Joseph Fenwick's Reply to Charges in Washington Federalist.

• imprint_number: 1801.033
• title: Norfolk, April 11th, 1801. The charges against me so long promised by the Washington Federalist, have at length appeared in the papers of the 1st and 7th inst. the last of which reached me yesterday. ...
• sequence_number: 33
• year: 1801
• place_issued: Norfolk
• issuing_press: Augustus C. Jordan
• author: Fenwick, Joseph.
• notes: Fenwick was a Maryland-born tobacco merchant who had opened a branch of his family's business in Bordeaux in 1787; Washington appointed him as the American consul there in 1790; however, his Republican views led to John Adams to name a Federalist replacement in December 1797; that successor never travelled to France, leaving Fenwick to continue acting as consul even as his commission had expired. The Washington Federalist of William A. Rind and John Stewart (who moved their paper from Richmond in the summer of 1800) charged that Fenwick had exercised that commission illegally to the detriment of the country and his personal enrichment. Herein Fenwick replies to those charges, documenting the dereliction of his successor, and asserting his self-sacrifice and patriotic intent by remaining in Bordeaux until he was formally recalled by the secretary of state in late 1798.
  Title lacks any indication of press or place; Fenwick sent copies of this defense to Jefferson and Madison both under cover of letters he wrote in Norfolk and dated April 16, 1801, so the place of issue assigned here; the only Republican-oriented press in Norfolk at that time was conducted by Augustus C. Jordan, so the printer attribution here.
  Only known copy is held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; the copies Fenwick sent to Jefferson and Madison are apparently not now in their collected papers at either the Library of Congress or the National Archives.
  
  
• Related Bios:
  • Augustus Caesar Jordan
  • William Alexander Rind
  • John Stewart

This version of the Index of Virginia Printing was a gift from the estate of the site's creator, David Rawson. The content contained herein will not be updated, as it is part of the Library of Virginia's personal papers collection. For more information, please see David Rawson Index of Virginia Printing website. Accession 53067. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.