Description:

Timothy Pickering ALS Re: Quasi-War French Spoliation Claims

A 1p autograph letter signed by former U.S. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) as "T. Pickering" at lower right. Written in Salem, Massachusetts on December 8, 1824 on bifold paper. The inner pages are blank and the last page serves as an integral address leaf also engrossed by Pickering. Expected folds and wrinkles. Minor loss and a closed tear corresponding to the wax seal. Scattered water stains, even toning, and isolated traces of adhesive on the last page, else near fine. The integral address leaf bears manuscript and hand-stamped philatelic markings. 7.75" x 9." Accompanied by a book plate print of Pickering after Gilbert Stuart. Also comes with a Letter of Authenticity from PSA/DNA Authentication Services, certification number AB07892, dated October 24, 2016.

Timothy Pickering wrote this letter to James Hyman Causten (1788-1874), an attorney from Baltimore, Maryland, and also one of the primary American agents litigating spoliation claims following the Quasi-War with France (1798-1800). In our letter, Pickering and Causten are probably discussing this very subject: that is, the staggering amount of indemnities still remaining unpaid to American merchants, sailors, ship owners, ship captains, passengers, and their families, over 20 years after the cessation of the undeclared war with France.

Pickering wrote in part:

"I have received your letter of the 29th ulto. You place too high a value on my letter of the 19th. I considered it only as suggesting some limits which might be useful in the prosecution of the claims committed to your care. But I advise you to avoid the publishing of it: for such are the prejudices of some persons against me, that even the clearest reasons and the soundest opinions, if known to proceed from me, would avail nothing; but, on the contrary, rather injure the cause they were intended to sustain. If any benefit should accrue to the claimants from the application of my suggestions, I shall be content to remain utterly unknown, in relation to the affair…"

Pickering's "letter of the 19th" mentioned in our letter is almost certainly excerpted in Causten's "A Sketch of the Claims of Sundry American Citizens on the Government of the United States for Indemnity, For Depredations Committed on their Property by the French Prior to the 30th September, 1800…" (Washington, D.C.: W.H. Moore, Printers, 1871) on page 18 (see attached pictures included just for reference.) Pickering's letter of November 19, 1824 is reproduced in the book, and stated in part: "Thus the Government bartered the just claims of our merchants to obtain a relinquishment of the French claim for a restoration of the old treaties…In this view of the case it would seem that the merchants have an equitable claim for indemnity from the United States." Perhaps Causten had asked Pickering's opinion about the extent to which the U.S. government was responsible for spoliation claims, based on the latter's experience in statecraft.

The Quasi-War with France is one of the most interesting episodes in the history of American diplomacy. The 1794 Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain was perceived by the French as a violation of its 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the American colonies. The result was the Quasi-War with France (July 1798-September 1800). Hostilities were never openly declared between the two countries, but the French began harassing American shipping, and the Americans retaliated by stopping their Revolutionary War debt repayment to the French. The Quasi-War ended under the terms of the Convention of 1800 signed on September 30, 1800.

Timothy Pickering served as U.S. Postmaster General between 1791-1795; U.S. Secretary of War in 1795; and U.S. Secretary of State under both the Washington and Adams administrations.

James H. Causten lobbied for the uncompensated claimants of the Quasi-War until his death in 1874. Some of the Quasi-War claims were in arrears well into the twentieth century.

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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