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Daniel Webster Writes Puns to Boston Merchant About Claim Against Spain
Daniel Webster Writes Puns to Boston Merchant About Claim Against Spain
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Daniel Webster Writes Puns to Boston Merchant About Claim Against Spain

"I have been endeavouring to do something for the Endeavour, Cap. Griffin; but if I were a flying griffin, I do not think I could carry her through."

In this brief letter, Congressman and U.S. Supreme Court attorney Daniel Webster writes from Washington to merchant Daniel Sargent in Boston about a claim involving the ship Endeavour and its captain Nathaniel Griffin. It appears that a Spanish vessel captured the Endeavor in 1799, during the Quasi-War with France. Webster represented many claims before the Claims Commission between 1821 and 1824. Nathaniel Griffin of Salem, the captain of the schooner Endeavor, claimed $1,000 for the loss of property on board, based on the treaty with Spain of 1819. Sargent was the owner of the Endeavor and its cargo, and the Boston Marine Insurance Company, of which Sargent was a director and then president, was the underwriter of the cargo. Sargent filed a separate claim for $6,693.55 under both the treaty with Sapin of 1819 and later the treaty with France of 1831. The Boston Marine Insurance Company filed a claim for $400 under the treaty with France of 1831. Several other individuals who had served as underwriters, also filed separate claims for the Endeavor and its cargo, including Tuthill Hubbart ($1,000), John Coffin Jones ($1,000), John C. Ferrers ($600), James Scott ($500), John McLean ($1,400), James Prince ($250), Cornelius Durant ($1,000), Crowell Hatch ($1,000), Samual W. Pomeroy ($1,000), William Smith ($1,000), Nicholas Gilman ($500), Stephen Codman ($500), Jacob Sheafe ($500), and Samuel Dexter Jr. ($250), all under the treaty with Spain of 1819. According to a Department of State report on unsettled claims in 1884, none of these claims had been settled and were disallowed by either the 1821-1824 commission and/or subsequent commissions.

DANIEL WEBSTER, Autograph Letter Signed, to Daniel Sargent, January 2, 1824, Washington, D.C. 2 pp., 7.75" x 9.75". Separation on two horizontal folds; tears on some other folds; general toning.

Complete Transcript
Washington, Jany 2nd 1824
Dr Sir,
I have been endeavouring to do something for the Endeavour, Cap. Griffin; but if I were a flying griffin, I do not think I could carry her through. There is at present no evidence of the final disposition of that vessel. I doubt whether we should be able to use it, if such should arrive after the 17th inst, as the Commissioners have limited that period as the last day for receiving rehearings. If you should receive any thing before that time, please forward it, but that is a pleasure I do not expect. We have bloodshed, and murder here, committed on the St Domingo case, all of which perhaps not less than 200 in number, have been decided to have arisen out of voyages which were illegal, and are therefore disallowed. Your compassion will be so much excited by these sufferers, that you will not condescend to enjoy the consolation, arising from the circumstance, that this decision very much abridges the demand upon the fund.
Yrs very truly
Danl. Webster
Danl Sargeant, Esq

Historical Background
The French Spoliation Claims were claims made against the French, Spanish, and Dutch governments for losses sustained by confiscations and seizures of American ships and cargoes during the periods of the French Revolutionary Wars (1793-1797), the Quasi-War (1799-1800), and the Napoleonic Wars (1800-1815). The Convention of 1800 addressed the first two periods, and the United States agreed to relinquish claims totaling $20 million in exchange for a release from the 1778 treaty of alliance with France.

In 1819, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams negotiated a treaty with Luis de On's y Gonz'lez-Vara of Spain. The resulting Adams-On's Treaty ceded Florida to the United States and defined the boundary between the United States and Mexico (New Spain) as the Sabine River in Spanish Texas and through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In exchange, the United States agreed to settle residents' claims against the Spanish and French governments up to a total of $5 million and relinquish American claims on parts of Spanish Texas west of the Sabine River.

The treaty became effective in February 1821, but in August 1821, Spanish officials signed the Treaty of C'rdoba acknowledging the independence of Mexico. Although Spain repudiated that treaty, Mexico took control of the area, and the Treaty of Limits between the United States and Mexico, signed in 1828 and effective in 1832, reaffirmed the boundary established in the Adams-On's Treaty.

Congress established a commission that operated from 1821 to June 1824 to handle American claims against Spain. Many notable attorneys, including Daniel Webster and William Wirt, represented claimants before the commission. During its investigations, the commission examined 1,859 claims from more than 720 incidents and distributed the $5 million. Claimants in Boston received approximately $1.4 million.

In 1885, Congress passed an act empowering the United States Court of Claims to hear and examine evidence relating to outstanding French spoliation claims that originated before July 31, 1801. A total of 5,520 petitioners presented their claims over the next two years, and the Court sent its decisions to Congress for further action. In 1891, 1899, 1902, and 1905, Congress made appropriations for payment of some of the claims allowed by the Court of Claims, though other claims remained unsettled.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was born in New Hampshire, graduated from Dartmouth College in 1801, and was admitted to the bar in 1805. He represented New Hampshire in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1813 to 1817. As a preeminent attorney, he argued 223 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning about half, and playing a key role in eight of the Court's most important constitutional law cases decided between 1801 and 1824. (His arguments were accepted by Chief Justice John Marshall in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), finding that a state's grant of a business charter was a contract that the state could not impair; in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), finding that a state could not tax a federal agency (specifically, a branch of the Bank of the United States), for the power to tax was a "power to destroy"; and in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), finding that a state could not interfere with Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce). Webster represented Massachusetts in the House of Representatives from 1823 to 1827 and then in the Senate from 1827 to 1841 and again from 1845 to 1850. His 1830 reply to South Carolina's Robert Y. Hayne is considered one of the greatest speeches ever delivered in the Senate. Webster's oratorical abilities made him a powerful Whig leader, and he served as Secretary of State, first from 1841 to 1843 under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, and again from 1850 to 1852 under President Millard Fillmore. His support of the Compromise of 1850 may have postponed a civil war, but it cost him politically in his increasingly abolitionist home state of Massachusetts.

Daniel Sargent (1764-1842) was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the son of a merchant in the fishery business. His maternal grandfather was Capt. John Turner, the builder and owner of the House of the Seven Gables, made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1851 novel. From childhood, Sargent was a close friend of John Quincy Adams. In 1802, he married Mary Fracier, and they had one child before she died in 1804. He became a successful merchant in Gloucester and later Boston. He served as director of Boston Bank and president of the Boston Marine Insurance Company. He was also a Federalist member of the state legislature (1805-1810, 1813), a state senator (1812, 1814), and the state treasurer (1817-1822).

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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