To James Madison from Peter Stephen Chazotte, 15 January 1821
From Peter Stephen Chazotte
Philadelphia 15th. Jany. 1821.
Sir
I have the honour of sending to you, a Pamph[l]et,1 containing Facts and Observations, on the policy of immediately introducing the rich culture of coffee, cocoa, vines, olives capers, almonds, &a &a in East Florida, and in the southern States, and which, I flatter myself, you will do me the honour to accept, and give to it a moment’s perusal. On a subject of such national, importance, the opinion, of your Excellency will be received with perfect defference and respect. I have the honour, respectfully, to subscribe myself Your Excellency: Most Obedt. & humble Servt.
Pr. Stephen Chazotte2
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Peter Stephen Chazotte, Facts and Observations on the Culture of Vines, Olives, Capers, Almonds, &c. in the Southern States and of Coffee, Cocoa, and Cochineal, in East Florida (Philadelphia, 1821; Shoemaker 4966).
2. French-born Peter Stephen Chazotte owned coffee and cocoa plantations in Saint-Domingue in the 1790s until he fled in 1798 for Charleston, South Carolina. He returned to the island in 1800 but left for good in 1804, eventually settling in Philadelphia, where by 1811 he was running a French and English seminary and boarding school. In 1821 he led an exploring party to East Florida on behalf of an association of Franco-American families who wished to settle there and grow coffee, but the association was unsuccessful in its attempt to purchase land near Key Largo and dissolved in 1822 (Canter Brown Jr., “The East Florida Coffee Land Expedition of 1821: Plantations or a Bonapartist Kingdom of the Indies?” Tequesta 51 [1991]: 8–17; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 21 Sept. 1811).