To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 23 June 1783
From Edmund Pendleton
Tr (LC: Force Transcripts). In the left margin at the top of the transcription, Peter Force’s clerk wrote “MSS McGuire’s.” See , I, xxii, xxiii.
Virga.1 June 23d, 1783
Dear Sir
By yr favr of the 10th I find you have at length information that Great Britain is in motion to give the definitive treaty it’s force, as well as to settle some general rules for regulating commerce, wch I suppose to be their purpose, & all they can do, ’til your general treaty reaches Europe.2
I am glad you think the new Ministry disposed to favour the Peace, as I thought Ld North as little inclined to the measure as any body, however I suppose he was obliged to make that Sacrifice of Sentiments as the price of Coalition, and in such an hetrogenious one many great ones must have been made, if indeed they have any principles beyond ambition & avarice.3
I am still in the dark as to what is doing at Richmond on the subject of Finance;4 I hear they sit closely to hurry home to Harvest, which they will hardly effect, as We are beginning to use the Scythe.5 What they can adopt of sufficient permanency & not more oppressive in lieu of the impost I cant discover; especially as our efforts will be otherwise Abundantly strain’d to raise the 256 M dollars annually, required beyond the produce of the impost.6
I find that Maryland has adopted the measure—some of the Instructions in the Massachusetts, rather appear in opposition.7 If the measure should be finally agreed to, ’tis pity it could not have operated upon the large importations made & making.8
I am Dr Sr Yr Affe &c
Edmd Pendleton
1. Pendleton was at his estate of Edmundsbury.
2. Although JM’s letter of 10 June to Pendleton is missing, the remarks about foreign commerce in his letters of that day to Jefferson and Randolph probably indicate approximately what he had written to Pendleton on the same subject. See JM to Jefferson, 10 June, and nn. 5, 6, 21; JM to Randolph, 10 June 1783.
3. , VI, 504, n. 3; Jones to JM, 8 June, and n. 22; 21 June 1783.
4. Beckley to Randolph, 20 June; Jones to JM, 21 June, and nn. 5, 6, 8; Randolph to JM, 21 June 1783.
5. Probably in the harvest of wheat and other small grains.
6. In the plan for restoring public credit, Virginia’s exact quota of the total requisition of $1,500,000 was $256,487. This sum did not include the revenue hoped for from the impost duties (Pendleton to JM, 26 May, and n. 11; Jones to JM, 8 June, and n. 5; Randolph to JM, 14 June 1783, and n. 9).
7. Pendleton confined his comment to the proposed impost rather than to the revenue plan as a whole. See , IV, 389, n. 16; VI, 296, n. 38; 372, n. 8; 429; 431, n. 3; Jones to JM, 8 June 1783, and n. 9.
8. Randolph to JM, 9 May, and n. 14; 15 May; JM to Randolph, 20 May, and nn. 5, 6, 14; Pendleton to JM, 2 June; 9 June; 16 June, and n. 4; Harrison to Delegates, 7 June 1783, and n. 3.