From James Madison to Edward Coles, 7 March 1816
To Edward Coles
Washington Mar: 7. 1815 [1816]
Dear Sir
Finding by your letter to Mrs. M. answered by the enclosed,1 that you must have left N. O. before the communications from myself & Payne could have reached it, I take this occasion to thank you for yr. information given in two letters relative to abuses in the pub: lands, and the landed bounties for Soldiers.2 I hope the steps taken will prove some cure for them. The rule adopted by the War Dept. appeared to be the best calculated to save the Soldiers from the fraudulent speculations of which you apprized us.3
Mrs. M. has I presume given you the news of the City; and the newspapers will give that of the Nation. Our foreign intelligence is much in arrears. The latest was recd. through the prints of Charleston.
You do not say how long you mean to continue in S. Carolina. We shall count on a visit during one to Virga. Cant you make one to us here in the mean time. No one, unless it be among the ladies, will be more gratified, than your truly affece. friend,
James Madison
RC (NjP: Edward Coles Papers).
1. JM evidently enclosed Dolley Madison’s 6 Mar. 1816 letter to Coles describing the social season in Washington and speculating on the upcoming presidential election. She believed that James Monroe would ultimately prevail over his rivals William Harris Crawford and Daniel Tompkins. She described JM as being “very well … his spirits are fine, & nothing can surpass the sweetness of his temper” (Mattern and Shulman, Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison, 207).
2. JM referred to Coles’s letters to him of 24 Nov. 1815 and 12 Jan. 1816.
3. On 28 Apr. 1815, after receiving information about the improper purchase of land bounties, the office of the Adjutant and Inspector General issued a general order stipulating that all sales of land bounties previous to the War Department’s granting of patents for the land were to be regarded as “null and void.” Bounties were also to be issued only to those persons entitled to receive them. These regulations were to be “rigidly adhered to” (DNA: RG 94, General Orders).