Pickering, Timothy, as Secretary of State

2 autograph letters signed ("Timothy Pickering"): 4 pages (10 x 8 in.254 x 203 mm), Trenton, 7 November 1798, to Rufus King, Minister to Great Britain; central fold repaired, light browning. A good letter concerning international affairs and the yellow fever epidemic that forced the government to move to Trenton from Philadelphia.  "In your No. 92 you remind me of the advances you have made to your Mr. Lafayette ... I express to you my opinion (in which the Secretary of the Treasury [Oliver Wolcott, Jr.] decidedly concurs) that you should ... make him no further advances ... The cypher shall be changed; a new one shall be sent to you by the first safe conveyance after I return to  Philadelphia, which will be next week; the yellow fever ... having nearly disappeared ... Mr [Elbridge] Gerry arrived in Boston harbour the first of October, whence he sent his dispatches exhibiting his communications with the French minister of foreign affairs, to the President [John Adams].  Copies are preparing to be laid before Congress ... to prove that all Talleyrand's overtures were inconsequential ... and in the meantime to lull us to sleep ..." — 2 pages (10 x 8 in.; 254 x 203 mm), written partly in cipher, Philadelphia, 17 January 1800, to William Eaton; stamped "Madlener" in lower, left corner, two tiny marginal losses, remnants of former mounting, faint mat burn. Secretary of State Pickering refers to the demand of jewels by the Bey of Tunis, and hopes that "the arrival of the Hero, with her valuable cargo of naval and military stores" will induce the Bey to abandon or reduce his claim.  William Eaton was the American envoy in Tunis.

Elsie O. and Philip D. Sang (sale, Sotheby's New York, 26 April 1978, lots 237 & 238)