To George Washington from Edmund Randolph, 15 May 1794
From Edmund Randolph
Philadelphia May 15. 1794.
The Secretary of State has the honor of submitting to the President the draft of a letter to the different foreign ministers, resident here; except Mr Hammond, to whose court Mr Jay is charged.1 It is written with a view to quicken the redress of our suffering citizens, by saving the time, which a formal negotiation will require. If indeed a formal negotiation should at last be necessary; even that will probably be expedited by the proposed preliminary explanations.
AL, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, GW’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State.
1. The draft has not been identified. Randolph’s letters of this date to French minister Jean-Antoine-Joseph Fauchet, Dutch minister Franco Petrus Van Berckel, and Spanish commissioners José de Jaudenes and José Ignacio de Viar read: "I have at length prepared statements of the cases of vexation and spoliation upon which certain citizens of the United States conceive themselves intitled to relief from your government. Perhaps an interview between us might shorten the remonstrances, which I have to make, and cut off a considerable delay. Permit me therefore to express a wish, that you would name some day in the next week, when I may submit to you the complaints of my Countrymen; as it will be a circumstance of great convenience to adjust the claims, without the tedious forms of a diplomatic discussion. If no place more suitable, should occur to you, my Office, which is now removed from the corner of sixth in arch street will be free from interruption" (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters).