Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO JAMES McHENRY. [PRIVATE.] - The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798)

Return to Title Page for The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO JAMES McHENRY. [PRIVATE.] - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798) [1892]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. XIII (1794-1798).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO JAMES McHENRY.

[PRIVATE.]

Mount Vernon, 28 January, 1798.

Dear Sir,

Knowing that the War Office has an Agency in the Western Lands, I take the liberty of putting the enclosed letters to General Putnam and Colo. Sargent under cover to you, open. By doing so it supercedes the necessity of a repetition of what is therein mentioned. Another reason for giving you this trouble, is that if Mr. Massey is a Surveyor in the Northwestern Territory, it is highly probable that his business in Philadelphia is with your Office. In which case, let me pray you to obtain what information he can give respecting the claim upon my land and transmit the same to me; and to request, after sealing my letters to the Gentlemen above mentioned, that you would be so kind as to put them into the safest channel of conveyance, that is afforded philadelphia.

What means this calm, and apparent harmony in the Representative body? Is it because no collisive subject has come on? or does it proceed from a change of sentiment in the opposition members? Are there no accounts yet from our Envoys? If not, to what is their silence attributed, when the News Papers are filled with accounts of them, as late as the middle of November, from Paris; where they must have been at least six weeks?1

What, as far as it can be guessed at, is the public sentiment relative to Monroe’s voluminous work? which I have not yet seen but have sent for it. And what of Fauchet’s?1 Another elaborate work I presume, will appear soon, from the late Commissioner of the Revenue; the cause of whose dismission has never (that I have seen) been hinted at in the Gazettes.

What has been, or is it supposed will be done by the house of Representatives in consequence of the extraordinary application which was made to them on that occasion, by the Ex-Commissioners.

I have exhibited a long string of questions, but if you have not leisure or if any of them are embarrassing, I require no answer to them. Mrs. Washington and Nelly Custis unite with me in every good wish for Mrs. McHenry, yourself and family, and I am always, and

Affectionately Yours.

[1 ]“It is time now to hear what the reception of our envoys at Paris has been, and what their prospects are. It surely cannot be that Fauchet and Adet are appointed by the Directory to negotiate with them! If the fact however be otherwise, it requires not the spirit of divination to predict the issue.”—Washington to Oliver Wolcott, 17 December, 1797.

[1 ]“Allow me also to ask the favor of you to send me Col. Monroe’s and Mr. Fauchet’s Pamphlets, and if you have leisure (not else) to let me know what the public sentiments respecting them is. In one of these, or in some other way, I find by a writer in a Richmond paper, a private letter of mine to Mr. Gour. Morris is given to the public. If given fairly with the cause that produced it, I have no doubt of its operating against the measure it was intended to promote.”—Washington to Pickering, 12 January, 1798.

“I will add, however, while the pen is in my hand, that with you, I think it is vain to expect any change in the sentiments or political conduct of those who are, in every form it can be tried, opposing the measures of the government, and endeavoring to sap the foundation of the Constitution. A little time must decide what their ulterior movements will be, as they have brought matters to a crisis.”—Washington to James Ross, 12 February, 1798.