RC (DLC: Madison Papers); endorsed by TJ as received 29 Oct. 1819 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) Richard S. Hackley to Madison, Madrid, 23 May 1819, introducing Mariano La Gasca y Segura, the director of the Real Jardín Botánico, Madrid; advising that he will be sending a collection of specimens from that garden to his wife, Harriet Hackley, who will forward it from Richmond to Montpellier; explaining that in an enclosed letter La Gasca expresses his desire for interaction with the Agricultural Society of Albemarle; reporting that La Gasca will come to the United States if he can be assured of a professorship either in Latin, French, or Spanish, or in botany; asking that La Gasca’s interest in a professorship be kept private; and adding in a 29 June 1819 postscript that John Forsyth, the American minister to Spain, has forwarded the packet and also believes that La Gasca would be “a great acquisition” to the faculty of the University of Virginia (RC in DLC: Madison Papers; printed in Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 1:461–3). (2) La Gasca to Madison, 9 Apr. 1819, not found except for an extract in which La Gasca asks that, in return for the seeds enclosed, he be sent a variety of North American seeds, primarily of trees and of composite, gramineous, umbelliferous, and scabious plants; specifying that he very much desires dried specimens of the umbellifers whose flowers and fruits André Michaux and others described, and which would enable La Gasca to perfect some new, very difficult methods on which he has long been working (Tr of extract subjoined to RC of preceding enclosure; in Madison’s hand; in Latin; endorsed by Madison: “From Don Marianus La Gasca Director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Madrid: who is desiorous of a correspondence & interchanges with the professors of the Natural Sciences in N. America. He is recommended in high terms by Mr Hackley”; extract printed in Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 1:462n).