To Isaac Onstot, who is still trying to get postmastership at Havana, Lincoln writes that he has informed Post Office Department "that if the recommendations from your own county place you on very nearly equal ground with the best of your competitors, I desire that you may be appointed." Lincoln says he would have answered sooner, but has "been absent on the circuit for seven weeks." Abraham Lincoln to Isaac Onstott, 6 November 1850, CW, 2:94.