From James Madison to Francis Baring & Co. (Abstract), 10 April 1805
§ To Francis Baring & Co
10 April 1805, Department of State. “As it is not improbable, that attempts will be made by unauthorized persons to obtain part of the sum of £3043.13.10 received by Mr Erving from the British Government in the case of the Olive Branch, Vanleuvanigh, Master, and as it is affected by several considerations of a peculiar nature, I have to request you to pay no part of the award upon it to any person or persons without a special authority from this Department to receive it.”1
Letterbook copy (DNA: RG 59, IC, vol. 1). 1 p. Addressed to “Sir Francis Baring & Co.”
1. The payment for the cargo of the Olive Branch apparently became entangled in the bankruptcy proceedings of Ambrose Vasse of Philadelphia, and later of Alexandria. In 1820 Congress passed an act authorizing payment to Vasse of $13,378.63 awarded him by the commissioners under the seventh article of the 1794 Jay treaty with Great Britain (Hartford American Mercury, 6 June 1820). For earlier references to Vasse’s case, see Levi Lincoln to JM, 1 Dec. 1804, 8:340–42 and n. 1, and JM to Jacob Shoemaker and Andrew Pettit, 13 Dec. 1804, 8:377.