August 3, 1787: Still Fishing

George Washington by unidentified artist

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2013.119?destination=node/63231%3Fedan_q%3Dgeorge%2520washington

"In the Evening fished, not very successfully."

--George Washington

Friday, August 3, 1787: The Convention Today
The Convention continued in recess. The Committee of Detail likely sent its draft Constitution to David Claypoole to be printed.

Synopsis

• The Convention's recess would end in three days.

Delegates Today

• Few (GA) and Blount (NC) had taken advantage of the recess at the Constitutional Convention to represent their states in the Confederation Congress in New York. Few, seconded by Blount, moved for a conference with the Creek Nation to seek peace. Massachusetts congressman Nathan Dane, seconded by Virginia congressman Richard Henry Lee, moved to postpone Few’s motion and instead consider a committee report on the Creek situation. This report implied that Georgia was probably more at fault than the Creek and accused Georgia and North Carolina of insisting on managing relations with the Indians within their boundaries until war came, and then turning it over to Congress.
• Washington (VA) accompanied Mary and Robert Morris (PA) and Gouverneur Morris (PA) on a fishing trip to Trenton. The party stayed with G. Morris’s brother-in-law, Colonel Samuel Ogden, at the Trenton Ironworks.
• Richard Champney wrote from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to thank Langdon (NH) for buying a flax seed-cleaning machine.
• Thomas Jefferson wrote from Paris to Randolph (VA), expressing his hope that the Convention would enable Congress to pay its debts. Jefferson commented on two incipient European wars and offered to buy books, fashions, wines, and so forth for Randolph and his family.

Philadelphia Today

• The day was warm and pleasant.