Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Papers Three letters, 4 Jan., 22 Mar., and 4 June 1799 to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746-1825), in Charleston, S.C., from Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, Philadelphia, regarding information smuggled out of France during the Revolution. The spy, Matthew Salmon, identified as a "mulatto" free person of color, is described in a letter of 4 Jan. 179[9], as "said to have been a deputy to the National Convention ... has large dispatches from the Directory concealed in tubs with double bottoms inclosed in Rollers of wood." According to Pickering's letter, 22 Mar. 1799, Pinckney met Salmon's ship in Charleston, S.C., took the dispatches and gave in return "three original letters from Bonnet, Pinchinot & the other member of the Council of 500." Pickering then sent Pinckney a letter received from Major Mountflorence, "but all the proper names are in cypher ... I hope you have a corresponding cypher," Pickering wrote, 4 June 1799, "and I beg you to communicate any important information wich the letter may contain." |
