To James Madison from Edmund Pendleton, 28 July 1783
From Edmund Pendleton
Printed excerpt (Stan. V. Henkels Catalogue No. 694 [1892], p. 94). Below this excerpt the present editors have appended a notation, probably made about 1850 by Peter Force’s clerk, of two additional topics mentioned in the letter. The clerk described the manuscript as “1 page folio” (LC: Madison Miscellany).
Virginia, July 28, 1783
I expect that the citizens of Philad’a whilst they are retailing their merit to induce the return of Congress to their City, will feel some remorse for their assumed indifference about their making that the seat of the permanent Session of that body & will enter the list of bidders for the Honour & profit.1 They may Palliate, but they cant excuse their neglect to suppress a handful of rioters assembled to violate the Laws & to insult either their own Government or that of the State,2 but we have all reason to practice the divine disposition of forgiving upon repentance.3
1. JM to Randolph, 8 July; 15 July; 21 July; Jones to JM, 14 July, and n. 6; 21 July, and n. 4; 28 July; JM to Mercer, 16 July, and n. 4; to Jefferson, 17 July, and nn. 7, 9; to Pendleton, 28 July 1783.
2. JM Notes, 21 June, and nn. 2, 6, 7; Delegates to Harrison, 24 June; JM to Randolph, 30 June; Hamilton to JM, 6 July 1783, n. 5.
3. Pendleton to JM, 21 July 1783, and n. 7.
4. Two weeks earlier Joseph Jones had reported more optimistically that in the vicinity of Fredericksburg “Crops are in general very promising” (Jones to JM, 14 July 1783).
5. Pendleton to JM, 10 May; 14 July; Randolph to JM, 12 July, and n. 2; 18 July, and nn. 5, 6; Jones to JM, 21 July 1783.