John Quincy Adams Accommodates a New York Congressman, on Whose Family Estate the Society of the Cincinnati Was Created

"I enclose three letters for your brother, to the Consuls of the United States at Puerto Cabello, Cartagena, and Guatemala"

The Verplanck family was a prominent one. During the Revolutionary War, their estate, Mount Gulian, was for a time the headquarters of General Von Steuben. After the American victory at Yorktown, upon learning of the Treaty of Paris, Von Steuben and other chief American officers created at Mount Gulian the Society of the Cincinnati. Gulian C. Verplanck was a Congressman from New York and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and met John Quincy Adams in the halls of Congress. He was also a leading author. When this letter was written, Adams was knee-deep in his fight against the pro-slavery gag rule, having just months earlier caused a near riot in the House by submitting a petition from 22 slaves. Here Verplanck asks Adams for references to U.S. diplomats in South America and the Carribean for his brother, who was going there.

Autograph letter signed, Washington, November 7, 1837, to Verplanck. "I enclose three letters for your brother, to the Consuls of the United States at Puerto Cabello [Venezuela], Cartagena [Colombia], and Guatemala, the only persons so far as I recollect, with whom I am acquainted in that part of the world. I pray you, with them, to tender to your brother my respectful regards, and my best wishes that in both objects of his pursuit he may be entirely successful, and return to his country happy at once in the gratification of his curiosity and in the full and permanent enjoyment of his health."