To James Madison from Asbury Dickins, 14 March 1815
From Asbury Dickins
McKeowins Hotel, Washington; 14th. March 1815.
Sir,
I trust it will not be deemed a departure from the high respect which is due to your exalted station and eminent character, for me to present myself, in this manner, to your notice.
Since I had the honour to see you, I have written to the Commissioners of the Navy offering myself for the Secretaryship of their Board. I learn, however, that several applications had been previously made to them: and, as I am altogether a stranger to each of those officers, and have no powerful interest to support my request, I fear that I have but little to expect from the result.
I would, therefore, beg most respectfully, that you will still be pleased to bear me in mind.1 I should be willing to accept any situation in which it might be thought proper to employ me. I flatter myself that I might be usefully employed abroad: in England, indeed, I feel confident that I could render services out of the power of any other American however high his station. This is the only2 why I preferred a station there: for, in truth, that is by no means the Country in which I should wish to live. But, if there be no appointment abroad which might, under all the circumstances, be considered suitable for me, it might not perhaps interfere with any of your arrangements to assign me to some duty at home. My views are moderate. I would be content with any appointment from which I might derive a respectable maintainance for my family. Indeed, Sir, (and I hope you will pardon the avowal) such is my situation, after a long absence, without fortune, without a profession, with a large family, and my slender pecuniary means almost exhausted by the expense of long journies that I am obliged to look to some such employment as the only means of support, at least until I should have time to find some permanent pursuit.
This is my situation. It would be unnecessary to say more. I throw myself entirely upon your goodness.
I have written, also, to the Secretary of State. Perhaps you will condescend to speak to him concerning me.
I cannot take my leave without again begging you to be assured that I shall always remember with pride and gratitude the confidence and favour which you have manifested towards me: and, if some evil destiny should not thwart all my views in life, I trust you will one day have reason to know that they have not been ill bestowed. I am, sir, with the highest respect and most sincere attachment, Your obedient humble servant
Asbury Dickins.3
Permit me to add that if you should have any commands for me, my address will be to the care of Dr. Baker, Light street, Baltimore.
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. JM nominated Dickins to be U.S. consul in London on 2 Mar. 1815, but the Senate rejected the appointment the following day (, 2:626–27).
2. Dickins evidently omitted a word here.
3. Following John Dickins’s death in the 1798 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic, Asbury Dickins (1780–1861) took over his father’s idiosyncratically-managed stationery and bookselling business. In 1800 he became publisher of the Port Folio, a successful magazine, and his affairs seemed to prosper as he built a Federalist-allied business network. By the end of the following year, however, he had fled to England to escape a suit for debt, only to suffer imprisonment there at the hands of some of his father’s creditors. Despite these troubles he obtained the office of chancellor in the U.S. consulate in London in 1807, and served there until the declaration of war in 1812. Returning to the United States by way of France, Dickins made the acquaintance of William Harris Crawford, who, despite an initial unfavorable assessment of Dickins’s financial acumen, hired him by 1817 as a clerk in the Treasury Department. In 1829 Dickins was promoted to chief clerk there; he subsequently held the same position in the State Department, twice briefly acting as secretary of state. From 1836 to 1861, he served as secretary of the Senate (Peter J. Parker, “Asbury Dickins, Bookseller, 1798–1801, or, The Brief Career of a Careless Youth,” 94 [1970]: 464–83; Ruth Ketring Nuermberger, “Asbury Dickins (1780–1861): A Career in Government Service,” North Carolina Historical Review 24 [1947]: 281–314).