Papers of John Adams, volume 19
d1789
I have received your kind letter of April 24th—recommending Gustavus Scott Esqr for employment in the Law Department—1 The President is you know in the first Instance the sole Judge of the Persons proper to be nominated to officer When the Nomination is made the Senate have a Negative but the Vice President has no Voice excepting in the case of an equal division of the Senators— There are many Chances to one therefore that I shall not have a Vote in this Question. if however it should so happen. I shall have all the attention to your recommendation which you as a public Man would advise me to have— I thank you Sir for giving me this opportunity of congratulating you on your escape from the alarming danger in which I saw you at Sea. I am with much Esteem / Sir your most Obedt & most humble Servant
LbC in an unknown hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Hoñble Wm Himnan Esquire / Annapolis in Maryland—”; APM Reel 115.
The Adamses encountered Maryland lawyer William Hindman (1743–1822), a former Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress from 1785 to 1786, en route to America aboard the Lucretia in May 1788. Hindman was aboard the Thomas and Sally, Capt. F. Dorset (Dorsett), sailing from London to Baltimore, when a storm struck off the coast of the Isle of Portland and brought down the ship’s mast on 18 May. The crew of the
472
Lucretia replaced the mast and offered medical assistance. Hindman survived, and he served as a Maryland congressman from 1793 to 1799 (
AFC
, 8:267, 269;
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
Gustavus Scott (1753–1800), of Prince William Co., Va., studied law at the Middle Temple. He did not receive a post in the federal judiciary, but he later served as one of the officials overseeing the construction of public buildings in Washington, D.C. (
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).