To Thomas Jefferson from Jean Marie de Bordes, 29 November 1804
From Jean Marie de Bordes
Philadelphia 29th November 1804.
Sir,
In answer to the letter I had the honour of adressing to your Excellency, concerning the arrearages of my pay, which I would not have claimed, had I been in less distressing circumstances, you observed there was not yet any law passed on the subject, and I should wait ’till some resolve should be taken by Congress in favour of my claims. But I will observe to your Excellency that I came to this country destitute of every means, being one of the unfortunate victims of Saint-Domingo; that I have not only my-self, but a family to maintain by the name of Osborne, who are natives of this place and not unknown to you, and if something is not immediately done in support of their existence and mine, we must necessarily perish for want.—As it is not now, says your Excellency, in the power of Congress to give my services their due reward, I presume to think the benevolent chief of a people so generous to foreign misfortune, will listen to his natural feelings, and coming to the assistance of a man who exposed him-self in the defence of their country, offer him any situation that may render life comfortable, ’till he receives from them that proof of their sensibility which I am confident they are always ready to give. Should therefore any such situation be now at the disposal of your Excellency, which you would be so Kind as to honour me with, I should look upon it, not only as a compensation, but a particular favour conferred on me. Then would be devoted to gratitude a life preserved by generosity, and all its moments spent in the most effectual exertions to prove my-self worthy of the benefit by my constant zeal and devotion to the benefactor.
I have the honour to be with respect, your Excellency’s, The most humble and most obedient servant,
de Bordes.
P.S. My life has been entirely military, and I think my-sef a perfect master of the french tongue; this is sufficient to direct your Excellency’s good will towards me—
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); below signature: “Corner of Walnut and Front-Streets Pa.”; at head of text: “John Marie de Bordes, late an American officer, To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson, President of the United-States.”; addressed: “To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson, President of the United-States, City of Washington”; franked; postmarked Philadelphia, 30 Nov.; endorsed by TJ as received 2 Dec. and so recorded in SJL; also endorsed by TJ: “for office.”
Jean Marie de Bordes, a former French royal guard, fought in the American Revolution from 1776 until late 1778 and was later described as having been “an Officer in the Georgia Line.” By 1779 he joined French colonial troops in the West Indies and returned to Georgia as part of the failed Franco-American siege of Savannah. After the war he took up farming in Saint-Domingue. In 1794, the British government forcibly removed Bordes from the island. By late 1795, he was living as a Haitian refugee in Philadelphia and petitioning the government for “the military emoluments” that he believed were owed him for his service in the Revolution. In 1804, he opened a French language school in Philadelphia, and in 1807 he published a French translation of Robert Dodsley’s The Economy of Human Life, copies of which he sent to TJ. His hopes of migrating to Cuba that year ended when fears of war between the United States and Great Britain caused his sponsor to reconsider. In 1811, Madison gave Bordes a passport to Havana (Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser, 26 July 1796; Aurora, 29 Oct.; , 19:429, 472; , Pres. Ser., 3:417; , 3:50; Bordes to TJ, 20 Dec. 1804, 1 July, 4 Sep. 1807; TJ to Bordes, 7 July 1807).
letter: Bordes to TJ, 15 June, not found (see Vol. 43:694). On 20 June, Dearborn replied to Bordes’s letter, explaining that his claim for back pay fell under a statute of limitations and could not be settled unless Congress sanctioned a new law (Lb in DNA: RG 107, MLS).
In 1797, Bordes married Philadelphia-born Isabella Osborn (Osborne), the daughter of widow Jane Renaudet Osborn (, 32 [1908], 120-1; John B. Linn and William H. Egle, Record of Pennsylvania Marriages prior to 1810, 2 vols. [Baltimore, 1968], 2:24).