James Madison Papers
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To James Madison from James Monroe, 7 October 1786

From James Monroe

New York Octr. 7th. 1786

Dear Sir

I have been favor’d with yours covering a letter to Mr. Thomson1 which I shall deliver him in the morning. I am glad you have accepted the appointmt.; if the court shod. sit, wh. is only a probable event, & the arrangment we have in contempletion with respect to the Mohawk shod. succeed I shall be happy to accompany you in a trip here next summer. We have heard nothing from Mr Jay since the journal hath been handed to him; I am inclin’d to suspect it hath made a different impression on him, from what the narrative of its contents had done by those in his party in the late transaction. This with the impression Mr. Th.2 (if he hath conferr’d with him) may have made, may perhaps have suspended his movements for the present. I am inform’d he means to submit nothing further to the present Congress. Perhaps he waits the convention of the ensuing delegations, to sound them & to be govern’d by circumstances as they shall turn up. If Pena. & Jersey shod. move in the business this intrigue is at an end. Symmes of the Jersey delegation brings the subject to the view of his legislature. We set out if nothing intervenes to prevent it, on friday nex[t] so as to get into Phila. on Saturday evening. Will you be there on our arrival & take a seat with us in a spacious carriage to Fredricksbg? [Do?] you intend visiting the Genl. before you get to Richmond, in that event we wod. go togeth[er].3 I shall write Mr. Jefferson on our private afr. by this packet.4 I am sincerely yr. friend & servt

Jas. Monroe

We propos’d the other day to refer the report from Annapolis [to] a Committee. It was objected to by the Eastern states. W[e] withdrew it for the purpose of a conference with th[em] but we suspect yet they will vote agnst it. No. Caroli[na] is off the floor so that I doubt the possibility of c[ar]rying it & in that event shall decline it.

RC (NN). Brackets enclose letters obscured in right margin of Ms.

2Probably Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress. Thomson could have given Jay information on the proceedings of Congress and attitudes of the delegates beyond what would have been contained in the Journal.

3JM took Monroe up on his offer. He arrived at Mount Vernon with the Monroes on 23 Oct. and left with them for Fredericksburg on the twenty-fifth (Fitzpatrick, Diaries of Washington, III, 128–29).

4Monroe wrote to Jefferson about extending their Mohawk speculation with the aid of Jefferson’s credit abroad on 12 Oct. 1786 (Boyd, Papers of Jefferson description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (19 vols. to date; Princeton, N. J., 1950——). description ends , X, 457–58).

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