GW at Mount Vernon, where he wrote Secretary of State Timothy Pickering to acknowledge receipt of an agricultural pamphlet from John Sinclair.  GW also remarked on diplomatic news involving Revolutionary France (it “has baffled all calculation”) and “the Dey of Algiers.”

John Eager Howard, Secretary of War James McHenry, Robert Morris, and Alexander Smith all wrote GW on this date.  Howard told GW that a dealer in desirable bull calves sold at high prices.  McHenry related more news on the travails of U.S. envoy Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in France.  Morris, then in Philadelphia, forwarded a letter from Europe to George Washington Lafayette, then staying with GW at Mount Vernon, and praised George Washington Parke Custis, whom he saw on 9 April, as “astonishingly improved” and “a manly fine Fellow.”  Smith, a Maryland lumber dealer,  responded to GW’s inquiry about purchasing planks for use at Mount Vernon.