James Madison Papers

To James Madison from DeWitt Clinton, 25 November 1804 (Abstract)

§ From DeWitt Clinton

25 November 1804, New York. “I beg leave to introduce to your acquaintance Thomas Emmet Esquire formerly an eminent Lawyer in Dublin.1 He has come into this Country (with a view to a permanent residence) with the most respectable recommendations and his conduct has made a very favorable impression on the minds of the Citizens of this place.

“You have seen the list of our Electors.2 There is not one suspicious character amongst them. Not one but that will give a decided voice in favor of the present administration. And the Accounts of last evening from N Hampshire report a similar result in that State.”

RC (DNA: RG 76, Preliminary Inventory 177, entry 125, France, Convention of 1803 [Spoliation], Misc. Records, ca. 1798–1804, envelope 1, folder 16). 1 p.

1Irish attorney Thomas Addis Emmet (1764–1827) was the older brother of Irish patriot Robert Emmet, who was executed for treason in 1803. Thomas Emmet graduated from Trinity College and the University of Edinburgh with degrees in law and medicine, which latter field he abandoned to establish a successful practice at the Dublin bar. Sometime after 1790 he joined the United Irishmen and was arrested and imprisoned by the British in 1798. Following his release from prison in 1802, Emmet went to Brussels and to France, whence he departed for the United States. He arrived in New York on 11 Nov. 1804, established a successful law practice, and served as state attorney general from 1812 to 1813 (Thomas Addis Emmet, Memoir of Thomas Addis and Robert Emmet with Their Ancestors and Immediate Family [2 vols.; New York, 1915], 1:202, 203, 206, 214, 248, 330, 391, 483, 509, 2:156, 236–37).

2On 9 Nov. 1804 the New York State legislature at Albany chose nineteen electors who were “all decided republicans.” The list of names was printed in the 14 Nov. 1804 New York Republican Watch-Tower.

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