To James Madison from Richard Bland Lee, 2 July 1817
From Richard Bland Lee
Washington July 2d. 1817
Dear Sir,
Inclosed I send you a letter from Mrs. Lee to Mrs. Madison,1 to whom be pleased to present my best respects & wishes, which was intended to have been conveyed by Mr. Todd.
It affords me very great satisfaction to hear from every quarter, that you enjoy in your delightful retirement fine health with philosophic Ease. That you may long continue in possession of these blessings, enhanced as they will every moment be, by the pleasing retrospect of a life of Virtue and usefulness is the fervent prayer of your sincere friend & huml. Sert
Richard Bland Lee2
RC (InU: Lafayette Manuscripts). Enclosure not found, but see n. 1.
1. The letter was Elizabeth Collins Lee to Dolley Payne Madison, 29 June 1817 (Mattern and Shulman, Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison, 226–27). Eliza Lee (1769–1858) came from a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker family and was Dolley Payne Madison’s oldest friend (ibid., 405). Dolley replied on 8 July 1817 (DLC: Dolley Madison Papers).
2. Richard Bland Lee (1761–1827) was a Federalist congressman from Virginia, 1789–95. In 1815 he moved from his plantation, Sully, to Washington and in 1816, JM appointed him commissioner of claims for property destroyed in the War of 1812. He became judge of the Orphans’ Court in the District of Columbia in 1819 and held that post until his death.