1. Skipwith enclosed a copy of Armstrong’s 31 July 1806 letter to him (2 pp.), replying to Skipwith’s of 24 July (see Skipwith to JM, 1 Aug. 1806, n. 5) that Armstrong was not concerned about Skipwith’s opinion of his conduct but did wish to know what the other “concerns” to which Skipwith had alluded were, in order to explain his view of them to the U.S. government. He added that he had informed the French government of Skipwith’s allegations of claims fraud more than a year previously, and had recently repeated the information and requested that the charges be thoroughly investigated and proved or disproved. Skipwith acknowledged receipt of this letter on 5 Aug. 1806 (1 p.; marked “No. 20”), inquiring which department of the French government Armstrong had contacted, and whether he had forwarded various documents that Skipwith had sent him to substantiate the allegations. Skipwith requested that particular papers, including those sent with his 31 July 1806 letter to Armstrong (see Skipwith to JM, 1 Aug. 1806, n. 9), be returned to him if not already forwarded. On 10 Aug. (1 p.) Armstrong enclosed a copy of a 7 Aug. 1806 letter from French treasury minister Nicolas Francois Mollien (2 pp.; in French; docketed by Wagner), stating that Mollien had received Armstrong’s of 31 July 1806 relaying Skipwith’s allegations, that they were too vague to serve as the basis of an investigation, and that proof would be required. Armstrong would submit all the documents that Skipwith had sent, he wrote, but those received with Skipwith’s of 31 July 1805 were “unauthenticated copies” which could not be accepted as evidence; Skipwith must therefore supply the originals. Skipwith replied on 14 Aug. 1806 (8 pp.; marked “No. 21”) that the documents should be sent to Napoleon’s Council of State or “Some Special & impartial Authority” rather than the French treasury department or council of liquidations, as the two latter entities had perpetrated many of the abuses of which he complained. He planned to obtain “official Copies” of the documents sent with his 31 July 1805 letter, the originals of which were now in the United States and would be deposited in the State Department. These papers, however, were not essential to proving the validity of his protest against certain payments made to James Swan, or his charges against Armstrong, both of which could easily be substantiated by the official records of the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. board of claims commissioners, and the French council of liquidations. Skipwith objected to Swan’s having been paid “near three quarters of a million, … as additional indemnity for protested bills, which bills had been reimbursed in an unusually liberal manner & delivered up to the Treasury receipted in full, & all claim on them extinguished many years before,” and an additional “three hundred & fifty thousand Livres … as indemnity for not using his permit to export ninety Six thousand Livres value in merchandize.” He accused Armstrong of colluding to pay unqualified claims while cheating legitimate applicants, of failing to effectively transmit Skipwith’s allegations to the French government as required by the claims convention, and of secretly soliciting a list of complaints against Skipwith from Jacques Defermon, the French liquidator of public debt. The copies of Skipwith’s two letters were followed by his signed 22 Aug. 1806 note certifying their authenticity.

2. Letter not found.