to Great Britain.
2. The enclosed design and passport have not been identified. Article IV of the Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers, signed on 5 Sept. 1795, directed that within eighteen months, U.S. merchant vessels needed passports to obtain the promised safe passage from Algerine warships (see 299–300). Samuel Blodget, Jr., then in Baltimore, had sent a design to Pickering with a letter of 5 June 1796, in which he warned “that the inclosed sketch is not sufficiently correct for the engraver unless he may be able to design himself” (DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; see also Pickering to GW, 16 Aug.).
3. The draft has not been identified, but Pickering wrote Josef Ignacio de Viar on 10 June (see GW to Pickering, same date, n.3).
4. See James Cole Mountflorence to Thomas Blount, 8 March, printed as an enclosure with James McHenry to GW, this date.
5. The Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia) for 8 June reported the arrival in Philadelphia on 7 June of Capt. Richard O’Bryen, “who was 12 years in captivity at Algiers.” For O’Bryen, see his letter to Mathew and Thomas Irwin, 20 Dec. 1788, printed as an enclosure with Mathew Irwin to GW, 9 July 1789; see also GW to David Humphreys, 12 June 1796, and to the Dey of Algiers, 13 June.