From James Madison to Congress, 7 November 1811
To Congress
November 7th 1811
I now lay before Congress, two letters to the Department of State, one from the present Plenipotentiary of France,1 the other from his predecessor;2 which were not included among the documents accompanying my Message of the fifth instant; the translation of them being not then compleated.
James Madison
RC and enclosures, two copies (DNA: RG 233, President’s Messages, 12A-D1; and DNA: RG 46, Legislative Proceedings, 12A-E2). Both RCs in the hand of Edward Coles, signed by JM. For enclosures, see nn.
1. Sérurier’s 23 July 1811 letter to Monroe (3 pp.) announced the release of some detained American vessels in France after the receipt there of the law of 2 Mar. 1811 implementing the provisions of JM’s proclamation of 2 Nov. 1810. The French minister also included a list of American exports that would thereafter be admitted to France on the condition of American vessels taking in return cargoes of “French wines, silks, and other articles of French manufacture, in the proportions determined by the regulations” (translation printed in , Foreign Relations, 3:508–9).
2. JM forwarded a translation (2 pp.) of Turreau’s 14 Nov. 1810 letter to Robert Smith confirming the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees but also adding the qualification that “the renewal of commercial intercourse between France and the United States cannot alter the system of exclusion adopted by all Europe against all the products of the soil or the manufactures of England or her colonies” (printed ibid., 3:500–501).