I have duly received your letter of the 1st. inst: relating to the claims on the U.S. founded on their release of France from claims on her with the several documents to which it refers.

Having long withdrawn my attention from such subjects, I should under any circumstances feel a reluctance in recurring to them. At my very advanced period of life, with other demands on its scanty remnant fully commensurate to it, and in a case leading to a review of voluminous transactions of remote date, without the slightest prospect of throwing new lights on them, my pleas for declining the task to which I am invited, will I am sure, be received with the indulgence to which they are entitled. Might it not be added that the propriety is certainly not obvious, of interposing an opinion, for public use, in a case where neither facts nor arguments could be offered, which are not known to be fully before the Authority which is to decide on its merits.

The letter from the very respectable Body of Baltimore ⟨Merchants constituting you their⟩ agent, has been forwarded as you desired, ⟨to Mr. Monroe, now at his seat⟩ in Loudon. With friendly respects