Gentlemen of the Senate:
It has been represented by our minister plenipotentiary near the French Republic that such of our commercial relations with France as may require the support of the United States in detail can not be well executed without a consul-general. Of this I am satisfied when I consider the extent of the mercantile claims now depending before the French Government, the necessity of bringing into the hands of one agent the various applications to the several committees of administration residing at Paris, the attention which must be paid to the conduct of consuls and vice-consuls, and the nature of the services which are the peculiar objects of a minister's care, and leave no leisure for his intervention in business to which consular functions are competent. I therefore nominate Fulwar Skipwith to be consul-general of the United States in France.
GO. WASHINGTON.
George Washington, Special Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/206494