To James Madison from John Devereux, 7 November 1816
From John Devereux
Washington 7th. novbr. 1816
Valued Sir
I beg leave to present you with two Peruvian Tiger Skins—which you’ll please to accept as a small token to record that gratitude which in common with our country, I shall never cease to owe you, and that high respect for virtues and merits, which I feel too Strongly to express by words. With profound respect and esteem, I am Sir, your most obdt. Servt.
J: Devereux1
RC (DLC).
1. Irish-born John Devereux left Ireland after the unsuccessful 1798 rebellion against Great Britain. By 1815 he had made his way to Baltimore, where he became involved in trade with Spanish America and the cause of Spanish American independence. He offered to recruit an Irish legion to assist Simón Bolívar, and in 1818 he returned to Ireland to do so, although he never participated in any of the military activities of the troops he raised (Alfred Hasbrouck, Foreign Legionaries in the Liberation of Spanish South America [New York, 1928], 164–73, 186–88).