From James Madison to James Monroe, 27 March 1815
To James Monroe
Montpelier Mar. 27. 1815
Dear Sir
I now return the papers sent with yours already acknowledged.1 They are well worth perusing & preserving.
As Dr. Eustis will soon embark for Holland, you will not forget to put him in possession of what has passed with Changuion on the subject of a Commercial Treaty.2 It may be proper also that he should be apprized of the condescention of the Sovn. Prince to the B. Govt. in forbidding Dutch vessels to sail for the U.S. as being under a Blockade, and of the light in which that fact was viewed here.3 Will it not be well also to send him a copy or two of the Suppressed Exposè, (cutting out the prefixed page) with an explanation of the circumstances attending it.4
I have nothing yet from Mobille subsequent to the fall of Fort B.5 If the British commander does not immediately restore the place, in conformity to the Treaty of peace, the question remaining will be whether he will avow a purpose of permanently refusing6 do so, or of awaiting for the orders of his Govt: In the former case, the course on the part of the U.S. is obvious. In the latter, it is probable that the impracticability of dislodging the British force at once, will afford an opportunity for the arrival of the final orders. It may indeed be expected, that the determination of the B. Govt. if dependent on Military events in that quarter, will have been sent off immediately on hearing the catastrophe at N.O. and it is a fair calculation therefore, that the final orders if not already recd. will be so, before communications to Gen J. from Washington can reach him. Accept my best wishes
J. Madison
RC (DLC: Monroe Papers). Docketed by Monroe.
1. See JM to Monroe, 26 Mar. 1815.
2. JM referred to a 24 Feb. 1815 proposal for a treaty that Monroe had received from François D. Changuion, Dutch minister to the United States (DNA: RG 59, NFL, Netherlands). Changuion suggested that the new treaty be based on the one concluded by the two countries in 1782, with the changes necessary to bring it up to date and the addition of four articles, which would 1) exempt Dutch ships from paying a ten percent surtax or other duties on products or manufactures of the Netherlands or their colonies imported into the United States, and from paying higher import duties on Dutch goods than those levied on American ships importing them; 2) exempt U.S. ships from paying a three to four percent duty on the value of American products or manufactures imported into the Netherlands, and from paying higher import duties than if those goods were imported in Dutch ships; 3) provide for the definitive adjudication of disputes between Dutch subjects and American citizens in the courts of the country where the disagreement took place; and 4) bind the two countries, in case either went to war with a third, to free the seamen of the other when captured in unarmed merchant ships of its enemy.
3. Sylvanus Bourne, U.S. consul in Amsterdam, reported this measure of the Dutch government in his 10 Sept. 1814 letter to Monroe (DNA: RG 59, CD, Amsterdam).
4. For An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War …, to which JM referred, see his letter to Thomas Jefferson, 12 Mar. 1815, and n. 1.
5. For the surrender of Fort Bowyer to the British on 12 Feb. 1815, see James Taylor to JM, 21 Feb. 1815, and n. 3.
6. JM evidently omitted the word “to” here.