Timothy Pickering to Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., 14 December 1795
Timothy Pickering to Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr.
War Office Decr 14. 95.
The Secretary of War prays Mr Dandridge to lay before the President, the reports No. 1. 2. 3 & 4, for the two Houses of Congress. No. 5, on the frigates I shall myself present to the President in perhaps half an hour.1 No. 6. on the fortifications will require a further examination; but will be ready to-morrow morning.2
The reports of the Directors of the mint will be ready to send in this forenoon.3
AL, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
1. These reports were intended to supplement GW’s annual message to Congress, delivered 8 December. Pickering submitted five reports to Congress, and the House of Representatives received them on this date. The Senate, having adjourned earlier, received them on 15 Dec. ( 8:30–31; 8:27–28). In his cover letter to the speaker of the House, dated 12 Dec., Pickering described the reports as “No. 1. A statement of the present military force of the United States; No. 2. A report of the measures which have been pursued to obtain proper sites for arsenals; No. 3. A report of the measures which have been taken to replenish the magazines with military stores; No. 4. A report of the measures taken for opening a trade with the Indians; and No. 5. A report of the progress made in providing materials for the frigates, and in building them.” That letter and the reports were published by order of the House as Letter from the Secretary of War, Accompanying sundry Statements & Reports … [Philadelphia, 1795]. The reports submitted to the Senate appear in ASP: the first three in ASP, Military Affairs, 1:109–10; the fourth in ASP, Indian Affairs, 1:583–84; and the fifth in ASP, Naval Affairs, 1:17–19.
2. This report has not been identified. It probably was an early version of Pickering’s report of 16 Jan. 1796, submitted to the Senate on 18 Jan. (ASP, Military Affairs, 110–11).
3. Pickering submitted to Congress on this date copies of Henry William DeSaussure’s letter to GW of 27 Oct. and Elias Boudinot’s report on the mint of 3 Dec. (ASP, Finance, 1:356–58).