1. Meigs enclosed a copy of a 15 July 1816 letter (2 pp.) he had received from Samuel H. Harper in response to a 25 May 1816 inquiry from Meigs about the location of Lafayette’s land in Louisiana. Harper reported that Armand Duplantier had filed a warrant on 26 Nov. 1807 for 1,520 acres while locating “one third part thereof in the words following, vizt, ‘On vacant land situate beyond the line of six hundred yards lately abandoned by Congress to the Corporation of the said City (meaning New Orleans) round the fortifications of the same.’” Harper also mentioned that Bartholomew Lafon “who appears to be the agent of Sir John Coghill, assignee of La Fayette, says he is unwilling to accept of Lands outside of the fortifications, because they are of no value, but is willing to accept of Lands within the fortifications altho: the quantity would be much less than 504 acres & altho’ he might come into conflication with the Corporation.” The survey under this transaction, Harper continued, “has [n]ever been returned into this Office” and he asked whether he was authorized to issue a patent certificate for land within the fortifications and, if so, whether “an actual survey be necessary previous to issuing such certificate.”

2. Also enclosed was a copy of a 20 Aug. 1816 letter from Meigs to William Harris Crawford (2 pp.), responding to a request from Crawford about Lafayette’s Louisiana lands and enclosing Harper’s letter (see note 1 above). Meigs observed that the request to locate vacant lands “beyond” the line was “not in this place very explicit, it may mean beyond the inner line, or beyond the outer line, for the acts of Congress of 3d March 1807 & 3d March 1811 confirm the claim of the Corporation to the Commons adjacent to the said City & within six hundred yards from the fortifications—consequently there are two boundary lines to the tract confirmed to the corporation, viz the line of Fortifications, & the line 600 yards distant from them.” Lafon wished to locate the lands “beyond the inner line, i,e, within the fortifications,” which Meigs presumed was “inadmissible.” Meigs stated that he would not write to the Register until he had Crawford’s decision, adding that he did not understand the terms on which Lafon said he would accept lands within the fortifications, even though their quantity would be less and risked creating “confliction” with the Corporation. “If he could have land within the fortifications,” Meigs did not see “how he could come into conflication with the corporation.” In a postcript Meigs noted that “as the Register’s office is in the City & the location was entered there, it appears to me that the true meaning of the word beyond used in the location, is outside of the fortifications & outside of the lands confirmed to the corporation.” For additional background information on these subjects, see Madison and Lafayette’s Louisiana Lands, 26 Oct. 1809 (PJM-PS description begins Robert A. Rutland et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series (10 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 1984–). description ends 2:35–38).