Looking For Appointment To The Navy- 1808

BAYARD, Sr., James Asheton (1767-1815) was an influential American lawyer and Federalist statesman from Delaware who played a significant role in the early republic. Born in Philadelphia and orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his uncle, Colonel John Bubenheim Bayard, and graduated from Princeton College in 1784 before studying law and establishing a successful practice in Wilmington, Delaware. Bayard served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1797 to 1803, where he gained national prominence during the contested presidential election of 1800, using Delaware’s single House vote to help break the Electoral College deadlock in favor of Thomas Jefferson in exchange for constitutional assurances. He later served in the U.S. Senate from 1804 to 1813 as one of the Federalist Party’s leading constitutional thinkers, strongly opposing the expansion of executive power and the War of 1812. In 1813, he resigned from the Senate to join the American peace commission and was a key negotiator of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war with Great Britain in 1814. Bayard died shortly after returning to the United States in 1815, leaving a lasting political legacy continued by multiple generations of Bayard family members who served as U.S. Senators from Delaware. Autograph Letter Signed “J.A. Bayard” 1pp quarto, Wilmington June 2, 1808, and reads in part: “...You will permit me to introduce to you Mr. H. Newcomb of New Hampshire. I am made acquainted with him by a letter from General Morris…This object is an appointment in the Navy. I can have no difficulty upon the credit of my friend Gen. Morris of recommending him to your notice as a promising young man…” Fine condition.