From James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 5 April 1804 (Abstract)
§ To Thomas Jefferson
5 April 1804, Washington. “[I] Inclose the Commission for Kirby1 according to your parting request; also three others for Indian Comssrs. in blank, which you will be so good as to return.2 The last communications from N. Orleans are also inclosed.3 They are in several respects interesting.
“We have recd nothing from abroad since you left us, and every thing here remains as at that date.”
RC (DLC: Jefferson Papers). 1 p.; docketed by Jefferson as received 9 Apr.
1. The enclosure presumably was a commission that Jefferson offered to Ephraim Kirby to be a judge in the Mississippi Territory (Jefferson to Kirby, 10 Apr. 1804, DLC: Jefferson Papers).
2. In the spring of 1804, Jefferson named Return Jonathan Meigs and Daniel Smith commissioners to negotiate a treaty with the Cherokees ceding lands in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia to the U.S., and he named Benjamin Hawkins and David Meriwether commissioners to negotiate a treaty with the Creeks for the cession of lands between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers (, Indian Affairs, 1:693, 699).
3. These were probably Claiborne to JM, 18 (two letters) and 26 Feb. and 1 and 2 Mar. 1804, and Claiborne and Wilkinson to JM, 27 Feb. 1804, , 6:493, 494, 512–13, 524–25, 532–33, 516–17.