To James Madison from George Joy, 6 October 1815
From George Joy
London 6th. Octr: 1815
Dear sir,
The Manifold Writer, which I seldom use, except with the aid of another Machine called a Copyist, is useful on particular occasion; and I wonder that it is not more used. An objection to it is however seen in the enclosed; the first half dozen lines of which being obscure, I shall transcribe at the foot of this letter.1
There is nothing here, worth communicating, that you will not see in the public prints. These will inform you that the fire of pure royalty is not yet extinguished; that in the Netherlands, as well as in Spain, there is a Contest in favor of the infallibility of the Church;2 but as it appears by the speech of the Minister of the interior given in the Brussells paper of the 3rd. and the Chronicle of this Morning, that a protestant King has arisen “who is the Representative of the divinity on earth,” may we not hope that the Millennium is at hand?3 Always very faithfully Dear sir, Yours
G. Joy
There is one subject on which I ought to address a separate letter to you; and I am glad of the opportunity presented by Mr Langdon, which I consider the best I have had for a long time. The question, who is to be President, at the next election, is not unfrequent; and as the Idea has gone forth that it must not be a Virginian; and it has (&ca. ⅌ 9th. line).
RC and enclosure (DLC: Rives Collection, Madison Papers). Cover docketed by JM. For enclosure, see n. 1.
1. Joy enclosed a duplicate of his 27 Sept. 1815 letter to JM.
2. Joy probably referred to the remonstrance of Belgian Catholic bishops against the principle of religious toleration in the new constitution of the Netherlands, printed in the New-York Courier, 2 Dec. 1815; and to late-September reports from Spain of the defeat at La Coruna of an insurrection led by Gen. Juan Díaz Porlier against Ferdinand VII’s government, reported in the New York Columbian, 21 Nov. 1815.
3. In his speech closing an extraordinary session of the States General, Netherlands interior minister Willem Frederik Röell declared: “The citizens who are endowed with patriotism and sensibility could not, without the profoundest emotion, have seen him who is the representative of the divinity on earth, invoke in the midst of his people the same divinity as a witness of the engagements which he entered into, to fulfil with the most scrupulous exactness, as his subjects have a right to expect, the duties which are imposed on him.” Röell asserted in addition that William I would respect the rights of those of his subjects whose religion differed from his own, and urged the representatives of William’s Belgian provinces to discountenance rebellious sentiments among their constituents (London Morning Chronicle, 6 Oct. 1815).