To George Washington from Edmund Randolph, 29 March 1794
From Edmund Randolph
[Philadelphia] March 29. 1794.
E. Randolph has the honor of informing the President, that Mr Hammond has given him a duplicate of the letter to the governor of Jamaica, concerning Barney; but that Colo. Hamilton says, that the cutter going to Charleston is too infirm to proceed to Jamaica.1 The President will therefore be pleased to determine whether it be worth while to send a cutter from Baltimore for this special purpose, at this late day; when Barney’s fate must be decided one way or the other, before she can arrive.2
AL, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, GW’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State.
1. The letter from British minister George Hammond to Adam Williamson (1734–1798), who served as governor of Jamaica from 1791 to 1795, has not been identified. On the detention of Capt. Joshua Barney on the British island of Jamaica after the seizure of his ship Sampson in December 1793, see n.3 of Randolph to GW, 1 March. On the imminent departure of the General Greene, the revenue cutter for Pennsylvania, to Charleston, S.C., see Alexander Hamilton to GW, 28 March, and n.1.
2. Barney returned to Baltimore on 16 May aboard a pilot boat that had been hired specifically for this purpose (Baltimore Daily Advertiser, 19 May; see also Randolph to Hamilton, 16 June, , 16:490–91). On the passport issued by GW to the pilot boat, see , 293.