From James Madison to Jacob Crowninshield, 3 July 1805 (Abstract)
To Jacob Crowninshield, 3 July 1805 (Abstract)
§ To Jacob Crowninshield. 3 July 1805, Department of State. “I have the honor to inform you, in answer to your letter of the 25 ult. [not found] that no information respecting the service of the monition in the case of the Hector, Smith, or any subsequent proceeding respecting it, exists in this Department.1 Mr. Wm. Lyman, as the Agent for such claims in London, will have it in his power to furnish the statement you desire.”
RC (DLC: Stone Autograph Collection); letterbook copy (DNA: RG 59, DL, vol. 15). RC 1 p.; in Wagner’s hand, signed by JM. Minor differences between the copies have not been noted.
1. According to a “List of Cases not coming within the Treaty” that were pending on 1 Oct. 1801, enclosed in George W. Erving to William Lyman, 28 May 1805, the schooner Hector, Captain Smith, was the property of Robert Stone, John Ropes, and Ebenezer Putnam of Salem, Massachusetts, and was carrying a cargo of coffee, cotton, and sugar when it was seized by the British sloop of war Bulldog, Capt. John Dick, on 26 Feb. 1796, while en route from Gonaïves to St. Thomas. The ship and the cargo, which belonged to the owners of the vessel and to Thomas G. Waite of Lyme, Connecticut, were condemned at Tortola on 29 Mar. 1796. Erving noted that a monition had been issued but never returned (DNA: RG 76, Preliminary Inventory 177, entry 179, Great Britain, Treaty of 1794 [Art. VII], British Spoliations, ca. 1790–1820, Unbound Records, box 4).