To Thomas Jefferson from Robert Quarles, 19 May 1793
From Robert Quarles
Virginia, Columbia May 19th. 1793
Sir
Altho’ I have Not the honor of a Personal Acquaintance with you, Yet from the recommendation of those who have, I have taken the liberty to trouble you with the Negotiation of a small matter of business.
Some time in the Course of the last year, I left in the hands of a Mr. Dunscomb in Richmond, an Account of the Claims I have against the Public as a Lieutenant in the late Continental Army. He tells me he carried them to the Proper Office for their Adjustment in Philadelphia, with a Certificate accompanying them from a Magistrate before whom I had made Oath to their propriety; and that a Variety of difficulties was Started so as to prevent their liquidation, therefore he left the papers in the Office to be farther Operated on. Now Sir I wish you would so far interest yourself as to Apply to the Office, and do me the favor of letting me know the result thereof, in doing which you will confer an Obligation on Sir your very Obt. & Hble. Servt
Robert Quarles
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 3 June 1793 and so recorded in SJL.
Robert Quarles (1763–1827) of Columbia, Virginia, served as ensign and regimental quartermaster of the First Virginia Regiment in the Continental Army from 15 May 1782 to the end of the Revolution, his rank of Lieutenant apparently having been a brevet award. He held the rank of major in the Albemarle County militia in the late 1780s and was superintendent of the state arsenal at Point of Fork from August 1793 until it closed in 1801 (National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Patriot Index [Washington, D.C., 1966], 553; ; , iii, 615, iv, 546, vi, 515–17, 576, ix, 183–4, 202, x, 148, 445–7; Edgar E. Hume, ed., Papers of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Virginia 1783–1824 [Richmond, 1938], 4, 116–17, 226–7).