To James Madison from Louis-André Pichon, 27 April 1804 (Abstract)
§ From Louis-André Pichon
27 April 1804, Georgetown. Encloses an extract of a dispatch from Laussat.1 If Laussat’s account of the facts is correct, Pichon is confident that the U.S. government will hasten to give to the French government satisfaction for the lack of respect that the commanding officers of the two forts showed the French flag.
RC and enclosure (DNA: RG 59, NFL, France, vol. 1); Tr and Tr of enclosure (AAE: Political Correspondence, U.S., 57:98). RC 1 p.; in French; in a clerk’s hand, signed by Pichon; docketed by Wagner: “The Argo not saluted in the Mississippi.” Tr and Tr of enclosure enclosed in Pichon to Talleyrand, 19 Prairial an XII (8 June 1804) (ibid., 57:96–97). For enclosure, see n. 1.
1. The enclosed extract (1 p.; in French; docketed by Wagner) is from Laussat to Pichon, 18 Mar. 1804, stating that he had received a letter from the captain of the Argo at the Balize complaining that he had saluted that fort on his departure and the fort had not returned the salute. He had refused to salute the fort at Plaquemine because he had not received the customary previous assurance that the salute would be returned shot for shot. He added that a Spanish corvette had saluted the fort the previous morning and that salute had been returned.