To Thomas Jefferson from Samuel A. Otis, 13 June 1793
From Samuel A. Otis
Philadelphia, 13 June 1793. This morning he received an application from his son Samuel A. Otis to the President asking for the consulship at Saint-Domingue. As the business concerns TJ’s department, his support will oblige him and his son, who served his apprenticeship in Cap-Français, knows the country’s language and modes of doing business, and is esteemed and generally applied to by Eastern merchants who trade there, to whom, and to any French residents of the Cap, TJ is referred for further information. To escape the intolerable weather he intends to travel to the eastward in a few days and will gladly execute any commission for TJ.
RC (DLC: Washington Papers, Applications for Office); 2 p.; at foot of text: “The Secretary of The department of State”; endorsed by TJ as received 13 June 1793 and so recorded in SJL.
The application was Samuel A. Otis, Jr., to George Washington, Cap-Français, May 1793, requesting the consular appointment at Saint-Domingue and noting that he had lived at the Cap for seven years and run a mercantile establishment there for two years (DLC: Washington Papers, Applications for Office).