Search results for ""Author David R. Hoth""

During the last four months of 1793, the period documented by volume 14 of the ""Presidential Series"", George Washington and his administration remained chiefly involved with maintaining the neutrality of the United States. The activities of French privateers in American waters required the administration to respond to requests from state governors for guidance about implementing the neutrality policy and to complaints from British minister George Hammond about seizures of British ships. As a result, the administration had to decide on the extent of America's territorial waters. Another threat to neutrality arose from reports of French-sponsored expeditions into Spanish Florida and Luisiana. These problems were made more difficult by the administration's increasingly public poor relations with French minister Edmond Genet.Other topics of interest include frontier defense and concerns about British retention of northwestern forts; news from Europe, including reports that a truce with Portugal would free corsairs from Algiers to attack American commerce; problems associated with the arrival of refugees from Saint Domingue; and the ubiquitous applications for appointments to federal office. The volume also records the preparation of Washington's annual message - an extended process that involved input from each member of the cabinet.The signature event of these four months, however, was the yellow fever epidemic at Philadelphia. Identified in August, the growing epidemic soon depopulated the city through departures and deaths. Perhaps speeded by the progress of the disease, Washington himself left the city on September 10, making a previously planned trip to Mount Vernon. Some questioned whether Congress could safely meet at the capital in December, and Washington sought advice about whether he had the constitutional power to alter the location at which Congress would convene and about where the government might move. Washington himself took lodgings at Germantown in November, and ultimately, the waning of the disease made action unnecessary.Among personal matters, the management of Mount Vernon claimed much of Washington's attention. He signed a contract with a new farm manager, William Pearce, and his letters to Pearce and to interim manager Howell Lewis convey information and advice. Moreover, in a letter to the English agriculturalist Arthur Young, he broached a proposal to rent out four of the five farms at Mount Vernon to immigrant farmers, describing his estate in considerable detail.

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Throughout volume 20 of the Presidential Series, George Washington looked forward to retirement from public life, preparing a farewell address to announce his intention and leave behind guiding principles for the nation. Relations with Great Britain and France dominated foreign policy, as the House of Representatives agreed to implement the provisions of the Jay Treaty and as the president responded to a looming diplomatic crisis by recalling James Monroe, U.S. minister to France. Washington also remained involved with his private affairs, taking pains to retrieve Martha Washington's runaway slave Ona (Oney) Judge, actions that did not square easily with aspirations expressed in his farewell address regarding "the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty.

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The highlight events of the months from October 1794 through March 1795, the period documented by Volume 17 of the Presidential Series, were the suppression of the Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania and the negotiation of the Jay Treaty with Great Britain.The volume opens with Washington, believing that his constitutional duty as commander in chief required his presence, en route to rendezvous with the troops called out to suppress the insurrection. After meeting with representatives from the insurgent counties and reviewing the troops, he concluded that serious resistance was unlikely, and, after penning a letter to Henry Lee on 20 October commending the troops and reminding them to support the laws, he returned to the capital. Still, regular letters from Alexander Hamilton, who remained with the expedition, kept him apprised of troop movements and activities. Washington devoted more than half of his annual address to discussion of the rebellion. After the submission of the rebellious counties, he also had to consider requests for pardons for the few individuals not included in a general pardon issued in November. Other domestic issues included a transition in Washington’s cabinet, as Hamilton and Henry Knox resigned the Treasury and War departments; supervision of the Federal City, where the commissioners sent a comprehensive statement of the affairs of the City to Washington in early 1795; and Indian affairs, which in the north involved the aftermath of the Battle of Fallen Timbers and treaty negotiations with the Iroquois and Oneida, and in the south involved news of the destruction of the Cherokee towns of Nickajack and Running Water as well as continuing concerns about Creek hostility in Georgia and the Southwest Territory. Washington also received an early report that the Yazoo land scheme threatened to increase tensions with the Creeks in Georgia. In addition to writing the State Department, John Jay kept Washington apprised of the progress of negotiations. Of particular note are his letters of 19 November, announcing the signing of the treaty, and 25 February, justifying his efforts. However, although notice of the treaty was received, the official copy did not arrive at Philadelphia by the adjournment of Congress, so consideration of the treaty would await a special session of the Senate. Meanwhile, Samuel Bayard had been dispatched to London to prosecute American claims in the British admiralty courts. Elsewhere, Thomas Pinckney was sent to Madrid as a special envoy to revive stalled negotiations with Spain. David Humphreys returned to the United States to discuss negotiations with the Barbary States, prompting Washington to ask Congress to authorise consuls for those states and to appoint Humphreys as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate with them. James Monroe sent one optimistic letter discussing his reception as minister to France. As for private concerns, Washington’s weekly correspondence with his Mount Vernon farm manager, largely suspended during his time with the troops, resumed upon his return to Philadelphia. He entertained offers about his lands in western Pennsylvania, on the Ohio River, and on Difficult Run in Virginia, and he paid taxes on and sought information about his land in Kentucky. Washington also corresponded with Tobias Lear about the Potomac Company’s development of the Potomac River.

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