Chantilly in Virginia June 20. 1786
Sir,
The enclosed papers that I have the honor of transmitting to your Excellency for the consideration of Congress I have but now received altho they are dated in the last year.1
I am perfectly satisfied that this demand of Mr. Schweighauser will be found, on due enquiry, to be right; and that this worthy Gentleman who has been long injuriously baffled of his honest demand plainly against the will of Congress, will now be fully paid by the effectual measures that Congress in their wisdom and justice shall direct.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect respect & esteem, Sir, your Excellencies most obedient and very humble servant,
Richard Henry Lee.
Receiver's copy, Papers of Continental Congress, item 78, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
1 According to Charles Thomson's despatch and committee books, Lee enclosed a letter of September 26, 1785, from the firm of Schweighauser and Dobrée reasserting a five-year-old claim for 40,245 livre for outfitting the Continental frigate Allianceunder Capt. Pierre Landais. It was read July 13 and referred to the board of treasury which subsequently received other documents relating to the claim. The firm was attempting to settle the estate of the late John Daniel Schweighauser who had been appointed, with his son-in-law and partner Peter F. Dobrée, Continental commercial agent in Nantes in
1778. When the board of treasury reported on October 16, Congress adopted a resolution giving the minister at Paris, Thomas Jefferson, broad discretion in adjusting the account with Schweighauser's agents??a resolution that John Jay transmitted to Jefferson the following day. Despite his diligent efforts to unravel and to settle the claim over the next three years, it remained unpaid until the early 19th century. See JCC, 20:590, 21:899, 907, 30:400, 31:878 - 80; PCC, item 185, 3:169, item 190, fol. 109; these Letters, 9:62, 13:369, 14:558 - 59, 21:418; Morris, Papers (Ferguson), 2:265n.2; and Jefferson, Papers (Boyd), 10:192, 221 - 22, 490n, 597, 11:29, 82, 134, 160, 601 - 2, 12:642 - 43, 13:361 - 62, 390, 517 - 18, 14:315 - 23, 15:53 - 54, 18:54 - 55.