To James Madison from Louis-Marie Turreau, 13 September 1806 (Abstract)
From Louis-Marie Turreau, 13 September 1806 (Abstract)
§ From Louis-Marie Turreau. 13 September 1806, Baltimore. Three French warships, considerably damaged in the storm of Aug. 18–23, were forced to enter U.S. ports for provisions and repairs. The French consulate currently having funds only for its ordinary expenses, Turreau thinks it his duty to request a credit from the U.S. government, to be used exclusively for the urgent and indispensable repairs of the ships. The estimated cost will be $120,000 to $130,000. This sum will be reimbursed in the United States or in France, as best suits the former, and the French government will hasten to repay a debt as sacred as the motive for contracting it. Is sure the U.S. government will not refuse the assistance that all civilized nations render each other in such cases, and that the French sailors who were driven by the storm to the land of a friendly people will find there all the help to be expected.1
RC (DNA: RG 59, NFL, France, vol. 2–3). 2 pp.; in French; docketed by Wagner as received 15 Sept., with his note: “Loan wanted.”
1. On 2 Nov. 1806 Anthony Merry informed Charles James Fox that the U.S. government had refused Turreau’s request. Of the two French ships at Annapolis, he reported, one was too badly damaged to be repaired, and work on the other had not yet started owing to lack of funds (UkLPR: Foreign Office, ser. 5, 49:226r-228v).