TWICE SIGNED BY TWO AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THEN SECRETARY OF STATE THOMAS JEFFERSON, OFFICIAL DOCUMENT SIGNED BY BOTH IN PHILADELPHIA, CIRCA 1793, AUTHORIZING SHIP’S PAPERS FOR THE SLOOP ABIGAIL

WASHINGTON, George, JEFFERSON, Thomas et al. Document signed. Alexandria, (Virginia), Philadelphia: 1793-1794. Folio (10 by 15-1/2 inches), original leaf, printed, accomplished in manuscript in a secretarial hand, signed on the recto and verso.

Rare official document, twice signed by both Washington as the nation’s first president and by Jefferson as America’s first Secretary of State, circa 1793, consisting of ship’s papers—the manifest, passport and request for safe passage—for the sloop Abigail. An exceptionally rare document twice signed by America’s first and third presidents.

This rare official document, dated August 29, 1794, is twice signed by both Washington as the nation's first president and Jefferson as America's first Secretary of State. The document, printed consecutively in columns on the recto and verso of a single leaf, accomplished in manuscript, consists of ship's papers for the Sloop Abigail, then moored in Alexandria, Virginia. Signed presidential authorization such as this, granting the right to sail the high seas and dock in a country's ports, was a valuable privilege. Before conferring such privilege officials were required to establish the legitimacy of a vessel, its cargo and its personnel, and the ship's papers were intended to authorize its mission. In the wrong hands, especially during the tense and vulnerable conditions of wartime or, as in the perilous years of America's beginnings, when ships and their cargos were often seized by privateers, a fraudulent or forged approval could be dangerous. On one entire side of the document, in columns printed in English and French (engrossed only in English) is the ship's manifest, which names Ebenezer Clements as its "master and commander," identifies its tonnage and cargo, and indicates its destination as "the West Indies." The manifest is signed "G Washington" above the signature of his Secretary of State "Th Jefferson" and it is countersigned by Vincent Gray, Deputy Collector of Customs, below their signature. This rare document also contains, alongside Washington and Jefferson's signatures, the embossed paper Great Seal of the United States. At the lower left corner of the manifest is affixed a second paper seal. The document's reverse side, numbered above like the ship's manifest in an unidentified manuscript hand as "No. 35," contains two columns printed in English and Dutch (engrossed only in English). The upper section of the column contains an official engrossed authorization to sail or passport, signed "G Washington" and "Th Jefferson" and is countersigned by Gray. Beneath that is an official printed and engrossed request for safe passage that is signed by the "Mayorality of the Town of Alexandria the twentyeth [sic] day of August one thousand and Seven Hundred and Twenty Four, Robert Mease." To the left of Washington and Jefferson's signatures, at the lower left, is affixed the embossed paper Great Seal of the United States.

Both the manifest and the passport were personally signed by Washington as President and Jefferson as his Secretary of State, and the Great Seal of the United States would have been affixed in Philadelphia (then the federal seat of government). While Jefferson resigned from his position as Secretary of State on December 31, 1793, historians have affirmed that this is his official signature, in that it was the usual practice for such documents to be routinely signed even months before their distribution to the various customs collectors of the ports. There, as needed, the documents would be engrossed with the particular details—in this instance those regarding the Sloop Abigail—and be signed by local officials with required seals affixed. As such, this document's request for safe passage was signed by Robert Mease, who served as Mayor of Alexandria from 1794-5.

In February 1793, France had declared war on England and opened French colonial ports in the West Indies, where the Abigail was bound, to American ships. These developments were a source of political and economic trouble for the United States, for while the nation was still formally allied with France under the treaty of 1778, it was not prepared to take sides in an international conflict. While Washington had issued a proclamation of neutrality, in practice, neither the French nor the British respected that official position, and American ships, especially those carrying provisions, would be harassed and seized by both over the course of the year. Ship's papers such as this were used to establish proof of nationality and guarantee protection for ships. "By providing a statement of American property, signed by the President of the United States … [ship's papers were] intended to confirm our status as a neutral nation, when international conflict put added dangers on America's commerce at sea" (Stein, American Maritime Documents 1776-1860, 113-114). The official text of such documents was revised several times in 1793, in direct response to the political upheaval caused by the war and the increasingly fraught American trade with the West Indies.

On May 8, 1793, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Alexander Hamilton: "I had wished to have kept back the issuing passports for sea vessels till the question should be decided whether the treaty with France should be declared void… the whole instrument compleat with the two passports, sea-letters, & certificates in its final form, will be ready for signature to-morrow. It has therefore now become necessary to determine on the ultimate channel of distributing them" (Library of Congress). This may well have been one of the 500 un-engrossed documents that Jefferson proposed to have signed, presumably by Washington and himself, and forwarded to the Collectors of Customs at different ports for distribution. Additionally, Washington, in private correspondence, often complaining about the onerous task of signing several categories of documents—passports, patents and land grant titles among them—on which, by law, his signature was required. Text in English, Dutch and French. To the right of the signatures in the ship's manifest, in an unidentified manuscript hand, is the notation "Cancelled: 28 'Nov 94."

Text and signatures fresh, upper corner with paper-backed restoration to 3 by 4-inch loss affecting text without affecting signatures, some expert archival restoration to foldlines, lower edge, affecting only the local signatures. A most rare extremely good signed document.